Life at School

Here are few pictures to enjoy.  Listen to Kamil read his story....Laksh sing....Learning about China....Math Workshop....Child of the Day Pictures....Nature Dan....

Click and enjoy....
http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a67314d5445314d544d3d0d0a&blogview=true

Pictures to Enjoy!

I hope everyone is enjoying their three day weekend.  Homefun was to Read....Read....Read...and I hope everyone has enjoyed their time with great books!

Here are a few pictures to enjoy:

http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a67794d6a49324d446b3d0d0a&blogview=true

Readers and Authors

Click on the link for pictures of students reading and our author visit:

Readers and Authors

A New Year

D.W. read a great book to the class on Friday: I Take Care of my Dog!  This is a wordless picture book for which  he wrote the story!  GREAT reading and writing, D.W.

As soon as all the permission slips are in, I will be able to post more pictures.  Please return them Monday if you haven't done so already.  The blog is wonderful way to keep informed as well as post pictures of our students at work.

Happy Reading!

Bringing us up to date

Pictures to come....

We finished our biographies and I have videotaped several.  I will post those as soon as I can.  We finished working on persuasive writing by writing about which Monarch book was our favorite and of course, why.  We are now working on determining importance in Non Fiction, taking notes, and paraphrasing in our words.  This is in preparation for our unit on expository writing.

We have been learning about Traditional Literature:  folktales, fairy tales, fables, and myths.  We have learned the characteristics of each and then will be comparing and contrasting features.

In math we finished up learning about fractions and are now in our measurement unit.

More to come....pictures to come....

A Week in Pictures!

Allison

Kendall

Alyssa

 David

 

 Sydney












Our Daily Readers!

During Math Workshop, we learned about measurement, graphing, and data analysis.  We measured in inches and centimeters, our arm spans and standing jumps.  We created a line plot of our arm spans, and bar graphs of our jumps.  We determined the range, median, and mode of each.

 In readers' workshop we learned about cause and effect and how characters react.  During writers' workshop we are writing persuasive brochures.

This week we will celebrate Valentine's Day.  A list of students names went home on Thursday.  Please send in a valentine addressed to each student so that at our party each child will receive a valentine.

End of January

We heard from some great readers: Victor, Diana, Lily, Stacy, and Ian.

 Josh's stepdad was a mystery reader!

And we learned about this African drum that Caitlyn's dad sent all the way from Africa.  Fun!

We finished our biographies and we are learning about persuasive argument.  We continue to learn about character traits and how characters change over time.  We are working now on cause and effect.

We began unit 7 in math.  We will be learning about measurement.

Sunday Bartlett Library

Dear Parents,

It is with great regret that I have to cancel meeting students at the Bartlett library on Sunday January 27. Personal issues are preventing me from attending.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Reading and a love of reading and learning is a passion of mine and I want to instill that same love with my students, but I have to put my family first at this point in time on the weekends.

A note will go home on Friday to this effect as well.

January 18, 2013

Marcella, Caitlyn, Isiah, and Ian were great readers this week! 

We finished reading The Fire Cat .   We learned how when we write a response to a text, how to begin and how to support our thinking with evidence from the text.  We will continue this next week, but using a more challenging text.

We are continuing to gather research on our biographies.  Students chose between Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Ruby Bridges, and Helen Keller to write about.  I am in the process of creating a new blog for our classroom (more on that later!) where they will post their biographies.

In math, we worked on 3 digit addition and subtraction strategies.  Keep working on subtraction accuracy by using XtraMath.org or TenMarks.com; Be sure and use the help videos on TenMarks!!!!

Tuesday is a switch day and we will follow a Monday schedule.  

Patricks mother has graciously agreed to be our Party Leader for our upcoming Valentine's Day party.  She needs helpers-both in the classroom and out.  If you are able to help in any way, please let me know and I will get your contact information to her.  Thank you!

Don't forget next Sunday:  Jan. 27 at 3:00.  Mrs. Perrone and I will meet students at the Bartlett Library to share some fun time together looking for books and reading.  Join us!!!

Monday and Tuesday

K.C. was our first child of the day on Monday followed by Marcella on Tuesday.

During reading we are reading The Fire Cat.  We are looking at character traits and how characters change. We are looking at what the author said to support our thinking. 

During writing we have begun writing our biographies.  Today was the first day to gather research on our subject.

During math we are working on 3 digit addition and subtraction strategies.  We have also reviewed ownership and commitment - part of the 8 Keys of Excellence.

Sunday January 27 at 3:00, meet myself and Mrs. Perrone at the Bartlett Library where we will look for just right books together.  See you there!

New Year

I'm not good at making New Year's resolutions as without a doubt, life gets in the way, and I can't always stick with them.  But I don't want to make a resolution to keep this blog up to date!

Before I update with the new year...here are some pictures from the end of 2012:

Keeian's mother was our last mystery reader in 2012.  We LOVED the book!

We learned about Hanukkah.

After leading us on a world tour to learn about holiday traditions around the world, Rudy, the Elf on the Shelf, returned to the North Pole.

We learned about Diwali and said goodbye to our student teacher, Ms. Fischer.

We made holiday cards and sent them to schools around the country,  We also received cards back and learned about geography in the United States.

And we practiced our fluency using readers' theater.  Unfortunately, not everyone was videotaped and published because of the absences, but our fluency did improve!

And of course we had our year end holiday party with the them of The Polar Express.  Thank you to Caitlyn's, Josh, and Keeian's mom for the hot chocolate and cookies.  And thank you to Alyssa's mother for the cups and napkins.

And thank you to everyone for the wonderful holiday gifts.  So thoughtful!

Now for 2013!

Of course...the child of the day reads to the class:

Patrick

Joshua

Nadia

Daniel

Austin

Keeian

This first week back was a review of PBIS expectations an our 8 Keys of Excellence.  In our readers workshop time we worked on characters and how they responded to events in the story.  During our writing time, each student wrote a biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  During our math time we worked on 3 digit addition and comparison number stories.

We also had our first mystery reader of 2013, Joshua's grandfather!

We also had vision and hearing testing on Friday.

Welcome back to school and to 2013!