A Successful Homecoming!

Homecoming Day is always a fun day for the students!  Everyone arrived in their burro gear.  Some even had orange and black hair.  Face painting was also a highlight of the day. The students did a super job walking in the parade.  Enjoy the game everyone!

Homecoming Parade

Reminder to all families:  The Homecoming Parade begins at 1:30.  The pep rally will follow in the park, and students will be dismissed at 2:30.  Hope to see you there!

The Burros are Blasting Off to a Victory!

Homecoming is an exciting time at Lanesboro Public Schools.  Since we are a K-12 building, the elementary students have the chance to be very involved!  Each class walks in the Homecoming Parade in support of the Burros.  This year our theme is "Blasting Off to a Victory!"  Yesterday the students picked out a rocket to begin coloring.  The really fun part came today- streamers and glitter!  Elementary students would bathe in glitter if you let them:)  We're looking forward to a fun-filled day on Friday, and we look forward to seeing all of our families watching us march in support of our school!

Our Math Block

We run our math block similar to our Daily 5 Reading.  We begin with a brief math meeting which is a review of skills.  Then I meet with the first graders for their math lesson.  During this time, second graders make a math choice.  Unlike our reading choices, our math choices change on a weekly basis.  This week our choices are based on number operations.  The students can choose between several math games, missing number puzzles, hot dot pens, and addition and subtraction dominoes.

After the first grade math lesson is over, the first graders work on their assignment with our Title I teacher assisting them with questions.  I meet with the second graders for their math lesson, and while the second graders work on their assignment, the first graders make a math choice.  The students really enjoy all the different choices since they are very hands-on and usually involve working with a friend.

Listen to Reading

I want to give a big thanks to the Booster Club for donating funds to our classroom to allow us to buy 2 new personal CD players for Listen to Reading along with a new set of Listen to Reading books.  This is a favorite choice of the kids, but we only had 2 and so the students were not able to choose it often as they would like to.  Now with 4 total CD players, many students will be able to make this choice throughout our reading block.  Thank you Booster Club!  My students and I are very grateful!

Play Parts and Book Bags

Students were assigned their characters today!  They were very excited to hear who they would be playing the part of!  Everyone has been given 2 scripts so you should see the at home script in the take home folder today.  I recommended to the class to highlight their parts and begin practicing.  We will also begin practicing tomorrow in class.



I've also been thinking and thinking about how to manage reading at home this year.  It is so important for students to be spending time each evening doing some reading, and I want to structure something that is beneficial for your child and is manageable for you.  I've been brainstorming some ideas and will begin sending home a plastic book bag along with a book and a reading log with your child's evening reading assignment written on it.  Please look for a note to come home in your child's take home folder in the next couple days.

The Broken Broomstick

One of my favorite things to do with my class is plays!  Every fall and spring we perform a play for our families and other classes.  Today I read through the script of "The Broken Broomstick" with the students then each student wrote down their top 3 choices of characters.  Students will be given their assigned character tomorrow to begin practicing.  We spend most days of the week practicing, but additional practice at home is crucial!  The students will be given 2 scripts: 1 for home and 1 for school.  Lines for the play do need to be memorized.  Our parent performance will be on Friday, October 28th at 2:30.  I can't wait to get started!

Writing Workshop

Everyday the students are writers in our classroom.  Not only do they have the choice to work on writing during our Daily 5 Block, but we also write during Writing Workshop.  Our Writing Workshop starts out with a mini-lesson where I model writing for the students or introduce a skill for them to work on in their own writing.  The students then have quiet writing time to go back to an old story, begin a new story, or think about a new topic.  During this time I am able to go around and conference with writers about their individual stories.  We conference about a variety of things: what to write about, details to add, how to spell words, and other conventions of writing.  Last week each student received a little dictionary to keep in the writing binder.  The students are finding these the be very useful!  They are constantly flipping through them looking for words to use in their writing!  After the quiet writing time, there is the chance for writers to get together with a partner or small group to share their writing.  We end with Authors' Chair.  During this time individual students have the opportunity to share a story with the class and take questions and comments about it.

Classroom Expectations

In the first week of school we talked about how we want to act in our classroom and treat each other.  I had the class come up with a list of expectations they felt that we should all follow in order to have the best year ever.  Without my prompting they had several ideas of guidelines we should all follow.  The students came up with these awesome expectations:

I assured the students that if we all follow our classroom rules to the best of our abilities, we will surely have super days!  Each student signed his or her name to show that we will all work together to do this!

Picture Day

I just wanted to remind all families that picture day is tomorrow, September 16th.  Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

Introducing New Choices

As we have been getting more and more comfortable with Read to Self and Read to Someone, new choices in our Daily 5 block have been introduced.  Today Listen to Reading along with Word Work began.  The students are always very excited about these choices because they love listening to a story on the CD players, they also enjoy meeting up with a partner to practice spelling words and word wall words. The students are instructed how to carefully use the CD players and put all materials away when it is time to pick up.  For Word Work, small white boards were an option that could be used for practicing.  Each student added his or her spelling list to the reading binder today.  The goal of teaching the students to use these choices independently is so I am able to meet with small groups for reading instruction during our reading block.  I'm very anxious to begin meeting up with students in small groups!

Making a Quiet Choice

Today started out a little hectic due to a planned all school evacuation.  This morning we had to practice quickly leaving the building and going down to the Community Center for safety.  The students did a great job, but this kind of start to the day throws off our routine and routine is so important!  We spend a lot of time building up our routines for all aspects of our day.  One of our routines is "What do I do if I'm done?" If the students are working on an assignment and finish before it is time to move on to another subject or activity, they have learned to "make a quiet choice."  These include: read out of your book box, shop for books in our classroom library, write out of your binder, write or draw in your notebook, sharpen your pencils, or organize your desk.  With all of these choices, there is always something to do that won't take away from the work time of others.

After students finish their handwriting, I come around to each student to check it over.  Instead of just sitting and waiting for me, they are instructed to push their booklet to the corner of their desk and make a quiet choice.  As handwriting time was coming to an end today, I was so happy to look around the very quiet classroom to see that EVERYONE had made an excellent quiet choice without any reminders.  Many students were in the library shopping for books and quietly discussing their choices.  Others had taken their book box to a spot in the classroom to read.  A few more students were drawing in their notebooks and organizing their new reading binder pouches.  To look around and see everyone doing their job makes for such a peaceful and happy place to be!

Read to Someone

All last week the students built up stamina for Read to Self.  They learned how to choose books out of our classroom library, find a comfy place in the classroom, and stay focused on their reading.  While doing this you can see many of the kids so badly wanting to reach out to their neighbor and say "Hey, look at this cool picture!" or "You got to hear this awesome fact!"  This is why Read to Someone is so exciting to begin!  Today we learned how to choose a partner, agree on a spot, get started right away, and take turns reading a book with a partner.  We take a lot of time practicing good habits for these choices so once I start meeting with small groups for reading instruction, the rest of the class is able to make good choices independently.  What a great day we had today:)

Going on a Leaf Hunt

All week we have been working on bar graphs as a whole group before we break down into 1st and 2nd grade math groups.   Our bar graph today included going on a leaf hunt and then graphing the color of leaves we found.  Throughout the week I've been keeping my eyes on the trees thinking that it may be too early to find some colorful leaves, but we found a tree next to the basketball courts that had just turned a little and began to drop some beautiful leaves.  Our bar graph included the colors of green, yellow, brown, red, and orange.  The class found a nice variety of colors!  After completing our graphs, we've been discussing our observations of our findings.

Going Shopping!

In the first few weeks of school we are very busy launching our Daily 5 Reading.  The Daily 5 is a management system that we use in order to meet with small groups of readers.  The "Daily 5" comes from 5 choices that the students are able to make if not meeting with the teacher:

1. Read to Self
2. Read to Someone
3. Work on Writing
4. Listen to Reading
5. Word Work

We take a lot of time practicing what each of these choices looks like in the classroom in order for all students to be engaged and on task. One of the first steps is building reading stamina for Read to Self. After discussing the expectations, students model what it should and should not look like.  Another step is to teach students different ways to read a book: read the pictures, read the words, or retell a story that has been read to you.

For the first few days, the students are reading books that I have selected for them.  Today we discussed picking books that are "just right" in order to help us be the best readers we can be. This is a lesson that is continuously revisited as students grow in their reading throughout the year.  Then comes the fun part for the students, shopping for books!  All week they have been eyeing up the classroom library just waiting to get their hands on their favorites.  Today they finally had the chance!  After shopping, they all rushed back to their desks to dive into their new books!

A Special Place to Hold our Writing

Today the students had the opportunity to use their pictures and stickers and other items they brought in to decorate their writing binders and make them special and personal to each student.  This is always one of my favorite beginning of the year activities because I want the students to take ownership over their writing.  Making a personal binder helps this happen.  We use our writing binders just about every day and now the students have a special place to keep their special memories that we write about.  Tomorrow  we will begin our first writing lesson.  We begin by brainstorming topics.  What do I know about?  What am I an expert in?  What could I tell somebody?  The second graders are always ready to dive in and tell about something they did over the summer.  The first graders may begin more hesitant, but they soon see that we all have a story to tell, and we are all writers!  It is very fun to watch all of the students grow in their writing over the school year!

On a side note, I was so impressed to see several students share items they brought in today.  The kindness and willingness to share made me feel so happy to have a class filled with such nice students!

First Day Festivities

The first day of school is so exciting!  The kids are full of energy, ready to see their friends, and share lots of stories.  Of course the first day of school also brings with it a lot of listening of routines, procedures, and expectations.  I do my best to alternate all of the the listening with fun activities to get the kids using their new supplies and provide opportunities to visit and get to know new classmates.  Pictured below is an art activity to go along with the book "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss.  The book describes many different feelings that we can all relate to on different days.  The idea for this art project was found at: http://teachkidsart.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html.

Some of the other activities of the day included surveying our teachers about their eye colors and then making a bar graph of the results.  We found that 5 of our teachers surveyed have blue eyes!  We also started a social studies unit on maps by talking about the purpose of maps, what kinds of maps there are, and when we use maps.  We're off to a great start!

Back to School Night

It was great to see all of the new and returning faces tonight at Open House!  Thanks for taking the time to stop by and help your child get ready for the first day of school.  I'm looking forward to seeing all those smiling faces again on September 6th!  It is sure to be a great year!  Please continue to check back into our blog throughout the year.  It is my goal to update every couple days so you can see what we are up to!