Sunday, October 30, 2011

Red Ribbon Week

This week we have been celebrating "Red Ribbon Week."  The kids really enjoyed dressing up on the fun theme days to show our pride in being drug free.
  
On Monday we had "Sock it to Drugs" - Crazy Sock Day.  I snapped this group picture with all the crazy socks.
"Sock it to Drugs" 
Crazy Sock Day

On Tuesday we had "Shade Out Drugs" - sunglasses day.  The kids enjoyed wearing their sunglasses to school.  Here is our group shot of the cool sunglasses.
"Shade Out Drugs"
Sunglasses Day

On Wednesday we had "Put a Cap on Drugs" - Crazy Hat Day.  We saw lots of crazy hats in the school.  Here is our class hat picture.
"Put a Cap on Drugs"
Hat Day

On Thursday we had "Team Up Against Drugs" - Team Spirit Day.  Everyone enjoyed showing their team spirit.  Check back for the team spirit picture to be posted soon.


Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Super Readers

Today we had a few more friends earn some passes for their reading counts points.  Jillian and Lynli earned a shoes off pass for having 10 reading counts points.  They enjoyed the day in the monkey and lion slippers.  Emily earned a stuffed animal pass for having 20 points.  She brought her cute tiger to school for the day.  Way to go girls!  Keep up the awesome reading!

Reading Partners

This week we added reading with partners to our reading workshop.  The students have their independent reading time with their own books by themselves.  Then they meet with their reading partner to read with a buddy.  We practiced choral reading, echo reading, and taking turns reading with our partners. The students have loved sharing their books in their bag with a friend.
Taylor and Trevor

Victoria and Elijah

Emily and Ella

Aubrey and Ryland

Maxwell and Matthew

Jackson and Benjamin

Jillian and Mary-Caroline

Elias and Xavier

Hannah and Brayden

I have some awesome readers!  I am proud of how hard they are working on their reading skills.

Our Bags of Words

We have some great word collectors in our class!  We read the book Max's Words where a little boy starts a word collection.  He then takes his words and begins to create stories.  This week we collected some words to use in our writing.  The students really enjoyed using words from their bags in their stories.
David and Maxwell using their words.

Here's Elias and Aubrey starting their stories.

The yellow group is hard at work with their words.

Here's the orange group writing with their words.

The red group was also excited to get started.

We had some great stories from my awesome writers.  Here are a few of the stories.
Braiden's said, "My mom drove me to my game.  I made a touchdown!"
Here is Victoria's story.  It said: "The first time I saw a good dog starting to have fun, the dog saw the moon.  He howled.  It was so loud I said stop.  He did stop." 

Lynli's said, "We are funny all day at my house."

Mary-Caroline wrote: "One day when my sister was walking down the stairs, my mom knew she was going to fall and she did."

Trevor used words in his bag to write about some friends from K5.  His said, "One day, I saw twins.  They were in my class.  One's name was Luke and the other boy's name was Joey.  We loved running together."

Emily used some of her words to write about Fall for Greenville.  Her story said, "When I went to Fall for Greenville, I saw somebody from Sprint and if you talk to her you get a goodie bag with finger puppets in it."

All the students worked really hard on their writing.  Thanks for helping them find some great words for our activity.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Yummy Maps!

Who knew maps could be so much fun??  Well, when you make yummy edible maps, everyone is excited!  We have been studying maps for the past few weeks in Social Studies.  We are practicing reading maps, following directions on maps, learning about the map keys, etc.  On Friday, we created our own maps with the candy coded map key.  Then we got to enjoy our creation!
David and Maxwell were very excited to get started!

Rufus's map is looking great!
The purple group is busy creating their maps.

The green group was very excited to begin.

The yellow group's maps are looking great.

Here's the orange group getting their maps started.

The red group has their maps started too!
Lew's map looks delicious!

Jillian's map has a nice pond in the middle.

Elias's map has several mountains and roads.

Trevor, Taylor, and Benjamin have their maps ready.

After we talked about our maps with our groups, we did of course get to eat them!  We all loved this part.





Thank you to all the parents who sent in items for us to use in the creation of our maps.  You guys are wonderful!  A big thanks also to Mrs. O'Shields and Mrs. Hawkins for helping me get this project setup and under way in the classroom.  

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Introducing the NOOK color!

I purchased a NOOK color for the classroom.  It was an instant hit with the kids this week in our learning stations.  The students couldn't wait to hold the new e-reader in their hands.

A few students even purchased books for our NOOK.  Benjamin started out our eLibrary with Pete the Cat.  The students squealed with excitement that he had bought our new favorite book for the NOOK.  It is a "read and play" book where you can interact with the story on the screen as you read.  He also bought Race Around the World (Cars 2) and Haunted Hayride (Phineas and Ferb).



Then David bought us some books for our NOOK.  He purchased Who Bob What Pants? (SpongeBob SquarePants) and Super Spies (Cars 2).

Next Jackson bought our class Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes.  The class was super excited to have the other Pete the Cat book for our new collection.


I would like to say "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" to those who have started off our e-library.  If you would like to donate some books to our NOOK, let me know.  You can send in a Barnes and Noble gift card, and then I'll let your child pick out our new books!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Shoes Off Passes!

We have had many students working hard on their reading counts quizzes.  We had several students with more than 10 points and they got to have a shoes off day in the room!  The kids were super excited to trade in their regular shoes for our cool slippers!


Here's Benjamin, Jackson, and Elijah in the sports slippers.

Ella and Emily enjoyed wearing the animal slippers.

Way to go super readers!  Keep up the awesome reading!  We have several more students close to the 10 point mark.  Keep sending in those reading counts books.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

More Stories

I finally have a few more stories ready to post.  The students have been anxiously awaiting the final products.  I hope you all will enjoy these as much as we have in the classroom!

My Great Wolf Lodge Vacation
By: Benjamin


My Sleepover
By: Emily

My Best Friend Kaylie Grace
By: Jillian

My Trip to the Dentist
By: Lance

My Mom and Dad are Going to the Mountains
By: Lew

My Video Game
By: Maxwell

Beach Vacation
By: Ryland

My Vacation to the Beach
By: Taylor

The Beach Trip
By: Xavier

My Trip to the Beach
By: Aubrey


My Build-a-Bear Party
By: Mary-Caroline

My Trip to Canada
By: Trevor

Field Trip Fun

We had a wonderful field trip to see Junie B. Jones the musical at Furman last Wednesday.  The show combined 3 Junie B. books: First Grader At Last!, Boss of Lunch, and One Man Band.


Lynli, Taylor, and Jillian couldn't wait to get there.

Maxwell, Ryland, and Alex enjoyed the bus ride.

Here's a quick picture while we waited on the other buses to arrive.

Trevor, David, Elias, and Braiden were excited for the show to begin.

Elijah, Benjamin, Jackson, and Lew took a quick picture before the show.

I could tell the students really enjoyed the musical.  Almost everyone checked out a Junie B. book from the library last week.  Thank you to all the chaperones who joined us on this trip.  We appreciate you coming with us on the field trip.







Tuesday, October 11, 2011

More Personal Narratives

I have a few more personal narratives ready to share.  These stories are awesome!  The students have loved recording their own voices reading their stories.  I hope you guys will enjoy these as much as I have.

My Best Trip Ever By: Elijah


My Beach Trip By: Ella


My T-Ball Game By: Lynli


My Vacation to the Lake By: Victoria


My New Dog By: Rufus


My First Shark By: Elias

Look for more stories to be posted soon.  I almost have all the stories recorded.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Personal Narratives

We have been learning a lot about being a writer in our writing workshop.  We concluded our first unit by writing a personal narrative and publishing it into our very own book. The students created a list of things from their lives they could write about.  

Here's Lynli with her list.

Emily's journal has a long list of stories about which she could write.

Then they chose one event to write about and planned their stories with pictures.  We took our stories from pictures to sentences.  Then we went back and added details to create a clearer picture for our readers.  We edited our stories and then published into our very own book!  The students were super excited about this project and it shows in their stories.  I have a few of the finished stories published in Photo Story.

Beach Vacation by: Jackson


My Beach Trip by: Alex


My Beach Vacation by: Hannah


Going to My Best Friend's House by: David

We have many more wonderful stories.  We have stories about the going to dentist, hiking in the mountains, playing t-ball, going fishing, going to the water park, playing video games, sleeping over at a friend's house, and having a birthday party just to name a few.  Continue to check the blog this week to see some more of our personal narratives.