Sorry We've Moved

I have had this blog for many years.  Unfortunately I have reached my limit of availble space.  I have moved my method of communication with parents over to facebook.  It is a private closed group, so there can't be any lurking.  You are more than welcome to browse through old entries and posts here though if you are interested in learning more about my classroom.  Thanks!

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Solids

Students worked on classifying, sorting, and describing solid shapes today for science. They described them by color, shape, size, texture, etc. We will be working more this week on learning specific vocabulary and concepts related to solids and liquids.

Math Centers

Students this week in second grade are working on perimeter and area. Their center work reinforces the skills they are practicing.

Biographies

Students are working hard on writing a biography on a person they have chosen to research. We are practicing taking notes, putting them into our own words, and how to use encyclopedias online and off. Today students practiced creating timelines, which is a skill they learned at the beginning of the year. I am excited to see the children learning so much about famous historical people such as Abraham Lincoln, Ruby Bridges, George Washington Carver and Ryan White. Other students are researching George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr., Juliette Gordon Lowe, Duke Ellington, and many more. We will be finishing up our unit of study on biographies next Friday.

Students review vocabulary concepts by writing their ideas on posters around the room. they were in this way able to practice all of the key words and concepts for this math unit of study.

Promethean Board

Students often use their active expression "clickers" to answer questions on the smart board.

Math Centers

Pajama Day

The whole school wore their pajamas and was ready to read this morning.

Graphing

Students practiced making graphs and sorting items into categories. These graphs required the students to make the units more than one. For example, each block on the graph represented 2 or more items in real life. After finishing their representations, they wrote questions about their graph for other students to answer.

Instrument Project Presentations

Giant Map of North America

Pointing to cities that they share a name with too.
curled up inside Alaska


Scavenger hunt

Native American Picture Writing

First Grade Geometry

Students in first grade have been learning about shapes. They have been working on creating 3-D shapes out of toothpicks and clay. Here are some of their creations and writing.

Sharing our Instruments

Students from Mrs. Padgett's class came to visit our classroom. They are also beginning a new project on instrument. Our students were able to share with them many interesting tidbits they had learned during our project work.

Writing Celebration

Students celebrated their Launching unit in Writing Workshop on Friday. This unit in writing was designed to introduce the students to how the workshop works. They were encouraged to write about anything they chose. I was pleased to hear personal stories, informational books, poetry, mysteries, and more. We listened to everyone share who was willing, and afterward enjoyed popcorn and water as a snack. Look for their writing to come home in the next week. In our next unit we will be focusing on All About books.

Instruments

Students use the international instruments to create their own rhythm and beat during Choice Time.

New Manipulatives

Our class has received some new building manipulatives this year. We will be rotating our two sets every six weeks and getting two new sets. the students have really enjoyed making new structures during their Choice Time in the morning.

Math

Students in this math group work on a problem assigned by Ms. Guynn.

Mondays Musings

Monday’s Musings

Welcome back to the second week of school. I have enjoyed getting to know each of the students and many families over the last week. Each Monday I will try to send out a listserve to keep you informed as to what is going on in the classroom each week.

· Homework- please check your child’s blue Monday folder today. It contains important information regarding homework this year. I wanted to get started with spelling, but I was unable to pre-test everyone for this week. Typically the spelling words will be connected to your child’s small group for reading for the week, but we may need to make some adjustments so that all students are appropriately challenged. Please let me know if you feel that the words were extremely easy or very hard this week. I am still getting to know the students’ strengths and weaknesses.

· Assessment- I have begun assessing the children in different areas. All first grade students have had a simple word test for reading, and I am starting to do DRA’s on them to determine appropriate reading levels. Reading groups this week were based upon last spring’s levels, so there will possibly be movement between groups over the next couple of weeks. I gave the 2^nd grade students a math assessment today to determine what they need to be working on for our first unit. We will begin with the third grade math textbook, and I will be carefully monitoring any gaps in knowledge so that we can plan for small group instruction.

· Snacks- Mrs. Johnson has determined that we will not be having snacks this year during instructional time. Please do not send in any extra food with your child other than what is needed for lunch. We will not be having a specific time allotted to eat it.

· The Week Ahead

o Reading Workshop- focus on making predictions and answering questions. Small group work will also center on characters and graphic organizers

o Writing Workshop- Launching the workshop and developing ideas.

o Math Workshop-

§ 1^st grade- computation strategies for addition and subtraction

§ 2^nd grade- numbers and operations, algebra

o Social Studies

§ Second Steps- anger management

§ Community Building