Happy Halloween!

My favorite part of the day:


-My favorite part of the day was math. We made paper pumpkins outside. (1st grade, 2nd grade was pumpkin subtraction with subtraction strategies.)

(I don't know if you can tell, but these two are deep in a discussion about today's starter activity.)

-Writer's Workshop...scary stories
-My favorite part of the day was blogging.
-My favorite part of the day was drawing for Teacher.

(I decided to teach like a ninja today. This picture perfectly captures my outfit today, right down to the chopsticks in my hair!)


-My favorite part of the day was when we did our table group posters.
-My favorite part of the day was read aloud.
-My favorite part of the day was reading to self.
-My favorite part of the day was watching the bats fly on the pretend rock.
-I like when we change everything (new class arrangement).
-I like my new table group.

P.S. A new month is upon us. Time to change the calendar. We rearranged the room a bit, got new table groups, reviewed life in Room 9 and now we are ready to go. I'm so looking forward to November. It's my favorite because everyone is used to school. They are excited about learning, have good friendships in place, and the learning really takes off. We are having a blast in math. Reading groups are up and running smoothly. Volunteers are working with students during reading. SMART is underway. We are a well oiled machine these days.

Conferences

We just completed conferences! Thank you to everyone who showed up and to everyone who rescheduled. I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. I sent home a lot of papers this year, I am sorry, but I also enjoyed finally meeting everyone's families. I'm looking forward to a mostly normal week next week...then it's time for Report Cards. There's always something!

On that note guys, you have been out of school for a few days now. This is what reading looks like...

...hope you keep at it this weekend. See you Monday

What do you call a Bat Expert? A Chiropterologist. How do you say that?
Click here to find out how to pronounce this difficult word.

My new favorite source for English pronunciation.
It's so cool.

What do you call a bat expert?

Well here in Room 9 we know! I'll give you a day to look it up on your own. Answer to follow tomorrow...

On another note, today we celebrated Fall Birthdays (September, October, November). It was birthday day here at school. First we made a birthday graph.

Then a birthday book.

Then onto birthday cards for the 7 people with fall birthdays. We were writing furiously!

Finally it was time for a Celebration!!!!

More on how our bat study to follow as soon as our slow server notices I have uploaded new photos. Check back tomorrow!

Walk and Bike Success

Check out the press from Walk and Bike Day at School!

Crazy

Meetings, meetings meetings. I am out of the building for meetings and trainings today and tomorrow. Blogging will begin again Monday when Room 9 goes Batty!!!!

We did math a lot

Math today

1st Grade:
Some kids got to write with the magic pen on a computer board (Promethian Board). We counted fish, animals and food. We did a counting song.

2nd Grade: We did the tiles. Here are the notes teacher took during reflection time.

worked together
helped each other
learned math
made good ideas
worked hard
learned math words like digit
learned new vocabulary
learned that friends can be good helpers

Transition

Today's important highlights:

We did Journal.
We made cards for Ms. N because she broke her collar bone.
We had our first reading groups today and ELD started. We did Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Work On Writing. We built our stamina.
We finished our Bloomed Flowers (some of us).
We had inside recess because it was raining outside, but it was fun. It was our first time having indoor recess this year.
Right before blogging we switched classes for math groups. It was fun, crazy, scary and weird.

P.S. This week's signal word- Transition.

Moving from one place to another.

Who knew it could be such a difficult thing. We can be a working machine, building, creating, writing, learning. Then, when it's time to transition to a new task...

...everything falls apart.

Our focus this week- How to transition quickly from one activity to the next. With ELD groups, reading groups, and math groups all starting this week a smooth transition is imperative if we are to get all of our learning done. Let's see if we can do it!

I Wonder...

First we had Morning Meeting. We do our Journals. We completed our goals for today.

We read Spoon and The OK Book (p.s. teacher moment: we just had to read it again. It's perfect for the Accuracy Strategy Use the Pictures: Do the words and pictures match?).

Next we had Writer's Workshop. We had lunch and recess. We did Read Aloud and went to Library.

We decorated our Journals. We put papers from magazines on them to make them look nice and not make them boring.

P.S.
We checked out one of my favorite kid websites today, Wonderopolis. Everyday there is a new Wonder to explore. Today's topic, How To Set A World Record. We chose to participate in Jumpstart's Read for the Record campaign by reading Llama Lamma Red Pajama free online! Click on the book's title to check it out. How cool is that?

The goal was for 2 million people to read the book today, October 6th, 2011. I'll check in tomorrow to let you know if we were part of setting a World Record!

A Whole Bunch Of Fun

We had an Assembly. We did not see the Mayor because he was sick. Outside there was a snack bar with Cliff Bars, pears, and coffee (for the grown ups). Special people came to help with Walk and Bike to School Day.

When we did Journals we did a good job. Also we had fun with Mr. O's class. They showed us patterns that the 3rd graders made that repeated. Our job was to help them finish the pattern.

After that we had Writer's Workshop. We did rough drafts for things we couldn't do before that we can do today.

P.S. Just like Little Louie The Baby Bloomer we are discovering that everyone is different and everyone will bloom in their own time.

Finally we finished up a discussion on what makes us who we are by reading The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld.

These talks serve as the base for our Writer's Notebooks Covers. Look, here is an example:

We could play and have fun cause it's October now.

We had Morning Meeting.
We had reading time. We Read to Self for 9 minutes but we Read to Someone for 8 minutes. We read My Name Is Yoon. We loved the book. When we were reading many teachers sent students to borrow books. We were very popular today.
We had lunch and recess, then we had Read Aloud.
We had music and Coach time.
Some of us had recess and then math.
Snack today was mango. Then we went down to sing songs to our Cafeteria Lady Mrs. S.
We are now finishing math. Thank you for reading.

October is Here

First we did Morning Meeting.
Then we read. We did read to self for ten minutes and read to someone for 6 minutes. We got our Vocabulary Journals. We defined Bloom. Bloom means: when a flower is growing and to flourish.
Then we had lunch and read aloud.
We read Only One You by Linda Kranz and made a list about us.

Then we had Mr. D.
Today's snack was carrots.
Teacher talked about Hands to Self, Stop when asked, and Walk away during recess. We were having a hard time at recess.

P.S.
I was shocked when I glanced at our book shelf today. We read 4 books! No wonder my voice is so tired. Students reflected on fluent reading with And Here's To You! by David Elliott

We defined Bloom and discussed our changing understanding of vocabulary with Leo The Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus.

We are working our way through Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar.

Finally we talked about individuality with Only One You. Students are compiling a list of words that describe them for Wordle Covers for their Writer's Notebooks.