Signal Word

Do you know what echolocation is?  We are learning in Room 9.
Check out this song to learn more about how bats communicate.  It's a catchy tune, hope it doesn't get stuck in your head.

It's an art kind of day

We needed some decoration. We needed a place to house all the bats we will be making next week. We needed a place to keep track of our learning. Here is Friday's artistic day.

Well first we needed some new calendar markers, and who doesn't love glitter?

Then it was time to paint

Channeling Eric Carle, we painted two large pieces of paper.

One orange, yellow, white based for stars.  The other blue, black, and white based for the moon.

Then it was time to clean up...

...just so we could make another mess again.

Cutting out stars...

Cutting up moon colored paper.

Glueing and taping down stars and the moon.  More to follow when I get the "night sky" up on the wall.

The bats will take flight soon.  Happy weekend to everyone.

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.

October is Coming!

First we went to a Respect Assembly.
"After the Respect Assembly, everyone got right back to work. I couldn't believe it!
Next we read a Friends book.
After Friends book we did Writer's Workshop.
We went to lunch.
We had P.E. We played different tag games.
We had a special activity.
We went to recess.
We had a fire drill. Mrs. T said we were the best class she had ever seen.
Finally we had a great day.

"Just make a mark and see where it takes you."

Half days are hard. The momentum is built, we get to work . . . the bell rings.
"Wait I'm not finished!"
"Where's my jacket?"
"We didn't do the blog!"

Today we read The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. Everyone got a "never-before-used set of water colors and set to work."

Photos will be posted this weekend. This class has imagination, voice, a strong eye for color. They are creative at heart, and boy was it fun.

How Fast The Summer Ends

We had a Morning Meeting.
We Read to Self for 10 minutes.
We learned about Read to Someone.

We draw about Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson.

We went to Lunch.
We wrote what our names felt like during Writer's Workshop.
We went to Coach and she taught us Wall Ball.
It started raining and we sang songs.
Today's snack was pears and plums.

How fast the summer ends is a line from one of the songs we were singing today. As we were trying to find a title for today's entry someone was singing it softly and it just seemed perfect.

Week 4 Begins

We had morning meeting.
We had a special activity. Mrs. E came to learn names, play games, and read Shel Silverstein poems. The teacher got to read with students!
We did shapes.
We had Ms. Natalie.
We did math.
We did our jobs.
We had Watermelon for snack today.
We of course, go to recess.
We did calculators.
We did choice time.
We did cubes.
We ate lunch.
Some of us helped other people.
That's what our day was.
Thanks for reading,
Students of Room 9

A note from me:
One purpose of this blog is to give students a time to put their learning into words and reflect on their day. Today was our first whole class blog post. I wrote down exactly what students said (well, I did add one or two things). As we develop our understanding of school expectations and every day's learning we will see more sophisticated reflections and writing. "Some of us helped other people." was a particularly astute observation. It is thrilling to see how we are coming together as a classroom community.

Person of the Week!

This week we had our first "Person of the Week". It was me...
On Monday I modeled what our posters could look like. Add photos if you like, color it in, draw all over. Do your best.

On Tuesday I shared my favorite book. It's called Gregor The Overlander by Suzanne Collins. This copy is signed by the author, it is worn from multiple readings, and it is a treasured piece of my library. Bring in something you hold dear but not too valuable or delicate we don't want any lost or broken treasures.

On Wednesday I received complements and a certificate in my honor. I'm excited to see what our first student of the week shares next week!

A Week In Review

This week we continued to get to know each other. Here is a scavenger hunt. There was much collaboration, and plenty of comparing answers.

We did some draw and writes to accompany a reading of Eric Carle's A Very Hungry Caterpillar

We started a Cooperation Coloring Project. I'll post the final puzzle when it's finished.

Exploring the math manipulaitves is always fun.

We read I Drew A Yellow Unicorn, a poem by Jack Prelutsky. This is a class of imaginative artists. They drew fantastic images and then wrote their own poems.

Our daily reflections, when we remember, are starting to show more specifics on the day's activities.

It was a great week. Looking forward to getting our routines down, writer's workshop up and running, and building more connections during Number Corner. What was your favorite part of the week?

Finally two pictures I couldn't help but publish.


Look at this creative take on building a structure...

...and this fabulous drawing! GO BEAVS!