What if we were 100 years old?

I can't believe the 100th day is fast approaching! It will be on Monday, February 4th. Last week your kiddos brought home a letter explaining that we'll be dressing up like we're 100 years old this year. We'll be having a contest within the first grade pod to see who has the best costumes! 

Remember, you don't need to actually purchase a thing! Look through whatever you have at home. We all have those hidden treasures and things we've forgotten about, but when we piece them together they could look great!

Here are just a few ideas and a few pictures I've found online that could hopefully give you some ideas.

Girls - curlers, scarves, pearls, gray wigs, cardigans, floral dresses, knee-highs, glasses, big purses, bathrobes

Boys - suspenders, high-waisted pants, button-down shirts, ties, bowties, cardigans, glasses, gray hair, white beards, flannel, sweater vests, blazers

Erica and Rozanne

The Davis Domain

Meet the Murrays

Cally Cruze

R. L. Young's Kindergarten Class

Erica Bohrer's First Grade Class

If you're still having trouble putting some things together, just do a quick Google for "100th day of school dress up" and you can find lots of wonderful pictures and ideas. I can't wait to see everyone's lovely costumes!

Penguins!!!

It's penguin time! It's definitely one of my favorite units we do all year long.

This week was all about Tacky the Penguin. We'd first learned about Tacky during Christmastime. He is hilarious, and the books teach us wonderful lessons about acceptance and appreciating others' differences.

One day we read Tacky the Penguin. It was great to finally read Helen Lester's first tale about this hilarious bird. After we read the story, the students created bubble maps for Tacky.

We also read Three Cheers for Tacky and Tacky the Winter Games. We learned about character analysis and talked about how good readers look for character traits. We look at a character's outside and we also infer what they are like on the inside, looking at their action and dialogue. We talked about Tacky together in order to practice our character analysis.

Another book we read was Tacky in Trouble. This one is hilarious! It might be my favorite, but I think I say that about every Tacky book. :) Tacky finds himself lost on a tropical island with an elephant named Rocky. It's quite hilarious! After we read the story, we did a Story Map for the book.

I think Tackylocks and the Three Bears was one of the favorite books this week. After we read the story, the students completed their own Double Bubbles comparing Tackylocks to Goldilocks.

During writing time this week we worked on publishing a book inspired by Tacky. The students brainstormed who their penguin characters would be and what setting they'd be in. We also thought about problems the penguins might encounter and what solution they could possibly have.

For Social Studies we talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. this week. Since his birthday was on Tuesday we wanted to celebrate him all week long! We learned about him in the biography section of PebbleGo. Then we wrote sentences about things we had learned and drew a picture of him. These turned out very well! I love some of the speech bubbles that our friends added to their photos. Once again, it's fun to see each child's personality come through in their artwork.

We also made birthday cakes to celebrate MLK, Jr's birthday on Tuesday. The kids brainstormed what they would want to give him for his birthday after we read Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King. They came up with wonderful, bucket-filling gifts. Then we wrote what we would give him on the cakes.

Our class discussed how MLK, Jr. was a great citizen. We made connections to his story by discussing how we could be better citizens.

In math we've been working on comparing and ordering numbers to 100. Finding patterns on the hundreds chart seems to be going well, since we do it during Calendar every day. We talk about how numbers change by one in a row, and they change by ten in a column. We also made Pac-Man to help us remember "greater than" and "less than." Of course this is always a huge hit, and I think it really helps the kiddos understand some of the harder concepts! We talked about how Pac-Man is greedy and super-hungry so he always wants to eat the bigger numbers.

I hope everyone is having a nice holiday off. We'll be doing lots of more fun penguiny things this upcoming week!

Jan 22-25 No Name-Calling Week

Next week is going to be a No Name-Calling Week. We'll be discussing positive interactions throughout the week. In order to celebrate we'll be dressing up each day. You're getting a note home today, but I wanted you to have it here in case in gets misplaced, which I'm sure never happens! :)

Monday - No School! Happy Martin Luther King, Jr Day!

Tuesday - "Sweat out name-calling" Wear a sweatsuit!

Wednesday - "Give name-calling the slip" Wear slippers! Please bring sneakers for PE and recess!

Thursday - "I'm a Jean-Us, I don't name-call" Wear jeans

Friday - "We're all on the same team" Wear your favorite team jersey

Can't wait to see everyone dressed up in their outfits!

Mittens & Things

Wow, I can't believe we're almost halfway through the year! It's been so nice this week to see everyone's bright and well-rested faces. :) This week was all about winter (although more of the fun snowy kind, less of the Texas rainy kind).

We started off by reading The Mitten by Jan Brett. As the kids know, she is one of my all-time favorite authors! She also illustrates all of her stories and is just all-around amazing! We talked about genres and how this is a folktale so she is just retelling the story to us in her own way. They loved it. Of course I forgot to take a picture of our finished projects because I'm so out of habit of photographing everything! Here's what the animals looked like.

We also read The Hat by Jan Brett which is another folktale. Then we used a Double Bubble to talk about the similarities and differences in the books. The kids made a ton of great connections to the other texts we've been reading as well as to themselves.

Our class wrote about their winter breaks and created some adorable little people to go with their writing. We sat in a circle and all shared our favorite things first. It was wonderful hearing how much people love their families and friends. Of course we all got to talk about our new fun  presents, too! :) Gotta love the honesty that comes from a 6 year old!

We also did a writing activity after reading The Jacket I Wear in the Snow. After reading the story we talked about all the wonderful adjectives we had read. We reviewed how adjectives make stories more exciting, and life is pretty boring without them! The kids colored a person, then wrote about what he was wearing using wonderful descriptive adjectives.

This week we created mittens to play a mitten concentration game. We rolled dice to create math facts on one mitten then we put its answer on the other mitten. The kids played concentration to make pairs.

In Social Studies this week we've been reviewing rules. It was a long two weeks away from school, but I'm glad to report that most everyone has remembered proper school etiquette! With the new ClassDojo in place, I think we're all excited to gain tons of points throughout the day. We've realized it's even better than the color chart because you can keep adding and adding and adding! I split the kids up into groups to brainstorm the different rules we have for different parts of the school. Then we made a giant Tree Map with all of their rules. They worked great with their teams!

ClassDojo has been awesome. I absolutely love it, and I think the kids do too! Like I've said, there is no limit for how many points they can get so I think that it's even better than the color chart. The kids can hear the sound on the computer and see what people are getting points for and why points are being lost. Any feedback from you is appreciated, too. I've gotten some good comments from a couple parents already! Here's our weekly breakdown. We had a great percentage. I'm one happy teacher!

All in all, it was a wonderful week back! I did miss the firsties, but boy am I exhausted! Stay tuned for the exciting things next week. It's one of my favorite things we do all year! :)

Fluency Packets

It's finally the spring semester, and we're gearing up for next year! We're going to expect a lot from the kiddos in order to prepare them for second grade, and some of that includes additional homework. :)

During the month of January, your child will be bringing home two papers each week. These are designed to improve your child's reading fluency. This homework must be completed every single night. The pages will be sent home on Monday, and they'll be due to school the following Monday. I will be checking their homework periodically throughout the week to make sure they are completing it each night. It takes no more than 5 minutes to complete the homework each day.

Today you'll be getting a letter about the directions for the homework. We'll be practicing the homework together so that your child will know exactly what is expected of them each night.

Throughout the week you should be able to see your child's fluency increase. They will become more familiar with their sight words, and their speed and expression will improve.

If a child becomes a fluent reader, then there is a higher potential for stronger comprehension. The standard for a first grade student is to read at a rate of 60 words per minute or above. Also, the testing window for the DRA begins next week, so this homework will help your child greatly.

Thank you again for always supporting us with your child's education. As always, please remember to email me if you have any questions.

Class Dojo!

I am excited to try a new classroom management system! I follow quite a few blogs on my GoogleReader, and I've seen other teachers using ClassDojo for quite a long time. I've been curious as to how it works, so I've decided to take the plunge and go for it! I've used the color chart for the past couple years with great success, but I wanted to be able to integrate a little technology with it, too. ClassDojo seems to be the perfect solution!

Each Monday all the students will start with 0 points. Students will earn points for completing homework assignments, helping others, working hard, following directions quickly, being good friends and bucket-fillers, and staying on task. They can lose points by not turning in their homework, tattling, not trying their best, being off-task and silly, bucket-dipping, and dawdling.

Each afternoon I will see which 2 students have earned the most points for the day. The following day, they'll be able to hold one of my stuffed pigs at their desk, as long as they're still setting good examples! :)

At the end of day on Friday, the top 5 earners will be able to pick rewards from my Dojo Rewards List. They include such things like Mix It Up Lunch, sitting in the teacher's chair, show-and-tell time, etc. They will be able to redeem these prizes on Monday.

I'll make sure that all students with positive behaviors for the week also receive incentives on Fridays. I want to reward them for their good choices!  

I still want to stress the importance of working as a team. If our class has at least 75% positive behavior for the week, we will earn pom-poms for our jar. If we have an exceptional week, I will decide on another extra prize for the kiddos.

ClassDojo has a neat feature where I can email you a report card of your child's progress each week. We will still be keeping a paper record of your child's point totals so please make sure you're still checking their Stallion folder. Instead of their color chart, you'll find a new recording sheet. We'll write the total of points as of that afternoon for each day, so you'll be able to see their points build throughout the week.

We'll be learning this new system together so please forgive us if things need to change or if we decide we don't like the program. :) I am very excited to see how everything goes. I'm pretty sure the kids will LOVE the program.

Happy New Year!

It feels so strange not blogging! I just wanted to tell everyone Happy New Year! I feel very blessed by 2012, and I cannot wait to see what 2013 has in store for us. I'm missing my little firsties. :) I hope everyone is doing well! We'll be seeing you in a week!

I went to Zoo Lights with some of my family and thought maybe some of the kiddos would like to see the pictures. It was gorgeous! They had lights set up everywhere. A couple of the exhibits were open, but I have to admit it was a little spooky in the dark! They also had some beautiful light displays that used shadows to make pictures (like the last giraffes). There was also a "Parade of Animals" with statues going through a pretty walkway. All in all, I loved it!

I know our 5th graders had gone and performed before Christmas, too. I'm sure they did a wonderful job! :)

The zoo has changed SO much since the last time I was there (maybe 3 years ago? Eek!). I definitely will have to make another trip there during the daytime to scope it out.

Enjoy the photos! Sorry for the not-so-wonderful quality. I just had my phone with me. :)