100th Day of School

We did it! We made it to the 100th day of school. We are 100 days smarter than when we begun.Many of the kids brought collections of 100 things.

100 hair bands.

100 army men.

100 candy kisses.

100 legos.

100 marbles.

100 sea shells.

100 stickers.

100 buttons.

10 bags with an assortment of 10 things in each.

100 pennies.

100 frogs.

We made posters with with 10 circles and each circle had 10 things in it.

I collect rubber ducks. I don't have 100, but I had groups of kids count my collection and they had to tell me how many I had and how many more I need to have 100. One group gave me the correct answer and they got to go to the treasure box.

We made necklaces with fruit loops and gummy savers. The kids put 9 fruit loops on the string and then one gummy saver. They had to continue this pattern until they had 10 gummy savers. That made a total of 100 things on the string.

Finally, we made 100 Day Banana Pudding. You have to stir the pudding 100 times.

Add 100 vanilla wafers,

100 slices of banana,

and enjoy!

It was really a fun day. The kids made the T-shirts last week. Every shirt has 10 groups of 10 things.

Caleb's Day

Caleb took about 1000 pictures yesterday and he had a really hard time picking only 5 to publish, but here they are.We start the day on the carpet where we do the calendar, review our sight words and letter sounds.

This is Sawyer coming to the carpet.

We learned about the letter "C" this week. Tatum decorated a capital C.

This is me taking my letter sounds tests.

At the end of the day, we get to go on the playground.

Don't forget that Monday is the 100th day of school. Your child may bring a collection of 100 things to show the class. We made t-shirts to wear on Monday. I have them and the kids will put them on Monday morning.

Boston's Day

Every morning we look at the calendar and say the ABC's. Kase was the leader today.Our new letter this week is "C". We had to find pictures of things that start with C.

Mrs. Kyle read a book about counting to 100. Monday will be the 100th day of school.

This is me playing with the camera.

These are the mailboxes where we put our finished work.

Thank you, Boston, for being a great blogger and photographer today. He really got into the picture taking. I didn't think about what it would be like to have a camera flashing in my face all day.

Ariana's Day

Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be "Guest Blogger" day. Every child will have a turn being a blogger for the day. They will get to take pictures throughout the day and then write about what happened. Today was Ariana's turn and this is what she had to say about the day. (She took all the photographs.)Madison is using her writing notebook to write about her favorite animals.

Some kids cut and glue during reading stations.

Mrs. Kyle is teaching Madison how to read.

Matthew is practicing his numbers.

Thomas is being silly while eating his snack.

Thank you, Ariana. You did a great job today. You really took some good pictures.

Accelerated Reader (AR) Books

Today your child will be bringing home an AR book. I just want to let everyone know what an AR book is and how we will use them in class.

An AR book is a book that has a comprehension test that your child can take after the book has been read and points are earned based on the number of questions answered correctly. There are 5 questions that are given in a multiple choice format with 4 choices. I ask the students to read the book 3 times before they take a test. The test is graded and points are given. Your child will start with "black dot" books. These are the easiest books with lots of sight words and limited vocabulary. If your child answers all the questions correctly, they will earn .5 points. It takes 5 points to earn the first reading tag. So it takes at least 10 books to earn the 5 points.

This is voluntary. I will not set a required number of points to earn for the class. You may want to set a goal with your child but that is up to you.

I don't want the AR books to take the place of reading good stories to your children. As I said before, the vocabulary is very limited, so that a beginning reader can read it, but this makes the content of the story also very limited. I still want your children to hear great stories with rich vocabulary. I think both things are needed to help your child become good readers and writers.

Your child will bring home a slip of paper with the library book. You can help your child read the book. There will be words they don't know. When you are satisfied that your child is ready to take the test, return the book and the signed paper and I will let your child test. Someone will read the test to the children, but they have to be able to select the correct answer. You may want to ask your child some questions about the book before it is returned.

If you have any questions, let me know. Some of the kids are very excited about this and are more than ready to get started. If your child really isn't interested yet, don't panic. We need to give those kids a little more time.

Thanks for all the help you are already giving at home. I don't want anyone to stress out about this. Have fun reading with your child.

I Can't Say "No" To This

I told the class on Monday that I was going to change the seating assignments and that I would give them a couple of days to try out sitting in a new spot and picking friends they wanted to sit by. By the end of the week I would make my final decision about where their permanent seats would be.

It hasn't been easy for me. Even with all my warnings about making good choices and getting your work done no matter who is sitting beside you, it's been a little crazy. So today was the last day of free choice. I told them as they were getting ready to leave today that when they came in tomorrow there would be assigned seats. I had already made a seating chart and I didn't want to hear any complaints about it.

I walked the class to the cars and buses as usual and when I got back to the classroom, I saw the note pictured above lying on one of the tables. It says, "I want to stay hear from your student Cooper." And to clear up any confusion regarding the exact spot he was referring to, he drew an arrow.

Now remember, I've already made my seating chart and this was not Cooper's spot. I stood there for a moment and then I got the new seating chart and started over.

Way to go, Cooper! You are a persuasive writer.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas break. I enjoyed being home with my family and really didn't do much of anything. It was great!

Last week, we talked about what it means to start a new year and that people like to make resolutions. I told them a resolution might be something they want to learn or something they want to be better at. They had great ideas. We posted them on the bulletin board outside the classroom.

We all agree that it would be so much fun to play in the snow, but since we don't have any right now, we made indoor snowmen. These aren't just any snowmen. You can read these guys if you know the key.

Snowman Key:

carrot nose - I like pizza.

pickle nose - I like ice cream.

3 buttons - I have never made a snowman.

4 buttons - I have made a snowman.

Orange scarf - I like cold weather.

Yellow scarf - I like warm weather.

Black hat - I like soccer.

Red hat - I like baseball.

This week we get back to work. We started reading groups today. I always look forward to listening to the kids read. I also talked to the class today about AR books. I'll do another post this week about how that will be managed in the classroom.