Thursday, January 31, 2013

100th day Costume Ideas

I can hardly believe that Monday will be the 100th day of school! This year is flying by!

To celebrate the 100th day we are asking students to dress up like they are 100 years old for a costume contest. We sent home a paper about this last week so you could begin thinking about ideas. Here are some ideas and pictures to give you an idea (I pulled each of these pictures off of google, so they are not my own):

Girls: printed skirt, pearls, eyeglasses, sweater, wig or curled hairstyle, gray hair spray, knee high stockings, large purse, scarf

Boys: Button down shirt, flannel shirt, suspenders, tie, eyeglasses, drawn on mustache or beard, gray hair spray












Wednesday, January 16, 2013

No Name Calling Week

Next week is No Name Calling Week at JSES! You should have received a handout about it yesterday in Tuesday folders, but in case it gets misplaced I want you to have the information here as well:

Monday: No School!

Tuesday: Sweat out Name Calling: wear a sweat suit

Wednesday: Give Name Calling the Slip: wear slippers (but bring Tennis shoes for 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

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Back from Break

On Tuesday we were busy busy busy getting back into the swing of things. It was so great to see all the smiling faces  bouding into the classroom.

We spent a bit of time in the morning reviewing some of our rules and expectations in the classroom. After spending a few weeks away from school it never hurts to do a bit of review. We got right to work on our new reading unit. This week we are reading stories about the season winter. We started off with a classic: The Mitten by Jan Brett. Many of the kids in the class had heard the story before and wanted to help participate in the reading. After the story we practiced retelling as a class. Then each student set to work creating their own mitten and animals to use as puppets when telling this story. They should have brought those home already, so ask them to retell the story to you!


Our writing project involved writing something about our winter break. We put together this cute person in a snowsuit, and used the handwriting page to write a sentence or two about our break. They turned out really cute:



On Wednesday we read a different version of The Mitten. This one was written by Jim Aylesworth. As a class we created a double bubble to compare and contrast the two versions of the story. Everyone was really excited to see how the stories had the exact same idea but each author added their own creative touch to make the story their own.

Next we talked a little bit about New Year's resolutions. I was very impressed with how much they know about resoutions. One student told us it was "like making a promise to yourself to do something that year" and another chimed in "yeah, and the promise is to do something to make yourself a better person." I couldn't have said it better myself. We did some brainstorming about things we could resolve to do this year and then everyone wrote their own resolution. We finished off this lesson by creating these super cute party people!



On Thursday we did a visualizing activity using the book Owl Moon. I read the story aloud without showing the pictures, and as I read each student used a piece of blank paper to draw what they saw in their head. After reading, we looked at the pictures in the book to see how the illustrator interpreted the story, then we looked at some of our artwork to see how it was alike and different. We realized that while everyone had a lot of the same ideas, no two pictures were exactly the same.




For writing, we made a flip book for the new year. Under each flap students had to write finish each of the following statements:
- Last year I learned....
- This year I want to learn ....
- My favorite part of last year was ...
- This year I hope to ...



 This one made my heart smile! "This year I hope to... stay with my teacher". So sweet! :)


Yesterday we finished off the unit reading Snowmen at Night. We made connections to the story by writing about what we would do if we were snowmen at night. After they completed the writing portion of this project, we made these cute snowmen using tiny pieces of cut paper. I love how they turned out!




Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Fluency Homework

Wow, I cannot believe it is already the spring semester! We are going to begin working very hard to get your child ready for second grade. One of the areas we will be putting a major focus on is fluency in reading. Studies have shown that fluent readers have a higher potential for strong comprehension and thus find more success in reading.

Throughout the month of January your child will have extra homework each night to help them improve their fluency. In their folder today you will get a letter explaining in detail what is expected. We will also be going over the assignment in class to practice so your child will already know what to do. This fluency homework must be completed every single night, but should take no more than 5 minutes. Homework will be sent home on Monday and is due back to school the following Monday. Over the course of the week you should see an improvement in your child's fluency. They will begin to read more quickly and with more expression.

This assignment is extremely important for your child's success in reading. We begin administering the DRA for the second time next week, and this added practice will help your child greatly with this assessment. If you still have questions about how to complete the homework after reading the parent letter this evening, please contact me! It does not help your child to do the assignment incorrectly. I want every one of my students to find success in reading and this will benefit them greatly.

Thank you again for your continued support.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Elf Antics: Last Day!

This post is a quite a bit late, sorry!

The last day before our holiday break we found Dash hanging out on top of our white board where he could see the whole room:


On every desk he left a little treat! We could tell it was him that left it, because there was glitter sprinkled everywhere as well. 


 We were a little pressed for time due to the holiday sing a long that morning, but we managed to fill out our last day of our Elf Journal:



After the sing a long, we completed the entire journal by filling in some of our favorite memories from our time with Dash. We looked back through all the journal entries and laughed remembering all the silly things Dash did in our room.



Everyone was a little sad to know that Dash would not be back again, but we had so much excitement on Friday with our holiday party it helped cheer everyone up.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday break. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's sweet smiling faces on Tuesday! :)

A New Suit For Santa

*I realized I forgot to actually post this a few weeks ago. Sorry!

The other day we worked on our special project from Mrs. Claus: designing a new suit for Santa. I shared some of the ideas the other day but I wanted to give you an update to show you the second part of the project.

After we created our new suit designs, each student wrote a letter to Mrs. Claus explaining why she should pick their suit design. They did such a good job using their words to explain their ideas!

Here are a couple great examples:





Elf Antics: Day 13

This morning we found Dash with a present for us!



In his letter, he told us that last night he let Santa know we would be watching the Polar Express so he sent us something special that we couldn't open until after the movie. Everyone was so excited about the present and couldn't wait to open it!



After the movie, we sat down to open the gift from Santa. Inside, we found 22 bells from Santa's sleigh!



I have to say, these kids just melted my heart with their excitement over this. As we opened it, I picked up one bell and rang it for them. They all started cheering and yelling, "we can hear it! we believe!" everyone was very happy to hear that I also could hear it ring.

I feel so blessed to be able to spend each day with each of your children. They have such sweet hearts and make me smile every day. It has been such a joy to celebrate this holiday season with them. It really is true that the holiday spirit is held in the hearts of children.