Snow Day #8

I'm getting a little stir crazy and had to find something to do. I went to town at the dollar store stocking up on items to make into fun learning themed activities! I'm making word sort games that align to letter land and a blend/digraph hop game. I've also created math fact fluency games, place value puzzles, clock and digital time match, greater than or less than match up, missing addend sticks, and many more to come! The kids will have these to look forward to when we get back. 

What are the kids up to? I'm going to start a class snow day picture contest kind of like wcpss is doing! Send me the most creative picture of your child doing something school related for snow day #8!  The winner will get a free hw pass. Another activity they could do tomorrow to keep them occupied is create a bookmark for literacy week, which is next week!! Here's the bookmark template https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxwU5MGiCos-eDBLaFR1U25zekk/view?pli=1

You and your child could also work on coming up with their book character costume!! 

Here is next weeks spirit week dress schedule:

Mon- Sports

Tues- Pj day

Wed- Fashion disaster 

Thurs- LMES Spirit wear

Fri- Book character day

*I will send out more info regarding literacy week

100th day!!

We finally made it to the 100th day after a long week of snow days! The kids had fun sharing their 100 items collection, making a snack mix of 100 of each thing, wearing their crowns and coming threw the 100 days smarter grand entrance! I've loved every one of these past 100 days with your child. Now, I'm ready to get back to school to be with them for the remainder of our school days... Even if this does mean Saturday school! Get ready, the make ups will be coming. I'm calling it now though to make it more motivating for kids to come to school on a Saturday; they will be pajama days! Almost like a typical Saturday rolling out of bed and staying in pjs, they just get to join their friends and favorite teacher an extra day 😄 Hopefully everyone has power back now and is staying warm! Hugs to the kids! I WILL(better) see them Monday!

Growing independent readers

Now that we are half way threw the year I'm giving them a little more independence with their literacy stations. As daily five they have to hit every station through out the week(word work, writing, listening, read to self and buddy reading). Up to this point I've assigned where they go each day. Gradually I'm going to be giving them free choice. They will be assigned a reading group still with me two days and Mrs. Pattison the other two. When they aren't in guided reading they will chose a station. They will have a calendar where they check off which station they go to each day. I check in with them on Fridays to see their calendars and work completed. Of course as its being rolled out this way I'll still be checking daily to hold them accountable until they show responsibility and we'll start conferencing only on Fridays to save instructional time during the week. They will also be given choices in centers. Instead of giving one writing assignment or word work activity, they will get a few choices in their center folder. Below you will see the tic tac toe word work menu. They have been using comprehension sticks in buddy reading to ask questions to their partners while reading. In independent reading they are given an interactive comprehension sheet for their readers response notebook to complete. I've started a new listen to reading site called mobymax.com. At the end of each reading they are given a comprehension quiz where they are given a score that gets sent to me. Feel free to check out the site along with big universe. Which we are beginning to use as well. Your child's big universe log in would be wp(followed by their lunch number), password:lunch # and group name:wcpss. For moby Max their login is just their name and password is books. Have fun exploring these sites with your child. As I set up the big universe account more your child's library will grow with books I chose for them at their level! It's time consuming but will be well worth while. It could eventually substitute take home reader books so they never have to reread the same book, since there are endless books on the site! 

Valentines Sweeties

We decorated hearts with their names on them to put on their mailboxes for the valentines exchange on Monday. Please don't forget to have your child bring in their filled out valentines cards tomorrow. We are looking forward to spreading the love and kindness with our classroom family!