Career Day

Our entire lower school participated in Career Day.  Students came to school dressed as a particular career of interest.  We had doctors, builders, pilots, teachers, artists, and so many more.  Teachers even participated. 

We incorporated Career Day in the computer lab by having first graders write about their future careers.  We encouraged students to write and draw with detail. 

 


I love their imaginations.

One School-One Book

All of our students have required summer reading assignments, but never the teachers. But for the first time since I've been teaching in our school (18 years), our faculty had required summer reading and IT. WAS. WONDERFUL!

Our entire faculty was asked to read The Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff.  A young panhandler surviving on the streets meets a young business woman climbing the corporate ladder.  The young woman reaches out to help the young boy, and in return, he teaches her more than she could imagine.

An Invisible Thread shows how one person, Ms. Schroff, puts aside her individual wants, needs, and desires to focus her energy enriching the life of a young boy with no expectation for anything in return.  One small McDonald's meal turned into a lifelong friendship.

This is a story of grace, kindness, and compassionate. These are necessary when working with children in the classroom as well.

As the dust settles on the whirlwind first weeks of school we also need to realize that coworkers, support staff, substitutes, parents, coaches, and bus drivers also deserves our utmost grace, kindness, and compassionate,  We need to put aside our individual wants to focus on the larger picture; our students.

Thank you, Ms Schroff, for sharing your story and inspiring our faculty.

PreK Students Write a Book

Our PreK students are slowly learning their first sight words.  I try to incorporate these sight words into typing activities in the computer lab.

This week we reviewed the sight words "I", "can", "see" and also reviewed numbers 1-20.

We assigned each PreK student a specific number 1-20.  Then, students each typed "I can see ## _______." After typing the beginning of their sentence, they practiced dragging/dropping pictures into their page.  Because we have less than 20 PreK students, the early finishers we able to type a second page.

We printed each child's page and combined them to make one class numbers book.  Now the students have their own book to peruse in their classroom reading loft.

Book Tasting

The book fair visited our school this week, and books are definitely my weak spot.  I just can't say no and walked away with over thirty new books for our classroom library.  Parents and students also generously donated new books to our classroom.

Now I had a nice problem- how was I going to let the students preview all the books before adding them to the classroom library shelves?  An idea was born....a book tasting.  Students would have a chance to sample three of the new books for each of the courses (appetizer, entree, and dessert).

Front of Menu

Inside of Menu

While the students were in Art class, the classroom was quickly transformed into a restaurant for our book tasting.  Desks were covered with tablecloths. Flower centerpieces and small votive candles were an added touch.  Books were placed on pizza pans on each of the tables.

The students loved getting to 'taste' several new books.  Students wrote a short prediction/evaluation of the book based on reading a few pages and/or the back cover. They were actively engaged and had spontaneous group discussions at the tables about the books they sampled.  Interest and excitement were generated.  At the end of the book tasting the students quickly asked when we would do it again.  

It is always a nice feeling to hear students chattering about a day's lesson or project.  

Mrs. Lynch

Something to 'Tweet' About

Last week I was introduced to the Global Read Aloud project.  Schools around the world are connecting their students by reading the same book.  There were several books to choose from.  We are reading The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer Holm. 

Teachers are asked to follow a suggested reading schedule so we all read the same chapters each day.  After reading today's chapters we jumped on Twitter for the first time.  Prior to posting we discussed Twitter safety and general social media safety.

We responded to several tweets posted by another fourth grade class. 

 

We also tweeted our own predictions about the next chapter.

We were THRILLED to see a class from Brazil connect with us through Twitter.  Who would have thought a simple tweet would lead to a global connection.  This truly shows the power and speed of social media.

 This week....more chapters, more tweets, and more global connections.

Mrs. Lynch

Reading Rockstars

We are enjoying the humorous novel Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing during Reading class.  We spend a lot of time focusing on comprehension and vocabulary while reading our book.  The students have read the first four chapters and are hungry for more.

Today we had our first Reading test.  In the days leading up to our test, we practiced answering comprehension questions together in class.  We discussed the difference between "plain vanilla" answers versus answers rich with details.  Hopefully the students took this to heart while working on their tests this morning.  

To help the students during the test reminders were posted on the Smartboard.  Although I orally stated these helpful hints before and during the test, some students benefit from a visual reminder.

How can you help your child at home? 

-read the nightly chapters with your child

-ask one or two questions after reading each page

-discuss characters, setting, problem, and resolution

-review vocabulary a few minutes each night

-challenge your student to use their new vocabulary words in everyday conversation