More Calander Math!

Today our "student teacher" did another excellent job on the daily calendar. To give you a feel of what we experience each day during calender math, Carol took a video clip. It's not the best quality but we'll work with it. (Not bad for our first time, eh?!) We also finished reading A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams. We used her book as a story that illustrates the telling of a Small Moment. During writing share, Anders did a great job of teaching others about how to know when to start a second page. As writers responded to his work he got so many great ideas that he said, "I think I'm going to make this story into a book!"

Remember there is no school on Monday so enjoy yourselves and have a great, lonnnng weekend!

Calander Math

At the start of math time each day we review our Calander Wall. This morning Hannah was our leader and what a wonderful teacher she was! There are 17 different things that the student leader talks about including days of the week, money, graphs, shapes and telling time. Our favorite thing to do is glueing on the puzzle piece of the day. We are creating a 100 piece puzzle on our wall as we look ahead to our 100th day of school. We've made it to day 30 and it will be indeed here before we know it. Thanks to Jessica Meacham's great website and inspiration that helped create this wonderful learning area.

Today we also passed out our Song and Poetry Journals. The songs we sing and many of the poems we share will be coming home in a yellow notebook each week so that parents and children can sing and recite to their hearts content. Remember that children can bring them home on Fridays and we only ask that they be returned each Monday morning.

In math we practiced writing numbers eight and nine as well as playing a simple game with 10 pennies. Place the pennies in a pile and grab some one hand and the remainder in the other. Working in pairs children would say, "I have 4 pennies in my right hand and 6 pennies in my left hand." This continues on providing children with a great introduction of adding and number sentences.

"I AM a Good Mother!"

It was just before lunch when the phone rang. A very hesitant voice said, "Mr. Dahler?" (my formal teaching name)...I forgot my...conference...I'm so sorry! But I am a good mother...I AM!"

After many reassurances she got here for her conference and we had a great time of sharing and learning together. Afterwards Carol and I went to lunch with her and laughed and even teared up after hearing a beautiful story of friends and fairs. The remainder of the day was spent much in the same way. It was such a good time to learn, share, laugh, and be taught by each and every one of you. After goodbyes were said to Shelley, Rob and Ellie, Carol and I headed out into the dark, dripping sky for Chinesse food. Looking back on the year thus far we came to see how blessed we are to have such a supportive and encouraging parents. Thank you for making our first 29 days such inspiring ones and we look forward to our many days ahead!

Toby's Gallery

This summer while visiting one of my favorite websites (The Daily 5), I came across a video clip of how a classroom chose to display the art work of the children. So at the beginning of the year I asked parents to donate some inexpensive frames and got Doug, our maintenance guy, to put some holes in our wall. Later we put some black construction paper inside the glass and then used some blue putty to adhere the pictures to the outside of the glass...and viola! We christened our wall by naming it after Toby, our mini-lop rabbit who lives in our classroom. Thanks again to everyone for making Toby's Gallery possible, especially our beloved art teacher Mr. Calhoun and please stop by anytime for some closer peeks.

Bats and Birthdays...

Our day began with a song entitled Joyful, Joyful which reads:
Joyful, joyful, joyful greetings
We come to wish you everything
Of good the coming year may bring
Welcome, welcome to the birthday child.Garrett celebrated his 7th birthday recently and his parents came by for our traditional celebration. We sing and parents share an event from each year of the child's life as the child circles a candle holding the earth. Afterwards we sang more and then Garrett read us a favorite poem of his called Hurt No Living Thing by Christina Rossetti. I found a ceramic cupcake this summer that I filled with special treats and hide it in the room for the special child to find on his/her day.
Later in math we learned a new song to help us with the spelling of November and played a math game called the Fat Bat Game. The teacher rolls a die and students continue collecting points until a one comes up. When it does they lose all their points. Students have to decide when to drop out and it's a wonderful tool for number writing and counting skills. You can find the directions at Mathwire.com (...a great site that I use often for math ideas) and the gameboard under our link, Handy Handouts.
We also began our second cursive book learning our first "rocket letter" t. These are the letters that shoot up like a rocket. They enjoy practicing but we encourage them not to rush and take their time.
This week is our Art week and Mr. Calhoun is working on drawing fruit. At the moment they are with Ms. Reynolds in Science Lab studying gases, liquids and solids.
Get outside and enjoy this beautiful day...I'll join you soon.

7 Keys to Comprehension

As I was doing some reading this weekend I came across one of my recommended reading books for parents, 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Huthchins. I have found this book extremely valuable as a classroom teacher and often encourage parents to read it. Based on research by P. David Pearson and a number of his colleagues, the authors have found 7 things that will encourage children to understand and care about what they read. Not only with the information be of value this year, but for years to come. I still find myself reading and start thinking, "Hey I just made a mental image!" or "I have schema for that."
So this year I'd like to start our first annual book club! Get a copy of the book at the library, bookstore, borrow mine, or just click on the link to Amazon (I just learned how to do this and I'm psyched!!) Each month we'll read a new chapter and talk about (and blog) about what we've learned. There are eight chapters which will permit us to do one chapter each month. This month's chapter is called Reading for Life and it took me less than 30 minutes to complete it and it's not heavy reading. I'll post a blog at the end of each month and share some highlight or insight about the reading and then parents can respond and leave their comments. I'll look forward to hearing from you soon.
Now all you have to do is get the book and we're on our way!