100th Day of School!

What a fun and busy day we had today! The kids were so excited as soon as they got to school about the fact that we have been in school for 100 days! We didn't switch classes this afternoon so most everything we did was about the number 100!

In the morning, the kids got to sign everyones t-shirts that we decorated last week with 100 fingerprints. We read the story "Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten" and then we got to share with the class the 100 things that we brought. We made a chart of 100 words that we knew and then did some 100 day exercises! We counted how many sit-ups we could do in 100 seconds, how many jumping jacks we could do, if we could hold our breath for 100 seconds, if we could stand on one leg for 100 seconds, and then if we could sit very still and silent for 100 seconds. It was definitely fun to watch :)

In the afternoon we got to make pictures of what we thought we might look like when we are 100 and each of the students made a page to go into a class book about things they would want 100 of, things they wouldn't want 100 of, and things they would and would not want to eat 100 of.

We also made necklaces with 100 fruit loops/gummi lifesavers on it. They did a great job of counting to 100 and then counting them by 10's! And for snack (thanks to all of you who sent food!) they counted out 100 items by 10 to eat!

And here are some pictures to show some of the fun we had today!

Signing shirts

 We have such a fun class!

Trying to see how many sit-ups they could do. :)

And jumping jacks. 

Our 100-year-old people!

Making necklaces. 

Sweet kids :) 

Some of the students who got finished early wrote their numbers all the way to 100!

Snack!

Counting out 10 of each

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, have a great night!

Mrs. Ray

Guided Reading

Just wanted to let you all see what we've been doing during our Guided Reading time in the mornings. How it works is there are five groups. Every group has a captain. The captain is the one "in charge" of the group- they get the materials, help keep the group on task, etc...Each group rotates to three different stations in a day (lasting for 15 minutes). Then the next day, all the groups switch and do three new stations. They have new rotations for five days. I plan on keeping the same rotations for 2 weeks and then switching them out for new ones. So every group goes to all the rotations twice for 30 minutes total.

Here is the work board. Every group is a certain shape. They know which rotations they do for the day based on the three labels they have under their shape. 

The rotation baskets. The captains of the groups grab the basket with the matching label and do the activity in the basket.

I also started a "scoreboard" for our guided reading time. I forgot to get a picture of it though, I'll have to post one on Monday! There are four points: a noise point, an interruption point, a clean up point, and an on-task point. The scoreboard is the teacher against the students. At the end of our guided reading time, we'll decide who should get each point. They know that if they get all four points for the day, I will give them one big point on the dry erase board in the classroom. Then when they get 5 points on the board, they all get a surprise!

The kids are really starting to get the hang of how things should be done. They are doing an excellent job of working well with each other and getting their work done! This was the first week that we had all three rotations in one day. We started out with just one for a week, then went up to two for another week, and started this week with all three!

 Here are examples of some of our rotations:

              Reading on the computer             "Write the Room"

Word Detective Game

Finding and writing rhyming matches

           Making letters out of Playdoh            "Read, Write, Stamp"

               Creating 3-letter words           Making a sight word monster

Looking for and writing sight words

               
 This is where I pull kids over to do reading in small groups. I call a group of students over (usually based on ability) before a rotation begins and they will sit with me and read a book for that whole rotation. Then I'll call a new group over for the next rotation. We've been reading some leveled readers and working on our sight words. This is also why I want to start an "I Can Read" Folder- so that they can put the books that we read during this time in the folder and read them throughout the week. 

So this is what our mornings look like now! It's been fun and the kids really are doing a great job! I am just so proud of how much they are learning and how hard they are working!

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything. Enjoy your weekend!

Mrs. Ray

100th Day of School and AR

Just wanted to remind you all that our 100th day of school is next Monday. We have been working hard already at counting to 100 and we will begin decorating our shirts in the next couple days! If you have not already sent your 3 dollars and the snack, please send that by Wednesday. That way I can figure out what we still need and get all the supplies. Also, your child is allowed to bring 100 of something on Monday if they would like. That would include: pennies, hotwheels, rubber bands, pencils, stickers, etc...something relatively small :) If they choose to bring 100 of something, they will get to show them to the class and talk about what they brought.

Also, I loved getting some AR books and bookmarks turned in already signed! That is awesome and the kids are really excited about getting to take AR tests!

If you have any questions about what you need to send for the 100th day of school or also any questions about AR, please let me know. And be checking the blog this week, I'll be updating it with some information and pictures about our new Guided Reading time!

Have a great night!

Mrs. Ray

Students Writing

I wanted to share with you some of the students writing from the past couple weeks. I have been very impressed by how well they are stretching out their words and writing the sounds that they hear. It has also been fun to see the creative things they decide to write about!

 Here the students wrote a sentence about their favorite thing about Christmas break.

Cameron wrote about playing with her glass. 

 We also talked about New Year's resolutions and Logan decided that he thought he would just like to sleep all day in this new year :) 

Another student had the goal to learn how to skateboard this new year.