I can...

I just realized I'm averaging one post every two weeks.  I'm going to put that in the win column.  :)

Today's post starts with saying WOO HOO to having 1st quarter in the bag!  The kids have been working so hard this year, I just could not be more proud of them!  With that said, progress reports should be in backpacks this evening, so make sure and dig it out. 

Next up, I can statements.

At the beginning of the year I made a bulletin board on our wall that is titled "I can..." and the time has come to use it!  Below you will see a picture of the first 'I can' statements for us this year.  Our statements are color coded, blue-character counts, pink-math, green-reading.  Eventually we will have some yellow for writing as well as some white for Science and Social Studies.  These students are our objectives during our lessons but are written in a way that the students can understand.  I love being able to put them on the wall and at the front of the room where the students can see them all day, every day.  They really become owners of their learning and it is great when they can use the 'I can' verbiage to explain what they are doing and why.  I am currently working on a visual system so the students will know how many times we have worked on a skill, and yet another visual to show when the class has mastered an 'I can' statement.  More to come when that is all worked out. :)  For now, take a look at the statements in the picture and don't be afraid to ask your kiddo about them!  These can be a great conversation starter for you and your child about his/her day.  "Did you work on nouns today?"  "What work did you do today to answer who, what, and where questions?"  "Tell me more about the book you are reading.  Can you make a text to self connection with the book?"  

More fun in 125!

Homecoming, Fire Safety, Live Healthy Iowa Walk and a special visitor!  These are just some of the things that we have been up to over the last couple of weeks!  Below are photos that I have captured as promised!

Homecoming!
Homecoming is always a fun week at IPS and this year was no exception!  I am sad that I didn't capture more of the fun that was had throughout the week, but I did capture a few photos on Friday! We had a school wide assembly with the HS students pumping us up for that night and followed with our Character Counts kick off assembly!  Hopefully you have all seen at least one of the orange 'paws'-itive character awards come home!

Then this week we had the pleasure of having Iris's Omi (I hope I'm spelling that correctly!) or Grandma come and share with us.  She has taught high school French and German and shared a few phrases and songs with us.  We got a surprise visit again in the cemetery during our Live Healthy Iowa walk and it was super fun!  Here are a few photos from our language lessons.

 And then here are some photos from our walk.  It was a beautiful Fall day!

Finally we celebrated Fire Safety week by listening to a presentation from our local fire fighters, a couple of us simulated crawling in a smokey house, and then we got to look at the fire truck and tour an ambulance!  It was great learning!

Day 25?!

If someone could find the first 25 days of school for me that would be great!  Can you believe that we are already 25 days into the school year?  That means we are 1/4 of the way to our 100th day celebration!  It also means we are a little less than 1/7 of the way through our school year...crazy.  

Anyway, enough about how fast the school year has started, let's get into what we have been DOING during those 25 days.  I'm sure many of you know that I have been out of the room for a few days which is always hard, but it is easier to do knowing that the kids are continuing on as though I was here and are still doing a great deal of learning.  

I think I will go back to the first couple of weeks of school and then work our way to the most recent.  In this post I will show you some pictures of what we have been up to and give a brief explanation.  Hope you enjoy!

This first set of pictures are of us at the end of August practicing our Read To Self time.  Read To Self is one of the Daily 5 rotations we do during our literacy time.  We spend the first several weeks of school building our stamina so that we can work independently at the different rotations. This is because it is during this time that I am meeting with small groups for reading instruction so it is extremely important that the other students know what is expected out of them, as well as to have the tools to do what they need to do.  The rotations during this time are: Meet with the teacher, Read To Self, Read To Partner, Word Work, and Work on Writing.

 As you can see, during this time students can spread out throughout the room and find a way to get comfortable.  The next group of pictures shows us during one of our writing lessons.  The students loved getting their writing notebooks and have already done a great job at filling them up!  I have not ever had a class that enjoys writing as much as these guys do and I hope that they keep it up! Here they are during their independent writing time.  Some days this will be done like this as a large group, other days we will have the lesson and then the students will work on his/her story during the Daily 5 Work on Writing rotation.

 I am very excited about these next few photos!  Over the summer in a couple of my classes I had the opportunity to learn of a new tool called Kahoot!  It is a free online resource where I can enter a survey, quiz, poll, whatever I wish.  The program puts it all together and what we get is a fun way to gather information.  For example, these pictures are from the first time we did it so I just filled the kahoot with questions such as, "What did you do the most this summer?" and had options such as "go camping, play outside, go swimming, watch TV".  There are MANY things I like about this such as the fact that each student gets to use a computer to learn some great technology skills, the questions go up on the big screen for all of the students to see along with the timer (on the left) a count of how many answers have been recorded (on the right side) and the answers (the colored boxes below).  On the student's screen all they see is a red rectangle with a triangle, a blue rectangle with the hexagon, the yellow rectangle with a circle, and when there are 4 answers there is a green rectangle with a square.  This is a great way for it to be adapted to early elementary!  Anyway, after each question we can also see how many (but never who) answered a certain way and it is a very quick way for me to gain information about us as a whole.  I also receive a report that tells me what answers each child chose so I can follow up with lessons if a child is still struggling with a concept.  We have only been able to use it a few times, but I am excited to start using it more!

Below is the one quick picture I could capture during our WIN time over the past few weeks.  WIN is a time we have each Wednesday and it stands for What I Need.  The students are grouped based on what skill he/she needs extra work/instruction with and for 45 min every Wednesday is grouped with students from different classes to work on that skill.  The kids love it because they get to see their friends in other rooms as well as learn from other teachers!  We love it because we can really focus in on what the students need and because we have all teachers helping (Title 1 reading, music, PE, art, Guidance, media, etc) we can break the groups into smaller numbers.  It is really a great time in our week and the students LOVE WIN WEDNESDAY!

 Ah!  We are finally all caught up!  Today was a BEAUTIFUL day and I couldn't stand the thought of us not being out and soaking up the sunshine!  So, we packed up and took our classroom outside!  During this time the students had a choice, they could work on their spelling words or they could read.  The class was split on who wanted to do what, but they all were working hard while outside.  Here we are enjoying the sunshine, beautiful weather, and learning from each other!

 Yes, she is in fact reading a book about snowing.  I found it extremely ironic and loved every minute of it! :)

Well, that is all I have for now.  Conferences are next week and I am looking forward to touching base with all of you and talking about your child(ren).  Hope you enjoy the rest of your day and thank you for stopping by!

Day One is in the Books!

WOWEE!  What a FANTASTIC day we had today!  I am more excited than I can express and cannot wait to see what these kiddos can do!  I do want to take a moment to just tell each of you how truly honored I am that you would share your child with me during the school year.  I am sure it is not an easy task letting go each year as that means they are a year older and time with them is precious, and I don't want you to think that I am not aware.  So in the simplest of terms, thank you. :)

Here are a few photos from our first day!  We were so busy that I didn't snap more, but enjoy the few that are here! :)