Report Card Comments

My report card comments include sentences on:

1. letter recognition

2. reading

3. writing

4. handwriting

5. math

6. behavior

7. homework

For example, "Mickey Mouse has made tremendous growth this school year. Mickey has learned every letter of the alphabet and its sound(s). He is able to read simple texts and he participated in the AR (Accelerated Reader) program. Mickey’s handwriting is extremely neat. He is able to write more than four sentences with punctuation. He no longer frustrates easily when doing so. Mickey is able to add and subtract with and without manipulatives. He correctly identified pennies, nickels, and dimes. He was unable to tell the difference between a question and a statement orally. Mickey is a very sweet boy and displays appropriate behaviors in school. He has made many friends and is more outgoing. Thank you for your support with Mickey and his impeccable homework completion. I am very proud of what he has accomplished! Please continue reading with him over the summer. Good luck in first grade!"

Guess who got a Smartboard?!

I did, to my surprise! Does any one else have one? How do you use your's?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Writing Progress

Every trimester, we do a school-wide writing prompt on our best day of school. These samples are from the same student on that same topic. In my class, I require all daily journal writing to be at least four sentences now. We are still working on varying sentence structure. :)
1st trimester student sample:



Her writing 2nd trimester:



Her writing 3rd trimester:


Back and rough draft:


Circle map:


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Coins

As money review, I got a coin purse and put some coins in it to help refresh some memories. My aide will let the kids "buy" items around the classroom for a penny, nickel, dime, or quarter. They are so excited! It's the best method we've tried!











- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Alphabetical Order

During centers, the children were asked to make the alphabet using cookie cutters. When the alphabet was completed correctly, it made an AB pattern.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Best Day of School

Our writing prompt is always the best day of school, here is a list we made of our favorite days. Today, we will complete a circle map and begin our first drafts. Thursday we will create final drafts.


We gave had a lot of fun days!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sending a Letter

We have been reviewing the rules for Mailbox Center, since I had to take it away and now I am bringing it back. I wrote about how I use the center here. I started with the www.brainpopjr.com video, "Sending a Letter". Then, we took the online quiz.

We used a flow map to brainstorm and sequence.

Then we used our maps to write 4 sentences.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

High Expectations

Yesterday, I began teaching our class the songs for our First Grade Promotion. We are using six songs by The Beatles, which are tough. I would sing and teach the motions, expecting the kids to memorize the lyrics. As I left school, I started to panic, as we only had 22 days left of school. How were we EVER going to learn it all?! I started thinking we would never be ready and how it was going to be awful, since I have never used these songs before!

After my class, I went home and printed out 24 copies of the lyrics for each kid to keep on their table. As part of our reading time, we used our "magic reading fingers" (pointer fingers) to trach the print. They did SO much better! They can refer back to them and practice them if they finish early.

My kids are reading and I thought they would be overwhelmed by the three pages of size 12 font. We will only learn the words this week and next week I'll start teaching the motions. They were ready for lyrics and eased my anxiety. I should've had higher expectations to begin with...

Clean Up Song

I made up this song to transition during centers rotations, to the tune of "The Ants Go Marching"...

The children are cleaning up the room

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The children are cleaning up the room

Hurrah! Hurrah!

The children are cleaning up the room

The little one stops to grab a broom

And they all keep cleaning

Until the job is done

Until the job is done

Progress Reports

We send progress reports home every other week-ish. :) I include the child's behavior, missing assignments, and academics. It is a carbon copy and the parents have to sign it and return it the following day. Here's what it looks like...

Rainy Day Schedule

Yesterday, we had rain, so our school was on a rainy day schedule, which means no recess. It's very rare in Las Vegas. We eat our afternoon snack (provided by the parents) on the playground during recess. The children ate inside during recess, so I used the projector to go to www.sesamestreet.org. I clicked videos and searched "rain". If you watch any of the video results, it goes through all of videos involving rain on a loop without interruption. It was awesome to fill the silence and it was a special treat.

Songs

I have been taking a class on songs and finger plays, which inspired me to organize my music. I have a pink iPod I use for my classroom and I printed all of the song titles on labels. I also printed the titles of the www.brainpopjr.com and www.sesamestreet.org videos I use. I put them in my theme file folders so I would remember all of the songs and clips to play.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Organization

I have started adding labels to all of my previous posts, in hopes of making posts easier to find. You can find them on the bottom, right side. :)