Dancing

It still wouldn't be our class without a few movement breaks!  Here we are grooving on a Friday afternoon! 

Awesome Adjectives

We were working on parts of speech and it was adjective week.  What better way to use adjectives than to describe our friends in class.  Each student got the name of another student.  They had to make a portrait of their friend and use 4 adjectives to describe them.

Columbus Day

We talked about Columbus being an explorer and what it means to explore.  The kids talked about things that they could explore and then we turned them into explorers.  If you look closely at the pictures of the boats, you may see some explorers who are familiar to you.

Great News!

I joined Adopt A Classroom because my cousin who also is a teacher told me she had been "adopted" and got to shop for school supplies.  I really didn't know what to expect but signed up at the beginning of the year. 

Amazing! Thanks to The Coach Company at the Northshore Mall, we now have a lot of money to spend for our classroom.  I don't know how to thank them enough- well besides having the kids write thank you cards! 


I will keep you updated as to what we are going to get.  I am hoping for a new piece of technology as well as a subscription to Scholastic News and a Deluxe Whisperphone for Guided Reading time.

 What is a Whisperphone you ask?  It allows the kids to read softly and hear themselves read.  The deluxe model is for me during small group instruction.  Everyone reads the book, but I can turn the dial to hear different readers.  The best part- the kids don't know which of them I am listening to.

I will keep you informed once I order all our new fantastic things for the classroom!

Partner Reading

We had an introduction to partner reading on Friday.  I chose the partners for this time but in the future, they will be choosing their own partners. We talked about EEKK- elbow to elbow and knee to knee allowing the room to get quiet.  A lesson on just right books was given last week and after seeing some of the book picks I know that we will be reviewing that next week.  Many kids are just picking their favorite picture books, not ones they can read independently.  Here are a few pictures of  Friday's reading.

A Look At Our Seats!

So far it has been an enormous success. The kids love bouncing and I hardly notice it anymore.  They are productive and active and safe!  I thought you might like to take a peek in and see what it looks like.  I usually see more bouncing after specials.  This was taken after sitting in the computer lab for 40 minutes.

They're here!

Our box arrived yesterday from Donor's Choose.org.  This morning I had some helpers and we blew up the seat balls.  Now everyone has one!  People kept stopping in because they saw all of my chairs in the hallway.  We had some rules for ball use and I am happy to report that only one student lost their seat for a few minutes as a reminder of how to be safe.  There were lots of happy faces as we bounced our way through the day.  We still have some practice to do but it is so exciting to have these in the room!