I'm glad that everyone was able to stay warm today! We were glad to be back at school after a 4 day weekend.

Today we had a special visit from 3 Waterloo Black Hawk players- they came to announce a new Read to Ride incentive at Lowell. If your child reads the 50 minutes PLUS extra bonus minutes, he/she is eligible for a prize. This new program will start this week. Your read to ride slips will be red--- at the end, your child could earn a free ticket to a Waterloo Black Hawks game.

We started learning about George Washington. We learned - He was smart. He was born in a different state (Virginia). And his father died.

Today we also had nutrition and we learned all about Mangos- we lea

Students had a great day today! I was really proud of the great reading they did in small groups today. We will begin testing on Wednesday- When I have your child tested, I will send a note to let you know where he/she is and where we need to go by the end of the year. If you have any questions please let me know.

We continued patterning today and students enjoyed making patterns out of arrows with a partner. Students also got a card and they had to build that pattern.


We had a STARS assembly and students enjoyed seeing students get prizes.


I hope y

This was a crazy day! We were without power for almost all of the morning- then it went off again today during math. It was quite a learning experience for everyone. We sure were confused why we couldn't get a drink or wash our hands.

We were definitely glad when the power came back on and stayed on!

In reading we are getting ready for DRA2 testing and really working on our reading skills.
In math we are finishing up our pattern unit. This week we focused on making the pattern- and then breaking it apart into the repeating part.
In writing we are working on writing about a time we did something special with f

Tuesday:
Today I showed a video and really watched some videos that have been taken in my room during reading this week. I can't believe how engaged and on task students are. I'm finishing up some letter identification, sounds and 50 sight word testing this week. After next week I will start DRA2 testing and this will really show me where your child is and what goals I can set for all the students for the end of the year.

In writing some students moved on to beginning to write their book while others are finishing up their pre-writing stages. It's great to see students starting to sound out words and put them on paper. I can't wait until their book is finished. One student is writing about times with mom and dad- while another is writing about a time she went bowling. They have some great ideas!!

Today was a great day! There was so much learning and working going on- it was AMAZING!! I have gotten so many compliments on how well the students work and are engaged in activities- it's great to see!

In reading we are reading a book called Officer Buckle and Gloria- We are using the book to talk about how to pick out the important parts of stories and retell what happened. Today we focused on what we thought was interesting in the story.

In math we continued with patterning. Can your child find any patterns at home? They are noticing the patterns around the building which is great!

In writing we are telling about a fun time we did something. We did the beginning writing today and will use our ideas to make a book this week.

We also started learning about the first Thanksgiving.

Thursday:  Today we got to try yellow peppers- I just can't seem to convince students that yellow peppers are delicious!
Today in math we added an abb pattern- we looked at how a red star and green triangle are different- we learned that because they are different. We can give one the name A and one the name B.

Students have found a box of books that have pictures and students can use the pictures to read the sentences. They are loving those book! I will try to get more of them for students!

In writing we finished our beginning, middle and end book- we wrote about what we do at the end of our day.

I will be in a meeting all day tomorrow- but have a great sub. She has subbed for me one other time this year when I was in a meeting. I hope the students will do great!

It's been one fast week. i can't believe it's already Wednesday! This week we have been focusing on beginning middle and end of a story- we have also transferred this in our writing. We are deciding how we spend the beginning of our day, what we do for most of the day, and we will add how we end our day tomorrow.

In math we are working on patterns. We are having fun making patterns and chanting them. Today was fun as we were working- students started chanting blue, blue, yellow and the rest of the class would follow along. It was very fun to see and hear.

 Today we got to have an enjoyable time with Lowellpalooza. Students got to go to the gym with Mrs. Heinzerling for dancing, hula hooping, and a lot of fun and games.

In math we continued with making patterns. Students made amazing pattern trains! Some were making patterns with two colors of cubes and some were trying 3. It was great to see students pushing themselves to do better.

In reading we reviewed the characters, setting, problem and solution of Franklin In the Dark. Today we journaled about our favorite part of the story and where that took place. In writing we are continuing with writing labels, and sentences. It's been a great reflection to see where students were at the beginning of the year and where they are now. Students have made a LOT of progress in reading, writing and math this year. I am very proud of this class!

Today we had some very special surprises. I put a project on Donors Choose and found out last week it was funded. Well today, we got 3 HUGE boxes. We could barely wait until after music to open them. Students promised to do their job this afternoon so we could open the boxes- we didn't want to wait any longer! In each box was a large bean bag- that students will get to use during read to self time. We were so excited to try them- there was NO way we could do writing.  We each got to have 1 minute to read on a bean bag- I will post pictures tomorrow because the students sure do look comfortable!

What a day! Our board wasn't working today and we hated every part of the day. We are so accustomed to our  board and how much we use it everyday.

We continued with beginning, middle and end today in reading. We found out that in the middle of our story Franklin asked his friends for help.

in math we are back to noticing how items are the same. It was neat to see students match buttons with one attribute and two. We had some good thinking today. WE found out that we had more people that did not wear blue today.

In writing we continued working on sentences. We learned that our sentences start with a capital letter and end with an end mark.
Today we tasted red, green and yellow apples. We decided that green apples are juicy, yellow apples are mushy and green