Happy birthday to .....

Today we continued our exploration into how we are a little bit different but a little bit the same. We all have birthdays! We read a story about a crazy birthday party and we decided that one birthday cake is better than 200 cakes!   We learned how to sing Happy Birthday in Tagalog and listened to a version of happy birthday from "First Voices" of Canada.  Some of us know how to sing it in French as well.   If you know a different language that has a version of happy birthday let us know we would love to hear more...maybe Romanian or Italian or Icelandic or......so many different ways to be the same! :)

Read to Self

Room 14 is learning how to participate in Daily Five language activities.  We have begun to build our stamina for reading by practicing Read to Self.  During the reading time, children are checking for understanding, tuning into interesting words, going back and re-reading and cross checking for accuracy.  Sounds like a lot of work but guess what ....it is actually a lot of fun and the kiddos really enjoy this quiet reading time. And so does Stretchy Stanley!!! We have him working out for 6 minutes while we read. Tomorrow we are going to see if he can lift his books for 8 minutes! 

We are all special.

We are learning all about who we are. We have been practicing our full name, address and phone number. We talked about why we need to know this important but private information. We discussed who to share it with and when it is okay to tell someone.  Then we began a discussion about how we are all a little bit the same but a little bit different....we are all special in our own way! Check out our twitter feed for an awesome song we are singing in Room 14. Also stay tuned for a book we are making about our smarts! 

We made our mark on Dot Day

These are a few of the dots we created after reading the story "The Dot". They really"stand out". They are 3-D dots.

A forest of families

We have been sharing family stories and learning about relatives.  We discovered that all families are a little bit the same and a little bit different.   We made family trees that show that discovery...

Ten Black Dots

We celebrated dot day all day in room 14. We searched for dots all around in our world. We found a lot of dots! We read a story called 10 Black Dots. It inspired our creativity. We did some counting and some drawing and used our imagination to create our own story. 

International Dot Day

Today was "International Dot Day". All of the students at Stevenson School participated in some kind of dot day activity after reading "The Dot" by Peter Renoylds.

 The Dot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mGeR4AQdM&sns=tw via @youtube 

Room 14 did dot math. We created our own story inspired by a book called 10 black dots. We also danced to the dot song and let our creativity shine on our own dot art.  We searched for dots in our world and had wonders about dots we see, like why do ladybugs have dots.? We ended up all covered in dots! It was a completely dotty day! 

Reading is a lot of Fun.

We have discovered that we can all be teachers. We enjoy reading to fuzzy buddies. We practice the right way to "quiet-read", while reading quietly our fuzzy friends.  We are thinking about the "who and what" as we check for understanding on each page or picture. 

Our own special names!

We read a story called "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes. The little mouse in the story learned that her name was special and she felt proud. We all talked about how we all have special names. Some of our names are longer, some of our names are shorter, and some are equal ...but nobody had a name as long as Crysanthemum.   We have started a challenge to see if we can find a word that has more than 13 letters. Brianna found one that was equal to Chysanthemum...comprehension. Way to go!!! 

A picture perfect day

Our first day of grade one was "picture perfect". We sang. We danced. We read. We drew. We played. We explored. We created. We had fun.   And we were so happy! 

Ending is just the beginning...

Summer time is coming to an end and new adventures are about to begin. I have been busy getting the classroom cleaned up and put back together.  As it gets closer to the  first day of school I am getting more excited to bring on new adventures, discover new things and grow as a teacher.  I can't wait to  meet a new group of kiddos, learn about their wonders and help guide them towards becoming confident, caring and curious life-long learners.  "Let the fun begin!"