Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The Last Day. 

We were laid back, talkative and smiley. 

I've been sorting books and each student was able to get between 2 and 4 books. I loved watching them choose books for their very own. 

We watched one of my favorite movies (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium), and signed our classmates yearbooks. 

Then it was fun to look through the yearbooks. 

After lunch we had the whole school signing. 

Then we got a short introduction to the fire station (since it was too cold to be sprayed by the fire truck).

The last thing we did was a final cleaning of lockers and take down pictures off our classroom door. 

Thank you all for a fantastic year!!! Please keep in touch--these kids are definitely going places!!!

Monday, May 16, 2016

As we wind down (or up for Ag Fair) for the year, I feel so good about how far the firsties have come in their social and academic learning.

This morning was a wonderful example of what they can now do.

I read The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown, and then we wrote two of our own pages together.

Then the kids got out their spiral notebooks and wrote their own. It was FANTASTIC!!!

We enjoyed hearing what each other wrote.

After lunch we helped out the Kindergarten class by listening to them give their Ag Fair projects. Then they helped us by listening to ours.

So fun to have parents, grandparents and friends see our projects in the afternoon. I am excited to watch more great presentations tonight.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

It was so good to be back after two sick days. Oh how I miss the little people!

We enjoyed an awesome hike around town. Looking for items on a nature "hunt" and for trash.

I just wanted to enjoy the conversation of the little people. So I did.

We continued to work on getting our Ag Fair projects up.

And we had our "fishing" trip (which was postponed due to my sickness).

The day ended with a fun puppet show from the Newton Public Library.

Monday, May 9, 2016

Intro to Camping Week was amazing!!!

We have a number of tents to work inside. I've been asked--could we have recess inside, so we can play? The rain may allow that later this week. 

Today we...

1. Worked on needs and wants for camping. 

2. Made a graph of who's been camping. 

3. Read Camping Day and wrote about our favorite part. 

4. Camping math problems with loads of discussion about how they got the answer. (As these kids get older the process of math becomes more important than the product. Meaning-explain your thinking, and I just knew it won't cut it.)

5. Finished the day with a reflection of the day. 

6. And singing camp songs around a fake fire. 

Random photos:

Friday, May 6, 2016

How many times do you get to hear this? "Today was an awesome day!!!"

At least one more, because today made me smile. Again.

It was so cool to see many moms be able to come to school and have a muffin with the kids. A special time for sure.

And later Mrs. LaMar invited us into her room to watch a storm video (we read about weather last week) and then encouraged us to make a connection to the video. Finally she told all of the kids that they will get to sketch a connection and then paint it (which was super fun). Those pictures are in their backpacks today.

We finished up a bulletin board about sheep (our focus during Cloverbuds this year) that each child will present at Ag Fair.

And math. It is truly making me smile. They are flying. I am working less because they are working more. Talking with a partner, teaching the class.

I have a super cute video that I took of the conversations that were happening during that time. It was magnificent. Their number sense was shining through. But, the video is not transferring very well. I'll try again.

Some play dough was brought out and I let the kids play for a couple of minutes before heading home.

Does it sound fun? It was for me, and I hope for the kids as well.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!!

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Today was a special day. There were more smiles and uplifting words than I can count. What a great day.

I had the pleasure of reading silly Mother Goose rhymes with some of the kids, and then they practiced fluency with songbooks/story books.

Later as we read from our literature anthology (a text that was directions for making an origami dog) the kids got super excited about creating their own origami. And again, I was so excited to see so many of the kids reading. Reading the on grade level story. Kids that struggled to read even at Christmas time are making me proud. I hope they are also proud (or maybe they do not realize that they have transitioned into readers).

It was a good thing that I post the schedule each day. Because it makes them independent for knowing what is happening throughout the day. And it gives information to the kids to help the teacher when she tries to send them to the wrong special for the day. I was getting them ready for Art and they needed to go to science. What a fun time.

Just one more example that they are so ready to move on to second grade. I'm sure there will be a lot more expected of them, but today I was reassured that they will make that leap with grace.

For math we had white boards and sat by shoulder partners. I posted a problem on the board, they solved it, then they talked with their partner about HOW they solved it. We have some sophisticated ways of solving the problems.

Then I would have one student come to the front and explain to the whole class HOW they solved it. Knocked my socks off again.

The reason I do this, is that some kids are still struggling with 34 + 78 and having other students explain it, may just help the strugglers "get" it. As the students get older, their teachers will require more explanations of HOW and even require some writing about HOW they solved the problem. I want them to be ready for that with words and good explanations.

These kids now understand that when I say "prove it," that does not mean they are wrong. It means--tell me your thinking/how you solved it. I have learned A LOT from these first graders in the last three days and I am excited to share that with future students.

And then we cleaned the room. We are ready for tomorrow and the special morning time with moms before school.

Yep, a special day.

And a few recess photos, because, why not?

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

It sure felt good to me to be back in the classroom today. I certainly missed the kids!!! Being gone last Thursday, Friday and yesterday made me a little cranky. But all is better now.

We had a magnificent day.

We got messy.

We reviewed nouns.

We practiced adding three numerals.

Here's how it all connected for more than an hour today...

1. Solve a math problem on your whiteboard.
2. Show your teacher your answer.
3. Get the next piece of the bird/noun art project.

The messy part was this--as we cut the pieces out, we let them fall to the floor. It was a wild and crazy ride, and we enjoyed every single minute of it. Mr. C. even came in and saw the mess.

The funny part was when teachers would walk by, peek in and wonder--is Mrs. Bartel gone? The room is a MESS!!!!!

So, picutres... These are from the beginning, I was super busy at the end and did not get more, except the PILE of trash collected when the kids did a wonderful job cleaning up.

The final art project came home today. We thought about hanging them up, but I thought it would be fun for you to see them as the kids tell you about our wild and crazy morning.

The afternoon was shortened a bit. We snuck in a computer lab time (since we won't get it tomorrow) and we had Cloverbuds.

How can we make tomorrow "the best day ever?"