September 30.....WE love our GRANDPARENTS

Grandparents Day has come and gone.  I am always amazed at how wonderful the children perform.  Plus the excitement the children have when showing off their school.  It is a treat to watch!  Picture day and Grandparents Day are the two hardest days at school.  Why you ask?  Do you know how hard it is to keep 9 children clean!  Other than 2 spills at lunch and a trip into a mud puddle the day was a success.  It was a nice time meeting the people who are important in the student's lives.

Next major thing coming up is FIELD TRIP ON TUESDAY!!!  We will leave school at around 10:30 and arrive back a little after 1.  I promise to post pictures as soon as I can.  I will also post pictures from today when I can get them from Mrs. Peters. 

                                                 Some of the students playing "school."   

September 29th....Bees and Grammar!

We have started grammar!  Are you having flashbacks to high school?  We use Shurly Grammar which is a kid friendly method for teaching grammar.  I have learned more from teaching it to the students then I ever did in high school (don't tell Mrs. Johnson)!  Much of what the children are learning is set to music.  If you would like a copy of the jingles soundtrack send in a blank CD.  A word of caution you may find yourself singing these jingles while at work....!  Today the focus was on subject noun marked with a (SN) and a verb marked with a (V).  For example the sentence Cats sat.  The asking question would be- What sat? cats (SN).  What is being said about cats? Cats sat (V).  We also brainstormed ideas as to nouns (person, place, thing).  I must confess most of the kids named places that were restaurants ranging from Chili's to McDonalds. 

The next highlight of the day is our new "sticker chart."  They get stickers for doing what they should.  They also get stickers for helping out a fellow classmate, cleaning up a mess that was not theirs, going above and beyond in class.  Plus they will get a sticker every day if they don't move their bee.  When the sticker chart is full they get to pick from the treat jar or get a coupon for one night off of homework.  They responded really quick to this positive reinforcement!  I like to point out the good in students and not always focus on the negative!

We survived rainyday indoor recess but will sure be glad to get outside tomorrow!  Remember grandparents day.  If your child is leaving with a relative they must have written permission to be released to them after the second concert. 
Spelling test tomorrow!
Verse quiz tomorrow!

September 28th

In math we discussed the DIME!  To remember the dime we came up with this phrase.  Dime begins with the letter d and when you dig you use 10 fingers!  So a dime is worth 10.  After we finished our school work we played a math dice game.  Those pictures are above.
















The students also dove into the take apart center.  They completely gutted a fan and are working through the two DVD players we have.

Playground Dedication

September 27th

Today was a great day.  It was our first try at Raz Kids.  This is an online reading program that levels the children into self paced books.  They focus on comprehension, fluency, and phonics.  Each child works at their own pace.  I have not told them this yet....but....when they read books and take a quiz they earn points that they can spend dressing up their own personal space ship and game center.  I am still figuring that part out.  It may take me a bit to get the hang of it so I can help them in this area.  I figure this will be a fun thing to share with them next week.

We also had music practice today.  The students are getting ready for Grandparents Day on Friday.   They have the first song down solid.  The second song may take a little more work.

Favorite things about today:

Emily-homework

Aidan-playing soccer with the bigger kids

Levi-playing with Aidan, Ethan and Wilson

Taylor-coloring

Ethan-homework

Samantha-playing with new friends and them teaching me how to do the monkey bars
Morgan-playing with Taylor and doing my coloring and having fun with my friends

Wilson-playing soccer

Isabella-everything

Welcome

As we start the school year we are very thankful for our new playground!