Great Start to 2019-2020

What a terrific start to our year!

We have 20 students! 

I am little excited about this!  I have never had 20 students. This is amazing!  And what a nice crew!  

The crew in Room 102! 

We started the first day with a third grade assembly with our new principal, Mrs. Caulfield. She spoke about expected school behaviors and she started to read a book to us. 

We read a book called How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague. In the story, Wallace Bleff stands and tells his class about his summer vacation and how he was captured by cowboys on his trip out west to visit his aunt. 

We then wrote about our summer vacation.... one part with an actual event and one part using our imagination. They were very creative! 

I read aloud every day to the class. I had a book all planned but then Mrs. Caulfield started the first few chapter of a Junie B. Jones book SO... we had to finish it!  




Ask your child what our NEW read aloud is?  


We have also enjoyed some picture books together. Another fan favorite was: 

Charlie writes an ad in the paper looking for an owner. He is looking for someone under 12, who wears glasses, and lives in the city. But as the letters start coming in, Charlie continues to revise his checklist. Perhaps his perfect owner is closer than he thinks!

THEN, we wrote a checklist for GOOD STUDENTS. We came up with some excellent criteria!  You can check these out on the on the clothesline in our classroom!   

Meeting New Friends

We did some "get to know each other" activities within our first few days. It is nice to familiarize ourselves with new classmates and a new classroom. We did a FIND SOMEONE WHO... activity that got everyone up and asking each other questions. 

• "Were you born in another state?"
• "Do you have a pet other than a dog or cat?"
• "Do you love broccoli?"
• "Is math your favorite subject?"

"Were you in second grade upstairs last year?"

ROUTINES

There are an AMAZING number of procedural routines to learn at the start of the year. Here are a few we have discussed:

1. Lining up
2. Sharpening a pencil
3. Taking attendance
4. Handing in notes and assignments
5. Moving to the reading area
6. Using a stapler
7. Finding your mailbox
8. Where to keep your supplies
9. How to choose classroom library books
10. Where is the bathroom?
11. Fire drill procedure
12. and on and on and on...

The class has done a terrific job with all of these. We also try to add in a little fun as well. We did a Classroom I Spy game to see what we could find in our classroom using the letters A to Z.  You would think "z" would be tricky, but backpacks have lots of zippers!  And I even happen to have a xylophone in my room!  I thought "k" was tricky...but they said "Kids!"  

READING, WRITING, & MATH too!

Don't worry we are also doing lots of beginning of the year reading and writing too!  Students write in response journals TWICE a week for morning work and we will start Writing Workshop next week. We have started our READING WORKSHOP using Fountas and Pinnell's 20 Days to Independent Reading which starts with a DAILY mini lesson and some independent reading time. Students have already built up to 20 minutes of silent reading!  

  

In math we have been working on reading and writing numbers, place value and ways to make 100. This week we did a MATH (feelings) SURVEY and started using our MATH JOURNALS!  




Students have been loving playing math games in teams or pairs. Ask them about the MAKE 90, MAKE 10 strategy we have been practicing in class. We used it for a game we played called CLOSE to 100!  

HISTORY
Our first lesson in Social Studies is to discuss WHAT IS HISTORY?  We will learn about Massachusetts history, local (Medfield) history, and events leading up to the American Revolution this year. We started this week learning about ways we CAN learn about history.  These include:

• talking to an expert
• reading a book
• visiting a historical site/landmark 
• using the internet
• visiting a museum
• studying artifacts
• etc.

Today 9/05 we looked at some artifacts in class. We had an antique iron, a roller skate, a glass medicine bottle, pieces of pottery, a candle mold, a wash board, a Japanese geta, etc. Students enjoyed trying to decide what each item was!  

Students were asked to bring in ARTIFACT BAGS that will show us what we can learn about them!  We will share these on Friday in class and then use them in a writing assignment next week!  

Again, we have had a spectacular start to the year!  Thank you for all your help getting everyone to school and with all their supplies, snacks, etc. I look forward to meeting you all on September 18th at our Parent Night!  

Don't forget to check out our DAILY twitter!  I post a picture every day about something we are doing in class. Follow me @ewatsonroom102 

This will help you follow what is going on in our class and how to ask your child about his/her school day!  

"I saw looked at artifacts today. What did you think?"  

This always gets a better answer than "How was school?"