This year we have welcomed new staff and new students to our family. We are working towards becoming a STEAM certified school. We have had our first very successful Boosterthon. In the Learning Commons, we have taught our Kindergartners how to do self check out. We had fun orientations with our fifth graders using the Goose Chase app. We have gotten new green screens to create the most fun representations of Constructive and Deconstructive Forces. Our first graders have used Chatterpix to let books tell us the best way to treat books. All in all, we have had a great first month!
One of the greatest things about being a teacher is that each year we get a fresh start. We can make all the adjustments to our lessons and activities and to our own attitudes to make things go even better this time! This year we have welcomed new staff and new students to our family. We are working towards becoming a STEAM certified school. We have had our first very successful Boosterthon. In the Learning Commons, we have taught our Kindergartners how to do self check out. We had fun orientations with our fifth graders using the Goose Chase app. We have gotten new green screens to create the most fun representations of Constructive and Deconstructive Forces. Our first graders have used Chatterpix to let books tell us the best way to treat books. All in all, we have had a great first month!
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I am ready for the cold windy days to make way for warm spring like days!! Hopefully soon! In the learning commons this week we have been reading My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza. I love how this story changes our opinion as it goes along. My favorite picture is of the fox when he is massaging the pig. It makes me smile every time. We stop as we are reading to talk about who is lucky and why. When we finish, we compare and contrast the characters, Fox and Pig. Then we compare the characters in this story with the characters in The Three Pigs. The fourth graders and I are reading one of my all time favorite chapter books, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. She has such an incredible way of telling a story from an animal's point of view. As we are reading, we talk about point of view and how the other characters, Mack, for instance, might tell the story a different way,
This time of year can sometimes get a little long. We have passed the holidays and the weather is unpredictable. But in the learning commons we are focused and learning!!
Kindergarten has learned about National Symbols. We read the book by Peter Spier, The Star Spangled Banner.
After we read it, students got the chance to draw about their favorite national symbol and talk about it with the Draw and Tell app.
Second grade is learning about the Education and Training Career Cluster.
We start by reading Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard.
After reading the story, we brainstorm a list of qualities and traits that are good to have in this profession. Then we think of as many examples of career choices in this cluster. They end the lesson drawing a picture of themselves as an educator. Hopefully, some of out brightest future teachers are started here!!
Dr. Seuss' Birthday
We had a great week celebrating Seussapalooza! We skyped with a Garrett Middle School and got to hear great readers read Dr Seuss stories to us!!
And then on Friday, Dr. Seuss' actual birthday, Jenn Hobby, radio personality from STAR 94.1 came to Dowell to read to students!
She was amazing and the kids loved her!! It's been great fun working with Mrs. Pfeifer and 3rd, 4th and 5th graders as they are are creating iMovies about European explorers and World War II. We are amazed at how they are taking this project and just going!! Another fun activity that we have been working on for a few weeks in the learning commons is a Lewis and Clark coding activity. 1st graders have taken their coding mice on an expedition through the Louisiana Purchase and filled a journal with the things they have learned. We have also started doing some Maker Stations in the Learning Commons. Each week students come to the Learning Commons to work on different stations that are related to books they are reading. Students are LOVING this activity and are creating great projects. This week we are busy staying busy! Kindergartners are practicing their sequencing skills with The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro. After listening to the story and turning to a partner to review the sequence of the items she swallowed, students take turns placing the items in the mouth of our Little Old Lady doll. So much fun!! First and second graders continue writing code this week. This time we are practicing pair programming (that's a little tongue twister). It is important for students to learn how work together and it is especially helpful as the challenges continue to get harder. These future programmers are amazing! Mrs. Pfeifer and I are collaboratively teaching a third grade lesson for the remaining weeks of December. The students are going to be involved in an app smashing activity. Right now they are creating the parts using Chatterpix, Newsbooth and Action Movie apps and the information they learned while researching an European explorer. We are so excited to see the iMovies they will be creating with all of these.
This week we have started one of my favorite times of the year! Coding!! I love to teach our students about coding. It is always amazing how much everyone loves to go through the coding activities on Code.org. This week, 1st and 2nd graders got the chance to start writing code. We will continue to work on coding until the holiday break. Kindergartners had a fun lesson about character traits. We read the story Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon by Parry Lovell. We talked about how some character traits are on on the outside and are how you look, and some are on the inside and those decide the type of person you will be. We described Molly Lou's physical traits and then read the story. After that we talk about her personality traits, the way she feels and acts and talks. To finish the lesson each students draws a character trait and decides if it is an outside trait or an inside trait and sticks it on the poster.
3rd graders made a Chatterpix about the explorer they researched! We will use those Chatterpix in an upcoming lesson on creating an imovie!! Last week was so busy that I didn't even get a chance to post a blog entry!! We had author visits and it was Red Ribbon week here at school, and my hubby and I moved into a new house, and our 12 year old dog had a flipped stomach . Overall, it was quite a week!!
Our authors were brought to us by our Partners in ED, CobbEMC and Gas South. We are very thankful for the chance to meet and listen to real authors talk about the importance of writing and reading and to hear their stories (and songs)! Gail Karwoski got to meet with our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Hearing about the research she had to do and the primary resources she used helped us understand why we go through the process. Plus, we saw how all that hard work made her writing so much better. Her books haven't stayed on the shelf since she left!! Chris Rumble visited with our Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders. They were so engaged and involved in his whole presentation. It helps that he sings fun songs about reading. He obviously loves what he does, and everyone he does it for!! Thanks again Cobb EMC and Gas South! What a fabulous treat!! My hubby and I have sold our big family home to buy a small, old, sweet house to make into our home! I have always wanted an old house to renovate and fix up and I have finally gotten just that! I will post pictures as we take on this labor of love!! And last, but not least, my poor sweet pup Coby. I will start with he is fine now. But we had a scare that he might not make it. Thursday morning, he started acting very strange so we took him to the vet. They realized his stomach was flipping and scheduled surgery. Luckily, after a few hours of rest and antibiotics everything went back to normal on its own. Never a dull moment!! Keep reading!! Being responsible digital citizens is more important than ever! So much of our lives depend on the internet. Everyone uses it. We can do almost everything through it. Teaching our children how to safely navigate the internet is one of our most important jobs. Also teaching them how to act and use it responsibly is just as important.
This week we are using the fun and interactive Nearpod to practice some of those necessary skills. We are learning what is private information and what is OK to share. We are learning to always have an adult fill in registrations if we need them for websites. We are also learning how to create safe and effective usernames. Older students are thinking about cyber bullying. We are learning what to do if someone is being mean to us on the internet and how to be sure we are not being mean to others on the internet. The weather is cooling down a bit, the holidays are coming and school seems to be a good flow. I always like when this time of year comes along to start thinking about fun stories and activities we will do throughout the holiday season. I work hard to stay connected tot he curriculum being taught in the classroom to make my lessons meaningful for everyone, but sometimes you just ave to have a little fun!! :) This week we are plying with QR codes!! I love to use QR codes in my lessons because the kids are always 100% engaged and it lets the teachers see how fun and easy QR codes can be!! Our Kindergarten friends listened to the story Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. After listening to the story, we scanned QR codes to find numbers 1 through 10 and then colored in that many spots on a tens frame. They did awesome and had so much fun while doing it! This great tool is available from Recipe for Teaching on TPT. First graders did a phonic lesson with the QR codes. We read the story Sheep in a Shop by Nancy Shaw. We listened to the sh sound (and rhyming words as a bonus). After the story, we scanned QR codes to match the picture to the sh sound word. I found this on TPT by The Class Couple.
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Mrs. PszczolaI have wanted to be a teacher since I was in 2nd grade, but I have always loved visiting the library. After teaching for 11 years, it was time to follow my heart- straight to the library! I love books!! I read as often as I can, all kinds of books. One of my proudest accomplishments is raising four amazing, book loving children. Archives
August 2019
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