July/August
This page contains the pictures of the things we did in our classroom and around the school during the months of July and August. We started school Monday, July, 21, 2008. Yes we started in July!
The First Week of School
The students sat on the rug and played with linking cubes while I talked with parents, took up school supplies, and all of that other fun morning stuff on the first day of school.
This picture was made when we were getting ready to leave school on the first day of school. I was so busy that entire day that I forgot to take a picture of my students until they were lined up and ready to leave school that afternoon.
On the first day of school we talked about how everyone is alike and different. We read a book that told us that it was okay to be different. Afterwards we drew pictures of our faces on paper plates and tried to color them like our skin tones as best we could. We used yarn for the hair. We put long strings of yarn on the girls and short strings of yarn on the boys. I put them up on the bulletin board outside of our classroom door.
Mrs. Ragan is helping us learn how to write our names on primary writing paper. We learned what the sky, fence, and ground were and what letters started and ended in each place on the writing paper.
We talked about school buses and then we made our own school buses. I copied the school bus out of the Activities for All Seasons TLC book on yellow cardstock. The students colored the wheels of the bus black and cut the bus out. We helped the students glue their buses on light blue construction paper and hung them out in the hall. Next year I think I will go ahead and cut out the buses in advance since it did take a long time to complete.
This is the picture of how the school buses looked once I hung them out in the hall. They turned out rather nice. The students did a wonderful job coloring the tires and cutting the buses out.
On the second day of school the secretary called me to the front office to get something. When I went up there I saw the pretty flowers. She gave them to me and I thought who sent me flowers. I opened the card and read it and they were from my Sunday School class. I really needed those since I was so tired and stressed out and on top of everything else Brutus, my beloved Labrador passed away Sunday morning, July 20 in his sleep. That was so sad to have to start a school year off with Brutus dying. It was a joy to see the flowers. Thank you Junior Outlaws.
Mrs. Williamson, the kindergarten special education teacher is reading the students a funny story called Amelia Bedelia Goes Back to School. The students thought the story was funny and Amelia Bedelia was a little crazy.
Here a student is feeding his writing paper to Freddy Frog. Freddy likes to eat students' writing. His favorite kind of paper is that light tan kind. If you write to Freddy you must put your name on the paper so he will know whose paper he is eating. He does not like grown ups' writing. He only eats children's writing. The students love to practice writing words and sentences and feed them to Freddy every day during writing time.
Here is a picture of the class sitting on the blenchers in the gym during a school wide celebration. Our school made AYP for 10 Consecutive Years! We had a big celebration Friday, July 25 that morning in the gym.
We had a dance that afternoon as part of our big partying. We partied all day long.
After all of the partying the students were treated to pop sickles from Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Johnson. The pop sickles were cool and refreshing.
The Second Week of School
We learned the letter A. On Friday the students made an apple since apple begins with the letter a. I found the apple pattern in the TLC Alphabet book. I love TLC activities. I had the patterns copied onto colored paper and cut them out ahead of time. The students glued the patterns on top of each other. It was a good following directions activity.
After gluing the pieces on construction paper to make the apple the students' fingers were all sticky. They all rubbed their fingers and said /i/ /i/ like the short i said when he touched the sticky door.
This is how the apple looked once it was completed. The apple is my favorite of all the TLC alphabet art projects.
Once the apples dried I hung them out in the hallway by our classroom. The apples looked beautiful hanging out there. Everyone who walks by comments on the apples. I think I will keep them up all year.
Mrs. Williamson is teaching a group of students the numbers 0-2 during small group math instruction. The students had to count out objects in a small bucket. That helped them understand how many 0,1, and 2 represent.
Afterwards the students took turns writing the numbers 0-2 on a dry erase book. Mrs. Williamson also taught the students some rhymes to help them remember how to write each number. She is so creative!
The Third Week of School
The students learned about shapes in math. During small group math instruction the students stamped shapes on paper at my table. While we waited for the papers to dry we discussed the number of sides each shape had and if the shapes had straight or curved sides.
The students love the sing the song and read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? every day. The book helps them learn their colors and color words.
On Friday the power went out and stayed out about thirty minutes in the entire school. The students all panicked but they felt much better when they were able to see Belle the gerbil while the lights were out. I brought my pet exotic to school for the students to see her and so she could see the classroom and meet the students.
A student brought a book from home that was about the Berenstein Bears and the letter A. I read the book to the class and we all recited the words that began with the letter a that the ants crawled on in the story.
The students had fun watching Belle play with and eat a toilet paper roll.
Some of the students wanted a closer look at Belle and to see what she does in her cage all day long.
The Fourth Week of School
Here the students are busy writing away in their journals. They practice writing their name, the date, and one sentence a day in their journals during writer's workshop. They write on one page in their primary writing journals each day. When they finish writing they can draw a picture at the top of the page that goes along with their sentence.
Some of these students are finishing up their work and looking back over it to see how their sentence sounds and looks. They learn how to check their writing to see if it needs any corrections. When they have finished they raise their hand and a teacher comes around to put a pink check mark on their page.
The students are lying on their towels during rest time. They were tired from activities we did all day. I kept them busy doing work.
Ms. Rice had to dress like a ballerina pig for the AR program on Friday, August 15, 2008. Some of the teachers dressed like the characters from the AR books. I dressed as the pig in the book I Like Me!. Here Mrs. Ragan is helping me get my pig ears and pig nose on while I am applying some make up. A student thought it would be cute if she took a picture of it. The students were watching.
Here I am all dressed in my ballerina suit with make up on and the pig ears and nose.
The students thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Here they are falling out of their chairs laughing at me.
I had to bourr'ee up to the microphone and the students had to guess which character I was. Then I introduced the book and explained why they should read it. One of my students carried the book and poster for me. After I explained about the book I did a ballet dance for everyone. If I would have known that was going to have to speak into the microphone I would not have done it. Dancing is fun and relaxing but talking on a microphone is stressful since I am very shy.
The 5th Week of School
The students are learning about rhyming words. The best way to teach rhyming words is to read books and poems with lots of rhyming words in them. Here I am reading the Dr. Seuss book There's a Wocket in My Pocket. The students think that book is funny. They have memorized every word in that book. Now I just show them they pictures and they say the words on every page.
