Back To School

This week in Miss Stetson’s Classroom

We are back! This week our classroom had a hard time waking up from our 2-week vacation.  I must say even I was super sleepy coming back. I even had a moment this week I walked to the office and stood wondering why I even went to the office. I figured it out finally. It was for an envelope. =)

This week the kiddos were introduced to the PARCC. Words cannot describe the look on their face (even mine for that fact). They huffed and puffed for a few minutes, but when we started talking about the strategies we use in reading class will help us. They felt better, but boy was it tough.

I realized quickly that we would be learning direction words. I had the students make some kid friend definitions of the direction words they saw. These words included two scary words: essay and excerpt. They came up with these definitions:

Excerpt – came out of a book

Essay - writing information about a topic

Our class motto about PARCC- “ It is going to be ok”

In math we continued to review fractions. We are working on fractions on the number line. We will continue to work on this next week. They were super excited that we also began our multiplication facts.  We only learned factors 1 & 0 this week. I must say I believe they are excited.

I was so fortunate to have some fantastic parent volunteers to make our multiplication center run smoothly. Last weekend I was over productive and got in over my head in flash cards. I had several parents help me cut out the task cards and return them. They are now stored away until we learn the factors.

My intention for the flash cards is to differentiate where each student is. The fast fact test will match what skill they are practicing. Each deck is color-coded. The colors match the fluency test. (I admit I am still making those.) They were so excited to use the cards.

In reading I went laminate crazy and zip tie crazy. Mid week I got the urge to make flash cards of the Fry Phrases. My classroom-reading group is working on fluency to help their reading comprehension. They were super excited to flip through these and compete with themselves. They were all smiles.

Next week, I hope to have a few fable activities completed to close this unit. I also hope to get caught up in math.  I also hope to be better with my resolution of grading papers. I completely failed this week getting things back early.  I introduced cursive this week and plan on making sure I keep up with this at least 2- 3 times a week.

I am so happy to be back to school.    It is nice to see their smiling faces everyday. They do bring much joy.

Love,

Miss Stetson