Happy Friday!!!

WOW...what a week! You all have sent the most well-mannered, delightful children...and I cannot begin to thank you!! I know many of you are thinking, "Is she talking about MY kid?" I am. My 21 students are fantastic...they're good listeners, excellent discussion participants, and overall awesome kids!! I'm really excited about the upcoming year! I have so much to share, so let me get started.

SOARING WITH PRIDE
This is the theme for our positive behavior support system at Urbana. The students have reveiwed the expectations and have been informed how they will be rewarded (classroom stickers and star student stickers) and how they will be reminded/what consequences they will face if those expectations are not met. "Think Sheets" are one of the ways we're asking kids to think about their actions. A think sheet is given after a warning...a silent warning. In my classroom that silent warning is a "Thinkman" card...this is a picture of the same "man" that is on the Think Sheet...it is supposed to warn the student that "I've asked you to stop that behavior and now I'm leaning toward giving you a Think Sheet." (I will go over this more at BTSN.) Anyway...I'm happy to report that I didn't have to use ANY "Thinkman" cards this week!! This positive behavior support will bring consistency throughout our school...our entire staff is involved and we like what we've seen the first week!

Math
In Math this week we've been focusing on numeration and place value. We've been working on "really big numbers" and using many different ways to manipulate these numbers. The students have worked with a place value chart, had to read numbers aloud, shown their ability to write the numbers in expanded form, composed and decomposed the numbers, and put large numbers on a "human" number line. The kids also took a Quarterly pretest this week. The results of this test help me to structure the lessons and groupings for each concept in math. I will be scoring them this weekend and will spend the remainder of Quarter One covering fourth grade indicators and extending/enriching when appropriate.

Writing
I am so excited about writing this year. I was a participant in the Maryland Writing Project through Towson University this summer and I have SOOOO many wonderful things to share with the kids to help develop a love of writing (or in some cases in this class, support the love that already exists!) The kids spent all week making different types of entries into their "Writer's Notebooks." The concept behind this notebook is to give the kids a place to store their IDEAS...which happens to be the first writing trait we are focusing on. We are having so much fun putting different topics, lists, and memories into it! Some kids are writing full blown novels already!! Now that we have these notebooks set up, they are one of a few choices that kids have when they finish their classwork. Many kids are dying to take them home and work on them...I am allowing that...BUT please refrain from helping them "improve" their pieces. These pieces will be taken through all steps of the writing process and need to be their own work! Trust me, I know how hard it is to not help...but try not to, please!

Language Arts
I read a book this week called By My Brother's Side. It was a story written by Tiki and Ronde Barber and is about when they were young. It's a wonderful story that Mrs. Wright, our media specialist, recommended...we used it to discuss the Pillars of Character that our school recognizes: citizenship, caring, responsibility, respect, fairness, and trustworthiness. The kids worked cooperatively to define these six pillars, and then after the story, illustrated a pillar and defined it in their own words. They did a nice job. Next week we will dive into unit one which deals with reading strategies. We will be responding to literature and having class discussions... it's a great unit!

Social Studies
This week we focused on communities and being good citizens...the curiculum suggests we touch on this later in the year, but it seemed so timely as we worked on classroom rules and our behavior system. We have 21 FINE citizens in our community of learning and I'm proud to spend my days with them!

Miscellaneous...
Ok, so the good news is...I have SO many pictures to share with you!! The bad news is...last year I had a computer that the memory card fit right into the computer...this year, not so much. SOOOO...I will post pictures later this weekend when I can plug the card right into my computer. Gives you something to look forward to!

I hope you all have a great weekend with your families. My family is going to the Nationals/Cardinals game this weekend and we're very excited. It will be my first time at a Nationals game! It looks to be great weather, so enjoy the outdoors, and again, thanks for sending me such amazing kids...can't wait to see them Monday!