Please forgive my tardiness...

I have to say...I think I have a lot of nerve using those words with you all!! Those are the EXACT words I DON'T want to hear from your kids, yet they were the first words out of my mouth!! ;-)

I do apologize for just getting to you now, but I wanted to do this post justice, and I have literally been on a baseball field the entire weekend!! Both of my boys were in the Essex Labor Day tournament this weekend, and I have to be back on the field at NINE am tomorrow morning for one of Connor's games.

Anyway...I know you did not check out the blog to read about mine or my children's weekends...so let me tell you about YOUR kids!!

WOW...what a week! You all have sent wonderful, delightful children to me...and I cannot begin to thank you!! I know many of you are thinking, "Is she talking about MY kid?" I am. My 28 students are fantastic...they're good listeners, excellent discussion participants, and overall awesome kids!!

SOARING WITH PRIDE
This is the theme for our positive behavior support system at Urbana . The students have reviewed 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.) 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 back!

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 found "really big numbers" of their own!! 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. 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. 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 past week we focused on maps and globes. This coming week we will be focusing more on grid systems and how they're used, maps of our state, and how important it is to be neat and correct when mapping!!

I have quite a few pictures to share with you from this past week...I will get them uploaded tomorrow when I return from Essex. I really need to hit the hay now.

I can't reiterate enough...thanks for sending me kids who are ready to dive in and get busy...we're going to have a great year!