Fun Friday!

It was a great day today! After special, we had an Arrow Team meeting and I enjoyed having all the kiddos together to get one message and just to be a solid TEAM. Then, in Fish In a Tree, Ally and Keisha became friends and are beginning to get to know each other better. Ally also completed her homework and was truthful with her teacher that it was hard and she spent a lot of time trying to do her best work. We read independently and/or wrote in our Writer's Notebook. Continuing our work as scientists, we practiced observing and recording notes about our paper airplanes. Oh and we had our first fire drill and received our first potato head piece for an AWESOME drill! :) In math workshop today, after a number talk, we had some fun with trying to pic out which number didn't belong on "Which one doesn't belong?" (http://wodb.ca/numbers.html)  Then, we worked on our perseverance with figuring out how much it costs for kids to get all of their back to school gear and how long it would take to make the money if we made minimum wage. After lunch and recess, we only had a few minutes of quiet time before packing up and heading outside for a really fun game of Hip Hoop Showdown inspired by the viral video: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ftw/2018/08/15/viral-video-of-kids-playing-hopscotch-game-with-a-twist-is-surprisingly-thrilling/111239290/

Here are some pics of us having a blast! (Check out Twitter and Facebook for the videos!)

iPads!

Yay! We finally ALL have our iPads! After lunch, the students that hadn't received theirs yet, were able to get theirs all set up with Mrs. Schultz!

After special, in Fish In a Tree, Ally learned a valuable life lesson about not going with the group if it is something that isn't right. Ally's class also received writing journals and that was cool because we started writing in our writer's notebooks today! This notebook is a place to write without boundaries (mostly) and without being graded. It's a place to collect ideas and put pencil to paper. We also read independently which might be this class' favorite thing to do. :) We continued looking at ourselves as scientists with paper airplanes today. We also did some paper folding for math and discussed that it's not always the answer that is important and that math is not a race! Most mathematicians are actually slow because they are questioning and thinking deeply.

iPads?

Well, most of us received our iPads today and got them set up. However, a few 4th graders did not as they had never been delivered to Tharp from their elementary and Mrs. Schultz hadn't realized it until we tried handing them out. She was going to contact all of the elementaries and get them to us ASAP! The students that didn't receive theirs were bummed but handled themselves very nicely. :)

While the opposite grade was setting up their iPads, the others took their first math unit pre-test. This is our first look into our students as mathematicians. The first units on whole numbers and operations will most likely take just a short amount of time to make sure they know the depth of the concepts, can think abstractly about the topics and can attend to precision when completing procedural computation (+, -, x, /). After we got all of the kiddos back together, we read a bit from Fish In a Tree. Ally has a new teacher and he seems to be set on personalizing their learning. I can't wait to see what he discovers and how Ally changes. Then, we discussed our "why." We can all do the what but the why is what makes it important and special. From our "why," we picked our one word. This one word is going to remind us each day of our why so that we stay focused on the importance of what we are doing. Some words were: success, focus, grow, challenge, fit... After lunch, recess and quiet time, we read one of my favorite books, Black Dog. It was about a black dog but it was really a symbol for something bigger. Next, we talked about why dogs bark and when and that some dogs bark more than others. Finally, we watched a video that compares our brains to a barking dog and how we need to calm and connect with our "barking dog" before we can solve the problems that set our barking dog off. Check out the video here: https://vimeo.com/109042767.

Lockers...

Students are getting more proficient at opening their lockers! Now we need to work on becoming efficient with bringing everything we need into class from our lockers...they are using their locker like their book bag and keep wanting to go grab this or that...I even put post-it notes on each locker reminding them what to bring in this morning. Starting tomorrow, if they forget something, they don't get to go back to get it.

Once we finally got ourselves settled in, after special, we read more Fish In a Tree. We met Ally's mom and brother and learned that her father is deployed and her grandfather recently passed away. Ally can't read and the kids at school are not nice to her because of her. Her mom and teachers think she's just being a behavior issue because she does a pretty good job of hiding her reading problems. After read aloud, we read independently and then in order to get writing more, we followed the prompt: Imagine a local newspaper reporter wants to know about your favorite school event (or create one you would like to do). Write to describe the event and explain why it is your favorite. Then, we read the book, Ada Twist, Scientist, as we learn to be scientists, and completed a Mystery Science lab about how the brain works. In Math, we filled in the multiplication chart using 3 different colors--each one stood for 2 minutes. We could see how well we know our facts. Then, we watched another mindset video about how we need to do brain crossing activities in math between numbers and pictures so we tried to find some visuals for the facts we don't know. After lunch and another sweltering recess, we took some time to cool and calm ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon. In our meeting, we shared how we like to best cool off and then played, "Just like me!" Finally, we finished our day by trying to complete the "Can you zooley?" activity we began yesterday. (There are a lot of kiddos that were lacking the perseverance to complete this activity...)

What do a rubber band and your brain have in common?

This was something that we discovered today so hopefully your kiddo can tell you!

After special, we began Fish In a Tree for read aloud. So far, we have discovered that the main character, Ally, struggles with reading and writing. Some students hypothesized that she has a disability or dyslexia. We all agree that she is super smart and has deep thinking skills but that there is something missing that even she doesn't understand. We read independently and then wrote a little about our strengths and weaknesses, successes and struggles as learners. We also got conversation notebooks today! Next, in math, we read Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain and then practiced stretching our brains with a prison escape problem. We also watched a little video on mindset and how we are ALL "math people." We also discussed what math is and marked where we feel we are on a continuum of our feeling toward math. 

It was a hot one at recess today! After some quiet time and cooling off, we had meeting where we shared our favorite food and read, What if...? about creativity and imagination and then worked to complete the "Can you Zooley?" activity. (I don't think anyone finished...)

Mingling

We mingled among all the Arrow classrooms today to get a better feel for each teacher and space. It was cool getting to know EVERYONE! Ask your kiddo what they did in Mrs.Tanner's room, Mrs. Kelly's room and Mr. Smith's room. In my room, we read, School's First Day of School and made time capsules to be opened when they leave Arrow. After lunch and recess, we completed a Marshmallow Stem challenge! Short and sweet!

Much smoother...

Today went much smoother in getting the students to and from school! We are understanding our lockers and getting to know each other better. :)

We made it to special today! Did your kiddo have Art, Music or Gym? What did they do? When we all returned to the room, we finished up our Autograph activity. We are trying to make sure we learn each person's name. (Yesterday, it was more of him or her.) We read, Alma and How She Got Her Name and then discussed how some of us came to have the names we have. Our cultures play a large role in our names--great conversation! Next, we practiced/learned the names of adults at our building with an, "I have, who has?" game. We also got clock partners and practiced asking each other our names and spelling them. After a quick break, we got a little more familiar with our classroom orientation and then began to set up our binder. The binder should go back and forth to school daily. Next, in math, we made circle graphs of our daily life. These turned out really cool! After lunch and recess, we had a little bit of quiet time to center ourselves and prepare for the afternoon. Then, we read, Do Unto Otters about manners and treating others the way we would like to be treated. Next, we looked in ourselves to find things we do that may bother others and using the cartoon below as inspiration, completed some perspective drawings as to how others might perceive these behaviors. Finally, we completed a chart listing the qualities of a great classmate: what they are, say, do and do not.

First Day!

We made it! It was a little dicey at dismissal but we made it through our first day of Arrow!

Our day began with trying our lockers and meeting our specials area teachers. Our kiddos coming on the shuttle from Station didn't arrive until about 8:20 so instead of going down to special, the teachers came down and introduced themselves. We will go to special tomorrow though! I read the book, Welcome by Mo Willems and then we went down for an assembly. Here, Mrs. Rardon and Mr. Snyder welcomed everyone to Tharp and shared some information about our year, with us. Afterward, we came back to the room and completed a few activities about ourselves. We completed a name glyph and a back to school survey but what you may be hearing most about was the play-doh. :) Instead of sharing about our summer and such in the typical verbal way, we created designs to share using play-doh! (We also got to keep our dough!) To familiarize ourselves (me included) with the building, we did a scavenger hunt around the building following clues. When we all returned to the classroom, we still needed to share some details about ourselves so we did this using numbers. Fun! Finally, it was lunchtime! Lunch was great and the highlight of some of our kiddos' days. After lunch and recess, we came back for a class meeting where we shared one thing we enjoyed about our first day and then played, "Who remembers...?" with this information. Finally, we wrote down what we want our classroom to be like.

Phew! We did a lot today! Be sure to check out our class Twitter (@Arrow2131) and Facebook for pictures! **I sent home a blue brochure with lots of information--please look it over and let me know if you have any questions!