We had a busy morning!  We started with a picture talk.  I shared five photos with the students and asked them how they go together.  The children talked to their partners and we added some words to the pictures to help find how the photos are connected.  The children are really getting good at talking to their partners, listening to others and making some guesses.  We are still getting a little bit of repetition, but I think reminding them that we are all learning together has given them more confidence to share even when they are not sure they are correct.  The connection all five pictures has is the five senses, and tomorrow we will begin a new unit in CKLA about the five senses.  This is a shorter unit which will be just a little more than a couple weeks.
We had a bus evacuation drill this morning.  The children were shown how to get off the bus through the back door if necessary.  Ask me to tell you what we need to do if we can't go through the front door.

We took a comprehension and rhyming test today.  The children had to remember details about the nursery rhymes, vocabulary and fables to answer the questions.  From what I have seen so far, the children did pretty well.  These scores will be submitted to the county to be used in evaluating this new program.  Other tests in the future may be used as evidence of learning.  We took it slow today, and I did a little coaching of what they would need to think about as I asked the questions.  The biggest problem we have is children copying from other children.  I spread them out but they still were looking at other students' papers.  So together, we ordered some cardboard dividers we will use in the future.  This is just one way we are evaluating the students' progress.
We started a new unit in CKLA Skills today.  We are now working with sounds.  We worked with the m sound today, /m/.  We used mirrors to see what our mouth was doing, and talked about what our teeth, tongue and lips were doing to make the sound.  We also put our hand on our throat to feel the vibration when they make the sound of m.
We met our Bear Buddies this afternoon.  The children in Mrs. Ukhoa's class in third grade are our buddies.  The purpose of today was to meet our buddy and get to know them.  We also made pumpkins with them.  We thought about questions we could ask our buddies, but we really had such a short period of time to make the pumpkin and get all the buddies together that I doubt there was much talking going on.  Ask me to tell you who my Bear Buddy is.  Some kids have two due to our class size being smaller than third grade.

Have a great evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We had a quick SEL lesson Thursday about self-control.  We read the story Oh No, George!  This is one of my favorite stories because George is a dog who sturggles with self-control.  Ask me to tell you about the events in the story that showed George had some trouble with self-control.  I hoped to follow up the story with a quick activity that called on children to sit without moving toward or popping bubbles I was spraying across the group.  I had my wand ready, it was lighting up and the fan blowing, but no bubbles would come out.  I took the advice of the children to bang it on my desk, but that still didn't work!  We'll try it some other tiem, but the important part was that the children enjoyed the story and did a great job retelling the events in the story.  We are working on trying to remember the events in order and this book was a good length to practice that!  Here's a little trailer about this great book so you can see how lovable George looks!

We also worked on understanding the word boast better.  We don't hear that word as much these days, but we do hear brag, so we went more in-depth with bragging and/or boasting.  We read a book called I'm the Best, by Lucy Cousins.  This book is about a dog who brags to his animal friends that he is better than they are at different things.  Ask me to tell you about what the dog thought he was the best at in the middle of the story. 

We are working hard in math to count accurately.  We are trying to overcome the need to be first, or to count the fastest, because that is when some of the children make mistakes.  We are working with different strategies to be more consistent and accurate.  
Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

We started our week looking at this Homer Winslow painting.  We were looking for weather clues in the painting.  Ask me to tell you what I noticed.
Monday we also worked with listening and identifying beginning sounds.  We read a great book called Woodpecker Wants a Waffle by Steve Breen.  This is the story of a woodpecker who smells waffles being made at a new restaurant near the forest.  He tries several times to get into the restaurant to get a taste of waffles, but he is caught and thrown out every time.  Finally he comes up with a plan that works.  Ask me to tell you what the woodpecker did to get into the restaurant.  The other animals tell woodpecker that woodpeckers don't eat waffles, and continued to come up with their own example.  Lizards don't eat lasagna, bears don't eat bagels, and on and on.  I gave the students the food and they tried to remember the animal who said they didn't eat that.  We had a fun time remembering all the animals and the food they wouldn't eat.
We also worked with learning about the DeBug strategies we can use for kid-size problems.  First, the children think to be sure the problem is a kid-size problem or if they should immediately get adult help.  I am very clear about children getting help when they need it, even if it is a kid-size problem until they learn to use the strategies.  Then we talked about ignoring the behavior.  The next thing they can try is to move away from the person who is bugging them.  We talked about times this was possible, and times it was not possible so they should move on to another strategy.  We will continue to work through each step, and when we finish the children will bring home a little booklet with the strategies and examples.
Today we learned the Pledge of Allegiance.  We went through each step and talked about the big words that were in the pledge.  Children can say the pledge if they want to in the morning with the announcements.  Ask me to tell you what a pledge is and to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  They might need a little help with this!  We also took a quick trip to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World to watch part of the Flag Retreat.  I wanted the children to see adults saying the pledge, but especially to see the way the flag was taken down and folded.  

Have a great evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We got off to a rough start this morning with a Shelter in Place as the children arrived.  The patrols and teachers bringing the children into the school did a great job of helping the children even though the routine was different.  Everyone was safe and once in our classroom the children followed our morning routines and enjoyed reading books with their friends.
Yesterday we welcomed a new friend into our class.  Ask me to tell you his name!
We practiced making spirals today in our skills unit.  We also continued blending three sounds to make a word.  We also had another visit from Mixed-Up Monster who changed the beginning sound of student's names, which was big fun for everyone.  
We read our second fable.  Yesterday we read the Lion and the Mouse, and today we listened to The Dog and His Reflection.  We worked to retell the beginning, middle and ending of the story.  We also worked with the word greedy.  Ask me to tell you what greedy means and how the dog was greedy in the story.
We listened to a story call Run, Little Chaski! An Inka Trail Adventure, by Mariana Llanos.  This story is about a young boy who is becoming a messenger on the Inka Trail.  The story has QUechua language, which was a challenge for me, but we made it through.  We will revisit this story and identify events in the story.  We also looked closely at the suns that were illustrated in this story.  Hopefully we will find time to make our own suns in the style of the Inkas.
We are working on writing numerals in math.  We also practiced filling in missing numbers counting forward and backward from 0 to 3.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We had a great day!  As you have probably heard by now, Bells Mill was named a National Blue Ribbon school today by Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education.  It's such a proud moment for our staff, students and community, so we were a bit distracted!  We surprised Dr. Smith with a little parade to the front hall and around the Bells Mill Bear.  The PTA got the students little blue ribbon stickers to wear, since the staff and PTA executives were given the good news on Friday.  But we did get some work done!
In reading, we read our last nursery rhyme.  We read Humpty Dumpty today and worked with comprehension, rhyming and learning this nursery rhyme.  Later, for our SEL lesson, we read After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again), by Dan Santat..  This is a really special book about getting back up after falling.

We are working hard to learn names.  Most of the children know almost everyone's name.  We have been playing Hot Potato Name Game.  As the children pass around the hot potato, they name the person next to them.  Whoever is holding the hot potato when it stops has the opportunity to name everyone in the class.  When they do, they earn a little certificate.

Just a quick update with some pictures of the wonderful assembly we had on Friday in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month.. We enjoyed music, dancing, and learning about special instruments that the musicians played.  The children were engaged the whole time and really enjoyed singing and dancing.  I was also so proud of how well they sat and listened, participated, and showed their appreciation to the performers.  

Today was such a fun day.  I did no testing!  We started our day with a short form video that is set in the beautiful Patagonia region of Argentina as part of our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.  This video is less than a minute and a half, but the story it tells is funny and a great way to practice retelling events and identifying characters.  I will let this wonderful story speak for itself.  

Ask me to tell you who the characters are in this story, and what the events are in the story.  We talked about five events in class.  We also noticed the beautiful mountains in the background, and we talked about the llama and armadillo as the characters.  We have been talking about characters and events in our reading program, so it was nice to be able to reinforce it with this great little story that gives the children a little peek into Argentina.  
In reading, we learned the nursery rhyme Diddle Diddle Dumpling, My Son John.  We talked about what stockings were a long time ago, and talked with a partner about why John might have been in bed with his clothes on.  We also talked about the word son.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We are continuing to learn more nursery rhymes.  Today we had some fun with Hickory Dickory Dock.  We took a look at a grandfather clock and the details to help understand the nursery rhyme.  We worked with rhyming words, giving a thumbs up for rhyming words and a thumbs down for words that do not rhyme. Some children get confused if two words start with the same sound instead of end with the same sound.  When they are confused, I ask or remind them that rhyming words have the same last part.  
We listened to a whole book about Hickory Dickory Dock and heard a lot of rhyming words.  We also listened to a few silly versions of Hickory Dickory Dock.
We began breaking 2 syllable words in parts.  We used hand motions of start with two fists, turning each fist over and opening the hand for each part, then clapping to put the word together.  
We also listened to a nursery rhyme from China today.  I'll post it below.  The children started singing along to it so I played it a second time.  Enjoy!

In math we worked more with hidden partners.  We looked at turning around the partners to find that they still have the same number.  So we could find 3 and 2 for 5, but also 2 and 3.  We called this turning around the partners.  We used the and to talk about putting the two parts back together and also looked at using the addition sign to put the two partners back together.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today's blog will be short because most of what we did today was try and get our MAP-P testing done.  Unfortunately, the cyberverse had different plans for us.  Children were getting suspended constantly, and to restart them, I ended up having to terminate their test.  Then it took a while for their name to repopulate on my list so I could get them back on the test.  I got each child on their Chromebook and then, after I checked that the sound was working, they were on their own.  Eleven of them were able to finish without a problem.  I had six children still working  after lunch,  but since we had tested most of the morning,  I gave them a break  They played and we had a short rhyming lesson. In the afternoon once I got the kids that needed to finish back on, we did do some work in our reading program quietly away from the testing children.  I have a hunch the problem was not a Bells Mill problem, but I problem with NWEA, the site that we test from.  I know they have had problems before at the beginning of the year.  The children did the best they could, and I was actually surprised at how well they did on the tests I could get a score off.  Some of the children clicked past the dog page so I didn't get a peek at their scores, but they will come out early tomorrow morning.  I know they next time we do this assessment it won't be as bad because it probably won't have teachers all over the U.S. accessing it at the same time.  These little kinders are real troopers!  Usually there are some children who have some problem knowing how they are to show their answers on the test because it is not the same for every question.  But these little guys figured it out!  

We were going to have a mini Dot Day, but we will have to do that tomorrow.  It will be a good reward for the children's patience today!  I even wore my dot dress, earrings and ring!  

I told the kids at the end of the day that we will put today behind and start fresh yesterday, and only one of them needs to even go near a Chromebook!

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We started our day looking at these little cuties!  One of the skills we work on during our Picture Talk time is noticing details in the pictures and photographs.  I am guiding the children to look closely at different parts of a picture, or in this case the spiders, to notice things like the segemented legs, the eyes, the colors, etc.  Giving students the time to think first helps them to prepare what they will talk to their partner/s about, a rehearsal, for then sharing with the whole group what they noticed.  These thinking and speaking skills are important in all areas of the curriculum, and it's a fun way to start our day and get our brains ready for what we will be learning.  Today, we were working with Little Miss Muffet, so this was a great opportunity to look at some unique spiders.  One of these spiders was named the cutest spider in a contest, and one was identified as an outstanding mother.  Ask me to tell you about the spiders and which one is my favorite.
We worked with the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet today in reading.  We talked about vocabulary in this rhyme before we started to help understand the rhyme.  We talked about curds and whey, which we compared to cottage cheese, and we looked at a picture of LIttle Miss Muffet and listened to the first part of the rhyme to help the children guess what the word tuffet means.  We identified the events, the things that happened, in the rhyme.  We found the rhyming words in the poem, then had a little fun making our own LIttle Miss Muffet rhyme.  We substituted words for tuffet, curds and whey, and spider.  For example, the new version might be "Little Miss Muffet, sat on a beach chair, eating a hot dog and fries.  Along came a hermit crab, and sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away!"  We didn't worry about rhyming words, we just came up with original ideas.  The children drew a picture to illustrate their Miss Muffet story.  I tested while the children worked on their own.  They are doing so well making a quick, smooth and quiet transition to their seats.  They are, for the most part, working quietly without yelling out that they are done just minutes after starting.  They know they need to work the whole time.  This helped me get more testing finished.  I still have more but should be done in the next day or two.
In math, we are working with hidden partners within numbers to five.  We practiced counting on our fingers the math way, then worked with showing numbers to five with our fingers in other ways, for example two fingers and three fingers.  We worked then with cubes to show hidden partners.  

Have a nice weekend!
​Miss Wolfe