The Students Are Here!

Well, yesterday the students started in our class...and we were so excited to get started!  We have such a wonderful group of students to work with this year and we are looking forward to all the fun we are going to have while learning this year!

Today we review addition sentences.  The students played a fun game called "Insect Addition," where they had to draw cards to determine their addends (the two numbers they were adding together) and then they counted to find the sum.  We were pleased with how much they remembered from last year!

More Insect Addition!

Anastasia was the first student who got to try out the Ipods this year.  She did a great job practicing addition facts!

Carson earned the chance to wear our "Smart Beads" today!  Whenever the students demonstrate good thinking skills, they get a chance to wear the Smart Beads.  Carson earned his for telling his classmates all about characters in stories.  Way to go, Carson!  We are proud of you!

Our math center is starting to take shape!  Here you can see our anchor chart for addition.  This is displayed in the room so that we can refer to it during our chapter of study and during center activities.

This is how our reading center turned out.  We just love it!  We still have a moon chair to add and we are on the lookout for a bright red rug to really make the area seem finished.  We think the students are going to really enjoy reading in this area!

Our math word wall is finished and we added two words to it today!  It was exciting!

Reading word wall is all finished too...and we added 3 words to it today!

The students are working in teams this year.  We have added buckets for each team that have supplies that they might need (pencils, highlighters, glue sticks, scissors, etc.) so that they can work efficiently and no time is wasted searching for materials.  Another timesaver are the baskets at the end of the tables. They store our dry erase boards and our clipboards so that they are within easy reach any time we need them. 

We have had a good few days...keep checking back to see what we are up to!  Feel free to leave comments if you like...we love to know who is checking in on us! :)

We Are Almost Ready!

Mrs. Head, Mrs. Shepherd, and I have been busy getting the classroom ready for students.  We have shown you our before pictures, and today you get to see our "almost finished" pictures! We are so excited about our Raider themed room!  Who wouldn't be filled with Raider Pride when surrounded by all of this red, white, and blue?  We still need to add some things, but we couldn't wait any longer to show you what we have done!

These are going to be our small group tables.  We have baskets at each table that are filled with all of the things we will need while working.  This should help us to be organized and make the most of our group work time.

This is going to be our math center.  Students will work here with a partner to complete either review or current math activities.  We will have an anchor chart that will have great information about the topic we are studying and we will also display which common core standards we are working on at the time.  It should be a great addition to the classroom!

This is going to be our reading word wall.  Isn't it just the cutest?  As we learn new high frequency sight words we will add them to the ribbon so that we can use them as a reference.  Mrs. Shepherd worked really hard on this...now we just have to get to Wal Mart to get a few more rolls of ribbon so we can finish u, v, and w!

This is our mailbox/laptop center.  We just love it!  Students will have red and blue folders and they will go in the coordinating baskets each morning and they will put their mail inside before leaving for the day.

This is going to be our language center where students will be working on spelling activities, as well as writing activities.

Here you see our math word wall board.  As we learn new math vocabulary words we will add them to our word wall.  This will help us to remember them and we can refer back to terms when we need to.

We want to thank all of you who were able to stop in and see our classroom during open house.  If you didn't make it in, now you can see what the room will look like.  I will try to post one more set of pictures when it is all the way finished!

Our Classroom - Before

Well, we officially got busy on decorating, organizing, and planning our classroom.  We can't wait for our little Raider friends to see how it looks when it is all done!  Here is what we started with...a completely blank slate.  Our goal is to create a visually pleasing room that will allow our students to be calm, focused, and efficient during their time with us.  We hope to have everything organized so that no time is wasted during our day.  We want to spend every moment with our little friends engaged in learning!  Can you tell we are excited?!?  Check back in a day or two to see the "After" pictures!  :)

The view from my desk looking toward Mrs. Head's desk. (Nevermind my purse and coffee...lol!)

View from the back of the room looking toward the whiteboard, and what will be our meeting area.

Our bookshelves and what will eventually be our math word wall. :)  The area behind Mrs. Head's desk is going to be a super cute, comfy reading center.

This wall has two bulletin boards.  The one on the left (just behind my desk) will be a math center.  The board on the right will be our language/literacy center.  Our students are going to have so much fun learning this year!  Just wait until you see the "After!"  We hope you will love it as much as we do!! :)

Here We Come!

Hello Raider Friends!  Mrs. Head, Mrs. Shepherd and myself are getting SO excited for the 2012-2013 school year!  We are going to have lots of fun learning and growing together.  We have some great ideas for fun learning projects this year.  We are busy making plans and decorating the room for the new school year.  I will be posting pictures soon...I think you will LOVE our new Raider themed room...lots of red, white, and blue to show our "Raider Pride!"  Please keep visiting back and checking in on us....we can't wait! :)

Love,
Mrs. Berry <3

Surveys

Today the first and second graders conducted surveys to determine their classmates' favorite bugs.  We have been practicing how to conduct surveys for a few weeks, and this has been their best performance so far!  It was really fun for them to walk around with their clipboards in hand and collect data.  They also got some good practice with communications kills because, of course, in order to collect data, you have to talk to your friends (I know, sounds easy...but it is a hard skill for young children!).  What a fun experience!

Game Day!

Mrs. Moran's class came today to have our annual "Game Day."  Each year Mrs. Moran's fourth through sixth grade students plan, design, and create a game based on their interests.  Once the games are completed, the class chooses a day to come to our room and try out their games with our students.  All of them just LOVE it!  We really enjoy seeing some of our former students return and show off all of the skills they have learned.  What a great time we had!

Sidewalk Fun!

Well, we are certainly close to the end of the year, and that means that the students are getting excited to be finished.  We have really had to be creative to keep their little minds attentive!  We needed to practice our welded sounds, but wanted to do something fun so that the kids would be engaged in the learning.  What better way to hook students than to use sidewalk chalk?!?  That is just what we did...and the students LOVED it!  We will definitely be doing that more next year!

Bar Graphs

We have been graphing like crazy with the first and second graders!  Last week we graphed crayons.  The students were placed in two groups and had to work together to sort and graph their data using a bar graph.  They really enjoyed working together and they did a fantastic job completing their bar graphs.  After they had completed the graphs, they had to answer questions about their graphs by interpreting the data they had collected and recorded.  It was a great opportunity for learning!