Daily 5 Reading

What a fantastic week we had in first grade.  The kids are learning about our daily 5 reading rotations.  In my classroom, the students will go through a total of 5 reading rotations each and everyday.  The stations include read to self, listen to reading, read to someone, computer reading, work on words,  phonics, and guided reading.  Everyday I will choose one way for students to read:   listen to reading on ipods or cd players, read to self (where they read a variety of books on their individual reading level), or read to someone (where they share a book with a friend).  Also, everyday they will go to a phonics station with Mrs. Healy.  At this group, they will be learning about a variety of phonics skills from our Fundations phonics program.  Then, they will go to  guided reading with myself (Mrs. Hogan).   Your child will be with a group of 5 students reading a book at their instructional reading level.  We will use that book to work on comprehension skills.  Also, your child will rotate to our computer station.  At this station, the students will utilize the 7 computers we have in our classroom to read from a program called MobyMax.  One student that is at the computer station will get to go up and use our Promethean Interactive Board to play a reading game.  Our final rotation is work with words.  This is a station your child will go to work on their sight words.

If this sounds like a lot....it is!!!   This is why we take the first 2 full weeks learning how to go through each of these rotations.  So far, your child has learned about read to self.  They are currently trying to build their independent reading stamina to 15 minutes.  They've learned where they can sit during read to self and the three ways they can read their book (read the words, read the pictures, or retell the story).  On Friday, I introduced read to someone and we got to read to our friends for 4 minutes.  We will work on building our stamina during read to someone too so that we can read with our friends for 15 minutes.  Next week, we will continue working on building stamina in these two areas.  The students will also learn how to use our listen to reading area.  I'm so excited about our rotations and the kids are too.  We are all ready to get them up and running.  It is a slow process, but it is very much worth the time and effort put into getting them running.  It is very important that we use this time to teach how to work at each station so that they run smoothly.

This week, we also began using poems during shared reading to work on our reading fluency.  Reading fluency is being able to read smoothly, with few errors, and still understand what we read.  Here is a cute video of the poem we used this week Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear.

This week, we also began our writer's workshop.  The students are learning how to be an author of their own book.  The students have currently learned how think of something that has happened to them, sketch a picture, and then write words that match their pictures.  I'll write more about our writer's workshop time next week on the blog.

In social studies, the students are learning how to fill someone's bucket.  Filling a bucket is easy...when we do nice things, we make others feel nice and we make ourselves feel good too.  We talked about how sharing with our friends, helping others, playing with our friends, listening to others when they are speaking to us, and greeting others with a friendly hello are all ways we can fill someone's bucket.

This week, we also read the book David Goes to School by David Shannon.  We talked about how we can make smart choices.  The following is an anchor chart of the students ideas on how to make smart choices and be a good student.  They had some great ideas!

Thank you to everyone that has returned the forms from open house and the release forms for our website.  Below I will add some pictures from the first week of school.  Just a reminder that I will not add pictures of those students that did not return a release form.

 

Look at the PERFECT line!!!  What an OWL-some group of firsties I have!

Have a weekend!

A Great Beginning to a Great Year

First of all I'd like to say "welcome to our class blog!" We had an amazing first two days of school.  I can already tell this is going to be the sweetest little class.  The first two days we spent the majority of our class time learning the rules and many different procedures that will help our classroom run smoothly.  Thank you to everyone who brought in extra supplies or donated items from our wishlist.  Everything you do for your child is greatly appreciated!  Most of the time this blog post will be filled with pictures of our class and the activities the students have been working on.  I only post pictures of student work and the students in my class that I have permission to post.  During open house I sent home a release form for this purpose.  If you would like to see pictures of your child on this blog or our class Facebook page, you must return the release form.  I am currently going through all of the documents that were returned this week.  Once I have these release forms... get ready for picture overload!  :)  As I mentioned in my getting to know the teacher letter I love photography.  It is another passion of mine.  I love being able to show (not only tell) you what we are working on in class!  The students love being photographed too.  At the end of the year, I use these photos to create a DVD slideshow with music of our year together.  Those go home to you as well!  So if I do not have permission to photograph your child, he/she may not be on our end of the year slideshow.

I will send home a small newsletter on Fridays.  The blog will go into much more detail of the events and activities in our classroom.  I include QR codes in my newsletter that will take you directly to our class blog.  In addition, I post links to our new blog posts on our classroom Facebook page.  Our page can also be found on our district webpage.  In doing this, I hope this makes our blog easily accessible to you.

As mentioned in the classroom newsletter that went home yesterday, I do allow children to bring water bottles to school.  I ask that these easily close.  In addition, I ask that you fill them up prior to your child coming to school.  It is also nice to have the water bottles that do not sweat.  This will ensure that our desks and student work do not get wet.

I'll leave you with my first day of school picture with my very own first grader.  Next week, after I receive all of our release forms I hope to add some pictures of our class work and the students.   I hope you all have a blessed weekend.  I look forward to another amazing week next week!

Mrs. Hogan and her first grader daughter, Lily, on the first day of the 2015-2016 school year.

Welcome to First Grade Class of 2027

 Welcome to first grade!  I hope you all had a fabulous summer!  I spent my summer hanging out with my three beautiful daughters, reading lots of books (both children's literature and books for me!), we spent tons of time at the pool, went on a trip to Mexico, and had lots of fun outside and inside just enjoying each others' company.  The school year is upon us and while I'm sad that the long days of summer have come to an end, I'm also super excited about the coming school year.  This year will be extra special as my own daughter is officially a first grader.   Although she won't be spending her day in my room, it will be very special being able to catch glimpses of her at recess and lunch and all the other times in between.

I hope you all received your welcome letters from me in the mail.  If not, I'll tell you a little about me here.  I am in my tenth year of teaching first grade (wow!) at CES.  I was raised in California my whole life and graduated from CHS in 2001.  I then graduated Summa Cum Laude from The University of Central Missouri with my Bachelors in Elementary Education.   I became a first grade teacher at CES and then went back to school and got my Masters from Southeast Missouri State University in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages).  I am married to my college sweetheart, Kelly.  We have three amazingly beautiful and bright little girls, Lily, Elly, and Karly.  In my free time I enjoy spending time with my family.  I also enjoy photography, reading, and walking.

It is my goal to create a warming and welcoming environment for my students. I hope my classroom is an extension of home and that my firsties love stepping into our room everyday.   It is also my mission to instill a love of reading and learning in all of my students.  I strive to make learning fun and enjoyable.  I strive to differentiate all of my lessons based on each child's individual academic needs.  I promise to give 120% of myself all of the time.  I love my job and my students truly are an extension of my "family."  It is with great pleasure that I will be serving you this school year.

Welcome to first grade...it's going to be AWESOME!

My beautiful family.

Our welcome bulletin board.  Who's in our class?

Our classroom meeting area.  We work a lot on our Interactive Promethean board.  We will also have 7 computers in our class and ipods in our listening center.  Mrs. Hogan loves technology!

An overview of our classroom.  

This is our guided reading table. I have baskets out ready for open house.  :)

Reading is at the heart of my first grade classroom.  

Classroom "interests" library.  I'm missing a few labels for my baskets.  Don't worry, they'll be there by open house. :)

Good fit portion of our classroom library.  You can see our listening center off to the left.  I forgot to take an official picture of it.

You might be wondering why we have a bathtub in the middle of our room.  This is our reading tub.  The bean bags are just stored in there during the day when we aren't using it.  The kids get to choose their own places to read during reader's workshop.  The tub is a popular spot.  The bean bags are also very popular.  :)

Our classroom jobs board.  Every child will have a job!

Number frames for reference.

Retell rope

Our CAFE reading strategies board and Daily 5 Reading and Math rotation charts.

Word Wall.  The words will be added as we learn them.

We will be using a lot of whole brain teaching techniques this year.  These are the rules of whole brain teaching.

Touchpoints for math.

Calming buddy

Calming safe seat.  Students can come here when they need to calm down.

Classroom hallway.  Yes...we have a little hallway in our room.  These two doors enter into a closet and our own little bathroom!

Classroom coat/book bag closet.

Just a little class decor.