Five for Friday

I am way behind on adding posts so I thought I'd at least hit some highlights from our week. I hope to come back and fill in more details over the weekend. A great way to hit highlights is to join
 Doodle Bugs Teaching for the

#1

Monday was International Dot Day. We joined with over 1.8 million(ish) people to celebrate the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. We created our own dots and then used an app to make them come to life. It was pretty amazing!

#2

Also to celebrate #DotDay we Skyped with two classrooms. One in Wisconsin and the other in Texas. We had a book talk and shared our dots! Great to connect globally. I am very excited we will be taking part in the Global Read Aloud project soon!

#3

We celebrated our 30th day of school this week. We have been celebrating each time a zero shows up. Zero the Hero makes a visit to the classroom. This time the treat was Onion Rings!

#4

My students are blogging this year! I can't tell you how much I love it. We are using KidBlogs. This week they blogged about #DotDay!

#5

Every Friday we wear our school colors and have a contest in the school. We tied for first today! Can you guess our school colors? Showing our Panther Pride! 

A busy week....but oh so rewarding!

Our 20th Day

The students have counted and prepared for this day. Each day they would look at our ten frames filling up and think about how many more days until the 20th day would occur. By the end of last day they were also figuring what day of the week it would happen. Celebrating the decades are really working..they are thinking, counting and learning math without even knowing it.
They knew they were to secretly look out for our little hero pal. The REAL Zero the Hero has sent us one his helpers, she is a girl. He wanted them to know math is important to boys and girls! Sure enough they came in with their eyes searching. Some couldn't contain their excitement and pointed her out. But others knew the deal....it had to be kept quiet until the right time!
Gabrielle is the one who came and secretly whispered to me and pointed her out. She was hidden on top of a book shelf, hanging out with some other pals.

After singing our days of the week and months of the year songs, it was time to do the calendar. And then *insert drum roll* it was time to fill in the 20th dot on our second ten's frame! Applause broke out and the excitement rose! I mentioned that several students had found our little pal, but the first who followed the rules and kept the secret would be the one who would help with the celebration in math this afternoon!

So yes, they had to wait. We continued with a wonderful day. During Reader's Workshop we are "reading" a wordless book called The Red Book. Students are practicing listening to their thinking voice and sharing their thinking with the class. Today I snapped a picture of their knee to knee talks. Can you see their attention to details?

Following lunch we had some writing time. Students made choices about what to write today and it was exciting to watch and see them get busy drawing and writing from their hearts!

 

 

 

Then it finally occurred....at the end of the day we realized we had some mail in the mailbox.

 It was another letter from Zero the Hero....along with a cape, mask and a treat! The celebration began! Gabrielle put on the cape and mask...

 

Then we danced...

 

Of course, we shared a zero treat!

 

When will he return???......
Think about it!!
These students are 20 days smarter and have already figured out when!

The Tenth Day

Today was our tenth day of school! We are settling into a few routines, trying out new things and becoming true First Graders.


I wanted to post today and share about our tenth day of school. One of my goals this year is to truly teach Math to understanding, not as a process! Inspired by an amazing teacher who I was lucky enough to connect with this summer, today was a day I could spend our math time celebrating our tenth day while developing their understanding.


As we began our math routine today we had a message from the office. There was a special package delivered for our class. I sent our messenger down to pick it up.

The students were quite intrigued by this box that was addressed to our class. They noticed the zero and said "that probably means there isn't anything inside." The girl who brought it in said, "It was very light!" Below the box a book came with it. So, of course they needed to know...so we opened it up!

 Inside we found a letter, Hero the Zero pal (yes mine looks more like Little Red Riding Hood) and a treat!

We talked about the zero and that this is a "friendly" number that will always help them in doing math. We played songs, and read our book about Zero and showed the many ways they knew on making a ten. Our little pal will be back every 10th day! We will celebrate all the decades! We ended our math lessons eating our treats...which of course was in the shape of a zero!


Want to know more about celebrating the 10th day??? Check out this video which inspired me!
Zero the Hero on the 10th Day

I found a Linky Party party to add this post to! I'll be visiting again...loving all things Math!