David Shannon

Hello family and friends!

Ms. Michelle wrote our blog post this week since I was out for the first part of the week. I know this is her post, but I had to send a shout out to her and thank her for picking up the slack when I was out sick. We appreciate you, Ms. Michelle, and all the hard work you do to help our classroom run smoothly! Here's her post (enjoy!)...

Wow! What a great first week back at school. Ms. Rachael was out the first two days and we are so glad she is back and feeling better! I loved hearing everyone’s stories about their winter break and everything they did; it seems that everyone had a fun time.

On our first day back at school we had writing workshop! In small groups we discussed everything we did over winter break and then wrote a journal entry. Everyone colored a beautiful picture of something they did and then we worked one-on-one and wrote a sentence about their picture. Some students drew pictures about trips they went on and other’s talked about fun things that happened at home! Everyone was SO excited to tell me their stories and I just loved watching their excitement unfold onto a piece of paper.

Another thing we did on the first few days back was play math bingo and ABC bingo! I am so excited to see everyone’s improvement from when we first started play these games. Their number recognition has improved so much that I know I am going to have to create new playing mats with higher numbers!! When we play ABC bingo Ms. Rachael and I walk around the word wall pointing to the letter and we talk about the sound the letter makes and some words that start with that letter. It is so exciting to hear them yell out words and it’s a great time to talk about words that we think starts with a “C” but actually starts with a “K” or something else like that. This activity really gets their wheels turning and I love it!

On Tuesday we read a book called No, David! by author David Shannon. Everyone in the class loved the book so much that I decided to start a David Shannon author study. We talked a little bit about David Shannon and how he actually wrote that book when he was 5 years old!!! Then I went to the library and got tons of books written by David Shannon. This week we have learned that he is not only a writer but he also illustrates all of the books he writes, does illustrations for other authors, and has won many awards for the books he has written.

When we read the book Too Many Toys we decided to come up with some ways to help out the main character, Spencer, with his problem. We all sat in a circle and talked about how Spencer really didn’t need all of those toys and how they were causing problems at home because Mom and Dad kept getting hurt when Spencer would leave toys ALL over the house. After discussing the issues in the story we talk about ways to resolve those issues. Everyone came up with GREAT ideas on how to help Spencer. We said that he could:

· Give some to a friend.

· Throw away toys that were broken (We had a long conversation about why broken toys weren’t really safe to play with! Some said that they could be fixed and others said that it wasn’t safe. We discussed that if a toy broke and was sharp or that there was no way to repair it that it would be best to just throw it away so no one got hurt!)

· Clean the toys up

· Have a yard sale (Their reaction to this idea was priceless!!! One student came up with idea because they did it in the movie Toy Story! And everyone talked about how they could get money for toys they didn’t play with. Everyone thought that was SO cool. So if someone comes home this week and wants to sell toys, my apologies haha!)

· Donate them to someone who doesn’t have toys. (This resolution was my favorite! It definitely melted my heart when they started talking about this! Your children’s hearts are so pure and innocent and they were so excited with this idea. We even talked about how it would be a great Mitzvah!)

When we read the book A Bad Case of Stripes we learned about a little girl named Camilla. She was so worried about what everyone thought of her that she didn’t do the things she loved, like eat lima beans. We talked about how it was sad that Camilla thought that her friends would make fun of her. It was a great time to talk about things that might make friends upset! After reading the story we created our very own Camilla. Everyone drew a picture of stripes on Camilla! They drew rainbow stripes, and multi-colored stripes, and even Spiderman stripes.

Friday we wrapped up our David Shannon author study with a bang! First Ms. Rachael and I asked each individual student what their favorite book was by David Shannon. Then during morning meeting each student stood up and presented their book to the class. We asked them to explain to their classmates why this book was their favorite. Some said they liked the illustrations, others summarized the story, and/or talked about their favorite part in the book. I was impressed at how much they remember about the author and how they all could tell me plot specific information about a book we read two or three days ago!!! I hope you all enjoy looking at the wall and seeing everything we did this week!

Approaches to Learning:

· Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questioning and adding ideas.

· Demonstrate delight or satisfaction when completing a task, solving a problem, or making a discovery.

· Represent prior events and personal experiences in one or more ways.

Social & Emotional Development:

· Demonstrate self-direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.

· Demonstrate confidence by participating in most classroom activities.

· Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.

· Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following directions.

Language & Literacy:

· Make relevant comments or appropriate responses to story events or characters.

· Retell one or two events from a story read aloud.