We're Back!

We've spent the first couple of weeks back getting back into our groove. =) We talked about how we were used to staying up late and sleeping in… it made the first few days tricky! I know I was pretty exhausted by Friday!
We spent time reviewing routines and procedures... but I have to say, they didn't need too many reminders! They jumped back into it very quickly. :)
We have been talking about what makes good readers. Did you know the number #1 thing that good readers do (according to a recent scientific study) is to make connections? We are constantly being reminded of things from our own life as we read… and a lot of the time we don't even realize that we're doing this!
We read a couple of books The Relatives Came and Hazel's Amazing Mother, and Ira Sleeps Over. We talked about all of the things from our own lives that we were reminded of while we were reading.

Read to Self

We've been working so hard on getting our routines down. One of the things we're practicing is our "Read to Self" time. First, we had a lesson on choosing "Good Fit Books" for our book boxes. We compared a good book to a shoe... it has to fit! And, it has to be for the right purpose. We can't wear our soccer shoes to a fancy dinner! :) This is the poster we made to remind ourselves how to choose a book:

Then we talked about what it should look and sound like during our quiet reading time. This is the poster we brainstormed:

Every day we read a little bit longer before we had to stop. We're up to 20 minutes of quiet reading time!

Chicken Little

We've been talking a lot about story characters as we work on our target of "I can describe the character and setting in a story". After reading Chicken Little (a version by Steven Kellogg), we wrote letters to the chicken about how he/she could've handled the situation differently. It was a good lesson... sometimes we need to stop and think before we react.

Of course, we needed an art project to go with it. :) These chickens seemed fitting with Easter right around the corner.

Safety and a Special Guest

Last week we read the story, "Officer Buckle and Gloria". (I love this story... it's one of my favorites!) It's a fun book about a police officer who teaches safety tips like, never put anything in your ear and never stand on a swivel chair!

Throughout the week we talked about ways we can be safe doing our favorite activities:

And the ways we can be safe in the different places we might go:

To wrap up our little unit on safety, we had a very special guest stop by... Meet Mr. Hoyer! (Better known as Mr. Aiden's dad.) He works at Clackamas County Sheriff's Department and he came by our classroom to talk to us about the many different ways we can be safe.

Then... the most exciting part... we got see Officer Hoyer's car! Each kid got a turn sitting in the (very uncomfortable!) back seat. What a treat! He also turned on the lights and gave a couple of hits on the siren. I heard a couple of the kids say, "This was the best day ever!"

What a fun experience! Thank you Officer Hoyer, for sharing your safety tips! (And, the cool car, of course!)