New Year.. New Goals, Nonfiction Book Clubs, and a class update!

Hello blog world! I'm back! I am currently stuck inside during the ice storm of the century, so I decided to catch up on my blogging!  First off, I'm not really mad about my current situation.  Stuck inside.  Everything is cancelled.  Reading a book.  Everyone is still asleep!

On this note, our staff (the most awesome staff in the whole wide world) is doing a book club.  We are reading the book Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin.  I am on chapter 8 and I love it so far!  It gives the reader a glimpse inside the brain of a girl who is 12.  She has high functioning autism.  I know I've had a few "Rose Howards" in my classroom as I've taught through the years.  It's quite remarkable and intuitive to take a sneak peek inside her head.  I see new things.  LOVE!!!  You should read it too!  My 12 year old daughter also read this book and loved it as well.  Get you a copy!! :)

New Year = New US!

There have been so many good things going on in first grade lately!  One of which are our new year's resolutions and class goals.

We returned to school on a Thursday after winter break (Seriously... two days people!?) This is just enough time to go back over our rules and expectations, but not really a good week to start right back into a new reading or math unit.  SOOOO, this is why we spend a while going over resolutions, the new year, and what our own goals should be.  First off, we read some books of people who constantly work hard to achieve goals in their lives.  The first book we read was Mia Hamm Winners Never Quit!

This is a book written by famous soccer player Mia Hamm.  It encouraged kids to never give up just because they don't win or don't get something right the first time. They should always keep trying no matter what!  We talked about how Mia must've made lots of goals for herself in order to become the soccer player she did.  We need to do that too!

The second book we read was Salt in His Shoes.  

This is the story of a young Michael Jordan who had struggles growing up because of his height.  His mother helped him to see that there was no magic to becoming great.  He had to practice hard, have determination, and pray.  The kids identified with Michael Jordan quickly, which helped them to think of goals they wanted to work on for themselves.  We filled out our own New Years Resolutions sheets.

I downloaded this sheet from TeachersPayTeachers for Free!  Here's the link to her site.  New Years Freebie.  Thank you Renee Dooly for sharing things for free for us to use! After we did that, we came up with our own classroom Goals for 2017.  

This is what we came up with!  I may have *nudged* them in the right direction on #1 and #2!  They came up with the rest on their own!  Promise!

Nonfiction Book Clubs

In other news, we started book clubs this week!  This is one of my favorite things we do in reading because it allows students to do what they WANT to do ......TALK ..... A LOT! :)  Since we are finishing up our nonfiction unit, our book clubs were on topics we wanted to study.  Here are our clubs and topics:

I asked our librarian to pull all the books she had on those topics for our clubs.  So on day 2, they got to start reading their books!  They have been so excited to learn new things.  "Hey Mrs. Trauterman!  Did you know that when a spider eats it's prey, it turns it into a liquid and SLURPS it up?" Wow Rainey... that's just.... interesting  (and some other really gross thoughts, but I'll stick with interesting. lol)  

Here's a look at our book club folders.  

Book Club Folder Back

Book Club Folder Front

The inside is where the kids add their jots about the book

Here's some more sneak peeks into our book clubs.

     

 

 

The next step is that our bookclubs are writing All-About books together on their topics and making posters about their topics.  They will present both things to the class next week!


The kids love book clubs so much!  If you are a teacher, I highly encourage you to try book clubs to provide opportunities for your kids to gain excitement for reading in a new way!

We ended the week, by perfecting our classroom yoga routine!  We now have down our downward dog, cobra, and child's pose!  Ask us about it!

And now... a class update!

• London has a new baby brother Kingston!
• Austin went skiing over winter break and LOVED it!
• Lizzie also went skiing over winter break, but fell and got a black eye :(
• Thursday was Zachary's birthday and he got a rainbow poop emoji :)
• Sloan went to Sky Zone over the weekend and he loved it!
• Taylor is excited to do spirit squad this year!
• Bella got another new pair of shoes for Christmas.  Now she has over 20 pairs :)
• Gavin almost beat his game the other night and will beat the level this weekend!
• Calley got a new snuggly sweatshirt for Christmas and she loves it because it's so snuggly.
• Aubrey got a brand new lunchbox and backpack for Christmas.  They are sparkly!
• Alexi got a tablet and a Baby Alive for Christmas!
• Mrs. T had a GREAT break that was much needed and is excited to be back with the kids :)
• Mrs. T and Mrs. Sullivan are sad because we planned to present our PD on Friday about flexible seating, but it got cancelled due to ice :(.

Now excuse me while I finish this book....

PEACE

~ Shelly