Red Ribbon Week

Throughout the week of October 22-26, our school celebrated Red Ribbon Week. We had different "dress up" days for each day of the week to help remind the students to say "NO!" to drugs and peer pressure. We were able to end the week with an all school morning meeting! Mr. Giesen had trouble remembering all the dress up days, so to make up for the days he missed he combined all of our fun dress up days into one outfit at our morning meeting! :) The firsties thought this was just TOO hilarious! What a great way to end our week! Enjoy!

His hat was for Monday's "Put a cap on drugs", his boots are for Tuesday's "Stomp out drugs", his pink shirt was for Wednesday's "I'm too bright for drugs" (All grade levels had different colors assigned to them, staff was assigned pink shirts! :)), his socks were for Thursday's "Sock it to drugs", and his Minnesota Gopher's Tie was for "Team up against drugs." 

Our First Field Trip!

We went on our first field trip on Friday, October 12th. Our first stop of the morning was at Barten's Pumpkin Patch! We were able to learn all about pumpkins, go on a hay ride, play games with pumpkins, and eat a picnic lunch there. The firsties were SO excited and LOVED getting a pumpkin to bring home. After a nice little picnic lunch outside, our next stop brought us to the New Prague Fire Station! Firefighter Smith showed us around the station and taught us all about the different fire trucks and equipment the firefighters use. This was a great stop for our field trip because we have been learning all about Fire Safety and Prevention Week throughout the past week at school. We had such a fabulous time on this field trip! (The firstie crew was definitely more tired than usual when we returned on this Friday afternoon! :)) Thank you SO much to Barten's, New Prague Fire Department, and our parent volunteers on the field trip! What a great day!

Welcome to the Pumpkin Patch!

The firsties showing off their pumpkins after our hay ride.

Junior Fire Fighters :)

Daily Five!

We have really been working hard in our classroom the last two months! The firsties are now able to "Read to Self," "Read to Someone," complete "WoW (Work on Writing) Time," and "Listen to Reading!" They are able to choose three of these each day to complete for 20 minutes each. While completing these activities they are building STAMINA and are growing as readers and writers. I am so impressed with every student's work ethic! Here are some pictures of what a typical morning in Room 9 looks like! We will be adding "Word Work" next week in our Daily Five time to practice word patterns and spelling. Enjoy! :)

The students are selecting "Just Right" books. This means they are picking out books to put in their book boxes that they are able to read independently. We use the acronym "I PICK" to help us!

 I-I select the book.

P- Purpose. Why do I want to read this book?

I-Interest. Does this book interest me?

C-Comprehend. Do I understand this book?

K-Know. Do I know most of the words?

Listening to Reading on the MP3 players!

Small Group Reading. Using our "magic reading glasses" to help us read tough words!

More Listening to Reading on our MP3 players!

WoW Time! (Work on Writing) The students are able to journal and write stories during this time.