The Night Tree

This year, I shared the story Night Tree by Eve Bunting with the class.  It is a sweet story about a family who goes to the forest at the edge of town to see their tree.  While there, the family decorated the tree with lots of goodies for their animal friends to enjoy during the holiday season.  After we read the story, we made our own Night Trees!

   

   

   

   

   

      

I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season, spent with family and friends.  It is an honor to work with your child/ren each and every day.  Thank you for the opportunity to do this.  I am grateful to my students and their families.

December Fifth Grade Buddies

On December 20, we went to Mrs. Dahl's fifth grade classroom to visit our fifth grade buddies.  We loved being able to see what their classroom was like.  They read us stories and chatted with us about what we read.  We are excited to meet with them again in January for a special project!

   

   

   

   

   

EHS Caroler Visit

On December 18, we had the pleasure of being serenaded by the Eagan High School choir.  They roamed the halls at Northview sharing some beautiful Christmas carols with our students.  They have amazing singing voices!  Thank you, EHS choir for coming to share your talents with us!

   

   

Writer's Workshop

In Writer's Workshop, we continue to work on our oral storytelling.  As we remind the kids all the time...if you can think it, you can say it.  And if you can say it, you can write it!  One technique we use for storytelling is our Triangle Share.  We put the students in groups of three.  Each person has a job in the group.  One person tells a story, a second person asks questions when they finish the story, and the third person makes comments.  The artifact you see on the floor helps the kids remember their jobs.  When they finish one round, the artifact with the triangle is turned so each person now has a new job for the round.  This goes until each person in the group has had the chance to do all three jobs.  The kids love it and we will work lots more on this in January.

After we practice our storytelling, questions and comments, it is time for us to get to work in our writing journals.

   

   

Morning Message

Each day during our Morning Meeting, we have a Morning Message.  The goal of the message is to have students work on their oral reading, give them some information about their day and notice things about print.  On this specific day, we were identifying any kindergarten high frequency words in the message and circling them.

   

   

Free Choice Time

We recently adjusted our daily schedule to incorporate more Free Choice time for our students.  This enables our students to choose something they would like to do, while giving the students opportunities to socialize and problem solve when necessary with peers.  There are a variety of activities for the students to choose from.  So far, we are doing quite well with it!

   

   

   

   

Making Our Shoo Fly Quilt

On December 16, we went to work assembling our shoo fly quilt.  Students each created two quilt squares.  We talked lots about patterns and how we might put the quilt together.  Once it was completed, we noticed many patterns throughout the quilt.

   

   

The finished product...ta da!