It's Been Too Long!

Sorry!  Starting a classroom blog in the middle of the school year has left me feeling like I don't have enough time to keep it up because it wasn't part of my normal routine!

My kids are writing blog posts all the time and the folder overfloweth.

Here's a hodge podge of what you've missed in no certain order!

Moving On
This class is moving on to 2nd and 3rd grade.  So I am going to 2nd grade and in all you know that this is a split class.  My friends in 2nd grade are moving on to 3rd grade.  I am going to miss them especially Madison, Hayley, and Rainie.  They are my BEST FRIENDS!  So I am kind of happy that I get to go to 2nd grade.

By:  Jaylee

Moving On
My name is Madison and I am moving on to 3rd grade.  I am going to be in Mrs. Gray's classroom.  I am looking forward to writing in cursive.  I love to have tricky words.  I want to have very challenging spelling words in 3rd grade.  I hope that there are challenging books to read in 3rd grade too.  All of this writing tells you that I am very excited for 3rd grade.  2nd and 3rd grades are a very different world.  2nd grade is where you just start learning hard things.  3rd grade is where you are a pro at hard things.  Well maybe not exactly a pro, but very good at it.  As you can see I am very excited for 3rd grade!
By:  Madison


School is Out
I like that school is out because kids have all the time to themselves.  When they have all the time to themselves they can like that because they can be as creative as they want and play and play.  So that is why I like when school is out.
By:  Jaylee

Listening
Listening is where we listen to a book or a song on a Leap Frog or a CD player.  But you do not listen to a real song!  There are sometimes a song in between the stories!
By:  Jaylee

Reading Strategies
Reading strategies is where we go to a different class and we stay in there for 30 minutes on the strategy that we need to work on.  Some students say in their own classes.  So now you know what it is.
By:  Jaylee

Writing Table
I like the writing table.  It is fun but that is an opinion.  What we do at the writing table is we write of course, but we can write anything we want.  For instance, we can write songs, stories, poetry, messages, or cards.
By:  Jaylee

Samsonsclass.com
Yesterday my class found out there is a thing called Samson's Class and you can read.  You can do their spelling lists or you can get your list on there and do it.  There's these little games that you can play.  It is awesome!  So, teachers, you may want to get samsonsclassroom.com on your computers!
By:  Dani

Skating
We went to Eby Pines.  We skated for two hours.  I fell most of the time but it was fun anyway.  Oh, we didn't skate for two hours because some of us went to the snack bar.  There was a just girls skate, just boys skate, just 1st, 2nd, kindergarten, and young 5's skate too.
By:  Caylie

Books
OMG!  Oh!  Sorry about the yelling.  I just found out something very exciting.  I wrote a book for the Young Author's contest.  You write a book and the judges pick 10 people out of the whole school to go meet authors.  Do you want to know what the very exciting news for me is?  I wrote a book called The Strawberry Touch.  I won the contest!  Now I am really excited!  I hope you like this story.
By:  Madison

Nooks
In our classroom, we have 2 Nooks.  We use them a lot.  We use them at Daily Five.  And we use them at Free Choice.  We all love them.  We always want to use them.I love them too too too too much!  So does Mrs. Bainbridge.
By:  Hayley

Daily Five
Daily Five is fun to me because we can read to self, read to someone, work on words, work on writing, or read a book on the Nooks when it is our turn.
By:  Caylie

Nook
The Nook is a great learning resource.  I love it because I like to read on the Nook.  I like to do math on it.  I think it is a perfect resource to learn.
By:  Jaylee

Free Choice
Free Choice is fun.  We have to wait until our table's time comes up.  We get to go and play when the timer says 18:00.  It is super duper fun.  It is time for us to play!  Can you play on the computer?  Yes you can.  We can play games, play on the Nooks, read books, write, draw, or just play!
By:  Caylie

Science

We are doing science and we are learning about the water cycle.  We learned a song about the water cycle and it goes like this: "Water travels in a cycle yes it does.  Water travels in a cycle yes it does.  It goes up as evaporation, forms clouds as condensation, then comes down as precipitation yet it does.  Yee-haw!"- Caylie

Math Workstations

Hi!  I'm back to talk about workstations.  Workstations are fun because we get to choose what to do for math with our partners.  And we can play on the computer and play on the Nooks when they get their screen protectors that are safe.- Caylie

Snazzy Snack

Snazzy Snack is, well, almost my favorite!  Snack Snack is fun because we get to make our own snack.  We made delicious dominoes.  The most fun part was when we got to do the fact family and eat our snazzy snack.  I loved it because I made my own and it was delicious to me.  And we also had milk but I do not know how that tasted, so I'm not talking about the milk!- Caylie

Thank you!

I am so excited to announce that both of our Donor's Choose projects were funded this week!

Thank you so much for spreading the word and supporting our projects.  We will be getting new math games for our computer and to use with our Mimio Pad AND we will be getting 2 Nook Tablets that we can use for reading books and playing math and reading games!

When our materials arrive, we'll post a ton of pictures! 

Thank you again for all of your support- with this and everything you all do to make our classroom such a wonderful place to be!  :)

Steven Courtney

On Tuesday, March 13, 2012, Steven Courtney and his band came to our school and performed.  We had to jump and spin.  It was very fun!  My favorite song was "Steven and the Pirate".  Steven was a brave person.  He beat the pirates.  His band played very good music.  I think that everybody liked Steven Courtney's music and singing.  His music and singing is always good.-  Madison

Circle Hunks and Chunks

Today we circled hunks and chunks on the slate.  First you have to go to Tux Paint and make a pretty background and then type the words with hunks and chunks.  Give the slate to kids and they will circle the hunks and chunks and that is how we do it.- Dani

Nooks, Nooks... Show Us the Books!

Happy Monday!  I just wanted to share on here the note coming home in your child's HORSE today...

Dear Room 10 Families,

Can you feel it? It's almost spring! My class could really use help with supplies in order to finish off the school year strong. So I've created a classroom project request on a 501(c)3 charity website called DonorsChoose.org.  This week only, Donor’s Choose is MATCHING all donations!  So, $5 is really $10 and $10 is really $20... this could really add up fast for us!  J  Be sure you follow STEP 3 for the donation to be doubled!
 
I'm writing to ask for any donations possible for my students - no matter the size, it will help my kids. This week only, any donation you make to my project will be doubled! If you know anyone who is passionate about education (grandparents, friends, businesses), please pass this along. Your tax-deductible donation will have a direct impact on our 21 students (and many more in the future), and you'll hear back from our class about your impact on our learning!

To learn more or donate:

1.   Visit my Teacher Page, http://www.donorschoose.org/mrsbainbridge

2.   Choose one of my projects (we REALLY want “Nooks, Nooks, Show Us the Books”   funded!!!), enter the amount of your donation, and click "Give"

3.   During check-out, enter the word BLOOM where it says "Match or gift code", and your donation will be matched dollar for dollar.

The BLOOM match code will double your donation until the end of the day on Monday, March 19th. So exciting!

Please feel free to send me any questions you may have, and know that my students and I greatly appreciate your support.

Right now I have two projects up.  The one I REALLY want funded for our class is for 2 Nook Color Tablets.  I recently bought a Nook for myself and I LOVE it!  I’ve been using mine in the classroom and there are SO many things we could do in here if we had two for students to use.

If you have any family members who would like to support our project, we would be so grateful! 

Thanks for spreading the word and helping bring 2 Nook Color Tablets to our classroom!

Happy Spring!
Mrs. Bainbridge

If you can help or know someone who would like to, we'd be so grateful!  We're gearing up for a fun week- tomorrow Steven Courtney will be here at 1:00pm for a concert!  We're also starting our new science unit on weather and water!  I'm so excited!

We Are Here!

We haven't had much time for blogging this week... we've been working on our stories for the Young Author's contest (2nd-5th grade).  We're all writing a book that we'll be sharing at "Read Around Central" at the end of the month... more info to come soon!

We have also been taking our MAP tests on the computer.

I'm hoping we'll have some time for blogging later this week... you know, with the two days that are left in it!  :)

Dirt Pudding

Last Thursday, we had a tasty science lesson!  We made dirt pudding to learn about different kinds of mixtures- homogeneous and heterogeneous!

Here are what a few students thought about the dirt pudding...

We made pudding, but not just pudding... dirt pudding.  I loved it!  Mmmm!  Yummy in my tummy!  It is made with Oreo cookies, whipped cream, and chocolate pudding mix.  Reminder... dirt pudding is awesome!  And that is why dirt pudding is awesome.- Dani

We made pudding.  Not regular pudding.  We made dirt pudding.  And you might be able to guess about it... oh good.  It was yum!  We made it out of milk, Oreos, pudding mixture, whipped cream, gummy worms, and it was awesome.- Caylie

One day after gym, we made dirt pudding.  I wanted to eat it but we had to make it first.  The first step was breaking an Oreo into pieces and then putting the pudding into the cup.  And then, enjoy!- Max

Our Mimio Pad

Did you know that we got a Mimio Pad from Donor's Choose a few weeks ago?  If your child didn't tell you our good news, ask them about it!  We use our Mimio Pad for EVERYTHING.  It is basically like a mouse pad that lets us interact with whatever is on the computer from wherever we are in the room.  We do so much with it and it has made our learning so much more interactive!

 

A few students wanted to share their thoughts on the Mimio Pad with you...

I love the Mimio Pad because we do calendar, find hunks and chunks, do our hunks and chunks, and we do tallies, math, and reading!- Jaylee

I love the Mimio Pad.  We do calendar and our hunks and chunks.  It is fun to have the Mimio Pad.- Holli

Playdough Words

Today we did a fun thing with playdough.  It is called playdough words.  We looked at our spelling words and shaped the playdough like letters.  I did the first word which is scene.  After we finished all of our spelling word, Mrs. Bainbridge gave us one minute to play with the playhdough.  Then we always bug her to give us more time.  So finally she gives in.  We thank her and thank her.  She is so nice.  Next time I write a blog, I will tell more!  - Madison

Can you tell he made the word "complete"?  He was pretty proud!  :)

Today we did our spelling words with playdough.  We take the playdough and roll it and shape it into a letter.  And we keep making the words.  And that is how we do our spelling.  - Dani

Race to the Castle

Today we played a fun game called "Race to the Castle".  The game helped us learn our prefixes and suffixes.  We learned that prefixes go on the beginning of a word like redo means to do something again.  Sufffixes come at the end of a word like playful means you are full of play!  It was a very exciting game.  We liked it!

And Mrs. Bainbridge is finally back from being sick and having meetings!!!!!  We had a very happy reunion this morning!  :)

Here are some pictures of us playing our fun game.

Monday Madness

Hello classroom families!  I was out of school today with a fever and head cold AND I'll be out tomorrow for a planned absence.  I'm attending a conference at the ISD with many other teachers from our building and the high school.

I apologize for any "messiness" my absences cause with homework or notes in HORSE folders!

On Wednesday, we're going to write our first blog post together and I'm going to teach everyone how to fill out their blog post paragraphs so we can start doing independent blog writing too!

Thanks for hanging in there with me for the start of the week... I'll be back on Wednesday!

Whoo's Going to Blog With Us?

Room 10 Families- we are so excited about starting this blog!  We talked about it this afternoon and a pink permission slip is going home today.  Please send it back next week so we can get this blogging started!

We'll be doing some SUPER fun science next week and I know you'll want to read all about it!

Welcome!

Here's a test post... welcome to our little place on the web where you can see what my students are hooting about in our classroom this week!