Book Character Day 2015

Book Character Day is one of my favorite days of the whole school year. Book Character Day lets me combine my love of books and dressing up! This year we invited Mrs. Joseph's 3&4 class to join in on the fun.

For this year's Book Character Day I dressed up as Wenda, the sister of Waldo, from the book Where's Waldo?

I was introduced to this book series many years ago while I was in middle school. My little sister collected the books. Waldo books are a grown up version of I Spy books. I introduced the books to my kids this year, and they love the books as much as I do!

Below is a picture of me with my two boys who also dressed up for Book Character Day. The one on the left is Hiccup, the Viking hero from the How to Train Your Dragon book series. The one on the right is Scaredy Squirrel from the book series Scaredy Squirrel. It was my first time to sew a costume together, so that made this Book Character Day even more exciting for me!

Here is a video of the students dressed up as their chosen book character. Each student was required to complete a character analysis of their character. They described what their character looked like on the outside and also described their character's insides - personality traits and/or feelings experienced in the book. Students also made a connection with their character and shared how they were alike.



One of our friends was sick at home on Book Character Day so we FaceTimed with her and she was able to present her book character to the class. She even answered some questions. Modern technology is awesome!

Amelia Bedelia, David from the Bible, Ramona the Pest, and Pinkalicious

Layla the Cotton Fairy, Scaredy Squirrel, Ms. Frizzle, Nancy Drew

Skippyjon Jones, Joash the Boy King, Jesus, Alice in Wonderland

President Obama and Junie B. Jones

Scientist of the Week 2015

Here is a look at the last of our Scientist of the Week Experiments. Enjoy!

Fight a Fire

Forming Gas

Pencil and Bag Magic

The plastic bag with five pencils poking through and no water leaked out!

Historian of the Week 2015

Here are the remainder of our Historian of the Week presentations.

Margaret Nash

Hatshepsut - Egyptian Pharoah

Neil Armstrong

Directed Drawings

Throughout the school year, I would give the kids directed drawings for art class. We don't have an art teacher, and an artist I am not so I decided that we would do directed drawings of characters from the books I read aloud in class for some of our art education.

During each lesson, I draw a character step-by-step on the SmartBoard and the children follow my directions on their own sheets of paper at their tables. At the start of the year, many of the kids would get frustrated quite easily, especially my firsties. However, by the end of the year they become pros and there is little to no frustration during our directed drawing classes.

Here is a look at one of our directed drawings of Mr. Putter and Tabby that we did back in October. The kids were really proud of themselves with this one because there are a lot of little details for each of these characters.





Here's a look at some other directed drawings we did this school year.

Here is a directed drawing that the children did after having a lesson on how NOT to draw stick people. The person that they are drawing in this lesson is me!

Sing America, Sing! | EPAA Spring Concert

Our volunteer music teacher, Mrs. Smith, did an amazing job putting together our annual spring concert. I loved seeing all the students dressed up in red, white, and blue. This year's theme was "Sing America, Sing!" and our concert was full of patriotic music as well as traditional American folk songs. As always, the kids were incredible!

Morning Routine

At the start of the day, part of our morning routine includes Morning Meeting. We kick off our Morning Meeting by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, our school motto, and our classroom rules and pledge. Our Person of the Day leads out.

Classroom Pledge: I will do my best.

Classroom Pledge: I will make smart choices.

Classroom Pledge: I will have a positive attitude.

Next we sing our "Make a Circle" song, gather around the stripey rug, and do our Good Morning Greeting.

Our Person of the Day selects one of the following greetings: handshake, bump (fist bump), cheese (smiles), wave, wink (blink for those who can't wink), and bow. It's important that each person is greeted. We also take time to greet our classroom volunteers as well as any visitors who happen to be in our room.

Good Morning Shake

Good Morning Bump

Good Morning Cheese

Good Morning Wave

Good Morning Wink

Following our greeting, we have share time. At the beginning of the year we feature one student who is the Superstar of the Week. They share various things such as their Superstar of the Week poster, a favorite book, family and/or baby pictures, and a talent.

Superstar of the Week Poster

After our sharing time, sometimes we play a game of "I have . . . Who has . . .?" Most rounds of the game will involve sight words, but we will also use vocabulary words and skills from topics we are studying.

At the end of our morning routine we read the Morning Message. I always write the message in letter form. The kids "Pass the Pen" and edit mistakes that have been made in the message. These "mistakes" provide many opportunities for mini-lessons on grammar and language.

Some Fun Things We Have Done in the Past Few Weeks

For part of our geometry unit, we had the best time practicing our symmetry skills with this artsy math projects.
There was a lot of giggling in the hallways each time the kids passed by their self-portraits during potty breaks.

Earth Day writing activity. I loved each student's plan on how they are going to help our Earth.
Many have really gone out of their way to embrace our Earth Day motto - "Every day is Earth Day!"
The kids really enjoyed using watercolor paints for the Earth.

Last week we went on our annual end of the year beach trip to Sand Key Beach in Clearwater.
We were blessed with gorgeous weather and thankfully, only mild cases of sunburn!

Scientist of the Week 2015 | Exothermic Exercise

Class Dojo, U-Bucks, Coupons - Classroom Behavior System

I try my best to make sure that our classroom is a positive, safe, and fun learning environment. I track students' behavior using ClassDojo. Each student has a profile, complete with their own changeable avatar, and I give positive points to students throughout the day. Points are earned for behaviors such as completing an assignment, staying on task, using kind words, helping others, using the appropriate voice level, having Whole Body Listening, following directions, and having a positive attitude. To this day the class has earned more than 12,000 positive points on ClassDojo!

Negative points can be given as well, but I don't use them much unless the infraction is pretty serious or a child has been warned of their behavior. Of all points given this school year, only 1.3% were negative. We do use a quiet section of the room called "Australia" that we named after reading Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. "Australia" is not a time-out corner, but a place to take a break (the kids use sand timers to track their time), hug the Cheer-up Chicken, talk to the Tattling Turtle, write a note of apology, or reflect on decisions made.

Another great thing about ClassDojo is that it is in real-time. Parents can log on using the website or app and check in on their child anytime during the day to see how they are doing. Reports are also emailed to parents on a weekly basis.

For each point earned, students receive a U-Buck. Students save their U-bucks to purchase coupons. Coupons are like gold in the class as they allow students special privileges. Coupons include the following:

• Cool Cat in a Hat
• Lunch with a Bud
• No Homework
• Stinky Feet
• Show and Share
• Super-Duper Supplies
• Line Jumper
• Pet Shop

One coupon costs 50 U-bucks. On average, children earn enough to purchase 1-2 coupons a week. By the end of the year, a majority of students also become experts at counting currency!



Show and Share

Show and Share

Stinky Feet

Pet Shop

Show and Share

Super-Duper Supplies

Super-Duper Supplies

Cool Cat in a Hat