Literature Circles

I am loving the conversations I overheard during the past few Lit Circle meetings.   The kids have been passionate about their feelings on the books and eager to share their ideas and takeaways.   They have been respectful while partners share and add to the discussions with meaningful comments.  

Restart

Tale of Despereaux

Because of Winn Dixie 

Shiloh

Hatchet

Sometimes they are given time to just read and catch up on their work independently and they find a nice comfy spot to read.  

Life is Good- Superpower Kit Fun!

This year in homeroom we are focusing on a different SUPERPOWER each month.  These superpowers come from the community read we had a few years ago.  The book was "Life is Good, The Book: How to Live with Purpose and Enjoy the Ride".   Many of you may be familiar with the Life is Good t-shirt brand.  I encourage you to read this book!  It focuses on 10 Superpowers, which coincide with the 10 months of the school year.  A few years ago, as a school, we focused on these superpowers.   Now we are bringing them back!   With the generosity from our Curriculum Enrichment program through the PTO, we purchased the Life is Good Superpower Kit for our classroom!  I had already started to read picture books and discuss September's theme of Openness before we got the kit, so the kids were familiar with the idea.   Now that we have the kit, we are using the ideas to have wonderful, meaningful Morning Meetings.  
This month of October, the superpower is Creativity.  The kids have enjoyed some activities such as, Magic Ball, Piece by Piece Masterpiece, Slideshow, Superpower Breathing, and Circles, Squares, and Triangles.   All these activities have sparked the imagination and creativity.  The students have had chances to earn badges each month as well. 
I'm loving seeing our classroom community bond over the discussion of these superpowers!! 

Piece by Piece Masterpiece "Potato Pirate" 😂

Create as many items as you can using a limited amount of circles, squares, and triangles

"Magic Ball, Magic Ball, what will you be?"

Welcome Back to School!

We are so ready for this school year!! 
This year, you will be working with a team of teachers.  I will be your ELA (Reading and Writing) and Social Studies teacher. Mrs. Wiles-Stasko will be your Math, and Science teacher. We are lucky to also have Mrs. Whittaker who will be working with our team as well. We have some teaching assistants like Mrs. Sordillo and Mrs. Foley who will be in and out of our rooms helping out as well!

I'm excited to bring back the blog this year.  We didn't end up using it much last year, and not at all the year before with the craziness of the past few years.  However, this is a place where homework is posted nightly, as well as pictures and useful resources that we use in the classroom.  We will also be utilizing our Google Site and Google Classroom. 

On the right sidebar there used to be a place for your parents to enter their email and they will get updates when new posts are added- however Google got rid of that last year.   

We have a lot of fun activities planned for this year.  I am very much looking forward to this school year to begin!  

If you checked in tonight- I'd love for you to comment below with something you enjoyed so far at school.  Don't forget to leave your name.  If you don't see your post show up- it is because I haven't had a chance to approve it yet :) 

Happy Vacation :)