Tag Archives: Mrs. Davis

Misunderstood Principal Shark?

I love Twitter.  I love Twitter for lots of reasons, but one of them is because things like this pop up sometimes:

And then I’m in the right place at the right time and we win SHARK SWAG for our whole school!!  The WHOLE SCHOOL!?  Pretty cool, right?  And because we’ve gotten book swag from Ame Dyckman before, I knew it was going to be great. 🙂

So after a few messages where we exchanged information and numbers and such we got a super box in the mail:

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I ran right to Ms. Davis to start brainstorming how we’d get all this fabulous stuff into our Roadrunner’s hands, and to open that awesome box!  We found 600 bookmarks and stickers and the nicest note from one of the nicest authors around. 🙂

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We made a plan for something fun, and it included a shark costume, a principal and a read aloud.

In the meantime, my class got busy divvying up the bookmarks and stickers so they’d be ready for everyone on the special day.  All the while I told my first grade friends about part of the plan, but that they had to cross their hearts to NOT TELL ANYONE about the secret book swag.  I also kept the rest of the plan (the shark-principal-read aloud part) a secret and told them they’d find out later.


We had to reschedule once, but finally it worked out for today’s big event.  We sent a generic “tune into Facebook Live at 2:45–it will be worth it!” email to the school and crossed our fingers.  I corralled some of my 1st grade and kindy friends to be present for the actual read aloud and we were set. 🙂 ❤

But when we showed up for the actual read aloud, it was EVEN BETTER THAN I HAD EXPECTED!  I mean I’ve heard our fabulous principal read before, and I know she’s got some mad skills, but this was above and beyond.  I mean–the whole thing in a SHARK COSTUME!  It was just too much. 🙂 .

 

Check out how AMAZING a time it was in our library today!

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After we returned to our classroom, we did a few end-of-day things and then got busy delivering all those book goodies to our Robinson Roadrunner friends!  They were so happy get our (ok, well Ame Dyckman’s) swag and we were SO EXCITED to share it!

Thank you, so much, Ame Dyckman, for writing amazing books that we love to read and thank you, Mrs. Sisul, for being such an amazing ambassador for reading and books and fun in our school!! WE ARE SO LUCKY!!

#FDOFG2017–Readers Gonna Read (Part 1)

Oh goodness.  Reading.  It’s one of the most important (and one of my favorite!) things that happens in first grade. Ok, well, in any grade, but the beginning of the life long journey often starts in first grade, and I want to make sure it starts out in a positive way. 🙂

We do that in a number of ways, and one of those is by starting the #classroombookaday challenge.  Listening to, talking about and enjoying LOADS OF BOOKS is such an important piece of the literacy puzzle.  Reading (and lots of choice inside that reading) is another one.  And so we begin to read, read, read early in the year, and provide many positive experiences around books.

Almost on the first day of school, we have a conversation about how our classroom library is organized, and what they notice about how it looks, as well as how we will use it.  We talk about the kinds of things we like to read, and begin to fill our book boxes early on.  I always enjoy putting the library together when I’m setting up the room…

…but there’s nothing better than when there are actually READERS in it!

Besides being able to read during choice time and actual reader’s workshop, we’ve also begun our year with some necessary “quiet time” after lunch and recess.  During this time, kiddos can make a choice to read/write/draw or rest quietly.  Really it’s a chance for kids to be alone (which is hard but also necessary for many–me included!), as well as wind down a little after a busy morning.  It’s a time of day that many kiddos have a chance to finish up work or a project (usually of their choice) that they started earlier in the day.  Eventually this time will fade away, as we get more into our “real” schedule, but for now it’s a nice brain break before we get into hard thinking again with math.

One more exciting place first grade readers got to visit was the ROBINSON LIBRARY!!  We have library in our specials rotation now, so it took until we got to an “E” day before it was our turn.  Kiddos only go for 25 minutes and normally wouldn’t have been able to check out until the 2nd visit, but GOODNESS that would not have been fair so we stayed a little later so we get our hands on some new books!!  Kiddos got to meet our new Library Media Specialist, Mrs. Davis, and also hear a good story.  Before we went, I also read a library themed book. 🙂

It was SUPER fun to watch the kiddos work their way through the library and see what treasures they would find.  Finding out what kids like to read is just one more way of building community and getting to know them as readers and as little people. 🙂

Looking forward to TONS more fun and learning happening in the library this year!