Hanging Around!

I had to share this picture that we took on the playground. Our class goes to recess with 2nd grade. Our students have made some WONDERFUL friends in the 2nd grade. The 2nd grade students assist our students on the playground equipment, invite them to play with them, include them in games, invite them to play "cheer leading" with them, and invite them to play "house" with them (pretending that their jackets are babies). Some of the 2nd grade girls have been hanging from the monkey bars. Claire has been watching them and watching them. Finally, she decided that she wanted to do it too. So, we put her up on the monkey bars. She was so strong! She just hung there! The 2nd grade students were so amazed. When we got Claire off, she wanted to get right back on!! Cute!

Class Bowling Picture!

We finally had a chance to take a group bowling picture today! We LOVE our new orange shirts! Each school has their own color. South Salem's color is orange! We wore them proudly! I love this picture of our entire class! It's amazing because at least half of the class is looking at the camera! Ha! Ha!

Special Olympics Bowling!

Today we all went bowling at the bowling alley in Conyers!! It was so much fun!! Below, are a few pictures from our day!

Lucy gets ready to bowl!

La'Shawn sits patiently and smiles for the camera as he waits for his turn to bowl!

Trevor and Claire

Joyria and Enoch

Lucy and DeAsia

La'Shawn was so excited that he got a STRIKE!! He actually got TWO strikes today!! Way to go, La'Shawn!

Enoch and Ms. Malcom pose for a picture!

Trevor was so good at bowling!

Ms. Higdon, Trevor, and Claire!

La'Shawn and Grace were best buddies today! Both of them did an excellent job!

We had a great time bowling today! I am very proud of ALL of our athletes. They worked so hard!!

Too Cute!

I had to share this picture and story with you! This morning, we asked Claire to go over to the Language Master and review her colors and shapes. Just in case you didn't know the Language Master is a machine that you run a card through, it says the word, and the student repeats the word. We told Claire that she could take the baby doll with her and that she could "teach" the baby doll how to say her colors and shapes. Claire went on over to the Language Master as asked. When we looked over, this is what we saw. Claire had put the baby doll beside her (in front of the Language Master) and had put her classes on the baby doll. We always tell her that in order for her to learn she has to wear her glasses. I guess she figured that if the baby doll was going to learn she needed glasses! Too cute!

Indoor Recess!

Today was our first day of indoor recess! We had a blast!

All of the girls gathered on one side of the room to play with baby dolls and a kitchen set!

The boys gathered on the other side of the room to play with cars and trucks!

We had so much fun together!

I Like the Letter Bb! Bb Starts so Many Words!

Well, we have just found out that Ms. Higdon is quite the artist. Therefore, when we made our Word Web today for the letter Bb, we let her show off her artistic abilitites!

Each student was given an object that began with the letter Bb. They were required to raise their hand and tell the class what object they had. Ms. Higdon then drew a picture of all of our Bb words on the ActivBoard!

Grace shows the class that she has a ball!

Ms. Stowe wore her Button neckalace today for the letter Bb!

Claire shows the class that she has a Baby Bottle!

After all of the pictures were drawn, Claire was asked to come up to the board and point to each object. The rest of the class named the object that she pointed to!

It was a very fun day to learn about the letter Bb!

Learning About Graphs!

This week we began learning about graphs. On Tuesday, we made a graph that represented the types of shoes everyone in the class were wearing. Everyone had to go up to the front of the class and model their shoes. Then, as a class, we decided whether they were wearing tennis shoes, slip-on shoes, or boots. Lastly, each student was required to color the appropriate box, on the graph, to represent the type of shoes he or she was wearing!

When it was Ms. Higdon's turn to model her shoes, La'Shawn knew exactly which type of shoes she was wearing!

Claire needed a little assistance getting her shoe on the table to be modeled! She informed the class that she was wearing tennis shoes!

Then, she colored the appropriate box on the graph representing her shoes!

La'Shawn greatly enjoyed this opportunity to "throw out the rules" and put his feet on the table. He also informed the class that he was wearing tennis shoes.

Then, he also colored in the appropriate box on the graph!

After everyone modeled their shoes and all of the appropriate boxes on the graph were colored, we counted the boxes in each category. Then, we determined which type of shoes more people in our class were wearing as well as which type of shoes less people in our class were wearing.

All of the students in our class really enjoyed this lesson and learned a lot about graphs from it!

How to Make Your Teachers Feel Special!

The title of this posting is so accurate! La'Shawn knows just how to make his teachers feel special. La'Shawn has been so sweet and kind to his teachers and friends lately. He is talking to them more and being a great friend!

On this particular day, La'Shawn wanted a picture with each of his teachers. So, that's exactly what we did! In our class, if you use your words and ask for it (and it is appropriate), you get it!

La'Shawn and Ms. Higdon pose for a picture!

La'Shawn and Ms. Stowe pose for a picture! Ms. Stowe has to be La'Shawn's favorite teacher. He calls her name, "Stowe", constantly and wants to show her everything that he does! He loves spending time with Ms. Stowe and they both love making each other laugh.

La'Shawn and Ms. Malcom pose for a picture!

Keep up the good work La'Shawn! We love you!

Moving on Up!

I have to brag on one of our students! Claire is "Moving on Up" in her academic skills. Claire knows almost all of her letter sounds and is now working on sounding out words!

Each morning, Ms. Stowe works with Claire on an activity to improve her ability to sound out words more consistently!

She has gotten very good at this and works so hard to find the correct letters to make the word and sound out the word appropriately!

Way to go Claire!!! We are so proud of you!!! Your hard work is paying off!

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

On Monday, Ms. Sheppard came in for our group Speech lesson.

We read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". Then, we pointed out objects from the book and answered WHO, WHAT, WHEN, and WHERE questions about the book. The students really enjoyed this book and Ms. Sheppard did a great job with this lesson! Below, are some pictures from the lesson!

Fall Playground Fun!

After our Fall Leaf hunt, we went to the playground to play!

Below, DeAsia, Joyria, and Enoch enjoy the swings!

La'Shawn enjoyed being able to climb up the playground equipment! He is headed towards the slide, which he loves!

La'Shawn and Ms. Stowe get ready to slide down the slide together!

Ms. Higdon looks on as DeAsia and Joyria swing!

It was a beautiful day and so much fun!

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt!

After making our Fall Pattern hats, we talked about what happens to the leaves/ trees in the Fall. Then, we went outside to search for Fall leaves!

Below, La'Shawn and Ms. Higdon search for Fall leaves!

Joyria loved being outside. She did a great job finding Fall leaves!

Enoch loved playing with all the leaves. He helped Ms. Malcom search for Fall leaves!

Once he found some, Enoch put them in Ms. Stowe's bag so that we could take them back into the room and talk about them!

DeAsia did a wonderful job finding Fall leaves!
She would find them and then describe them by telling us what color they were!

Joyria is still busy picking up Fall leaves!
We had a lot of fun on our Fall Leaf hunt!
We also learned a lot about how the leaves change in the Fall!

Learning About Patterns!

For the past couple of weeks, we have been learning about patterns and how to determine what comes next in a pattern!

On this day, we put our pattern skills to the test and, using red and yellow leaf cut outs, made Fall Pattern Hats!

Below, La'Shawn works on his hat!

Ms. Higdon and La'Shawn look on as Enoch works on his Fall hat!

Joyria determines what comes next in the pattern. She needs a red leaf next!

DeAsia really enjoyed this activity. She loved making the AB pattern!

La'Shawn, DeAsia, Enoch, and Joyria pose with their Fall hats in front of the Fall scene that is located at the front door of our school! Too cute!