A Gift To Every First Grader in Maine!

The Maine Education Association, through a generous grant, purchased and delivered a free book for every first grader in Maine.  Today I gave every child in my class a non-fiction National Geographic Kids Lions book and book mark.

They were so excited that I took a couple of pictures for my blog.  

Everyone is doing a great job reading their book!

Here they are showing off their copies of their new book.

They are quite cute!

A Future Teacher?

Some of my students are natural born teachers.  They seem to know just what to say to make another student feel better in one-on-one situations.  They know how to almost naturally teach their friends in school, and they have lots of empathy for those who struggle.  I had a student last year who fit into that category.

Although she is now in second grade, she still swings through my class every morning just to connect and maybe pick up some more teaching tricks in case she truly does become a teacher some day.  She also likes to practice teaching to my current class.  A few days ago she dropped off a note that she wanted my students to edit.  Here is the note.

It says, "Find all my misstakes

             and have fun!   Avery.

           dear ms henrickson

              you Are th Best

              clas Ever

                       fondly

                       avery

           (Hope I didn't

             mess your plans.)"

So, of course I projected her note on the screen with the document camera.  I made a copy of her note for every student in the class and they had to correct it to:

"Dear Mrs. Henrikson's class,

  You are the best class ever.

                          Fondly,

                          Avery 

My class was just determined to get it right.  They took bright colored markers and fixed all of the "misstakes" that they could find!  My ex-student got a chance to teach, and my current class got a chance to learn from a skilled second grader.  It was a great lesson!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

As has been my tradition for a number of years, I had a guest from the community come and read to my class on Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Cynthia Lewis, a retired special education pre-kindergarten teacher from Massachusetts who taught for 30 years, visited us today.  Mrs. Lewis holds a masters degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a highly skilled teacher.  She did a wonderful job reading Horton Hears a Who to my first graders.  The lesson from Horton Hears a Who is, "A person's a person no matter how small."

Children benefit from the connections they make with members of the community.  For example, today they heard a story read in a different voice than my own.  Throughout her reading, Mrs. Lewis dropped the end of the line rhyming word and my students predicted the word.  She modeled how important reading is throughout our entire life.

Thank you for coming to class, Mrs. Lewis!