Snow Time Play

Friday marked not only the end of the week which was filled with 2 snow days and a 2 hour delayed start it also marked the end of the month of January.  Due to weather, we haven't had a full week of school since winter break.

To celebrate our January time together and as part of our school-wide positive reward, we went outside to play in the fresh snow.  The kiddos immediately made a bee-line for the playground equipment. Snow angels, foot prints with toes pointing in and toes pointing out marked the playground along with snow bathtubs (a hole in the snow big enough to take a bath inside).

Our squeals of delight will echo right into February.  

Dilemma

This week was to be the week of DIBELS in my first grade classroom.  Well someone needed to tell Mother Nature!  Two snow days later we are finally back to school after 5 days off  - including Friday inservice as well as the weekend.  I am lucky to have a part-time instructional aide who has been trained (in many sessions) to administer this assessment.  We are a great team together and I trust her to complete these assessments without me.  Truth be told, she is much better at doing them.

So what is the dilemma?  I just want my kids on the carpet with me, out reading from their book boxes, writing, doing Pop Se Koo with GoNoodle, riddling through math, exploring Ezra Jack Keats' character Peter and hearing/seeing that 4 of my students lost teeth during this snow break!

This morning a little girl with the thickest hair you ever did see came up to me and said, "Mrs. Wert, do you know I missed you so much I thought about calling you just to hear your voice?"  And another sweet pea just went on and on about how much she was looking forward to readers workshop because she needed to see her book from her book box!   And once that time came, one boy curled up on a large brown pillow, opened Clifford, read a few pages and started giggling...yes, giggling about the actions of Clifford and his faith owner Emily Elizabeth.  DIBELS...I thought...what DIBELS?

Later in the day, we settled into our author study time to revisit Ezra Jack Keats.  Cheers went up as the kiddos discovered that Archie from Goggles is in the book Hi, Cat and again later when they realized the Roberto from Dreams brings his mouse to the pet show as we examined Keats' Pet Show.  The kids are asking great questions and making wonderful connections between Keats' books.  DIBELS...I thought...what DIBELS?

Well, Wednesday came and went.  Thursday will soon be on the door step and we have only 3 kiddos completed with this go around of DIBELS.  I will take this dilemma because on Friday we celebrate our January with a snow time play...and my students have already chatted about how they will find something just right for smacking that snow covered tree on the playground!

Until the next time,
Kathy