In sign language today, students learned family signs: mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, family, friend, baby, girl, and boy. We learned a song in which they learned to spell mom, dad, love, you, and me. We also played teacher versus class, a game in which I try to stump them by showing them a sign they can't identify. I lost BIG TIME!

I'm glad we were able to play outside part of today because it looks like we may be spending a few days indoors again because of the weather. (We stayed in for afternoon recess and watched a Barney movie about feelings.) We had a lot of fun in math today. I made a new BANG! game for practicing number recognition. Students had to be able to correctly identify the number (1-30) in order to keep the stick. At the end of the game, they arranged their sticks in numerical order.

I taught subject and verb agreement. (The dog runs. The dogs run.) I know that some of the students caught on. They all hear the correct sentence, but trying to convey why it works that way was difficult and confusing for them. Tomorrow they will write their own sentences using correct subject/verb agreement.

I changed center partners today. I think most of the students were happy with their new partner. During centers, I have been testing each student's reading level for upcoming report cards. I am seeing scores that I would normally see later in the year. This is partly because your children are brilliant but also because I started reading groups earlier this year than I have in past years. I know you'll be pleased with your child's progress.

Question of the day: Why do we call someone a "copy cat" when cats don't usually copy what others are doing? Why don't we say "copy dog?"