UPDATES for 12/19-12/23 2011

**There was lots of singing and instrument playing this week. Our class attended the programs
of grades 1-5. Wow! Amazing voices , movement and instrument playing by these classes. The students were completely enthralled by the harp music played by 5th grader and Book Buddy, Ari, as well as the jiembe and drum pieces played by Mr. Williams and Ms. Tarabus' husband. We are sure talented here at Irving School!
**Our kindergarten classes performed wonderfully on Friday! The students had such fun seeing their family and friends in the audience. Our class had a great luncheon and family craft time. Thanks to L. Waste for providing the craft. Our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class joined us in the afternoon for a project using the IPAD and the app, Doodle Buddy. A big thanks to Ms. Applebey for assisting. Stay tuned! I am so thankful for all the parental help this week! You guys are the best! What a perfect ending to a busy week.
**Yaya and Alex finished their time serving as Student Council reps. They had their final update meeting with the class to express their thoughts and tell their favorite parts of their service. We will be looking for 2 new reps in January.
**Mei-Li's mom shared with us the history behind the Winter Solstice. She read a story and Mei-Li helped show the suns position using a flashlight and globe. We toasted the sun by sipping orange juice and listening and singing to the Beatles tune,"Here Comes the Sun." I presented the story of the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. I shared several stories and artifacts. The students pointed out the use of light in the form of candles in the Kinara and what each colored candle symbolized. The festival of Hanukkah (which began on Tuesday) was shared by our own Ms. Applebey. She taught the students a cool math game called the "Dreidel Race."
**Classes resume on Monday, January 9, 2012.
**Mid Year DIBELS Testing will take place the first 2 weeks of January. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on January 23rd.
**Vision Screening for students will take place on Friday, January 20th. Hearing Screening will take place on Tuesday, January 24th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 5th year listening to young readers and helping them to shape their decoding and comprehension skills.
** Mrs. Donaldson (Mrs. D.) will continue to assist us on Tuesday mornings. We so value her commitment to us.
**For those who are traveling--your travel journals went home. It will great to share them in January.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other COOL stuff for our space station construction in APRIL during our SPACE theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start sending things in after spring break.
**LOOKING AHEAD in 2012.......We will begin our next cross curricular theme-WINTER and Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. We will also begin our first Science unit-Properties of Water. In the area of reading, we will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending 3, 4, 5, and even 6 phoneme words, work on our decoding strategies, vowel sounds, oral and written comprehension skills and reading fluency. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. In the area of writing, we will begin formal instruction on lowercase letter formation, continue with our inventive spelling, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation and expanding our sentences to include adjectives. In the area of math, we will continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, identifying coins and their values, problem solving, counting down from random numbers and combining and decomposing sets (addition and subtraction) and telling time. We will begin using our math journals to illustrate process. Socially, we will continue to work on becoming more responsible, independent learners and thinkers and continue to form positive relationships and respect all around us. WOW--we will be busy!!
This week:
It was all about community with one another, family and friends. We put up our 'Friendship Tree." The students made friendship chains, working in pairs and groups and then combined the chains for one super long chain to decorate the tree. They wrote messages to friends in class and posted them on the message board next to the tree. Really wonderful thoughts were expressed. I have photographed the tree and board and will post the pictures in the gallery. The students shared a great lunch with their families and worked on a craft together. It was great to observe such care and love. The interaction with our Book Buddies was awesome. My students really look up to the "big" kids for guidance. Their collaborations will be shared with you.
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 3 Food in the Treasures Reading Series. They took their unit assessment on Thursday. The students built background knowledge around food traditions. This tied in nicely with our ongoing theme of traditions. The students were able to tell about their personal family food traditions including Thanksgiving turkey, Chinese New Year foods, Hanukkah foods and Christmas traditional foods. We discussed what a menu was. The students listened to the story, "Yoko." The students worked on making inferences, summarizing and making connections in the story to their own lives. We reviewed the sight words have and to. The students used these and the rest of their sight vocabulary to create sentences using words and pictures. We reviewed our target sounds Cc and Nn in isolation at the beginning and ending of words. The students continued to used their photo cards to sort nouns and verbs. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included the words MENU, TRADITION, DEVOUR, FRESH and DELICIOUS. The students used their sound (elkonin) boxes to sound blend 3 and 4 phonemes to create words. They practiced reading their decodable story, "Nat." The students made predictions about story content. The students listened to the tale, "The Three Wishes." They thought about ---What if they had three wishes? What would they be? What were the man and woman's wishes in the story? The students also listened and viewed pictures from the expository (informational) text, "Farming Then and Now." The students responded about how the way to farm has changed over the years. Students observed the use of animals and the gradual change to machines. Each student read the paper story, "I Have To," and then retold it in their own words. The students practiced their reading skills by sharing their story with a partner. For a small group project, the students collaborated with their group members and came up with a recipe for a food. The recipe had to include nouns (flour, sugar, fish etc.) and verbs (mix, stir, peel etc.) The students worked with the headings--what do we need? what do we do? Some of the food recipes include sushi, pancakes and cupcakes. The projects are on display in our classroom. Check them out! Our workstations this week included readers response, where the student reads a story aloud to Ms. D and discusses the story and their reaction to it, creating an ABC book, picking a letter, illustrate and writing the word, sound Tic Tac Toe Game with partners where you look at your game card, point to a letter and say a word that starts with that letter and mark it with the appropriate X or O and read aloud recording where the student practiced their story first, then recorded their story reading on ITALK , played it back and then filled out the reader's checklist.
Math: The students continued work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting by tens and fives, using calculators to do simple adding and listening to a number story and illustrating the process and writing a number sentence. All students completed their Gingerbread Man patterning project and shared it with the class.
Writing: All students reviewed writing uppercase letters A-Z. They reviewed which were the Frog Jumps, Magic "C"s, Starting Corner and Starting Center letters. Writing prompts this week included--sample menu writing, writing about the concerts you saw, writing about the Gingerbread person you created, writing about what you will do over break. We continue to stress beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence, ending mark at the end of the sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Technology: The students continue to use the app Whiteboard with a stylus to practice number and letter formation. They continue to record their reading using ITALK and playing it back to critique how they sound. The apps Word Wizard, Montessori Crossword and Sound Sort and Reading Bug helped assist students with sound recognition, sound blending, segmenting sounds and practice spelling their sight words. The apps Math Bug, Top It and Gingerbread Maker helped assist students with adding and subtracting, patterns and place value. The app Doodle Buddy was used with our Book Buddies for collaborative illustration, writing, graphics and fun!
Literature: "Count the Days of Hanukkah," "The Chanukkah Guest," "A Picture Book of Hanukkah," "The Longest Christmas List Ever," "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Merry Christmas Hungry Bear," "The Crunchy, Munchy Christmas Tree," "Bear Stays Up for Christmas," "Fiesta USA," "K is for Kwanzaa," "My First Book of Kwanzaa," "Muslim Holidays," "7 Candles for Kwanzaa."

UPDATES for 12/12-12/16 2011

**The countdown has begun to our final week in school for 2011! The students continue to be busy with concert practice, classroom lessons, thinking about their winter break from school (lots of travel journals to make) and sharing and caring about one another. Tis the season! We continue to talk about family traditions and celebrations and the use of lights. Lottie's father came to talk to our class about the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia. He read a story and Lottie dressed up in her white dress and wore her candle crown. She passed out ginger cookies similar to the ones eaten in Sweden. The students learned some Swedish words and heard the St. Lucia song in Swedish. Thanks so much, Josh for your presentation! I presented the story of Christmas. The students listened to the story. We talked about the North Star and I shared with them a set of special finger puppets that my mother had given to me. Next up is Mei-Li's mom, who will speak about the Winter Solstice celebration their family shares. Also, the students will learn about the traditions of Hanukkah and Posadas, as well as look back at the celebrations of Ramadan and Diwali. We are learning so much from each other.
**Our Kindergarten Winter Concert is Friday, December 23rd beginning promptly at 9:30 am. We are sure to have a full house. Please plan accordingly. Immediately following our concert, please join us in our classroom for craft making and lunch. An invitation is enclosed in the homework packet. Families and friends, please plan to be at school from 9:30-11:30 am if you can. In the afternoon, we will have a special treat. The students will be creating a project with their 5th Grade Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Our great tech advisor, Ms. Applebey, will help facilitate the event. Don't forget--NO Lunch needed!!!
**Solar energy has come to Irving School! Our Green Team rep, Salome, has talked about the solar panels that our school was getting through a grant program. They arrived on Friday! We took a look at pictures of solar panels on the web and located information through the Energy Department on how solar energy works. We learned the words renewable and nonrenewable when speaking about energy sources. Solar energy is renewable. We went outside to see one of the panels. There are five in all. They were installed on the library roof. Stay tuned!
**The Girl Scout Toy Drive ends Monday, December 19th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. All students have received notification of skill development. There is no Route to Reading from December 19th to January 23rd. Mid year DIBELS assessments will take place the first part of January.
** Due to our rehearsal schedule, we did not have Mr. Packer math this week.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt read a story and lead a discussion with the students about what it means to be proud, both of themselves and their accomplishments in their everyday lives.
This week:
It was all about pride! We used the tale of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as a springboard to discussion and dictation about taking pride in yourself and your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. In our first tale, Rudolph was made fun of because of his shiny nose. The students made connections in their lives about times when others put them down or times when they felt they didn't know enough or know how to do something. Sometimes, it just takes one person or event to help us see our worth! In the second tale of Rudolph, he loses the shine on his nose because he feels sorry for himself and runs away. The students shared times in their lives when they wanted to give up or not try. At the end of the story, Rudolph's shiny nose returns as he stops thinking about himself but of how to help find the little bunnies. Simple stories with very teachable moments! Ms. Kwiatt continued the theme of pride in her Friendship Club lesson.
Reading/ Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 4 Food of our Treasures Reading Series. The discussion this week centered around the questions, "What is for dinner?" and "Did you ever help to make dinner?" The students accessed prior knowledge about meals
they helped prepare and special meals that are coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the story, "Our Special Sweet Potato Pie." They made connections in the story discussing parts that could not really happen (the potatoes getting bigger as they rolled down the hill,) and parts that could happen (making a sweet potato pie, having a special birthday dinner.) They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Our sight word for this week was have. The students reviewed all sight words they learned so far by working with partners and using their words and picture cards to create sentences. The target sound this week was letter Cc. The students used chants and rhymes to help reinforce the letter sound. The students continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR and SPECIAL. The students also used the story to sequence events, summarize and make inferences about what would happen. The students continue to use their sound boxes (elkonin boxes) and blocks to listen, place the block in the correct box and sound blend the phonemes to make the word. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can!" We read aloud together. Students then took turns reading their story to a friend. The students continue to work on their oral language by listening and responding to the vocabulary story from Puerto Rico, called, "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot." They also heard two poems containing the sound of Cc words. The students read their story, "I Have." They located the speech bubble and knew who was talking. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, assisted the students by saying the sounds and the students responded by saying the whole word made. The students continue to work on their small group interactive project--Writing a Recipe--using nouns and verbs to describe what they need and what they do in order to make their group food recipe. Lots of team work involved. Projects will be on display next week. In the Russian folktale, "Grandfather Bear is Hungry," the students listened and responded to the tale. They made prior knowledge connections in thinking back about our unit on Bears. The students topped off the week by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down" with their sight words. Work stations this week included, creating a word web about foods "I like to have" and writing 2 sentences about it, read it and add to it where they choose their own story to read, read it to a friend and write about what could happen next, creating a store sign with magazine pictures and labeling the foods on your sign and making a pretend meal in the house corner area, photographing it and writing about your favorite meal and where you got your food from.
Math: The students worked on an introduction to the Calculator. They learned how solar power operates the calculator and terms DISPLAY, ON/CLEAR, REPEAT KEY, PLUS SIGN and locating numbers. The students worked with counting on the calculator and the term, "one more." They also learned the counting shortcut. More to come next week. The students continue to work on counting sequences, oral number stories and beginning number sentences. They have become more consistent in writing 2 digit numbers. Place value has become more understandable. The students are locating numbers in the tens and ones places. The students are working on counting by tens to 100. This weeks station day activities included sorting, graphing and counting trees, creating a tree out of pattern triangles and following directions using shapes to make Rudolph.
Writing: The students are using their writing for many assignments. They finished the starting center capitals A, I, T, J. We will review all upper case letters next week. The students used the writing prompts in their Treasures Series and continue to work on letter formation, spacing of words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line. Next week, the students will begin using regular #2 pencils. Any special tools will continue to be used on these pencils.
Technology: The students continue to use the stylus and app Whiteboard to practice their number rhymes and letter formation. Groups of students began to using the ITalk to record the story of their choosing. They played back the recording to hear how they sounded. They then filled out a Reader's Checklist form reflecting how they felt about their reading. Some surprising responses! The students were honest about how they sounded. This checklist will be used to help the students self reflect and make them more aware of their volume/projection, fluency and sound blending. Ms. Applebey assisted in guiding them through the process so that I could hear them too. Some of the stories were too long to email. We are working to see what can be done. My hope is for families to get a chance to hear the recording at some point. Stay tuned. Math small groups worked on the apps Math Bug and Top It for enhancement of adding numbers and number order. The students continue to work on their individual projects with the app Gingerbread Maker. We will finished them this week.
Literature: "St. Lucia Day," "The Christmas Story," "Silent Night," "This is the Star," "Too Many Toys," It's Christmas, David," Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Merry Christmas, Splat."

UPDATES for 12/5-12/9 2011

**What a great week! The tiny bit of snow we had created excitement of the coming of winter....at least if you are a five or six year old!!! We had our first guest speaker, Salome's mom, who came to talk to us about the legend of St. Nicholas. A native of France near the German border, she read a picture story in French about St. Nicholas and taught the students a song that their family sings to invite St. Nicholas to come. Each student received a special cookie (somewhat like gingerbread!) and got to color a picture of St. Nicholas (who looks a bit like Santa Claus!) Thanks so much, Isabel, for your presentation. Next up is Lottie's dad who will speak about the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia Day, celebrated by Lottie's family.
**If you have any questions about your child's report card, please contact me.
**Our Gingerbread Baking was fabulous! Everyone had a ball--students and volunteers alike. The smell of gingerbread was in the air! Lots of detail went into decorating these cookies. They were really works of art. A big thanks to our volunteers--B. Chyna , J. Chyna, C. Bravo, T. Naber, J. Brock. P. Hamblin, T. Orozco and M. Chlebek for their great assistance.
**The Girl Scouts have collected many donations of toys and books but could always use more. The drive goes on until December 19th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will conclude on Wednesday, December 14th. At that time, you will receive notification of skill development. There is no Route to Reading 12/19-12/22.
**I was not able to attend Irving's Annual Cookie Crumble and Craft Show but heard it went very well!
**Mr. Packer's lesson continued to focus on Probability /Chance this week.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Kwiatt worked an activity where the students had to take turns, be respectful and give clues about a particular animal card they held so that the other students could guess what animal is was. Great clue giving!
**The students will begin rehearsing for their concert in the auditorium this week. They sound really great!
**Families and other guests--please join us after our concert for a light luncheon in our classroom. We will have sandwiches, a veggie tray, fruit, yogurt tubes and dessert. There will be plenty for all. The concert is December 23rd at 9:30 am. in the Irving Auditorium.
This week:
It was all about the gingerbread!! The students gathered information from books and internet sources to find out how gingerbread began and why it is so popular at this time of year. Ginger was valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made using ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, cakes and houses. We read many stories about various gingerbread characters. The students worked on a compare/contrast project where they discussed each story we read and how it ended (was he/she eaten?), who the characters were (boy, girl, cowboy, baby, fox, wolf, coyote?), what the plot of the story was. They had loads of fun! The students wrote in their journal about gingerbread, counted gingerbread, created their own gingerbread man and graphed patterns following their gingerbread person's trail. The students were quite inventive as they rolled out their dough and decorated their cookies. I can't wait to read their homework assignment on their favorite gingerbread tale!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading Series. The unit started with a question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets, orchards as places where food can be found. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." The students listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple orchard farmer. Students made connections about their recent theme on apples and the types of apples that Annie grew and what she made with them. Some students related that they had gone to a farmers market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target word for this week was to. We added this word to our other sight words and created sentences using words and our picture cards. Our target letter and sound was Nn. We reviewed our sound toys and picture cards and read a rhyme/chant containing the Nn words and the sight word to. The students reviewed action words or verbs by taking a noun picture and adding their own verb to it. The students use the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. Our Robust vocabulary this week contained the words FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, helped the students with their phoneme blending. We continue to use our sounds boxes (elkonin boxes) and blocks to move block where we hear the phoneme. We continue to work on 3-4 phoneme words. The students read their decodable book, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about content. Students took turns reading each page (the other students finger pointed to follow along.) We also read each sentence together. We reviewed what a question mark is and the students orally answered questions about the story. Using our vocabulary cards, the students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please!" The students had great fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own home made pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students never made their own pizza but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to an expository (informational) text "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." We discussed what a diagram is and how you follow a recipe. The students read their pre-decodable story, "We Go!" The students took turns reading aloud. They continued to work on voice quality when reading aloud and their reading fluency. The students spent time rereading their story to a partner and talking about story elements. Workstations this week included using the sight word Can to write a question sentence and illustrating it, story retelling where the students read a story, retell it to a partner and make retelling cards, feeling foods, where the students feel into a bag of foods, describe what they feel, pull out the food, show it and describe it to a partner and then write 2 sentences to describe their food and Word Pies, where the students have to create 4 words-one in each part of their pie, recording the words and writing a sentence using one of their words. The students could make a word containing 3-4 phonemes. Some students are exploring 5-6 phoneme words!
Math: The students finished their number rhymes for numbers 6-9. They continue to work on creating their number rhyme sticker book. The students continue to work on rote counting to 75, revisiting pattern block shapes and geometric solids, taking a look at distance in terms of number of steps to various places in the classroom and out and writing 1 digit, 2 digit and 3 digit numbers on their dry erase boards. They continue to work on listening for key information in oral addition an subtraction story problems.
Writing: The students work on the "Magic C" letter, Ss and reviewed the starting center letter A. The students continue to use the writing prompts from their Treasures Reading Series. The students also wrote about gingerbread. The emphasis remains on spacing between words in a sentence, using lowercase letters and knowing where to place them on a given line and making their writing readable. We will finish our center starting uppercase letters next week.
Technology: The students took turns using their stylus and app Whiteboard to practice both "Magic C" letters and their number rhymes. Each table got a chance to work with this app. Ms. Applebey worked with workstation groups on word building with an app called Montessori Crossword. The students tapped the box to listen to each phoneme and dragged the letters to form the word. They then wrote down all the words they made. The app was differentiated to produce crosswords puzzles for students too. The app Sound Sort was also used by individual students to reinforce letter/sound correspondence. Students also used the stylus and the app Intro to Math to practice reproducing their number rhymes. Students worked with a partner on the app Top It (both 1 and 2 digit) to reinforce knowledge of addition. Students explored the app Math Bug to work on addition and subtraction with pictures. The students are continuing to work on a project with the app Gingerbread Maker. Here they create a gingerbread person of their choice, with shapes for the features. The students then touch and take their gingerbread boy or girl to follow the random pattern. They draw the pattern on the activity sheet and then do it 2 more times. The patterns can get tricky!! The students then make a picture of the gingerbread person they made on the app.
Literature: "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Boy," "Gingerbread Baby," "Gingerbread Friends," "Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "The Gingerbread Girl," "The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers," "Bad Boys Gets Cookie," "Gingerbread Fred," "The Gingerbread Cowboy," "Ten Gingerbread Men."

UPDATES for 11/28-12/3 2011

**December is here! The students are working hard! They are getting ready for their Winter Concert. Their handwriting is becoming very readable. They are beginning to use their sound blending skills more consistently. They are beginning to listen for key words in auditory math story problems in order to figure what process to use. The students reading fluency is taking shape. And to think it was only a few short months ago, that kindergarten began. I am so proud of their accomplishments as I know you are too!
**We have completed Unit 3 Transportation, in our Treasures Reading Series. The students will take their unit assessment on Monday.
**COOKIE DOUGH pick up is Monday, December 5th from 3-6 pm. Don't forget!!!!
**Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**Our Annual Gingerbread Baking is set for Friday, December 9th beginning at 12:30 pm until dismissal. I have B. Chyna, J. Chyna, C. Bravo, T. Naber , I. Henry, P. Hamblin and T Orozco signed up to help. The more the merrier! Email if interested.
**A continued SHOUT OUT from Ava and Tyler's big sisters to help the Irving Girl Scouts with their annual TOY DRIVE. They are collecting new, non-violent and unwrapped toys, books and games for children ages 0-13. They will also accept donations of wrapping paper and tape. The collection boxes are in the main office and hallways. Let's help out!!!!!
**Our Student Council reps, Yaya and Alex, reported to us that the "Hats Off to Cancer" money raised went to the Mario Lemieux Foundation for Cancer Research. They also reported that they thinking of other projects to help our community. Stay tuned!
**Our Green Team rep, Salome, reported that the Green Team is working on a fundraiser that will support the Irving School Yard Project. Stay tuned!
**Our volunteer speaker list in growing! We now have speakers for St. Lucia Day, St. Nicholas Day and a family tradition in celebrating the Winter Solstice. Senora Zaragosa will speak about Las Posadas. Email me if YOU have a tradition or celebration you would like to speak about. We learn so much from each other!
** Mr Packer did a really cool lesson on PROBABILITY/CHANCE this week. Ask your child about bears in a bag and the words--sometimes--always--never! Great fun!
**In Friendship Club this week Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt worked with the students on activities that promote responsibility both at home and at school.
**Spelling City vocabulary has been updated.
This week:
It was all about tying up loose ends--completing our Bear unit--completing Unit 3 in our Treasures Series, reviewing our sight words, letter sounds, numbers and also beginning to think about our next cross-curricular theme--Celebrations and Traditions. The students began an inquiry into not only how they celebrate during the winter months, but also how children in other parts of the world celebrate that time. The students began to look through books and internet sites for information. They observed that many of the celebrations, both in our country and other countries, have lights, candles or lanterns as part of that particular celebration. Stay tuned for more! Our station day activities included putting together sound blending wheels and sounding out the words made, creating candles using glitter and jewels (very sparkly), working on our number/sticker books reviewing number rhymes 0-5, creating a seasonal illustration background for Mr. Bear, making our bear claws with a mold and clay and experimenting with the blubber glove (how does a polar bear feel as he is swimming in the icy water??? Is he cold??)
Reading/Social Studies: The students have completed Unit 3 Transportation in the Treasures Reading Series. They are gearing up for their unit assessment on Monday. The students built background knowledge about the different ways wheels are used to move people and things around. They worked on their comprehension listening to David Shannon's story, "Duck on a Bike." Students identified characters and plot (what's happening) in the story. They took a close look at the way the story is organized (a beginning, middle and end), and responded to the story by discussing the connections that can be made from the story to their daily lives. (Sometimes, I see kids riding bikes in my neighborhood.) The students retold the story in their our words using their retelling cards. The students reviewed sight words go and see using chants and rhymes. We combined them with our other sight words and picture cards to create sentences that were shared with a partner. The students reviewed their target sounds short i and Tt and used their sound boards to listen and record 3 -4 phoneme words. Lots of discussion around nouns and verbs. The students used their photo cards to create a sentence using noun/verb order. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included ADVENTURE, WHEELS, ATTACH, HAUL and MASSIVE. The students continued their sound blending exercises using short i words. The student read their pre decodable story, "I See a Truck Go," and made predictions about story content. The students used their oral vocabulary cards to expand their knowledge of types of trucks. Once again, they were able to access their prior knowledge and make connections in their daily lives. The students read, "I Can Go," and practiced reading to a partner to build their fluency. The partners discussed the story noting setting and characters and what was occurring (plot.) The students listened to the informational text, "How Do You Go to School." They learned a new important word--expository--to explain or give information.
This story explained other modes of transportation--snowshoes, cables, scooter, unicycle for going places like school! Lots of discussion focused on the going to school on a cable thru the rain forest. (very scary!) The students listened to a folktale called, "The Singing Wagon." Ask your child to retell it to you. Did the wagon really sing??? Our work station activities this week included cutting out magazine pictures and organizing them into categories labeled --land --air--water and choosing one vehicle and writing a sentence about where it fits, playing the phonics game, "The Long Ride," and recording the real word family words made, reader's response--reading a story, discussing it and writing/labeling your feeling about the story, composing a sentence using go and see and illustrating it and using technology along with sentence structure, grammar and punctuation to create sentences using sight words. Thanks to Alex for sharing his book about adjectives. We are adding more to our grammar piece!!!!
Math: The students worked on rote counting to 60. They used their dry erase boards to listen to a number given and record it. They are working on single and double digit numbers. (I even added some 3 digit!!!) The students have learned number formation rhymes 0-5 and are creating a writing and sticker book for practice. We continuing to work on counting by 2"s and 5's. The students worked on the concepts of probability and estimation this week. Next week, we will set up our guessing jar activities. The students worked on some small group activities around these concepts. Thanks to Mr. Packer for his cool lesson! The students continue to work on combining and decomposing sets and the processes behind addition and subtraction.
Writing: The students are working to form the Magic "C" Starting Center Capitals. They worked on letters C, O, G and Q this week. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures Reading Series. Sentence structure, spacing between words in a sentence,
placement of upper and lower case letters on a line and letter formation are the main concepts being worked on. The students continue to use their inventive spelling.
Technology: The students continue to use the IPADS as a learning enhancement tool. Ms. Applebey has added some new apps in the area of reading, math and science and creativity. In a small group work station, students used used the app Magnetic Letters to compose 2 sentences using some of their sight words. They rolled the dial as needed for upper case, lower case, punctuation and illustrative icons. They read their sentences. They then practiced writing the sentences they made on paper checking their letter formation and spacing. The app Sound Sorting was used in small group to target certain beginning sounds. The students worked individually moving the correct pictures into the sound category spaces. The students received training on how to use a stylus. This will be especially helpful when writing numbers and letters in various activities to continue to foster the tripod grasp. We will begin using them for some activities on the IPAD next week. In math, the students used the app Dot to Dot Lite to create pictures by following the dots in sequential order. The degree of difficulty was adjusted to suit the needs of the player. The alphabet and numbers were used. The students used a variety of apps in their choice time to reinforce skills in reading and in math. The app ITALK was used by students to record their reading and self evaluate their voice level and fluency.
Literature: The students participated in an author study on Karma Wilson. We took a look at her website and learned about her life and how she chose subjects to write about. The students did whole group compare and contrast Venn diagram on the stories--"Bear Snores On," "Bear Feels Sick," and "Bear Feels Scared." Other literature this week--"Sleep Big Bear, Sleep," "Gotcha," "Children Just Like Me: Celebrations," "A Book About Adjectives."

UPDATES for 11/21-11/22 2011

**I hope you are all enjoying the Thanksgiving weekend. I am thankful for a great class of students and their very supportive parents!
**We had a super busy 2 days! Our field trip to Brookfield Zoo was wonderful! The good weather made it possible for us to spend most of our time outside. The students spent their free time exploring big cats, penguins, rhinos, gorillas, monkeys and various activities at the Hamill Family Play Zoo. At the Great Bear Wilderness exhibit, we enjoyed a classroom experience with Bob, our instructor. He guided us through an introduction on bears of all kinds, looking at artifacts and providing activities where they could compare themselves to the different types of bears. The students got to touch real bear fur from both the brown and polar bears. They looked at paw prints from both and used their bodies to see how many students it would take to equal the size of a brown and polar bear. He then took us out into the great bear wilderness to view the bears. We had lunch outside and even saw Christmas trees decorated by local towns in the area (Oak Park included!) on display along the walking path. Our bus ride home was quiet and reflective (some napping students!) When we got back, the students completed a written reflection and illustration about their day. A big thanks to our volunteers--K. Mikos, J. Brock, B. Chyna, G. Garcia and I. Henry for their help! Our PBIS Olympic Day was also a hit! The students tested their running, jumping, team building and problem solving skills with various movement activities. They really worked well together and had lots of fun!
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 begins Monday, November 28th. At that time, students will receive notification of their skill placement.
**We are now in Trimester 2 of our school year. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**Our Annual Gingerbread Baking is set for Friday, December 9th beginning at 12:30 pm until dismissal. We have 5 volunteers so far but could use 4-5 more. Email me if interested. Create, decorate, bake and share! No baking experience needed!
**Looking ahead to our next cross-curricular theme--Traditions and Celebrations--I am looking for guest speakers to come and present to the students on their particular family traditions and celebrations. We will be studying the use of lights as a unifying theme in many winter celebrations. We have volunteers to speak on Sweden's, St. Lucia Day and France's celebration on St. Nicholas Day. Remember, it can be any tradition/celebration your family has. See me for more details.
**A BIG SHOUT OUT from Ava and Tyler's big sisters--It's the 11th Annual Girl Scout Toy Drive--November 28th-December 19th. The Irving Girl Scouts will be collecting new, non-violent unwrapped toys, games and books for children ages 0-13. They will also accept donations of wrapping paper and tape. There will be collection boxes located in the main office and in the hallways on each floor. All items will benefit children in the Austin neighborhood in association with the Fraternite Notre Dame. Let's help out!!!!
**Kindergarten Winter Concert is Friday, December 23rd at 9:30 am in the Irving Auditorium with a family reception following in our classroom. Stay tuned for more info.
This week:
It was all about MOVEMENT both fine motor and gross motor! We did not have regularly scheduled classes this short week. Monday had us walking and exploring on our field trip. The students used their fine motor skills to reflect and draw about their experiences. On Tuesday morning, the students participated in the PBIS Olympic Day. Here they used just about all of their gross motor skills including their thinking skills to perform each of the activities--Human Knot, Rescue Relay, Crossing the Peanut Butter River, Egg and Spoon Race were just some of the events. After our morning events were finished, the students studied about what it was like to be on the Mayflower in 1620 and what life was like for children their age at that time. We also took a look at what life was like once they arrived at Jamestown. The students used their gross motor skills to make butter. This was an activity that children in 1620 might have done as a family chore. Call it food science if you will--changing a liquid into a solid and using your upper body to shake the container of whipping cream until changes occurred. Pretty cool! After lunch, the students used their motor skills to work in the lab on Lexia. Back in our classroom, we readied the room in preparation for creating our Bear Paw Snacks. The students used their fine motor skills again to shape the dough and create little "toes" on their "paw." The paws were baked and enjoyed with our butter and honey. The remainder of the time was spent in community with each other building, conversing, drawing and sharing. A perfect ending to a busy 2 days! We are thankful for each other!
Literature: "If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620, " "Who will Carve the Turkey?" "Thanksgiving is for Giving," "The World of Bears," "Duck on a Bike."

UPDATES for 11/14-11/18 2011

**The weather has turned cool and brisk, but our class is cozy and warm with the sounds of students working very hard this week on a number of skills and activities. I am thankful for their dedication to their education.
**FINAL REMINDER--Our Field Trip is Monday, November 21st. Don't forget to pack a BAG lunch (put your name on it) and dress for the weather. We will be gone most of the school day. We will tour the Great Bear Wilderness and have a 45 minute classroom experience beginning at 12:30 pm. Before that, the students will have time to walk around and see the exhibits of their choosing. We will all meet up for lunch and then proceed to our classroom. We will return to school by 2:30 pm.
**NO SCHOOL- November 23rd-Teacher Institute Day. School is closed November 24th and 25th for Thanksgiving.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin Monday, November 28th. At that time, students will receive notification of their skill placement.
**We met with our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's Class on Wednesday. Our Book Buddies shared some BEARY good books. Together the students reflected and illustrated in their shared journals. There was great conversation, interactions and respect for one another. Check out the pics in the gallery section of the teacher web. We will meet with again in December.
**Many of our Book Buddies took part in the Annual Turkey Trot on Thursday. Our class made pop up signs using our new sight word--GO!
**Due to the Turkey Trot, we did not have Mr. Packer Math. He will do his whole group activity after Thanksgiving.
**Trimester 1 had ended. Report cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**Ms. Henry and Ms. Naber will be assisting us as we make our bear paw snacks and home made butter this coming Tuesday afternoon--thanks!
**Our all school PBIS Olympic Day will take place on Tuesday morning.
**We need lots of help for our annual gingerbread cookie baking on Friday, December 9th in the afternoon. Come join the fun. No baking experience necessary! Email me if interested.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt discussed with the students the term "thankful." The students created a turkey and on each feather wrote what they were thankful for.
**Reading Grandma Mary stopped by to meet our class. She will come to our room one afternoon a week to listen to students read and work on comprehension and fluency. She will start in January! We can't wait!
**Looking ahead to our next cross curricular theme--Traditions and Celebrations--I am looking for guest speakers to come to present to the students on their particular family traditions and celebrations. We will be studying the use of types of lights as a unifying theme in many winter celebrations. Email me if interested.
**Kindergarten Winter Concert is Friday, December 23rd at 9:30 am with a reception in our classroom immediately following.
This week:
It continues to be all about bears. This week, our focus was on polar bears. The students learned that polar bears are different from brown and black bears in basic characteristics, habitat, diet and that they do not truly hibernate. Polar bears do not have much trouble finding food in the cold. With plant life scarce, they are mostly carnivores. The students had a lively discussion on how seals are a main part of a polar bears diet. Some students were dismayed by that. We checked out some on line resources on the Artic region. The students made connections in their daily life in the winter months and a polar bears life all year round. Swimming for hours in icy water, the polar bears black skin helping to reflect sunlight and the layer of blubber under their skin that acts like a heavy jacket to keep warm are just some of the interesting facts the students found out. In our station day activities, the students made bear caves with paper bags and leaves, bear paws with noodles and torn paper and graphed polar bears (teddy grahams) and ice bergs (marshmallows) and compared the totals. The students began preparation for their field trip to the Great Bear Wilderness at Brookfield Zoo on Monday. Our field trip, Bear Paw snacks, honey and a blubber glove are some of the highlights for next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 3 Transportation of our Treasures series. The students built background knowledge on their travels both far and near. The students listened to the big book story, "On the Go." They observed how the people traveled from one place to another and the vehicles they used. In the story, each page showed a person from a particular country and their form of transportation. We looked up each country on our world map. In their comprehension study, the students compared, contrast, classified and categorized the types of travel and vehicles. The sight word GO was introduced this week. The students reviewed all the sight words they have learned thus far. Our target sound this week was short i. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound as well as their sound cards. The students continued to review the use of action words or verbs. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included TRAVEL, JOURNEY, PREPARE, RELAX and FAMILIAR. In phonemic awareness, the students used their sound boxes to sound out and blend 3-4 letter words using short i. The students read their pre decodable story, "Go, Go, Go." They made predictions about the content and sounded out the decodable words in the story. During an interactive writing exercise, the students made pop up signs using the word, go to help cheer their book buddies on in the turkey trot race. In our vocabulary card story, "Two Frogs," the students listened to the story of the frogs from two different regions and their quest to see the others areas. The students can share with you the out come of the story. It is pretty cool! We read two poems on transportation, "The Bike," and "Riding the Subway Train." The students noticed the rhyming in both and helped to track the words as I read. The students worked with partners to create sentences using their sight words and picture cards. Our work station activities this week included writing sentences using sight words go and see and creating illustrations, using the transportation cards to talk about what is the same and different about 2 cards picked, discussing it with their table mates and creating a list wheels vs. feet words, creating words using a word wheel with word families am, ap and at and then sorting words by the first letter and read it and add to it where the students each read a story, think about what could happen next and write and draw about it. The students had opportunities to read stories to each other to practice their fluency.
Math: This week the students worked on counting strategies. We continued to work our way to 100. The students began learning rhymes that will help them in forming their numbers. They used their dry erase boards to practice. The students worked on some graphing exercises. We also revisited pattern block shapes, geometric solids and penny power. The students experimented with building on more complex patterns and naming them. The students are beginning to work on the process behind addition and subtraction using manipulatives and drawings for assistance. We continued work on "thinking" math story problems. Many of the students are becoming more interested in listening for key information in the story in order to solve it. Students are also beginning to come up and illustrate their "thinking" on the blackboard.
Writing: The students continued working on sentence structure, placement of words on a given line and using nouns and verbs. This week, our book buddies helped assist in a writing exercise where a story was shared and then both kindergartner and book buddy reflected in writing and drawing their favorite part. It was great fun and very cool watch the care taken by our book buddies in guiding their younger counterparts. Great learning!!! A large portion of our writing time was spent creating our version of the "Brown Bear" story. Each student came up with their idea. They talked it through, wrote their draft, made corrections and then wrote the final copy and illustrated it. Don't forget--inventive spelling is very acceptable at this stage!!! They did a spectacular job! We have finished our Starting Corner Capitals. The "Magic C" letters are next.
Technology: The students continued to explore the many apps on the IPAD in order to enhance their learning. Ms. Applebey was back this week to assist with bringing our version of the "Brown Bear" story up a few notches!! A picture of each students page was taken and each student recorded their sentence with the app Sonic Pics. The "book" was put together and is now part of our blog. Pretty cool! The students used the app Magic Reading 2 (Beginning and Ending Blends.) They tapped the box to listen to each phoneme, sounded out the word and recorded it on their paper. The students used the app Word Family Fun to reinforce beginning letter and rhyme onset. They also used the app Phonics Lite to find short a and short o words.
For math, the students used the app Top It, reviewing concepts more and less, adding the numbers and comparing it to their partners number. The app Monster Squeeze continues to help reinforce number order and recognition. The students also began work with the app Kids Math that illustrates the process of simple addition and subtraction and also shows written format.
Literature: "Polar Bears," "Bears, Claws and Paws," "Looking at Bears," "The Last Polar Bear," "Young Larry," "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" "The Polar Bear," "Follow the Polar Bear."

Our Talking Story Book

Check out our class take on Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle's great classic story.

UPDATES for 11/4-11/10 2011

**We have had a seemingly fast but very productive week. It is hard to believe that it is November and that we are about half way to our 100th day!
**There was no school last Friday in observance of Veteran's Day. A shout out to all serving in the military--a personal shout out to my niece and nephew--Go Air Force!
**Thanks to everyone that contributed their $1.00 for "Hats off for Cancer." Our classroom raised $27 for the cause and many cool hats were worn. Thanks to our reps, Yaya and Alex for helping to spread the word.
**Don't forget to send in your child's permission slip and money for our Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo. Student and Volunteer information will be in next weeks homework packet.
**We have a few more baby pictures to collect, but our SEASONAL BABIES project looks spectacular! Come check out some of Irving's own faculty on our wall. Yes--you will see black and white photos! Some of us were around before color pics!!!
**PICTURE RETAKE DAY is Wednesday, November 16th. You received information in the homework packet.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 will be concluding next week. Students will be assessed on their skill and you will receive notification indicating the result. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Monday, November 28th.
**Here's a continued shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities.
**Mr. Packer's Math continues to focus on Probability. Next week, he will do a whole group activity and I will assist.
**We will have an ALL SCHOOL PBIS Olympic Day Tuesday, November 22nd. Kindergarten will participate in the morning. More info will follow next week.
**We will need 2-3 volunteers to help us with a special cooking activity in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 22nd. Please email me if interested.
**Please note--the end of Trimester 1 is Friday, November 18th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!!! We need several volunteers for our annual gingerbread cookie baking on Friday, December 9th, all afternoon. No experience needed! Create, decorate, bake and share!! I have 2 station day parents signed up but we need more. The more, the merrier!! Email me if interested.
**Students have begun preparing for the Kindergarten Winter Concert to be held Friday, December 23rd at 9:30 am in the Irving Auditorium. A reception will immediately follow in our classroom.
This week:
It continues to be all about our cross curricular theme on Bears. We continued our inquiry on brown bears and also began the study of black bears. The students continue to gather information from books and our online source, The North American Bear Center. The students learned where black bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics and habitats. The students specifically looked at the North American Black Bear. We learned that it is America's most common bear. The students began to observe some differences between the brown and black bear. (smaller paws, shorter claws, smaller stature, loves honey!) The students learned that bears are omnivores. Big word! On our nature table, the students experimented with trying on a brown bear paw, matching color bears, creating a bear claw out of clay using a template and writing about bears in their journal. Stay tuned--We will talk about polar bears next week.
Reading/Social Studies: The students have begun working in Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed what is meant by transportation--a way to move people and things from one place to another. They brainstormed ways that they get around and discussed forms of transportation that move fast and slow. They listened to the big book story, "A Bus for Us." The students made a prediction about what the story could be about using the title and picture. The students made connections in their own life about the various vehicles showcased in the story. The sight word see was introduced. The students defined it and wrote it as well as reviewed all the sight words we have learned thus far. Our target sound this week is Tt. The students made the sound and began locating items and words around the room that start with the sound. The students took a look a how the letter is made in both upper and lower case form. In our grammar section, the learned about action words or verbs. They had great fun coming up with an action and having the rest of the class guess what is was. As part of listening comprehension, the students listened to the big book story for the second time and then used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students had a lively discussion about the vehicles mentioned in the story and their function. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included TRANSPORTATION, VEHICLE, RAPIDLY, GLIDE, and CONTINUE. In our phonemic awareness activities, the students listened for and recorded when they heard the sound of Tt. They used their sound boxes to mark where they heard the sound of Tt, at the beginning or the end of the word. They practiced blending 3-4 letter words using their sound boxes. The students read their pre-decodable story, "I am Sam." They continue to finger point each word and picture. They are beginning to take note about how they are reading the sentences--choppy? smooth? They are working toward becoming fluent readers. The students listened to the informational text, "Signs in the Park." They took note of several things--types of signs, where you would see them, looking at a map, how to read the map symbols. The students practice reading their sight word see in sentences they created. In our read aloud story, "The Turtle and the Rabbit," many students had heard this fable before and were quick to retell and say what they thought the lesson of the story was. In the pre-decodable story, "Can Tam See?" the students had the opportunity to sound blend the name of the characters and share the story with a partner. Our work station activities this week included reading a story, retelling it and creating their own retelling cards, contributing to a graph of how students travel to school and writing about it, using their IPAD to spell their sight words, record reading their sight words and writing sentences containing their sight words, matching pictures to their initial sound letter and creating real and nonsense words for word family _in on their IPAD.
Math: The students began work on learning to sort based on common attribute. They participated in a game called, "What's My Rule?" where the students listened and looked for the obvious attribute being described by the teacher. Great for enhancing listening skills! The students continued to participate in generating, continuing and copying patterns using blocks, tiles and bears. In our folding paper geometry activity, the students randomly folded their paper, creasing it well. They unfolded it to see what shapes it revealed and outlined and colored the shapes. How many 3 sided shapes? How many 4 sided shapes? The students continue to work on writing and recognizing numbers 0-35 on our way to 100. They also continue to with place value and counting by 10's.
Writing: The students began working in their yellow lined journals. They are beginning to be more aware of where they write their upper and lower case letters when writing their sentences. We had a discussion on where tall lower case letters are written and where some lower case letters are written that fall below the bottom line. The students continue to work on practicing our Starting Corner Capitals they have learned thus far. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our reading series and have also made reflections based on their growing knowledge of bears. We continue to stress beginning with an upper case letter and ending with a period. We name and tell in our sentences. We are recognizing nouns and now--action words (verbs) in our sentences.
Technology: The students continue their study of and use of the IPAD as an enhancement tool for learning. The students welcomed Ms. Applebey, our great technology leader, to provide training and assistance to all of us. In reading, the students used the app Magnetic Letters along with Sonic Pics to spell their sight words, record themselves reciting them and emailing them to me so I could hear them too! The students then wrote 3 sentences using the words. The students used the app Word Wizard to work with the word family _in using their sound blending skills. They created a list of words and then recorded whether they were real words or nonsense words. After studying verbs, the students used their sponge painted bears and wrote a sentence describing an action the bear could perform. We then used the app ITALK to record each student reading their sentence and then emailing it to me. They loved hearing the playback--you will too! We learned a lot about speaking strong and clear when reading aloud. In math, the students used the app Number Find to challenge them to find 10 numbers hidden on the grid. It was all about finding a pattern to use to find all the numbers. The numbers ranged from 1-100. Challenging!!! The students also used the app Sam Phibian where they needed to find a targeted amount of each fish for the Sam's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Watch out!! Some of those fish travel fast!!! These activities were done in partners and small group. All the students sought information from the app Enchanted Learning in order to compare and contrast brown bears and black bears for our Venn Diagram.
Literature: "Black Bear Cubs," "Bears in the Forest," "Bears, Paws, Claws and Jaws," "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear," "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," "Black Bears," "Hibernation Station," "Every Autumn Comes a Bear."

UPDATES for 10/31-11/4 2011

**What a week it has been! Our Halloween Parade, Party and Assembly was great. We had a beautiful day for a parade. Lots of very cute and cool costumes. I have pictures taken by Lindsay's dad that I will post soon. Mei-Li, Tyler, Ava, Isabel and Ben are featured on the main District 97 website. Hats of to Room 110 at Irving!
**Yaya and Alex, our Student Council reps have a flyer included in this weeks homework packet for "Hats Off for Cancer" raising money for cancer research. Hope to see dollars and hats on Tuesday.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Don't forget to send in a picture of your child's baby picture for our SEASONAL BABIES project on Monday, November 7th.
**Permission slip and info for our field trip to Brookfield Zoo is enclosed in the homework packet. Please send money and slip back ASAP.
**Picture Retake Day is Wednesday, November 16th. You will be receiving more info on this from the office.
**The students participated in an informative presentation by Ms. Allen of the Multicultural Center on Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration that honors the dead. Ms. Allen used pictures and artifacts in her presentation. Ask your child about the use of skeletons, sugar artifacts and special bread or pan.
**The students had a COOL TOOLS Assembly on Friday, November 4th to review procedures and appropriate behavior in the bathrooms and on the playground.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 has begun. If you have any questions about your child and the skill level he/she is working on, please contact the teacher at the bottom of the notification sheet.
**Here's a shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities. Send them in when you can. Thanks!
**Mr. Packer's Math focused on a new unit on Probability. Mr. Packer and I continue to use rotating small groups on Thursdays. All students work in both groups.
** Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatts Friendship Club lesson centered around the appropriate behavior on the playground. Role playing and skits helped reinforced the concepts.
**We have completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series and will take our unit assessment on Monday.
**The students have begun exploring the IPAD as a tool to enhance their learning. See the new heading below that will describe our weekly activities and usage.
This week:
It was all about BEARS and IPADS, but we will save IPADS for the tech section. We began with an initial discussion/dictation on what students knew about Bears. We looked at some characteristics that all bears have and talked specifically about brown bears. We gathered some information online from the North American Bear Center. The students learned about where brown bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics, habitats and how they are mammals like us. The students were wowed by the fact that bears become adults when they are 2 years old and that female bears are excellent mothers. During station day activities the students created a sponge painted bear for our writing assignment, built a pattern block bear and sorted, counted and added bears in an activity. We read and shared many fiction and nonfiction books about the brown bear. The bear nature table will be up and running next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading Series. This week centered around friends who solve problems together. The students listened to the story, "Simon and Molly plus Hester." They asked and answered questions and responded to the literature by making connections in their own lives. The students reviewed sight words a and like, wrote them and used them in a written sentence. They reviewed the sounds of Pp and Ss and what a noun is. The students retold the story using the retelling cards. In phonemic awareness activities, the students categorized and blended phonemes to make 3 letter words. The students read the pre-decodable, "I Like, We Like." The students made predictions about what the story was about and practiced their reading with a partner. We used the oral vocabulary cards to develop our robust vocabulary in the tale from Haiti called, "The Turtle and the Sheep." Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were PROBLEM, SOLVE, GRATEFUL, THOUGHTFUL and INCLUDE. Our reading puppet, Mr. Happy helped us blend more 3 letter words. We used our dry erase boards to record the initial sound we heard in a word. In our read aloud folktale. "The Little red Hen," the students listened to fluent reading, recurring phrases and discussed what the lesson was at the end of the story. The students sequenced the events in the story. The students read their pre-decodable, "We Like" and "Pam" and practiced reading for fluency. We continued to review asking questions, sight words, nouns, colors and initial sounds-Pp, Ss, Mm and Aa. Workstations activities this week included creating sounds files with A, S, T, P and M pictures, creating a sentence or sentences about what two friends might say to each other and putting it in a speech bubble, expressing your feelings by drawing yourself happy and sad and writing a sentence about both and reading and responding to a book you read and sharing it with a friend.
Math: This week the focus was on the concept of time. The students had a lively discussion about the present, past and future and what happened today and yesterday or tomorrow, what is a short time and what is a long time. We took a look at the both digital and analogue clocks. We looked at numbers, hands and talked about minutes, hours and seconds. The students participated in an activity where they marked time using a drum beat, second hand, stop watch. What does five minutes feel like? Is ten minutes a long time? We observed the movement of the various hands on an analogue clock. We continue to work with patterns and shapes and are noticing more common attributes. We continue counting our way to 100 and think about place value. In our Problem of the Day activities, the students explored the concept tallest and problem solving by using math vocabulary in all, all together. We continue to explore the concepts greater than and less then.
Writing: The students continued work on letters U and V and added W. The students continue to work on proper posture and strengthening pencil grasp. They are now working toward where to put upper and lower case letters on a given line. Next week, we will have new lined journals! The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Many students are beginning to use more then their sight vocabulary in their sentences. The students do continue to use their inventive spelling. They are also using more labeling and speech bubbles to get their point across in their writing.
Technology: The students have begun using the IPADS in work stations, for small group work and for choice time. Ms. Applebey, our skilled IPAD tech will be working with us the next few weeks to help with technique and lesson choice. She is fabulous! In our work stations this week, students used the app Word Wizard to work with word families, creating real and nonsense words and then composing sentences. Students also used the app My ABC's to explore ordering the alphabet, locating upper and lower case letters, finding the pictures and corresponding letter sound and matching words. In Math, students used the app Monster Squeeze with a partner using numbers 5-15, 10-20 and 20-30. Students also used the app Intro to Numbers in small group to sequence order, locate the missing number, count and listen and recreate the musical pattern. The students also explored recoding themselves reading a story and playing it back to hear. Tons of fun and learning!
Literature: "Good Boy, Fergus," "Hispanic Holidays," "The Pumpkin Circle," "Zero is the Leaves on the Tree," "Skippy John Jones in Mummy Trouble," "T-Rex Trick or Treats," "Amazing Bears," "Time to Sleep," "Brown Bears," "If Bear Can, I Can," "A Birthday for Bear," "There's No Such Thing As Monsters."

UPDATES for 10/24-10/28 2011

**We have had a busy and productive week in Kindergarten! Route to Reading Rotation 2 has concluded. You should have received notification of skill status. Please email me if you have not. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, October 31st. At that time, you will receive notification of what skill group your child is now working in.
**Reminder information on our Halloween Events is enclosed in the homework packet. Please join us for the parade, party and performance. Siblings are also welcome!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders coordinated by our own Jen Andersson. Please place the order as soon as you can. I believe 1 week is left.
**We planted our tulip bulbs under the direction of Mr. Packer. The students learned about why we are planting them now, how to plant them and how to humanely ward off animals who love to dig them up. (1. squirrels 2. cayenne pepper)
**Please see the flyer on the Young Artists Workshop to be held on February 4, 2012. Great and fun opportunity!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our seasonal babies project. We will do the project on Monday, November 7th. Yes, I will have mine too and some surprise photos.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Our leaf sort went well. Each student added their leaves to the sort. We then labeled each pile. There was much discussion on color, size, shape and texture. We took a photo of the results.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about Red Ribbon Week, the theme being staying healthy and safe. They provided the students with examples of a healthy life style and things to avoid.
**Ms. Allen, from the Multicultural Center, will come to talk to the students on el dia de los muertos on Tuesday, November 1st at 8:45 am. Come join us if you can.
**We will begin our new theme-BEARS/CHANGING SEASONS on Tuesday, November 1st.
**Future field trip to Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st. More info will follow.
**Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed--Date is the same-Friday, December 22nd--but time is now 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm. Please make a note of it.
This week:
It was all about skeletons, bats and spiders!! Oh my! We took the fright out of these incredibly amazing specimens. The students listened to information from books as well as looked up information on the internet. They took a look at a model of a human skeleton and got to touch and feel a human REAL leg bone (courtesy of my brother, Dr. Gullo.) The students took a look under the microscope at a leg bone of a mouse and spongy bone particles from a human leg bone. Cool! Under our magnifier, we took a look an intact mouse skull (thanks to Justin's mom.) We could even see his teeth! They looked pretty sharp! The students looked at a model of a bat. It was really cool to see his thumbs. We also looked at a model of a spider. The students observed 8 legs and 2 body parts. They noted that this was different from an insect. The students worked with the terms--mammal and arachnid. Ask your child to tell you a fun fact about our specimens. (compact bone, spongy bone, nocturnal, pink pups, 8 eyes, silk, web) The students reflected and labeled in their journals. We will make an origami bat on Monday!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued on in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series. They built background knowledge about how friends in different parts of the world share activities. The student listened to the Big Book story,"Friends Around the World." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where the friends lived. We located the countries on the map so students could get an idea of where they live in relation to the friends in the story. The sight word a was added to our sight word list. We reviewed our other sight vocabulary and played ,"Hands Up, Hands Down." Our letter in isolation this week was Pp. The students made the sound and brainstormed words with that beginning sound. Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST and HONEST.
The students worked on listening comprehension skills using our big book story. We also used the photos on our retelling cards to tell the order of events. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy assisted us in practice blending of letter sounds to make 3 letter words. The students used their sound boxes to isolate where they heard the Pp sound--at the beginning or ending of a word. We read our pre-decodable book, "I am a Doctor." The students are really improving in tracking every word and picture from left to right as they read. The students listened to the story, "Brer Turtle Helps Out." They made predictions on what they thought might happen in the story. The animals in the story have an argument and then make up. The students also compared and contrasted 2 poems dealing with friends. The students used their sight word vocabulary and pictures to create sentences. They practiced reading them to a partner. We read the fable, "The Lion and the Mouse." The students retold what happened in the fable. The students had several partner reading opportunities in order to practice their fluency skills. They worked in their activity books and read the pre-decodable story, "I Am." Work stations this week included
creating word puzzles and recording the words created, read it and add to it where the student reads a story and then draws and writes a new page, friend puppet where you make a puppet and then draw and write about how to be a good friend and creating letter Pp with clay and drawing pictures and writing words that begin with the letter.
Math: This week our focus was on continued work with 2 and 3 dimensional structures. Come and check out some of our projects! We also worked on Drip Paint Symmetry. The students came up with some pretty unique ideas on what their paintings looked like. They are on display in the hallway. Our leaf collection project was enjoyable. Each student decided what group their leaves belonged in. The class examined the groups and made changes as needed. Students labeled the categories. It looks pretty cool. Our problems of the day involved sequencing steps in making a sandwich, how leaves were alike and different and beginning computation stories. We continue work on recognizing numbers 0-30 and counting quantities. We continue to do activities focusing on the concepts greater than and less than.
Writing: The students worked on the Starting Corner Capital letters U and V. They used their mini boards to practice and used their wet sponges in our wet, dry, try practice. They used the wooden pieces to create a tactile model of the letter and worked in their orange practice books. We used the writing prompts from our Treasures series to illustrate and write in our journal. The students also found our word webs and sentence starters useful. We continue to work on becoming more confident writers.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Skeleton Science," "Bones," "Bats: Creatures of the Night," "Fantastic Bats," "Bats Ball Game," "What Does the X-Ray Say?" "What is Inside My Body?" "Skeleton Meets the Mummy," "Spiders," "Three Hungry Spiders," "The Very Busy Spider," "Spiders Spin Webs," "Super Spiders," "Scaredy Cat, Splat."

UPDATES for 10/17-10/21 2011

**Thanks so much for your attendance at Parent Conferences. I enjoyed sharing your child's progress with you. We are working hard in Kindergarten!
**The Irving Book Fair was very busy. There were many great choices. I did purchase some great titles for our class. A big THANKS to families who also purchased books from our classroom wish list. Reading is the way to go!
**Halloween Volunteers--J. Brock, A. Walker, M. Chlebek, T. Naber, G. Garcia, J. Chyna, H. Hamblin, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, J. Andersson and L. Waste are on my sign up to help. Please be at school on Monday, October 31st at noon to help the students change into their costumes. The students will have a regular morning schedule. They will be bringing their costumes and props in a bag. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, hand cuffs to school. Thanks! Our fabulous room parents have healthy snacks ready for our party. Students may bring a candy treat for classmates that will go in their treat bags. Our student assembly features a performance group called, "Be the Groove." It is a rhythm and movement group. Should be fun. Anyone else interested in coming--please join us!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders our own Jen Andersson. Try and place them as soon as you can.
**PLEASE NOTE--Our Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed. It remains on Friday, December 22nd but now is at 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm.
**Our first Kindergarten field trip is to the Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st as a culmination of our Bear Theme. Stay tuned for more info.
**Our Pajama/Book Discussion party was relaxing and enjoyable. The students viewed the selected "bedtime" theme stories and had a lively discussion about the setting, characters and content. Which story had the least amount of words spoken? Which story took place in a zoo? All stories had what main idea?
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt discussed with the students the meaning of compromise and how it is important to all of us in our daily lives.
**Alex and Yaya had quite a lot to report on from their first Student Council meeting. They ate lunch and talked about the purpose and goal of student council. They informed us that a fundraiser was in the works. It has something to do with hats. Stay tuned!
**Congratulations to Mei-Li! She is our first Eagle Slip winner in our classroom.
**Our age change graph is changing again!!! Jordan is moving to the land of the six year olds this weekend. Happy Birthday!
**World Language Classes begin on Monday, October 24th. I will receive a copy of the students participating. There are still openings for many of the languages. Check the Irving Website for details.
**Yes--Natalia brought a leaf hopper bug to school. The students marveled how it can camouflage in the grass. It was our special guest on Thursday morning!
**Spelling City has been updated.
**I need 2-3 volunteers to help with tulip bulb planting on Thursday, October 27th at 2:00 pm. Email me if interested. No green thumb needed!
This week:
It was all about Apples with our final project....The Great Apple Taste Test. The students tasted Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Honey Crisp and Fuji apples. Many descriptive words were shared--sweet, sour, crunchy, squishy, hard, soft, chewy, juicy, white, yellow, fleshy, watery, good, delicious. The students created a signature graph and when all was said and done--Golden Delicious was declared the favorite by a very narrow margin! What a healthy project.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you do with friends. We listened to the song, "The More We Get Together." Many students recalled the song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about different activities they do with their friends. The sight word LIKE was introduced. We reviewed our previous words and created sentences with them using words and pictures. Our sound in isolation this week was Ss. We used our sound cards and sound toys to guide us. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound. The students made the sound/symbol connection by writing the letter Ss. We reviewed what a NOUN is and looked for examples throughout the room. We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIEND, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPETE to our list. The students worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills. They reviewed their color words. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, helped us to work on blending sounds to form 3 letter words. The students read their pre decodable book, "We Like," and made predictions about the content. The students shared their story with a partner. The students listened and responded to the informational text, "Friends Follow Rules." We read our story, "I Like," and discussed what a speech bubble was. We used our sound boxes to isolate where we heard the sound of Ss--beginning or end. Work station activities this week included picture sort with A, M, S, Super S activity-making an S with clay, making pictures and writing S words, Reading Buddy--read one of your stories to a stuffed animal or puppet, draw a picture of you and your reading buddy, write a sentence about something you remember from the story, work on group mural about friendship--use the sentence starter, We can.....to tell about the pictures you selected.
Math: The students worked on variety of math concepts this week. We are up to numbers 1-30 in our Monster Squeeze game. We continue to review numbers 0-20, counting quantities, what number comes before or after a random number and concept of one more and one less. The students began experimenting with creating 2 and 3 dimensional shapes out of straws and pipe cleaners. We talked about flat shapes and shapes that have depth. The students used vocabulary words-- corners, sides and angles as they were building their structures. Magneetos and Connects were also included in their experimentation and creation. We are beginning to work on Geometric Solids recognition. Our Problem of the Day focused on counting by 2's using chopsticks.
Writing: The students reviewed their Frog Jump letter and began work on Starting Corner Capitals--H, K and L. We continue reinforcing starting at the top. In the case of H and K, we are lifting our hand off the paper to go to the opposite corner. We continue to stress proper writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil, the other hand holding down the paper. The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Sentence mapping has become a useful tool for some students. Other students are benefiting from written cloze activities and still others are independently writing their own sentence working on spacing between words in a sentence, inventive spelling and adding details.
Literature: "Apples," "Pumpkin Soup," "We Share Everything," "I Want to be Your Friend."

UPDATES for 10/10-10/14 2011

**The students had a short but very busy and productive week. We have finished Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading Series. We will take our unit assessment on Monday!
**Parent/Teacher Conferences are set for Tuesday, October 18th, Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Scheduled times are posted on our entrance door. If you have not confirmed your time, please do so, thanks!
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the MORNING on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and RFCC pickup will be at 11:00 am.
**The Irving Book Fair is Tuesday through Friday, October 18th-21st in the auditorium. Stop by during conferences, after school and in the evening. We will be going to the fair as a class to "scope out" the books we are interested in on Tuesday. I have already spied some great selections!
**A flyer for our HALLOWEEN PARADE and CELEBRATION is enclosed in the packet. Many of you have signed up to help. I will send additional information next week.
**Alex and Yaya will attend their first Student Council meeting on Tuesday, October 18th. They will report back to us on what is discussed.
**We met our BOOK BUDDIES on Wednesday! Each student has an assigned book buddy for the school year. Book buddies interviewed each other for their book buddy book (sent home on Wednesday) and shared a story or two with each other. Ms. Balicki has a super class of kind and engaging students. We will have lots of fun. Our next meeting is in November.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt taught a lesson in Friendship Club on the importance of being a good listener. They used stories and role play.
**We will have our PAJAMA/CD BOOK DISCUSSION PARTY to celebrate our 93 eagle wings on Thursday, October 20th from 10:00-11:00 am. Our book theme is "famous bed time stories." The students will watch stories from authors, Frank Asch, Jane Yolen and Peggy Rathmann. We will then discuss characters, story development and create a compare and contrast chart. The students CAN come dressed in their pajamas on Thursday. We have early dismissal at 11:00 am. If they need to change.... just send their clothes.
**Don't forget--On line or flyer/money book orders are due October 19th.
**Our age change graph is changing again with Mei-Li and Reuben moving to the land of the 6 year olds. Happy Birthday! Ava also made the move last weekend. Happy Birthday!
This week:
Once again, its Apples, Apples, Apples!! The students continued to compare and contrast different types of apples, took a look at the skin of the apple and the flesh of the apple under a microscope and made a diagram of an apple and labeled its parts. We took a look a what trees in an apple orchard look like in each of the seasons and had a yummy treat voted on by all the students--apple slices dipped in melted chocolate!!!! The students helped use the apple slicer and counted how many slices where in each apple. What a treat! We will conclude our theme next week and begin prep for our next mini cross curricular theme -Pumpkins, Spiders and Bats.
Reading/Social Studies: We have finished Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Series. The students discussed and read about how families can change. They also talked about other members of their family called relatives and who relatives can be--grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousins etc. I shared the the story, "Peter's Chair," and students listened and made a prediction about what they thought might happen and discussed story structure --what actually happened. We review the sight words WE and THE through chants and rhymes. The students reviewed the isolated sounds of Mm and Aa (both short and long sounds.) We reviewed naming words (NOUNS) that describe a person, place, thing or animal. In our Robust Vocabulary development we discussed the meaning of the words CHANGE, GATHER, RELATIVE, OCCASION, EAGER, CELEBRATE and added them to our word bank. Students orally retold the story, "Peter's Chair" and sequenced events in the story. Students reviewed concept words--big, small, short, tall. We read our pre-decodable books, "We Can See," "Am I? and "Can We?" The students continue to work on reading from left to right, finger pointing each word and picture and noting a statement sentence and question sentence by voice inflection. We read the informational text, "Family Fun." The students responded and retold important facts about families. The students worked with their sound blending boxes to blend phonemes (individual sounds) to form words. They listened to a vocabulary story from Cuba called, "Rooster goes to Tio's Wedding." The students retold the story and pointed out how the rooster needed help but no one would help him until he spoke to the sun. Some of our robust vocabulary words were contained. We concluded our unit by re-reading all our pre-decodable stories for practice. We are ready for our unit assessment on Monday! The students enjoyed their work station activities which included drawing and naming your family members and using a complete sentence to tell what your family likes to do, before and after sequence--drawing yourself before you could walk and drawing yourself now and writing a sentence about each picture, reader's response where you read a book, think about it and write what you think about it and why and mixed up sentences revisited where students take sight words and pictures and create complete sentences with punctuation.
Math: The students worked on a number of math concepts this week. They learned and practiced techniques for drawing using a template with pattern block shapes. They used their knowledge of pattern blocks for Shape Hokey Pokey and spent sometime creating a pattern block design with blocks. The students studied Symmetry and what it means. They looked at examples of symmetry in life and in nature. They worked with a partner to create a symmetrical fold and cut project. They are on display in our classroom. The students also worked with paint bag number making. This sensory activity feels good and helps students with number recognition and form. We also used this activity to write our letters. We continue to work on sequencing numbers 0-20 and played the Monster Squeeze Game with numbers 0-25. We continue to work with concepts what comes next, what comes before. Mr. Packer continued work on an activity called Smart Snips where students create everyday pictures using only 4 shapes in his weekly thinking math sessions with our class. Pretty cool!!
Writing: The students continue to work on reviewing Frog Jump Capitals. Our next set of letters will be the Starting Corner Capitals. Stay tuned! The students continue to work on sentence construction and adding more details to their drawings. We continue to use our writing prompts from our reading series. They are working consistently on recording the sounds they hear in the words they use to describe their pictures.
Literature: "Totally Apples Cook Book," "How do Apples Grow," "Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins," "Leaves," "The Leaf Man," "I Am Picking Apples," "Leaves Fall Down," "The Perfect Pumpkin," "We Share Everything."