UPDATES for 2/28-3/4 2011

**No School on Monday, March 7th, in observance of Casmir Pulaski Day.
**Once again--the Fun Fair was awesome! Thanks for your contributions and attendance.
**Congratulations to our new Student Council reps, Danny and Maggie! They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, March 8th.
**SPELLING BEE--Our classroom bee is Tuesday morning, March 8th. We are all going to try it. The top 3 (2 participants and 1 alternate), will participate in the K-2 Spelling Bee in April. Try your best....Have fun with it....Remember-- the students spell based on what their knowledge is so far.......no pressure...just exposure!
**No Route to Reading due to ISAT make ups. It will resume on March 14th.
**SPRING BREAK --March 26th -April 3rd. Classes resume Monday, April 4th.
**Today marks the end of the 2nd trimester. Report cards go out on Friday, March 18th. Look for the Trimester Update next week.
**FAMILY READING NIGHT--check out the Swap, Shop and Read flyer in homework packet. Read and have a snack with me!
**Future Field Trip--Planetarium--Thursday, April 12th....More info will follow.
**Our game afternoon was great! The students complied a list and brought in their own games from home. All students worked well with each other and many tried multiple games. Super Mario Chess (lead by Jack), Telephone Game (lead by Cole), Dizios (lead by Henry) and Charades (lead by Ceci) were HUGE hits!
**Opera for the Young is coming to Irving School on Wednesday, March 16th at 9:00 am. "Pirates of Penzance" will be presented. Students have been listening and learning a participation part in music class.
**New words for spelling city up and running.
This week:
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! We took a look at the work of Dr. Suess. We discussed what makes his stories cool---rhyming, silly words, illustrations, crazy names, tongue twisters. Ms. Noonan read the story of "The Sneetches" in library and the students discussed what the lesson of the story was.
Reading: We continued work on story elements and vocabulary development. We learned about the problem and solution that a story can have. We focused on short u words. We are doing a great job recognizing blends and digraphs. The students listened to the story "The Enormous Turnip" and wrote in their journals 3 things that happened in the story. (written recall). We revisited when to use periods, commas and question marks in our sentences.
Math: We worked on parts of an analog clock and telling time by the hour. The students can use their "clown clock" to move the hour hand. We also continued work with place value and marking tens and hundreds. We did some work with writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. We played a new dice game called "2 Dice Got It" with partners. The students rolled the dice and added the total. If they found the number on their recording sheet, they said GOT IT and put an x on the number.
Writing: The students worked in their journals on various topics. They reflected on some of the Dr. Seuss stories we read. We continue work on refining upper and lowercase letters and word placement. We revisited when to use periods, commas and question marks in our sentences.
Science: We began our new science unit--Sunshine, Shadows and the Moon. In experiment 1, we tackled the question, "What is a shadow?" The students observed and described a shadow. They defined what a shadow was and the 3 things you need to make a shadow. You need some sort of light, something to block the light and a surface to see the shadow. In experiment 2, the students learned the correct order of the 3 things and learned what a silhouette was. We saw a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln and Niko and Alistair!
Literature: What Was I Scared Of, Fox in Socks, The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, The Eye Book, Horton Hatches an Egg, The Enormous Turnip, I Love my Shadow, What is a Shadow?, Shadows.