Thursday, March 10, 2011

UPDATES for 3/8-3/11 2011

**Information and permission slip for our field trip to the Adler Planetarium is in the homework packet. Slip and money are due by March 23rd. The trip is Tuesday, April 12th.
**SUPER TUBER volunteers needed on Thursday, March 17th from 1:30 -2:30 pm. Celebrate everything POTATO!! I will need 4 volunteers. Email or drop me a note if available.
**Report cards go home next Friday.
**Opera for the Young is Wednesday, March 16th at 9:00 am. Younger sibs may attend if accompanied by an adult.
**We had our classroom spelling bee on Tuesday. I was fabulously proud of the whole class! Each student did their very best and spelled at least 2 words. CONGRATULATIONS to Rylee, Alistair and McKenna! Rylee and Alistair will represent our homeroom at Irving School's K-2 Spelling Bee. McKenna is our alternate. The bee will take place on Wednesday, April 13th at 11:00 am. The students showed great determination and sportsmanship. It was a very positive experience.
**Student Council reps, Maggie and Danny reported on activities for National Nutrition Month. They made posters for "Eating the Rainbow." They discussed with the class the importance of eating fruits and vegetables. The class brainstormed a list of colorful fruits and veggies (red-strawberries, green-celery, lettuce etc.) Their next meeting is March 15th.
**Route to Reading will resume on Tuesday, March 15th.
**Spring Break is March 26th-April 3rd. Classes resume April 4th.
**Our school wide PBIS Celebration is Friday, March 18th from 12:30-1:30. DJ Mick will be spinning some good tunes for our Dance Party.
**Come to Family Reading Night--Swap, Shop and Read on Thursday, March 24th from 6:30-8:00 pm. Have a snack and read with me!!
**Keep saving those huge (crawl in) boxes and other cool stuff for our space station projects. You can send them in after break.
**Some of you have asked about summer programs or camps for the students. There are 6 programs for our students in the Yellow Book-School Daze Book. These books were sent home a few weeks ago. The programs are located at Irving and Hatch schools. Ms. Bell Bey and I are working to see what day camps and other programs are available to our students. Stay tuned.
This week:
For Women in History month, we read a story about Helen Keller and Beatrix Potter. The students also recalled the accomplishments of Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges and Harriet Tubman.
Reading: We continued work on reading for meaning. We discussed what the main idea of a story meant. In our decodable book, "Run, Ron," the students talked about main idea, as well as characters, setting and plot. In our literature story, "Wanda's Roses," the students worked on comprehension strategies and the use of quotations. We continued work on vocabulary development, 3-4 phoneme words and reviewing short i words.
Math: We continued work on telling time by the hour. We reivewed parts of an analog and digital clocks. We played the game, "Time to Visit," with a partner. It is included in the homework this week. We moved on to 3 dice "Got It". I am observing the different ways students are using to count what is on the dice. They are using fingers, counting by 2's or 5's, counting in their heads etc. We worked on story problems, illustrating what is happening and writing a number sentence about it. we talked about the plus sign and equal sign.
Writing: We continue work on refining our upper and lowercase letters and placement of words on a given line. The students wrote about various topics. Next week, we will talk about what a paragraph is.
Science: We continued work on shadows. In experiment 3, we learned what makes a shadow, that light passes through some objects and not others, that shadows can be light shadows, dark shadows or no shadow at all depending upon how much light they allow to pass through them. In experiment 4, recorded the changes in a shadow from morning, midday and late afternoon. We used Ceci as our shadow maker for the experiment. The students noted the change in the position of the sun each time they recorded where Ceci's shadow was. I photographed each students shadow "dance" for a writing project next week. We traced our head silhouettes. We learned what radiometer was and how it worked.
Literature: "Telling Time," "What Makes Day and Night," "Are You My Mother?" Starry Skies-Questions and Riddles About the Universe," "Chasing Shadows," "I Can See My Shadow," "Guess Who's Shadow?" 'Helen Keller," "Beatrix Potter."






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