**The Academic Fair was amazing!!! Projects for all grade levels were informative and fun. My personal fav was the Beatles vs. Stones project. (Beatles rule!) I am particularly proud of our kindergarten students. They have inspired their classmates to think about next years fair. Let's give a shout out to Jack, Ariadne, McKenna, Aida, Rylee, Sammy, Hannah and Niko for their spectacular effort!
**It was damp and dreary but the Egg Drop Contest went on as planned. We saw some pretty interesting, creative and out of the ordinary vehicles. Future engineering students.....There were over 130 vehicles and we saw everyone of them dropped out of the third floor window. Once again, our kindergarten students, some along with a brother or sister, created their vehicles. We had parachutes, balloons, rocket structures, boxes, tubes, doll rods, plastic bags and more as the participating students showed and explained the design of their vehicle. Hats off to Ethan, Ariadne, Gabriela, Jack, Henry, Cole, Maggie, Evan, Peter, Neilo, Danny, Ceci and Niko for a job well done!
**I was unable to attend Family Math Night, but I heard that a good time was had by all. Thanks to those who participated.
**Our Eagle Wing Costume/Dance Party was a big hit! The students rocked out to the tunes of Kids Bop 19, Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack, Justin Beiber, Fresh Versions of Retro Pop for Kids, Hallelujah Hop, Jeff Kagan--Songs from the Trail and A T-Rex Named Sue. I learned some smooth moves from these enthusiastic dancers!
**Next week is Fitness Week (See info sheet in homework packet.) Monday--Ball and Rope Day. Please make sure anything you bring to school has your name on it. All events will culminate with the District 97 FUN RUN on Saturday, May 7th at 8:00 am at Lindberg Park. RUN WITH ME!!! K-2 will run at 8:00 am.
**Read this!!! The 4th Annual Irving Poetry Slam will be held on Thursday, May 19th at 6:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Join us for a night of music, self-expression, laughter and creativity. Read a poem or write your own. Rap, sing or say it! I have been a part of the slam since its beginning and I can tell you --it is really fun! I will be talking it up to the students. We will have a poetry unit this month. I have many poetry books, so I can help guide students to an appropriate poem that they can read or memorize. Students can work solo, partner or group. Parents can slam too!!! I have had students in the past write their own rap. Think about it and join in the fun.
**Future Field Trip--Oak Park Conservatory, Tuesday, May 31st--1-2:30 pm. More info later.
**Our final DIBELS testing will take place next week.
**Route to Reading skills groups have concluded for this school year. I will continue to present skills material and evaluate students as part of our classroom workshop activities. The students have done an awesome job!
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE continues----We have had REPUGNANT, EXEMPLARY and now OPTIMISTIC (having a positive outlook.) I am optimistic that I will learn more about break dancing from my students.
**Our SPACE STATIONS are completed! They are truly a collaborative effort. I will photograph the students next week in and around their projects. Stop by and see them before or after school! Check out the detailing.
**Irving Garage Sale--Saturday, May 14th from 8-1 pm. Come on out and help or donate to help our School Yard Project.
This week: Space stations are completed. We have concluded our science unit on Sunshine, Shadows and the Moon. We are diving right into our next and final unit--Seeds to Plants. We are monitoring growth of our grassy "G" from Earth Day. Nothing to report yet. Stay tuned. Peter, Ceci and Jack's potatoes are beginning to show root growth. We finally got to use our star gazers on a sunny Friday afternoon. The students planted their own flower seed.
Reading: We have finished Unit 6, Red, White and Blue. We started Unit 7, Teamwork. This unit explores ways to work together toward a common goal. The unit includes stories about conflict resolution, overcoming discrimination, working as part of a team and sharing and compromise. This week, the students worked on using a graphic organizer to sequence story events. We continue to work on oral and written comprehension skills, reading fluency, decoding, revisiting short vowel sounds, silent e, and blending 6-7 phoneme words. Don't forget WORD PLAY once a day!! Reading Grandma is delighted with students progress in reading. Since she began hearing readers in January, their growth in decoding, comprehension and fluency is wonderful. Keep reading at home!
Math: We continue to work on addition and subtraction story problems. The students played a dice game called Lilly Pad Hoppers where they worked with partners rolling the dice, recording the numbers and adding the sums. We continue listening for key words in our story problems that clue us in on the operation. We are working on our number grids writing to 100. Next week, we will be writing to 125. The students continue to refine number forms. We are working on counting by 5's to 100. We have begun playing, "What's My Rule," where the students identify a function (ie-plus 1) and generate numbers that go with that rule. I will send home a function machine next week.
**Writing: We continue to work on reflecting in our journals on stories we have read. (written recall) The students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters, spacing of words in a sentence and position of words on a given line. The students are writing 3-5 sentences!
Science: We began our final science unit with our inquiry question--what are seeds? Each table of students examined a tray full of small objects. They talked about and sorted them into groups. They then divided them into 2 groups---seeds---not seeds. They had some lively discussions about some of the objects. " Is cotton a seed?" "I think it comes from a seed." We then looked at a variety of true seeds. The students were amazed at the shape and color of a marigold seed and the bumpy texture of the nasturtium seed. We used our magnifiers to check it out. The students selected flower seeds to plant. The choices were marigold, morning glory, sunflower and nasturtium. The students learned about soil content and how to start their seed in a cup of dirt. They wondered how much to water it. Where to put it so it will get sun. Does it need a lot of sun? They will find out. The students will observe their seed and take care to water it. In their science journal, they drew their seed and how it looks in their cups. They estimated how long it might take to grow. They will keep a growth chart. We planted our class garden. The students can continue to bring in seeds to place in our class garden. Next week, we will talk about what to plant in the planting bed outside. Calling all gardeners!!!!! We will need your help when we decide.
Literature: "Oh Say Can You Seed?" "Seed to Plant" Chapter 1, "Waiting for Wings," "A Seed is a Promise," "I'm Not sleepy," "Best Book of Spaceships," "I am a Seed," "Fix It."
Just a note---We will not be in the lab for LEXIA for 2 weeks due to MAP testing of older students. Feel free to keep working on it at home!
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