**Our field trip to the Oak Park Conservatory is TOMORROW! I am still missing some field trip permission slips. Please know that I cannot take anyone who does not have a signed slip in.
**Library card applications have been turned in and our cards will be ready for pick up at the time of our field trip to Maze Library on Monday, June 6th.
**PIZZA and PLAY end of the year Family Picnic is Wednesday, June 1st from 10:30-12:30 at Rehm Park. I sent a list home on Friday of what everyone is bringing or doing. I am also still missing some field trip permission slips. Please return them ASAP. Thanks!
**We have completed our Tech Projects. They are amazing!! Stay tuned!
**Our Olympic Day was great! All students participated in every activity. Great effort and sportsmanship was had by all. Our favorite activities included: partner skiing (no snow!), running bases, hopity ball race, basketball hotshot, parachute, obstacle course and 50 yard dash (Ms. Gullo and Mr. Packer participated too--Mr. Packer was pretty fast!) Thanks to those who came out to see us.
**We will be planting our baby cucumbers in our outdoor planting bed on Wednesday morning. Kids can bring in their gardening tools if they wish.
**Last day of school is Tuesday, June 7th, from 8:00-9:00 am. It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign our autograph books, get report cards/summer tips and move into the land of First Grade!!
**Homework has concluded for this school year. Please continue to READ, READ, READ!
**Please make sure you send your child's backpack this week. Many items will come home. Look for science journals, regular journals, math journals, any handwriting books, student portfolios and items from their cubbies.
**Once again--Spelling City is updated--LEXIA will also run during the summer--let me know if your need your xtramath code number.
**ALL of YOU are invited to our Volunteer Tea on Wednesday, June 1st at 2:15 pm outside of our classroom. I am so thankful for your great support of our program.
**All end of the testing will be finished by Wednesday. If you would like to view any of the assessments, please let me know.
This week: It was all about the changes in our seed sponges (wow, what is growing?), seed bags (which way are the roots growing?), our class indoor garden (peas, kale, radishes, cosmos, apples!!), and our red wiggler compost is super great.
Reading: This week we reviewed short vowels, blends, digraphs, addition and deletion of phonemes and substitution of phonemes to create new words. We read aloud and read to a partner. We talked about how the characters in the story, "The Enormous Watermelon"worked
together for a common goal. The students retold the story in their own words in their journals.
Math: We had a shape review, counted by 2's and 5's and read and wrote numbers 100 or less.
Still having fun with "What's my rule?" We also reviewed counting back from random numbers.
We continue to work in our math journals on illustrating and solving mixed story problems.
Writing: The students wrote their final copy of their paragraph topic: "Worms." They have learned so much about the writing process. We had our pre-writing discussion to activate prior knowledge, we formatted our ideas and details and wrote our draft. We read back our draft to see if there were any corrections that needed to be made and then wrote our final copy. Inventive or phonetic spelling remains very acceptable. In addition to our paragraph, the students did a water color study of the underground life of a worm. CHECK IT OUT--They are up in our hallway.
Science: We observed what happens when you don't water a plant. The students reflected and illustrated in their journals the changes in all of our plant life in the classroom. What do our table plants look like now? We transplanted our baby cucumber plants into a larger container. We will be planting them in our outdoor planting bed this coming Wednesday morning. Come join us if you like! Our compost is looking very rich and we will use it in our outdoor bed.
Literature: "Rain," "Here Comes Summer," "When It's the Last Day of School," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "I Can't Said the Ant," "Red Eyed Tree Frog," "First Grade Ladybugs," "The Ant Bully," "The Enormous Watermelon."
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
UPDATES for 5/16-5/20 2011
**Please return all field trip permission slips ASAP. If your child is getting a library card, please read the info on filling out the application. The student must write their first and last name themselves. If you are interested in volunteering your time...join in the fun!
**Our Traveling Poets time was last Wednesday. Ms. Noonan supervised the students as they traveled from room to room spreading poetry joy! A poetic time was had by all.
**The 4th Annual Poetry Slam, under the direction of Mr Williams, was a smashing success!! Let's hear it for our little slammers, Ethan, Ariadne, McKenna, Hannah, Gabriela and Sammy, Niko and Henry! They were marvelous. Great poetry original, read and recited. We heard poetry in Chinese, French, couplets, limericks and haiku. Kids and grown ups alike joined in.
**Our end of the year Tech Project (Memory Book) is going well under the direction of Mrs. Appleby. We have another session on Wednesday, May 25th from 8:30-9:30 am. B. Metric, T. Zurawski and M. Chapman-Rienstra are slated to help. If you have that hour to spare...come join us!
**Our All School Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th. See the homework packet for info on events. We will perform our Olympic feats from 8:30-10:45 am. You are welcome to come.
Following Olympic morning, we will be walking to Barrie Park to have lunch to celebrate our 120 Eagle Wings. Permission slips for that will go out on Monday from Ms. Creehan. Feel like taking a walk and having lunch with us....just let me know.
**Our last Friendship Club with Ms. Bell-Bey was Friday. The students choose to have a free choice time to demonstrate their interpersonal skills.
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE has come to an end. All the students received frisbees (which we used on Thursday afternoon). By far, the word REPUGNANT was our most favorite and widely used new word!!!!
**Reading Grandma's final time with us will be Friday, June 3rd. We will miss our Fridays with her.
**Don't forget Sibling Hour is Friday, May 27th from 2:00-2:55 pm. All siblings 4 and under are invited to attend. Our "almost first graders" will show them around!
**The last day of of school is Tuesday, June 7th from 8:00-9:00 am. I am already getting teary eyed! It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign our autograph books and get report cards/summer tips. First Grade, here we come!!!!!
**Last book order of the year is on line only.--click on the book at the top of the blog--activation code is under it.
**Spelling City is updated.
**Please let me know if you need your xtramath code number for the summer.
This week: It was all about seed sponges, seed bags and WORMS! We have much to observe in our classroom. The students are studying what occurs when seeds are spread on super wet sponges and in plastic bags that contain very wet paper towels. Jack brought us some super great red wiggler compost to observe and feed. We took some of the wigglers out to see them under the magnifier. Wow, they really wiggle and move effortlessly through the soil. Jack was very mindful that they needed to be put back into the compost to keep doing their work. We studied information about the earthworm and read one of our favorites, "Diary of a Worm."
Reading: This week, we have concluded Unit 7-Teamwork, our final unit in our Open Court series. We continue to review all phonemic awareness and phonics skills. We are reading for meaning. We continue to discuss the main idea of our decodable and literature stories as well as story elements. We are using written form to express what we think, to sequence events, retell, infer, to tell what will happen next and to practice our sentence writing. We are using our oral language skills to discuss, pick out details, predict and build fluency. We will continue to use this format until the end of school.
Math: We are continuing to review money-- coins and values and ways to use coins to make a
dollar. The students learned to play the "Digit" and "Double Digit" games. Students use special number cubes. They take turns rolling the cubes and recording the lowest number made and the highest number made. The students also reviewed pattern block shapes and geometric solids. We will dismantle our MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE MUSEUM next week. The students partnered up to create a page for our Story Problem Book. The partners created a story problem, wrote is out, illustrated it and wrote the number sentence to go with it, We have some pretty creative stories. It will be on display for you to check out next week. We are still having a ball with "What's My Rule." The students are getting quite adept at it.
Writing: We studied Worms and Worms became the focus of our 4 sentence paragraphs. We started by brainstorming what we learned about earthworms(pre-writing). We then formulated 4 questions that our paragraph would answer. The students wrote the answers to the questions on their draft. They re read their draft. They checked for capital letters, lowercase letters, use of punctuation. (beginning proof reading) Their inventive or phonetic spelling remains acceptable. Next week, we will write our final copy.
Science: We are observation central this week. The students continue to observe and reflect on their home plant. Many student's drawings reflect secondary leaves and new growth. The students continue to observe and measure the height of their table plant. They are now going around to the other tables to discuss and compare leaf shapes, stem size, which plant is the tallest so far, which plants stems are not straight etc. It has been pretty fun! The students are also observing what is taking place on their seed sponges and seed bags and recording and reflecting on that information. We continue to observe our indoor class garden which contains the cucumber plants we will plant very soon in our outside bed. We are feeding and observing our compost bin with the red wigglers. (What happened to that mango piece and strawberry
slice?) Everyday, something new to observe and reflect on. Next week--water vs. no water.
Literature: "Tools for a Garden," "Growing a Garden," "All Kinds of Gardens," "What Lives in a Garden," "Diary of a Worm," "Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life," "Animals in the Garden," "I Can't Said the Ant," "The Life and Times of the Ant," Poetry from "Hip Hop Speaks to Children," "Poetry for the Young by Langston Hughes."
**Our Traveling Poets time was last Wednesday. Ms. Noonan supervised the students as they traveled from room to room spreading poetry joy! A poetic time was had by all.
**The 4th Annual Poetry Slam, under the direction of Mr Williams, was a smashing success!! Let's hear it for our little slammers, Ethan, Ariadne, McKenna, Hannah, Gabriela and Sammy, Niko and Henry! They were marvelous. Great poetry original, read and recited. We heard poetry in Chinese, French, couplets, limericks and haiku. Kids and grown ups alike joined in.
**Our end of the year Tech Project (Memory Book) is going well under the direction of Mrs. Appleby. We have another session on Wednesday, May 25th from 8:30-9:30 am. B. Metric, T. Zurawski and M. Chapman-Rienstra are slated to help. If you have that hour to spare...come join us!
**Our All School Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th. See the homework packet for info on events. We will perform our Olympic feats from 8:30-10:45 am. You are welcome to come.
Following Olympic morning, we will be walking to Barrie Park to have lunch to celebrate our 120 Eagle Wings. Permission slips for that will go out on Monday from Ms. Creehan. Feel like taking a walk and having lunch with us....just let me know.
**Our last Friendship Club with Ms. Bell-Bey was Friday. The students choose to have a free choice time to demonstrate their interpersonal skills.
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE has come to an end. All the students received frisbees (which we used on Thursday afternoon). By far, the word REPUGNANT was our most favorite and widely used new word!!!!
**Reading Grandma's final time with us will be Friday, June 3rd. We will miss our Fridays with her.
**Don't forget Sibling Hour is Friday, May 27th from 2:00-2:55 pm. All siblings 4 and under are invited to attend. Our "almost first graders" will show them around!
**The last day of of school is Tuesday, June 7th from 8:00-9:00 am. I am already getting teary eyed! It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign our autograph books and get report cards/summer tips. First Grade, here we come!!!!!
**Last book order of the year is on line only.--click on the book at the top of the blog--activation code is under it.
**Spelling City is updated.
**Please let me know if you need your xtramath code number for the summer.
This week: It was all about seed sponges, seed bags and WORMS! We have much to observe in our classroom. The students are studying what occurs when seeds are spread on super wet sponges and in plastic bags that contain very wet paper towels. Jack brought us some super great red wiggler compost to observe and feed. We took some of the wigglers out to see them under the magnifier. Wow, they really wiggle and move effortlessly through the soil. Jack was very mindful that they needed to be put back into the compost to keep doing their work. We studied information about the earthworm and read one of our favorites, "Diary of a Worm."
Reading: This week, we have concluded Unit 7-Teamwork, our final unit in our Open Court series. We continue to review all phonemic awareness and phonics skills. We are reading for meaning. We continue to discuss the main idea of our decodable and literature stories as well as story elements. We are using written form to express what we think, to sequence events, retell, infer, to tell what will happen next and to practice our sentence writing. We are using our oral language skills to discuss, pick out details, predict and build fluency. We will continue to use this format until the end of school.
Math: We are continuing to review money-- coins and values and ways to use coins to make a
dollar. The students learned to play the "Digit" and "Double Digit" games. Students use special number cubes. They take turns rolling the cubes and recording the lowest number made and the highest number made. The students also reviewed pattern block shapes and geometric solids. We will dismantle our MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE MUSEUM next week. The students partnered up to create a page for our Story Problem Book. The partners created a story problem, wrote is out, illustrated it and wrote the number sentence to go with it, We have some pretty creative stories. It will be on display for you to check out next week. We are still having a ball with "What's My Rule." The students are getting quite adept at it.
Writing: We studied Worms and Worms became the focus of our 4 sentence paragraphs. We started by brainstorming what we learned about earthworms(pre-writing). We then formulated 4 questions that our paragraph would answer. The students wrote the answers to the questions on their draft. They re read their draft. They checked for capital letters, lowercase letters, use of punctuation. (beginning proof reading) Their inventive or phonetic spelling remains acceptable. Next week, we will write our final copy.
Science: We are observation central this week. The students continue to observe and reflect on their home plant. Many student's drawings reflect secondary leaves and new growth. The students continue to observe and measure the height of their table plant. They are now going around to the other tables to discuss and compare leaf shapes, stem size, which plant is the tallest so far, which plants stems are not straight etc. It has been pretty fun! The students are also observing what is taking place on their seed sponges and seed bags and recording and reflecting on that information. We continue to observe our indoor class garden which contains the cucumber plants we will plant very soon in our outside bed. We are feeding and observing our compost bin with the red wigglers. (What happened to that mango piece and strawberry
slice?) Everyday, something new to observe and reflect on. Next week--water vs. no water.
Literature: "Tools for a Garden," "Growing a Garden," "All Kinds of Gardens," "What Lives in a Garden," "Diary of a Worm," "Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life," "Animals in the Garden," "I Can't Said the Ant," "The Life and Times of the Ant," Poetry from "Hip Hop Speaks to Children," "Poetry for the Young by Langston Hughes."
Sunday, May 15, 2011
UPDATES for 5/9-5/13 2011
**Traveling Poets (Kindergarten students) will begin their room travel this week-5/16. The students are so excited. They have been practicing their poems at their library time and in the room.
**There was certainly something for everyone at the Irving Garage Sale on Saturday. Tons of toys, clothes, kitchen stuff, books, furniture.....you name it ......we had it. It was great to see everyone come out to check it out and buy. We had a nice showing of high school students (so fun to hear what they are up to--prom!!!) I enjoyed working the early shift for admission. Thanks to all who supported our School Yard Project by coming out!
**The 4th Annual Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 19th from 6:30-8:00 pm in the Irving Auditorium. We have got some great slammers signed up. We even have some original poems that will be performed. There is still time to sign up! You can even use your Traveling Poets poem. Adults are certainly welcome to slam too! You can read, say, rap or sing it. It can be original or from a book. Group or solo! Mr. Williams will be on the playground at lunch with a microphone so students can practice with the full effect!!!!! Come on and join in the fun!
**Our end of the year tech project will begin this week---8:30-9:30 on Wednesday, May 18th and again same time on Wednesday, May 25th in the lab. I have B. Metric volunteering but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Email me if you can help.
**We have 3 WALKING FIELD TRIPS coming up--Oak Park Conservatory, Tuesday, May 31st from 1:00-2:30 pm. --Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic, Wednesday, June 1st from 11:00-1:00 pm at Rehm Park. --Maze Branch Library, Monday, June 6th, time to be determined. Next Friday, you will be receiving information and permission slips for all 3 events. We will be needing lots of volunteers, especially for Pizza and Play. Pizza and Play is a family event. All families are welcomed!
**Our end of the year Sibling Hour is Friday, May 27th from 2:00-2:55. It's a great way for our "almost First Graders" to show what they know. Any sibs 4 and under are welcome.
**All School Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th from 8:30-11:00 am. All parents are welcome to check out the events going on both inside and outside of the school.
**Last Friendship Club with Ms. Bell Bey is Friday, May 20th.
**Reading Grandma's time with us will also be ending soon. Grandma Mary has been an inspiration to me! Her level of commitment to our class is incredible. We absolutely love her!
We look forward to Fridays when she comes to spend the morning with us. Each student gets individual time with her to read, build fluency and comprehension and have a little "me" time.
**The last of school is Tuesday, June 7th. It is a 1 hour session. (8-9 am) It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign autograph books and get report cards/summer tips. I almost cannot believe it!!!! These students are more than ready to become first graders!
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE continues--We have had REPUGNANT, EXEMPLARY, OPTIMISTIC, INTEGRITY and this week, PERPLEXED (confused or puzzled.)
We are perplexed by this crazy weather!
**Last book order of the year is on line only---click on the book--activation code in under it.
**Last Spelling City update (but you can certainly use it and the previous words all summer.)
**I have all the codes for summer Xtramath if you have lost yours.
**I am checking to see if LEXIA is available this summer.
**Please feel free to check out wikispaces on line parent resources created by Ms. Homann.
This week: It was all about the Traveling Seeds Activities from the Oak Park Conservatory. The students learned about the way seeds travel in a very hands on way, depending upon their shapes and sizes. They can be blown in the wind--helicopter seeds, dandelion seeds, float in water--coconut seed, cacao seed, pop from a pod--baptista seeds, and stick or hitch hike on animals fur--tickseeds, buried by animals--acorns, be left by animal droppings--avocado pit, cacao seeds. (oh yes!) The students got to experiment with floating, blowing, burying and popping seed types. It was great fun. The students reflected on their experiences in their science journal. Thanks to Gabriela for bringing a cracked open coconut. The student really wanted to see what was inside!
Reading: We continue to work in Unit 7--Teamwork. The students read the Lois Lenski poem, "Cleaning up the Block." They focused on 2 questions--Why is this a team? How is the team working together? We used our decodable book, "Puff," for a written retelling assignment. We read the story aloud. The students discussed the story elements. They then sequenced the parts of the story. We continue to work finding the beginning, middle and ending of the story. Also, what is the main idea? The students went back to their seats and re read the story and filled out the balloon retelling sheet. We reviewed long and shot vowels, digraphs and blends, blending and segmenting 5-8 phoneme words and quotation marks and speech balloons or bubbles. The students used their workshop time for reading games relating to our studies. We worked on our Word Play activity.
Math: We are getting quicker at recognizing when we add or subtract. We are using our math journals to record, illustrate and work out our story problem. The students learned a new game this week called, "Take Away." They use their number line, pennies and dice to play. They rolled the dice--record on their recording sheet how many pennies to take away from their number line and then record how many are left. Some of the students are beginning to see the relationship be addition and subtraction and number families. Pretty cool! We looked at the dollar. We experimented with ways to use coins to make a dollar--4 quarters, 100 pennies, 10 dimes etc. We also continue to work on writing 3 digit numbers. Students are working on place value--100's place, 10's place and 1's place.
We are having a blast trying to figure out "What's My Rule." I am using ones from the kid's homework. We will continue to do this.
Writing: We continue to work on all things that make a good sentence. I have been using the "sentence lifting " technique where I choose a sentence from someones' journal and write it on the overheard. The students see if any changes need to be made. They tell me where to make the changes. We talked about expanding our sentences and using adjectives.
Science: Along with our Traveling Seeds Activities, the students continued to record growth and design from their particular plant that is now at their home. They reflected on the care they are giving each plant. Their drawings reflected the development of leaves and stems and now some secondary leaf growth. The students are also responsible for a table plant. Each table is growing one of our flower types. They students discuss, draw, label and make predictions on what they going to see next. Once again, teamwork is involved in the care and watering of the plant. We checked out the root systems of a marigold, potato, onion, tulip bulb, dandelion. The students labeled the plant parts. Our class garden is really starting to grow. I believe we have decided on tomatoes and cucumbers to grow in our garden bed outside. Stay tuned for more info on that. Next week, we will be taking a look at creatures who are very helpful to our soil. Jack's family has graciously offered us some of their worm compost to study and write about. We will also experiment with seed sponges and sprouting seeds without soil. (Can you say hydroponics?)
We saw a strawberry seed under the microscope!
Literature: "How Many are Left," "Puff," "The Mystery of the Missing Sock "(Quotation Marks), "Roots," "Leaves," "Life in the Meadow," Seeds to Plants-Chapter 3, "How Seeds Travel," "I am a Seed," "Cool Dogs Love School," "What Lives in the Garden," Poems from the following books----"Hip Hop Speaks to Children," "Anna Banana Jump Rope Rhymes," "Random House Poetry for Children," "A Bad Case of the Giggles," "Hopscotch Love--Family Poems."
**There was certainly something for everyone at the Irving Garage Sale on Saturday. Tons of toys, clothes, kitchen stuff, books, furniture.....you name it ......we had it. It was great to see everyone come out to check it out and buy. We had a nice showing of high school students (so fun to hear what they are up to--prom!!!) I enjoyed working the early shift for admission. Thanks to all who supported our School Yard Project by coming out!
**The 4th Annual Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 19th from 6:30-8:00 pm in the Irving Auditorium. We have got some great slammers signed up. We even have some original poems that will be performed. There is still time to sign up! You can even use your Traveling Poets poem. Adults are certainly welcome to slam too! You can read, say, rap or sing it. It can be original or from a book. Group or solo! Mr. Williams will be on the playground at lunch with a microphone so students can practice with the full effect!!!!! Come on and join in the fun!
**Our end of the year tech project will begin this week---8:30-9:30 on Wednesday, May 18th and again same time on Wednesday, May 25th in the lab. I have B. Metric volunteering but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Email me if you can help.
**We have 3 WALKING FIELD TRIPS coming up--Oak Park Conservatory, Tuesday, May 31st from 1:00-2:30 pm. --Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic, Wednesday, June 1st from 11:00-1:00 pm at Rehm Park. --Maze Branch Library, Monday, June 6th, time to be determined. Next Friday, you will be receiving information and permission slips for all 3 events. We will be needing lots of volunteers, especially for Pizza and Play. Pizza and Play is a family event. All families are welcomed!
**Our end of the year Sibling Hour is Friday, May 27th from 2:00-2:55. It's a great way for our "almost First Graders" to show what they know. Any sibs 4 and under are welcome.
**All School Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th from 8:30-11:00 am. All parents are welcome to check out the events going on both inside and outside of the school.
**Last Friendship Club with Ms. Bell Bey is Friday, May 20th.
**Reading Grandma's time with us will also be ending soon. Grandma Mary has been an inspiration to me! Her level of commitment to our class is incredible. We absolutely love her!
We look forward to Fridays when she comes to spend the morning with us. Each student gets individual time with her to read, build fluency and comprehension and have a little "me" time.
**The last of school is Tuesday, June 7th. It is a 1 hour session. (8-9 am) It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign autograph books and get report cards/summer tips. I almost cannot believe it!!!! These students are more than ready to become first graders!
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE continues--We have had REPUGNANT, EXEMPLARY, OPTIMISTIC, INTEGRITY and this week, PERPLEXED (confused or puzzled.)
We are perplexed by this crazy weather!
**Last book order of the year is on line only---click on the book--activation code in under it.
**Last Spelling City update (but you can certainly use it and the previous words all summer.)
**I have all the codes for summer Xtramath if you have lost yours.
**I am checking to see if LEXIA is available this summer.
**Please feel free to check out wikispaces on line parent resources created by Ms. Homann.
This week: It was all about the Traveling Seeds Activities from the Oak Park Conservatory. The students learned about the way seeds travel in a very hands on way, depending upon their shapes and sizes. They can be blown in the wind--helicopter seeds, dandelion seeds, float in water--coconut seed, cacao seed, pop from a pod--baptista seeds, and stick or hitch hike on animals fur--tickseeds, buried by animals--acorns, be left by animal droppings--avocado pit, cacao seeds. (oh yes!) The students got to experiment with floating, blowing, burying and popping seed types. It was great fun. The students reflected on their experiences in their science journal. Thanks to Gabriela for bringing a cracked open coconut. The student really wanted to see what was inside!
Reading: We continue to work in Unit 7--Teamwork. The students read the Lois Lenski poem, "Cleaning up the Block." They focused on 2 questions--Why is this a team? How is the team working together? We used our decodable book, "Puff," for a written retelling assignment. We read the story aloud. The students discussed the story elements. They then sequenced the parts of the story. We continue to work finding the beginning, middle and ending of the story. Also, what is the main idea? The students went back to their seats and re read the story and filled out the balloon retelling sheet. We reviewed long and shot vowels, digraphs and blends, blending and segmenting 5-8 phoneme words and quotation marks and speech balloons or bubbles. The students used their workshop time for reading games relating to our studies. We worked on our Word Play activity.
Math: We are getting quicker at recognizing when we add or subtract. We are using our math journals to record, illustrate and work out our story problem. The students learned a new game this week called, "Take Away." They use their number line, pennies and dice to play. They rolled the dice--record on their recording sheet how many pennies to take away from their number line and then record how many are left. Some of the students are beginning to see the relationship be addition and subtraction and number families. Pretty cool! We looked at the dollar. We experimented with ways to use coins to make a dollar--4 quarters, 100 pennies, 10 dimes etc. We also continue to work on writing 3 digit numbers. Students are working on place value--100's place, 10's place and 1's place.
We are having a blast trying to figure out "What's My Rule." I am using ones from the kid's homework. We will continue to do this.
Writing: We continue to work on all things that make a good sentence. I have been using the "sentence lifting " technique where I choose a sentence from someones' journal and write it on the overheard. The students see if any changes need to be made. They tell me where to make the changes. We talked about expanding our sentences and using adjectives.
Science: Along with our Traveling Seeds Activities, the students continued to record growth and design from their particular plant that is now at their home. They reflected on the care they are giving each plant. Their drawings reflected the development of leaves and stems and now some secondary leaf growth. The students are also responsible for a table plant. Each table is growing one of our flower types. They students discuss, draw, label and make predictions on what they going to see next. Once again, teamwork is involved in the care and watering of the plant. We checked out the root systems of a marigold, potato, onion, tulip bulb, dandelion. The students labeled the plant parts. Our class garden is really starting to grow. I believe we have decided on tomatoes and cucumbers to grow in our garden bed outside. Stay tuned for more info on that. Next week, we will be taking a look at creatures who are very helpful to our soil. Jack's family has graciously offered us some of their worm compost to study and write about. We will also experiment with seed sponges and sprouting seeds without soil. (Can you say hydroponics?)
We saw a strawberry seed under the microscope!
Literature: "How Many are Left," "Puff," "The Mystery of the Missing Sock "(Quotation Marks), "Roots," "Leaves," "Life in the Meadow," Seeds to Plants-Chapter 3, "How Seeds Travel," "I am a Seed," "Cool Dogs Love School," "What Lives in the Garden," Poems from the following books----"Hip Hop Speaks to Children," "Anna Banana Jump Rope Rhymes," "Random House Poetry for Children," "A Bad Case of the Giggles," "Hopscotch Love--Family Poems."
Sunday, May 8, 2011
UPDATES for 5/2-5/6 2011
**Our Sports and Fitness Week was great! Team hats, healthy snacks, school colors, group yoga culminating with the Fun Run on Saturday made it a fun time. It was a misty Saturday morning for the run, but everyone participating did their personal best. Let's give a shout out to Henry, Evan, McKenna, Ceci and Peter who ran with me!
**It turned out to be a great day for the Ethnic Festival. I was unable to attend but hope some of you had the chance.
**By now everyone has the information about the Traveling Poets under the direction of Ms. Noonan. All students have their poems with exception of Ethan, Eliyah and Jack. Don't worry--I will get them to you on Monday. This activity is a nice lead in to the 4th Annual Poetry Slam, to be held on Thursday, May 19th at 6:30m pm in the Irving Auditorium. Sign up to join in. Students can use their traveling poets poems or write their own or find a new poem. They can work alone, partner up or in a group. They can say, read it, rap it or even sing it! Please fill out the slam permission sheet so Mr. Williams knows who the participants are. Mr. Williams will be on the playground at lunch time with his microphone so the students can practice it they choose. Fun! Fun! fun!
**We will begin work on an end of the year tech project, beginning May 18th. I will need some parent helpers to assist in the computer lab. Please see me if interested.
**Future field trip--Oak Park Conservatory-Tuesday, May 31st-1-2:30 pm. Permission slips will be sent out next Friday.
**SAVE THE DATE!!! Wednesday, June 1st from 11:00-1:00 pm-Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park. More info is forthcoming.
**We are also working on planning a field trip to our local Maze Library for a tour and to obtain library cards for students who do not have their own. Stay tuned.
**We are also working on planning a Sibling Hour. It is tentatively scheduled for Friday, afternoon, May 27th. Stay tuned.
**Irving Garage Sale is this Saturday, May 14th from 8-1 pm. Come out and help or donate to help our School Yard Project.
**Oak Park Conservatory's Traveling Seeds will be in our classroom next week. The students will experience seed types, plant types, how seed travel and types and functions of leaves in this traveling hands on curriculum.
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE continues---We have had REPUGNANT, EXEMPLARY, OPTIMISTIC and this week, INTEGRITY (being moral and honest.) This class shows a lot of integrity when it comes to working with others.
** Our last Friendship Club session will be May 20th.
This week: It was all about SEEDS! The students observed their seeds. They carefully watered and nurtured them and placed them in a sunny window. The students reflected in their science journal, charted daily any changes if any and recorded and drew sketches about what they observed. Many of the students thought it would take weeks for seeds to sprout. Some students couldn't believe they didn't have a full plant in 3 days. We did learn that the Morning Glory seeds were the first to sprout. Some of the Marigold seeds and Sunflower seeds came next. Finally, the Nasturtium seeds sprouted. We were all a bit disappointed that some of our Marigold seeds had not sprouted in time for Mother's Day. Keep nurturing your plants at home. Check to see if they need water and place them in a sunny window. Don't transplant them in your outside garden yet. The students observed the different leaf structures emerging on the plants. Each table will now observe one variety of the 4 flower types planted. "Grassy G" is growing slowly. Our inside class garden still has room for more seed types. Bring them in!
Reading: We continue work in Unit 7--Teamwork. We read the big book story, "Swimmy" by Leo Lioni. We discussed how Swimmy was different from all of his brothers and sisters and how traveling in a school might be helpful to fish. The students used the comprehension strategies of visualizing and predicting in talking about the story. They were able to answer questions about how Swimmy was different and how the fish work together as a team at the end. We discussed the use of quotation marks to indicate who is speaking in the story. The students retold the story verbally and then tried their hand at retelling the story in written form. The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 4-5 phoneme words and adding and deleting word parts. We even had some 6-7 phoneme words this week!
Math: We continue to work on solving addition and subtraction story problems in our math journal. We continue to work on recognizing key words in the story to help us identify the process we are going to use. All students are working hard on this! We reviewed digital and analog time by the hour and are beginning to focus on the 5 minute increments when looking at an analog clock. We reviewed recognition of penny, nickel , dime and quarter and their values. Next week, we will look at a dollar. We are continuing to play. "What's my rule?" Check out the function machine in this weeks homework. What's your rule????
Writing: We continue work on refining our upper and lowercase letters. Keep practicing the formation. We have started thinking about expanding our sentences with adjectives. The students continue to practice building sentences using the games, Silly Sentences and Silly Rhymes. It can get pretty silly!!
Science: We took a look at the inside of a seed. (seed dissection) We soaked pinto and pea seeds overnight. We examined seeds not soaked and soaked seeds. The students engaged in lively discussion about the texture, color and size of the seeds. We then split the soaked seed. Why could we do this? Yes! The students recalled that perhaps water had "climbed" up into the tiny spaces in the seed. (We learned this from our water unit.) The students examined the seed parts--Coat-Food-Baby Plant and labeled their drawings. They used their magnifiers to see the details and them we put them under the microscope. Way cool!!! Next week, we will continue looking at sprouts, shoots and root systems.
Literature: "Of Thee I Sing," (great story by Barack Obama to his daughters) "Growing Vegetables," "Counting the Garden," "Cinco de Mouse-o," Eyewitness-"Plants," "Seeds to Plants"-Chapter 2, "Big Bug Surprise," "Sometimes Things Change," "Splat the Cat Sings Flat," "Yes-Day," "Hot Rod Hamster," "Swimmy."
**It turned out to be a great day for the Ethnic Festival. I was unable to attend but hope some of you had the chance.
**By now everyone has the information about the Traveling Poets under the direction of Ms. Noonan. All students have their poems with exception of Ethan, Eliyah and Jack. Don't worry--I will get them to you on Monday. This activity is a nice lead in to the 4th Annual Poetry Slam, to be held on Thursday, May 19th at 6:30m pm in the Irving Auditorium. Sign up to join in. Students can use their traveling poets poems or write their own or find a new poem. They can work alone, partner up or in a group. They can say, read it, rap it or even sing it! Please fill out the slam permission sheet so Mr. Williams knows who the participants are. Mr. Williams will be on the playground at lunch time with his microphone so the students can practice it they choose. Fun! Fun! fun!
**We will begin work on an end of the year tech project, beginning May 18th. I will need some parent helpers to assist in the computer lab. Please see me if interested.
**Future field trip--Oak Park Conservatory-Tuesday, May 31st-1-2:30 pm. Permission slips will be sent out next Friday.
**SAVE THE DATE!!! Wednesday, June 1st from 11:00-1:00 pm-Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park. More info is forthcoming.
**We are also working on planning a field trip to our local Maze Library for a tour and to obtain library cards for students who do not have their own. Stay tuned.
**We are also working on planning a Sibling Hour. It is tentatively scheduled for Friday, afternoon, May 27th. Stay tuned.
**Irving Garage Sale is this Saturday, May 14th from 8-1 pm. Come out and help or donate to help our School Yard Project.
**Oak Park Conservatory's Traveling Seeds will be in our classroom next week. The students will experience seed types, plant types, how seed travel and types and functions of leaves in this traveling hands on curriculum.
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE continues---We have had REPUGNANT, EXEMPLARY, OPTIMISTIC and this week, INTEGRITY (being moral and honest.) This class shows a lot of integrity when it comes to working with others.
** Our last Friendship Club session will be May 20th.
This week: It was all about SEEDS! The students observed their seeds. They carefully watered and nurtured them and placed them in a sunny window. The students reflected in their science journal, charted daily any changes if any and recorded and drew sketches about what they observed. Many of the students thought it would take weeks for seeds to sprout. Some students couldn't believe they didn't have a full plant in 3 days. We did learn that the Morning Glory seeds were the first to sprout. Some of the Marigold seeds and Sunflower seeds came next. Finally, the Nasturtium seeds sprouted. We were all a bit disappointed that some of our Marigold seeds had not sprouted in time for Mother's Day. Keep nurturing your plants at home. Check to see if they need water and place them in a sunny window. Don't transplant them in your outside garden yet. The students observed the different leaf structures emerging on the plants. Each table will now observe one variety of the 4 flower types planted. "Grassy G" is growing slowly. Our inside class garden still has room for more seed types. Bring them in!
Reading: We continue work in Unit 7--Teamwork. We read the big book story, "Swimmy" by Leo Lioni. We discussed how Swimmy was different from all of his brothers and sisters and how traveling in a school might be helpful to fish. The students used the comprehension strategies of visualizing and predicting in talking about the story. They were able to answer questions about how Swimmy was different and how the fish work together as a team at the end. We discussed the use of quotation marks to indicate who is speaking in the story. The students retold the story verbally and then tried their hand at retelling the story in written form. The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 4-5 phoneme words and adding and deleting word parts. We even had some 6-7 phoneme words this week!
Math: We continue to work on solving addition and subtraction story problems in our math journal. We continue to work on recognizing key words in the story to help us identify the process we are going to use. All students are working hard on this! We reviewed digital and analog time by the hour and are beginning to focus on the 5 minute increments when looking at an analog clock. We reviewed recognition of penny, nickel , dime and quarter and their values. Next week, we will look at a dollar. We are continuing to play. "What's my rule?" Check out the function machine in this weeks homework. What's your rule????
Writing: We continue work on refining our upper and lowercase letters. Keep practicing the formation. We have started thinking about expanding our sentences with adjectives. The students continue to practice building sentences using the games, Silly Sentences and Silly Rhymes. It can get pretty silly!!
Science: We took a look at the inside of a seed. (seed dissection) We soaked pinto and pea seeds overnight. We examined seeds not soaked and soaked seeds. The students engaged in lively discussion about the texture, color and size of the seeds. We then split the soaked seed. Why could we do this? Yes! The students recalled that perhaps water had "climbed" up into the tiny spaces in the seed. (We learned this from our water unit.) The students examined the seed parts--Coat-Food-Baby Plant and labeled their drawings. They used their magnifiers to see the details and them we put them under the microscope. Way cool!!! Next week, we will continue looking at sprouts, shoots and root systems.
Literature: "Of Thee I Sing," (great story by Barack Obama to his daughters) "Growing Vegetables," "Counting the Garden," "Cinco de Mouse-o," Eyewitness-"Plants," "Seeds to Plants"-Chapter 2, "Big Bug Surprise," "Sometimes Things Change," "Splat the Cat Sings Flat," "Yes-Day," "Hot Rod Hamster," "Swimmy."
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