**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."
