**The Chinese Year of the Dragon has begun! The students learned about Chinese New Year, Tangrams and the science behind Bubbles this week.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 began this week. All students received notification of skill being worked on.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences begin Tuesday, January 31st and continue Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. Don't forget to confirm your time. Thanks! Please Note: School will only be in session the morning of Thursday, February 2nd and Friday, February 3rd. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session or lunch. Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pickup is at 11:00 am.
**We have finished Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series and the students will be taking their unit assessment on Monday.
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps. Please take a look at the information enclosed in the homework packet. If interested--send back. I will pick from the names submitted on Friday, February 3rd.
**Welcome Reading Grandma Mary! The students chose their own story to read to her.
**Welcome Ms. Amanda! The students had many questions about her wheelchair, how much movement she has, her daily activities, her school and what she does for fun. Ms. Amanda was candid and answered every question!
**The 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 10th from 1:00-2:55 pm. We have M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quinones-Garcia, J. Andersson, Lottie's Grandma, I. Henry, R Leveridge and S. Armbruster as our volunteers. All students have received their "heart" for their project. Please read the information on the heart.
**Mei-Li's mom did a wonderful presentation on the Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Dragon! She brought Chinese instruments, Chinese music and the Nian (Year Monster) heads that they use in parades. Each student got to try on the Nian (Year Monster) and other students supported the middle and back parts. The remaining students used the instruments and we paraded down the hall to the office ridding the hallway of evil spirits. The students learned about the color red for luck and special foods such a oranges, good luck messages and red envelopes called Lai-See given to children. The students learned which animal rules the year they were born. A great time was had by all. Thank you, Ms. Mikos!
**Mr. Packer presented a lesson on sequencing. He showed the students how to look for clues in each picture to help determine order. He also talked to them about trying to figure out the MAIN IDEA first by looking at all the pictures.
**The FUN FAIR is coming! The FUN FAIR is coming! L. Waste is heading up our classroom basket project that will be auctioned off at the Fun Fair. It is a CUBS/BASEBALL theme. She already has CUB tickets. Please help contribute to the basket. It can be items or money donations. You can send it to me with your child if you like. The FUN FAIR is SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25th from 11-3 pm at Irving School. Come play a game with me!
**Thanks for your support in having kids dress for the weather. Please keep it going! We have had a recent outbreak of sickness in our classroom. We are disinfecting and trying to keep as clean as possible.
**The GIANT BOX and COOL THINGS shout out continues. Keep saving them!
This week:
It was all about bubbles! The students had a great time investigating plain and then soapy water. The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounding a gas inside. That outside layer is like a skin. The students took their bubble wands outside with a big tub of bubble solution and bubbles were everywhere! The temperature was near freezing so some bubbles remained on the wand and were easy to photograph. Some students had clusters of bubbles. The students experimented with different shaped bubble wands. What shape did all the bubbles come out? Ask your child! Bubbles Part 2 is next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students worked to complete Unit 5 Animals in their Treasures Reading series. This week the students talked and read about animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal homes that they knew of. The students listened to the story, "A Mole and the Baby Bird." Students looked at the cover picture and made predictions about story content. The students recognized the characters and plot of the story. They made connections in their life to having or wanting a pet and the care involved. Ask your child what happens at the end of the story. The students reviewed the sight words--is and play. We played sight word bingo and students partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and pictures. The students "walked" all the words that have been presented thus far. The students reviewed the target sounds Ff and Oo. We reviewed all the target sounds presented in our lessons thus far. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE and ENTER. The story was reread and students were asked to think about the story elements. The students took turns retelling the story in their own words using the retelling cards. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy, assisted us in our sound blending routine. We used our elkonin boxes and placed the blocks according to the order of the sounds heard. The students blended the sounds and said the word. We continue to use 3-4 phonemes. The students read aloud the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap!" They made predictions about what would happen. After the first reading, each student chose a partner to read the story again to. I read a selection on the oral vocabulary cards called, "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats we may not see? Are some of their homes beneath the ground? The students listened to the expository text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." They made predictions on story content and responded with their thoughts on the animals in the story. We had a lively discussion on Wild vs. Domestic (animals that need to be taken care of.) The students read their paper story, "Can Tam Play?" Each student took a turn to read the story in their best voice. The students listened to the Mexican folktale, "The Coyote and the Turtle." We located Mexico on our map. The students responded to the story and discussed what the big idea of the story was. The students worked on sound spelling cvc words. They worked to complete activity books. Workstation activities this week included reading about animal homes--drawing a picture of an animal and home they read about and writing a sentence about the habitat and sharing their picture and sentence with a partner, book club reading-reading a story as a group-fingerpointing each word and then discussing story elements, rhyme it--working with a partner to make rhyming pairs and then writing a pair of sentences that rhyme, word picture web--using the sentence written in the middle...We play..... and then finding and cutting out pictures that describe the action, gluing them around the sentence and labeling the pictures.
Math: The students continue to practice counting to 100 and work on counting by 10's. We are also working on counting by 2's and 5's. In a nod to the Chinese New Year and geometry, our great tech advisor Ms. Applebey, led a 2 day study of tangrams. (ancient Chinese puzzles) She read the story, "Grandfather Tang's Story." The grandfather and the granddaughter share a story under a tree. On each page, the tangram is part of the story. Ms. Applebey introduced the 7 shapes called tans that are used in the tangrams. The students practiced at their tables with their own set of tans and used models to construct their tangram puzzle. On day 2, the students used the app, TanZen and chose a puzzle to complete. Lots of great brain work going on!!! The students had to manipulate the tans into the puzzle space with a light touch. They could also flip the tan over by tapping it twice. Not as easy as it looks. Very challenging!! Amazing concentration and determination not to give up. Really great problem solving for these 5-6 year olds. The look on their faces when they put all the pieces in place---priceless!!! A follow up to the project is a home project with a written component.
Writing: The students finished the lowercase Magic "C" letters c, o, a, s, d, g. They practiced using their mini slates and followed up in their orange books. The students continue to use writing prompts from the Treasures Reading series. We began a discussion on expanding sentence length.
Science: The students experimented with bubbles. The main experiment was explained above. The students learned that bubbles pop because the soapy water eventually evaporates from the surface of the bubble. We discussed what is meant by evaporation. The students watched a line drawn with water on the chalk board fade away. Where did the wetness go? Evaporation! The students reflected in their science journals and also drew pictures and sketches to illustrate their experience. Bubbles part 2 will continue next week.
Technology: The students main app in math was TanZen. While the students were working on their puzzle, the app played Chinese music that was very soothing to the mind. The app Math Bug was used by students individually to work on addition and subtraction. The apps Labyrinth (problem solving) and Underwater Memory (visual motor and memory) were also used by small groups of students. In reading, the students worked with partners using the app Sight Words. They located their appropriate group of words, said the word, recorded themselves saying the word and then used the stylus to practice writing the word. Small group student work also centered around the app Magnetic ABC's. The students used their sight words to construct sentences using appropriate spacing, beginning sentence capital letter and ending mark.
Literature: "The Chinese New Year," "Ruby's Wish," "Paper Lanterns," "What is a Bubble?" "I Know How We Fight Germs," "Ms. Bindergarten Stays Home from Kindergarten," "The Biggest, Best Snowman," "Artic Animals," "Snow on Snow on Snow," "Grandfather Tang's Story," "Tacky and the Winter Games," "The Snowsuit."
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
UPDATES for 1/17-/1/20 2012
**We have a good, productive week. The students are enjoying our water experiments and the anticipation of more snow!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Monday, January 23rd. Your child will receive notification of the current skill being worked on.
**I am continuing to administer assessments in preparation for our Parent/Teacher Conferences. If you have not done so already, please confirm your day and time. If you cannot make the time, no problem, email me for a new time.
**Mid Year Conferences for my class will be held Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. Please Note: School will only be in session the morning of Thursday, February 2nd and Friday, February 3rd. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. No afternoon session or lunch. Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pickup is at 11:00 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary (Monday afternoon) and Ms. Amanda (Wednesday morning) will begin assisting next week. We are excited!
**The 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quiones-Garcia and J. Andersson have signed up to help. We also have Lottie's grandma coming too! We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested. The student's 100th Day project will be sent home on Thursday along with instructions.
**We enjoyed snacks and stories with our Book Buddies for our January meeting. Next month, we will go up to their classroom!
**We are getting ready to ring in the Chinese New Year next week. It is the Year of the Dragon! Mei-Li's mom will give a presentation on their family tradition and history. Ms. Applebey will help facilitate a cool technology project using Tangrams and the IPAD. Stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt revisited the concept of self control. The students brainstormed ideas to help get them through situations that become frustrating.
**Mr. Packer continued his lesson on graphing outcomes and the terms probably, always and never. He started reading a really cool book called, "Tomorrow's Alphabet."
**Keep sending your child dressed for the weather. Unless it is super cold, we will go out each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**A Continued Giant Boxes and Cool Things shout out for our future space station project in April. Keep saving them. I will have you bring them in after spring break.
**Spelling City has been updated. Remember, you can always access a prior list to review!
This week:
It continues to be all about Weather and Water. Once again on Friday, the students tracked the latest snowstorm using the Weatherunderground site. The students also tracked where the storm came from and where it was headed. The students also observed what area would get the greatest amount of snow or rain. Pretty cool! In science, the students continued to marvel at the "climbing water" experiment with celery in red water. On the return to school on Monday, the celery was all red!!! Many objects and foods have tiny spaces for water to climb into. Even our skin has tiny spaces! Ask your child about it. The students experimented with water tornadoes and continues to explore water table activities. Station Day activities this week included, creating a lantern style snowman, making a sound blending wheel for the OCK word family and using the extension activities and using pictures to tell what happens to the snowman and writing a sentence under each picture. We are changing our Friendship Tree into a Mitten Tree. We read a story about a grandma who knits mittens for children who do not have any and hangs them on a spruce tree. What do the children do in return?
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. This week the student's built background knowledge surrounding how an animal changes and grows. They listened to the Big Book story, "Animal Babies ABC." We reviewed the word, expository--a story that give information about a subject. The students made connections about animals they had seen from the story and where they had seen them. They made comparisons on how some animals perhaps live in the same areas or eat different foods. The sight word for this week was play. The students reviewed the word and all others previously taught using the "Hands Up, Hands Down" game. Using our sound spelling workboard, the students took a spelling test to see how many of the words they could spell. Great work! Our target sound for the week was letter Ff. We read a rhyme and chant containing letter Ff words. The students took turns coming up to the rhyme and circling all the letter Ff's they saw. They continued to review nouns and verbs and wrote sentences in their journals with an animal name and action. The students used the retelling cards to help retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary for this week included the words, FRAGILE, BELONG, SEVERAL, PARENT and INFORMATION. Our puppet, Mr. Happy helped the students model blending sounds to form a word. They used the elkonin boxes to sound blend words using short O, A and I vowels and consonants. We are working on 3-4-5 phoneme words. The students read their decodable story, "Can It Fit?" and made predictions about story content. They practiced reading their story to a partner and received feedback on how they read using the reader's checklist. The students listened to the fairytale, 'The Ugly Duckling." They reflected on the differences between the the gray duckling and the others. They commented on what the mother told the gray duckling. They talked about the change at the end of the story. The students enjoyed two poems about animals and discussed which one they liked better and why. All students read the paper story, "We Play" for fluency building. The students listened to the tale of the "Three Bears." Many of the children commented that they had heard the story many times. The students thought and responded about--What would have happened if the bears came home early? Why do you think the author wrote this story? The students recorded some of their ideas in their journals. Workstation activities this week included animal sort where the students graphed animals according to categories pets-wild-farm. They then wrote a sentence about one of their animals, What can you and your animal do? Writing an I can/They can sentence and illustrating it, read it and add to it where a student shares a story with a partner and then writes and illustrates a different ending and an IPAD activity emphasizing word building with short o and writing down words that were made.
Math: The students continued to study time by the hour and review clocks parts. We discussed the concept of counting by 5's as you move from number to number on an analog clock. We used our clocks to practice counting by 5's to 60. Some students are beginning to get the idea. We continue to work with counting to 100, counting to 100 by tens, and counting back from 15-0, as well as graphing opportunities with Mr. Packer. This week, we explored the world of scales and weights and measures. We practiced "weighing" objects and seeing how many bears or cubes it took to balance the scale. We took a look at the parts of the scale. The students were busy adding quantities together. Some students used the IPAD to illustrate a given problem.
Writing: The students have begun work on "Magic C" lowercase letters, c,o and a. We used our practice boards and paper to work on formation. The students worked in their orange books. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series. The students are writing 2 sentences. We continue to stress use of an uppercase letter to begin a sentence, an ending mark, spacing between words in a sentence, beginning at the left and placement of letters on a given line. In order for it to be a sentence, it has to name and tell.
Science: The students recorded what they observed with their celery in red water. We took sample pieces of a plain piece of celery and the piece that had turned red. We placed them under the microscope. WOW! Lots of spaces observed in both, but the red celery had much more defined spaces. The students moved on to Experiment 4--The Shape of Water. As the students took turns pouring water from one container to another, they discovered that water does not have its own shape, it takes the shape of whatever container it is in. The students extended this activity to think about the shapes of bodies of water and what the shape reminded them of----Lake Michigan, The Mississippi River, The Atlantic Ocean. Cool thinking! In Experiment 5, the students observed how various objects behave in water and predicted whether they will sink or float. I used some big words--displacement (pushing away), density (measure of mass.) The students did their experiment with members of their table. They observed the results and recorded them. They then got to go other tables to see other table results. Not all tables had the same results. Two tables had rubber bands sink--two tables had rubber bands that floated. Why? Much discussion took place. Stay tuned. Next week--what is a bubble?
Technology: In reading, the students used the app Montessori Crossword with the option of using short o words to sound out. They looked at the picture, found the letters to spell the word and wrote it down. The app Sound Sort was used by small groups to review beginning letter sounds. In handwriting, students got an opportunity to work with the app Whiteboard to practice their 'Magic C" lowercase letters. In math, small group work centered on the app Math Bug (addition and subtraction,) the app Labyrinth (problem solving) and the app Underwater Memory Match (visual motor and memory) and the app Doodle Buddy was used to illustrate story problems.
Literature: "Ice," "Six Snowy Sheep." "Curious George Snowy Day," "Snowman at Night," "Sink or Swim," "Water," "The Mitten," version 3 by S. Oliver, "Blizzards," "Some things Float," "Duck for President," "The Mitten Tree," "All You Need to Make a Snowman."
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Monday, January 23rd. Your child will receive notification of the current skill being worked on.
**I am continuing to administer assessments in preparation for our Parent/Teacher Conferences. If you have not done so already, please confirm your day and time. If you cannot make the time, no problem, email me for a new time.
**Mid Year Conferences for my class will be held Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. Please Note: School will only be in session the morning of Thursday, February 2nd and Friday, February 3rd. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. No afternoon session or lunch. Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pickup is at 11:00 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary (Monday afternoon) and Ms. Amanda (Wednesday morning) will begin assisting next week. We are excited!
**The 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quiones-Garcia and J. Andersson have signed up to help. We also have Lottie's grandma coming too! We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested. The student's 100th Day project will be sent home on Thursday along with instructions.
**We enjoyed snacks and stories with our Book Buddies for our January meeting. Next month, we will go up to their classroom!
**We are getting ready to ring in the Chinese New Year next week. It is the Year of the Dragon! Mei-Li's mom will give a presentation on their family tradition and history. Ms. Applebey will help facilitate a cool technology project using Tangrams and the IPAD. Stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt revisited the concept of self control. The students brainstormed ideas to help get them through situations that become frustrating.
**Mr. Packer continued his lesson on graphing outcomes and the terms probably, always and never. He started reading a really cool book called, "Tomorrow's Alphabet."
**Keep sending your child dressed for the weather. Unless it is super cold, we will go out each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**A Continued Giant Boxes and Cool Things shout out for our future space station project in April. Keep saving them. I will have you bring them in after spring break.
**Spelling City has been updated. Remember, you can always access a prior list to review!
This week:
It continues to be all about Weather and Water. Once again on Friday, the students tracked the latest snowstorm using the Weatherunderground site. The students also tracked where the storm came from and where it was headed. The students also observed what area would get the greatest amount of snow or rain. Pretty cool! In science, the students continued to marvel at the "climbing water" experiment with celery in red water. On the return to school on Monday, the celery was all red!!! Many objects and foods have tiny spaces for water to climb into. Even our skin has tiny spaces! Ask your child about it. The students experimented with water tornadoes and continues to explore water table activities. Station Day activities this week included, creating a lantern style snowman, making a sound blending wheel for the OCK word family and using the extension activities and using pictures to tell what happens to the snowman and writing a sentence under each picture. We are changing our Friendship Tree into a Mitten Tree. We read a story about a grandma who knits mittens for children who do not have any and hangs them on a spruce tree. What do the children do in return?
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. This week the student's built background knowledge surrounding how an animal changes and grows. They listened to the Big Book story, "Animal Babies ABC." We reviewed the word, expository--a story that give information about a subject. The students made connections about animals they had seen from the story and where they had seen them. They made comparisons on how some animals perhaps live in the same areas or eat different foods. The sight word for this week was play. The students reviewed the word and all others previously taught using the "Hands Up, Hands Down" game. Using our sound spelling workboard, the students took a spelling test to see how many of the words they could spell. Great work! Our target sound for the week was letter Ff. We read a rhyme and chant containing letter Ff words. The students took turns coming up to the rhyme and circling all the letter Ff's they saw. They continued to review nouns and verbs and wrote sentences in their journals with an animal name and action. The students used the retelling cards to help retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary for this week included the words, FRAGILE, BELONG, SEVERAL, PARENT and INFORMATION. Our puppet, Mr. Happy helped the students model blending sounds to form a word. They used the elkonin boxes to sound blend words using short O, A and I vowels and consonants. We are working on 3-4-5 phoneme words. The students read their decodable story, "Can It Fit?" and made predictions about story content. They practiced reading their story to a partner and received feedback on how they read using the reader's checklist. The students listened to the fairytale, 'The Ugly Duckling." They reflected on the differences between the the gray duckling and the others. They commented on what the mother told the gray duckling. They talked about the change at the end of the story. The students enjoyed two poems about animals and discussed which one they liked better and why. All students read the paper story, "We Play" for fluency building. The students listened to the tale of the "Three Bears." Many of the children commented that they had heard the story many times. The students thought and responded about--What would have happened if the bears came home early? Why do you think the author wrote this story? The students recorded some of their ideas in their journals. Workstation activities this week included animal sort where the students graphed animals according to categories pets-wild-farm. They then wrote a sentence about one of their animals, What can you and your animal do? Writing an I can/They can sentence and illustrating it, read it and add to it where a student shares a story with a partner and then writes and illustrates a different ending and an IPAD activity emphasizing word building with short o and writing down words that were made.
Math: The students continued to study time by the hour and review clocks parts. We discussed the concept of counting by 5's as you move from number to number on an analog clock. We used our clocks to practice counting by 5's to 60. Some students are beginning to get the idea. We continue to work with counting to 100, counting to 100 by tens, and counting back from 15-0, as well as graphing opportunities with Mr. Packer. This week, we explored the world of scales and weights and measures. We practiced "weighing" objects and seeing how many bears or cubes it took to balance the scale. We took a look at the parts of the scale. The students were busy adding quantities together. Some students used the IPAD to illustrate a given problem.
Writing: The students have begun work on "Magic C" lowercase letters, c,o and a. We used our practice boards and paper to work on formation. The students worked in their orange books. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series. The students are writing 2 sentences. We continue to stress use of an uppercase letter to begin a sentence, an ending mark, spacing between words in a sentence, beginning at the left and placement of letters on a given line. In order for it to be a sentence, it has to name and tell.
Science: The students recorded what they observed with their celery in red water. We took sample pieces of a plain piece of celery and the piece that had turned red. We placed them under the microscope. WOW! Lots of spaces observed in both, but the red celery had much more defined spaces. The students moved on to Experiment 4--The Shape of Water. As the students took turns pouring water from one container to another, they discovered that water does not have its own shape, it takes the shape of whatever container it is in. The students extended this activity to think about the shapes of bodies of water and what the shape reminded them of----Lake Michigan, The Mississippi River, The Atlantic Ocean. Cool thinking! In Experiment 5, the students observed how various objects behave in water and predicted whether they will sink or float. I used some big words--displacement (pushing away), density (measure of mass.) The students did their experiment with members of their table. They observed the results and recorded them. They then got to go other tables to see other table results. Not all tables had the same results. Two tables had rubber bands sink--two tables had rubber bands that floated. Why? Much discussion took place. Stay tuned. Next week--what is a bubble?
Technology: In reading, the students used the app Montessori Crossword with the option of using short o words to sound out. They looked at the picture, found the letters to spell the word and wrote it down. The app Sound Sort was used by small groups to review beginning letter sounds. In handwriting, students got an opportunity to work with the app Whiteboard to practice their 'Magic C" lowercase letters. In math, small group work centered on the app Math Bug (addition and subtraction,) the app Labyrinth (problem solving) and the app Underwater Memory Match (visual motor and memory) and the app Doodle Buddy was used to illustrate story problems.
Literature: "Ice," "Six Snowy Sheep." "Curious George Snowy Day," "Snowman at Night," "Sink or Swim," "Water," "The Mitten," version 3 by S. Oliver, "Blizzards," "Some things Float," "Duck for President," "The Mitten Tree," "All You Need to Make a Snowman."
Friday, January 13, 2012
UPDATES for 1/9-1/13 2012
**Welcome back everyone! Happy 2012! Snow, Snow, Snow! I trust you all had a fun and restful break. It was great to hear about all the student's activities and travels. We had lots of travel journal sharing!
**There is NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 16th in observance of Martin Luther King's birthday. We shared stories and speeches from Martin Luther King's life. The students engaged in a very thought provoking discussion about Martin Luther King's childhood. The students questioned why your skin color should matter if you want someone to be your friend. Some students wondered what it would be like for them in Martin Luther King's time because one of their parents is black and other white. Powerful insights from five and six year olds. Our final discussion was on a quote from Martin Luther King's "Experiments in Love " speech from 1958 that reads, "The important thing about a man is not the color of his skin or the texture of his hair, but the texture and quality of his soul." Each student talked about what those words meant to them.
**Mid Year DIBELS testing was completed this week. I will be sharing the scores with you at conference time.
**I am beginning Mid Year Assessments next week in math, reading and writing. These assessments will also be shared with you at conference time.
**Speaking of conferences---Mid Year Conferences for my class will take place on Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. All students have a letter regarding conferences in their folder for you. Please respond by January 30th. Thanks!
**Vision Screening will take place Friday, January 20th. Hearing Screening will take place on Tuesday, January 24th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be begin her 5th year listening to young readers on Monday, January 23rd from 1-2:55 pm. She will be here every Monday.
**I am pleased to announce that Ms. Amanda will also begin assisting us every Wednesday from 9-11 am, beginning January 25th. Ms. Amanda assisted me this summer during summer school. She currently attends OPRF. We are so grateful for all of our helpers!
**The 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY CELEBRATION will soon be here! Our celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. I have S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quinones-Garcia and J. Andersson signed up to help. We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about self control and ways we manage our bodies and mouths. She did an activity involving how well we control our actions.
**Mr. Packer began an activity with the students what will involve graphing results.
**Don't forget to send your child dressed for the weather each day. Unless it is super cold, we will go outside each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other COOL stuff for our space station construction in APRIL, during our SPACE theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start sending things in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about Weather and Water! Our first snow fall was very exciting! The students enjoyed tracking the storm using the Weatherunderground site. They were able to "animate" the images to see where the storm was heading. We put on all our gear and went outside to catch snowflakes on black paper. The students took their magnifiers out to take a closer look. Before venturing out, we read about how snow is formed and why it snows. It all starts with a speck! (Ask your child about it!) The students have begun experimenting with the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so much fun! Check out our experiments and results under the science heading. Station Day activities included "sewing" a mitten and retelling the story with the paper characters, conversational snowmen, written reflections on snow, sound blending wheels using the op word family.
**Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing them in a zoo. We had an amazing teachable moment when Mei-Li talked about seeing manatees on her vacation. Many of the students did not know what a manatee was so we accessed some internet information on manatees. Using the site, "Defenders of Wildlife.com, " the students saw a video about manatees and learned about their life, behavior, what they eat and that they are a distant relative of the elephant. Most importantly, the student learned that manatees are an endangered species. Pretty cool! The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions a cat or kitten might perform. Those students with cats as pets made connections between their pet and the kittens in the story. Our sight word for this week is the word is. We reviewed it along with all our other words that have been introduced. The target sound and letter this week in Oo. The students worked on associating the sound with picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme. "The Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the words that began with short o. The students went back into the rhyme and marked all the words containing the letter Oo. The students continued to review and work with verbs by making a list of what kittens can do by naming a verb. Our robust vocabulary for this week contained the words ACTION, COMPARE, CONTENT, GENTLE, POUNCES. The students made comparisons in the the Big Book story about what the two kittens do compared to Boris (the third kitten.) The students worked with their elkonin sounds boxes to blend sounds using short o to make new words. They read their decodable book, "Sit," making predictions and commenting at the end of the story about the fish. The students listened to the vocabulary card tale, "Mam Mouse and El Gato." They discussed similarities and differences between cats and mice. In the expository text, "Let's Go to the Vet," the students learned about what a diagram was and focused on the content of the story. The students worked with partners to create sentences using target words and pictures and read them back to one another. They read aloud the paper story,"The Cat," and filled out the Reader's Checklist to critique themselves. The students also listened to their friends comments on their reading. (Could they be heard? Did they finger point each word and picture? Did they read smooth or choppy?) The students did an exercise where they had to listen to the word and place their marker in the box where they heard the Oo sound. The students listened to the rhyme, "The Three Little Kittens." They picked out the rhyming words, talked about the lesson in the story and reflected that many of them had heard this rhyme in preschool. The students worked in their activity books. Our workstations this week included making a pet chart by discussing pets with a partner, drawing a picture of your pet and writing your name, adding it to the pet chart. At the end of the week, the students recorded the pets and how many children liked each one. They recorded this on a separate chart. They also completed a sentence starter--It is on the______. They drew their pet on something. There was Buddy Reading. the students shared a story, talked about it and then wrote about what happened in their story. The students played WORD MAKER, where they picked a card, chose the letters and built the word on their word maker board and then recorded it on a separate paper. Some students made 15 words. WOW! The last workstation was SIGHT WORD practice using the Magnetic ABC app. The students has to spell their word, record it on a separate sheet and then compose a sentence on the app using appropriate grammar and punctuation.
**Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 70, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. They continue to work on place value and grouping by 10's. This week we revisited our number rhymes and practiced writing 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers. They students are beginning to record information in a story story problem. We are using the plus and equal signs to create number sentences. The students revisited creating and continuing patterns and naming patterns. The students explored the world of clocks and other concepts of time. We took a look at an analog and digital time pieces and their characteristics. We learned about time by the hour.
Writing: The students revisited forming upper case letters, using the cues from our Handwriting Without Tears series. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series in their journals. They continue to concentrate on sentence structure--naming and telling, beginning with a capital letter, using an ending mark, placement of letters on a given line and spacing between words in a sentence.
Science: The students began with an inquiry discussion/dictation on what they know about WATER. The students were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student has an experiment book along with a science reflection journal to record their experiment results as well as their own thoughts and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of materials--straws, cups, tongue depressors etc. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, students learned that water drops have their own shape and can "stick" to one another. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet! We talked about the scientific word--cohesion, to describe this process. The students found it was difficult to separate the droplets in two. In Experiment 3, the students discussed how water can be absorbed or sucked into certain materials. They experimented with paper, paper towels, sponges. In the experiment, the students saw the red water "climb" up their paper towel. They learned that there are tiny spaces that the water can get into. We took a piece of the regular paper towel and red water paper towel and put it under the microscope. WOW! Millions of little holes!!! In part two of this experiment, the students put celery in red water. They will check it out on Monday. Stay tuned! Our water table is now open for student exploration. The students are having great fun with our water wheel!
Technology: In reading, students used the app Magnetic Alphabet in their workstation. The app Reading Sightwords was used individually and with partners. The students said the target word, recorded themselves, played it back and used the stylus to practice writing the word. In math the students used the app Top It for one and two digit addition practice. The app Find the Sums was used to create addition problems using number families. The app Ace Mathland was used in small group and individually find the sums that create and solve a puzzle. The students continue to use all apps introduced thus far for their choice time activities.
Literature: "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow," "Stella, Queen of the Snow," "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, "The Mitten" by Jim Alyesworth, "Martin's Dream," "Water," "Turn on the Faucet," "Counting Time from Seconds to Minutes," "The Story of Snow," "Why Does it Snow," "It's Winter."
**There is NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 16th in observance of Martin Luther King's birthday. We shared stories and speeches from Martin Luther King's life. The students engaged in a very thought provoking discussion about Martin Luther King's childhood. The students questioned why your skin color should matter if you want someone to be your friend. Some students wondered what it would be like for them in Martin Luther King's time because one of their parents is black and other white. Powerful insights from five and six year olds. Our final discussion was on a quote from Martin Luther King's "Experiments in Love " speech from 1958 that reads, "The important thing about a man is not the color of his skin or the texture of his hair, but the texture and quality of his soul." Each student talked about what those words meant to them.
**Mid Year DIBELS testing was completed this week. I will be sharing the scores with you at conference time.
**I am beginning Mid Year Assessments next week in math, reading and writing. These assessments will also be shared with you at conference time.
**Speaking of conferences---Mid Year Conferences for my class will take place on Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. All students have a letter regarding conferences in their folder for you. Please respond by January 30th. Thanks!
**Vision Screening will take place Friday, January 20th. Hearing Screening will take place on Tuesday, January 24th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be begin her 5th year listening to young readers on Monday, January 23rd from 1-2:55 pm. She will be here every Monday.
**I am pleased to announce that Ms. Amanda will also begin assisting us every Wednesday from 9-11 am, beginning January 25th. Ms. Amanda assisted me this summer during summer school. She currently attends OPRF. We are so grateful for all of our helpers!
**The 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY CELEBRATION will soon be here! Our celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. I have S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quinones-Garcia and J. Andersson signed up to help. We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about self control and ways we manage our bodies and mouths. She did an activity involving how well we control our actions.
**Mr. Packer began an activity with the students what will involve graphing results.
**Don't forget to send your child dressed for the weather each day. Unless it is super cold, we will go outside each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other COOL stuff for our space station construction in APRIL, during our SPACE theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start sending things in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about Weather and Water! Our first snow fall was very exciting! The students enjoyed tracking the storm using the Weatherunderground site. They were able to "animate" the images to see where the storm was heading. We put on all our gear and went outside to catch snowflakes on black paper. The students took their magnifiers out to take a closer look. Before venturing out, we read about how snow is formed and why it snows. It all starts with a speck! (Ask your child about it!) The students have begun experimenting with the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so much fun! Check out our experiments and results under the science heading. Station Day activities included "sewing" a mitten and retelling the story with the paper characters, conversational snowmen, written reflections on snow, sound blending wheels using the op word family.
**Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing them in a zoo. We had an amazing teachable moment when Mei-Li talked about seeing manatees on her vacation. Many of the students did not know what a manatee was so we accessed some internet information on manatees. Using the site, "Defenders of Wildlife.com, " the students saw a video about manatees and learned about their life, behavior, what they eat and that they are a distant relative of the elephant. Most importantly, the student learned that manatees are an endangered species. Pretty cool! The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions a cat or kitten might perform. Those students with cats as pets made connections between their pet and the kittens in the story. Our sight word for this week is the word is. We reviewed it along with all our other words that have been introduced. The target sound and letter this week in Oo. The students worked on associating the sound with picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme. "The Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the words that began with short o. The students went back into the rhyme and marked all the words containing the letter Oo. The students continued to review and work with verbs by making a list of what kittens can do by naming a verb. Our robust vocabulary for this week contained the words ACTION, COMPARE, CONTENT, GENTLE, POUNCES. The students made comparisons in the the Big Book story about what the two kittens do compared to Boris (the third kitten.) The students worked with their elkonin sounds boxes to blend sounds using short o to make new words. They read their decodable book, "Sit," making predictions and commenting at the end of the story about the fish. The students listened to the vocabulary card tale, "Mam Mouse and El Gato." They discussed similarities and differences between cats and mice. In the expository text, "Let's Go to the Vet," the students learned about what a diagram was and focused on the content of the story. The students worked with partners to create sentences using target words and pictures and read them back to one another. They read aloud the paper story,"The Cat," and filled out the Reader's Checklist to critique themselves. The students also listened to their friends comments on their reading. (Could they be heard? Did they finger point each word and picture? Did they read smooth or choppy?) The students did an exercise where they had to listen to the word and place their marker in the box where they heard the Oo sound. The students listened to the rhyme, "The Three Little Kittens." They picked out the rhyming words, talked about the lesson in the story and reflected that many of them had heard this rhyme in preschool. The students worked in their activity books. Our workstations this week included making a pet chart by discussing pets with a partner, drawing a picture of your pet and writing your name, adding it to the pet chart. At the end of the week, the students recorded the pets and how many children liked each one. They recorded this on a separate chart. They also completed a sentence starter--It is on the______. They drew their pet on something. There was Buddy Reading. the students shared a story, talked about it and then wrote about what happened in their story. The students played WORD MAKER, where they picked a card, chose the letters and built the word on their word maker board and then recorded it on a separate paper. Some students made 15 words. WOW! The last workstation was SIGHT WORD practice using the Magnetic ABC app. The students has to spell their word, record it on a separate sheet and then compose a sentence on the app using appropriate grammar and punctuation.
**Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 70, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. They continue to work on place value and grouping by 10's. This week we revisited our number rhymes and practiced writing 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers. They students are beginning to record information in a story story problem. We are using the plus and equal signs to create number sentences. The students revisited creating and continuing patterns and naming patterns. The students explored the world of clocks and other concepts of time. We took a look at an analog and digital time pieces and their characteristics. We learned about time by the hour.
Writing: The students revisited forming upper case letters, using the cues from our Handwriting Without Tears series. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series in their journals. They continue to concentrate on sentence structure--naming and telling, beginning with a capital letter, using an ending mark, placement of letters on a given line and spacing between words in a sentence.
Science: The students began with an inquiry discussion/dictation on what they know about WATER. The students were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student has an experiment book along with a science reflection journal to record their experiment results as well as their own thoughts and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of materials--straws, cups, tongue depressors etc. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, students learned that water drops have their own shape and can "stick" to one another. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet! We talked about the scientific word--cohesion, to describe this process. The students found it was difficult to separate the droplets in two. In Experiment 3, the students discussed how water can be absorbed or sucked into certain materials. They experimented with paper, paper towels, sponges. In the experiment, the students saw the red water "climb" up their paper towel. They learned that there are tiny spaces that the water can get into. We took a piece of the regular paper towel and red water paper towel and put it under the microscope. WOW! Millions of little holes!!! In part two of this experiment, the students put celery in red water. They will check it out on Monday. Stay tuned! Our water table is now open for student exploration. The students are having great fun with our water wheel!
Technology: In reading, students used the app Magnetic Alphabet in their workstation. The app Reading Sightwords was used individually and with partners. The students said the target word, recorded themselves, played it back and used the stylus to practice writing the word. In math the students used the app Top It for one and two digit addition practice. The app Find the Sums was used to create addition problems using number families. The app Ace Mathland was used in small group and individually find the sums that create and solve a puzzle. The students continue to use all apps introduced thus far for their choice time activities.
Literature: "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow," "Stella, Queen of the Snow," "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, "The Mitten" by Jim Alyesworth, "Martin's Dream," "Water," "Turn on the Faucet," "Counting Time from Seconds to Minutes," "The Story of Snow," "Why Does it Snow," "It's Winter."
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