**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."
