**The month of February is going by so fast! This week, I had the opportunity to attend a great conference on "Children's Learning and the Brain." Many professionals in the area of social work, medicine, child development, teaching, science and curriculum were there to listen to and network with speakers from all over the United States and Canada. I learned so much in an area of great interest to me--brain function and educating the whole child. My class was in the very capable hands of my sub, Ms. Williams. Ms. Applebey, Ms. Kwiatt and Mr. Packer also lent their support.
**Our Eagle Wing Reward/Celebration was a big hit. The students enjoyed wearing their pajamas, reading to their stuffed animal/doll and viewing the post Valentine's Day DVD, "King Clifford and Be My Valentine." That big red dog sure has a great family!
**Hearing Screening will be held Friday, February 24th from 12 to 12:20 for my class, in the Irving Auditorium.
**A special program on dental care will be held Tuesday, February 21st from 12-12:30 for Kindergarten students in the Irving Auditorium.
**Our class will do our choral reading over the intercom about Ruby Bridges on Thursday, February 24th at 8:10 am.
**The FUN FAIR is almost here!!!! Please join our Irving family for the FUN FAIR on Saturday, February 25th from 11-3 pm. Play games, win prizes, play bingo, dance for desserts, bid on silent auction items, eat food and see who gets the PIES in the FACES!!!!! It is the battle of the genders this year. "Frankie D and the Cuyler Street Boys" vs. "The New Beats" in Irving School's American "PIEDOL" challenge. You know it PIEDOL fans--your favorite judges will be on hand. Go Simon, JLo, Randy, Steven Tyler and special guest Paula Abdul along with host, Ryan Seacrest. Yes, it is true---I will be one of the judges!!! NO, I am not JLO! Come on out and see it for yourself. You will not believe it!!!! Students will be able buy tickets and place money in their favorite challenger jug at lunch and after school all this week. Come, play a game with me (it is a spinning one!!) Check out the extremely cool silent auction items online now. At the auction--bid on me to come to your house and read your child a bedtime story--you name the date and time. FUN! FUN! FUN!
**The new dates for Station Day Volunteers are posted on the blog.
**Spelling City has been updated.
**Check out Senorita Zaragoza's video of our class in action. You can find her link on my blog under "other helpful links" on the left side.
**Report Cards go out Friday, March 16th.
**Continued shout out for giant boxes and other cool things. It is getting closer!!!!!
This week:
It was all about sharing and caring, kindness, Valentine's Day and Abraham and George. The students paid special attention this week to their attitudes and actions toward their classmates and teachers. Saying a kind word to someone having a not so good day, offering words of encouragement to a friend, praising someone for a job well done, thanking an adult for a particular lesson were just some of the ways the students celebrated Valentine's Day. The students read about the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. They studied about what makes a good leader of a country. The students learned that presidents come from all walks of life. They wrote about what they might say in a speech if they were president. Stop by and read them. They are posted on the wall outside of our room. The students created their tri-cornered hats in honor of George and President's Day.
Reading/Social Studies: The students worked to complete Unit 6 Neighborhoods in the Treasures Reading series. This week, we talked about jobs that people in our neighborhoods do. The students accessed prior knowledge about workers that they see in their neighborhood. The students listened to the trade book, "Alicia's Happy Day." As she walks down the street, who and what does Alicia see and hear? Why did Alicia feel happy? The students summarized and retold the story in their own words. We reviewed the target words for this unit--are, for, you.
The students were able to wikkie circle all the target words contained in our rhyme and chant. The students also reviewed the target sounds Dd, Hh, and Rr. Students worked in small groups with words and pictures to create sentences using target words and sound pictures. Each group shared their sentences. The students reviewed what a sentence is. They took turns creating sentences about things in the classroom. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ALERT, JOB, CELEBRATION, PRECISE, REPAIR. We reread "Alicia's Happy Day" to work on comprehension strategies and sequencing events in the story. The students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy, assisted in modeling sound blending techniques using short a words. The students used their word building cards to build words and blend using the an word family. They listened to the folktale, "The Elves and Shoemaker." They discussed the authors message. The students read their paper story, "Are You?" They each read a sentence aloud practicing their fluency. They also reread their story to a partner and talked about how they sounded. The students listened to the expository text, "Is This the Job for You?" and made predictions about story content. The students used their elkonin boxes to sound blend 3-4 phoneme words. The students listened to the folktale, "Why the Moon is in the Sky." This West African tale was told by the Ashanti people. We located Ghana on the world map. We learned about the character, Anansi, the spider. The students responded to the story by discussing the big idea. The students read the decodable story, "Dad Can Pin It On." We took turns reading aloud and discussing story elements and then the students chose a partner to read to. Workstations this week included practice reading and recoding leveled readers, Montessori Crossword app creating short u and ng words and sentences, reading a fantasy leveled reader and writing and drawing about what could not really happen, writing a letter using the words for and you, creating a neighborhood worker puzzle for a friend.
Math: The students worked on following a simple map for in school destinations. They worked in small groups to create a map from a given starting point to a certain destination. They discussed the sequence of events in their daily lives and created a time line of drawings and words to reflect what they do morning, noon and night. The students explored pattern block templates that use internal lines, ones without internal lines and templates that have small pictures that the students cannot build directly onto but next to. It's about visual perception!!! We are continuing to work on place value in the 100's place, writing numbers and being about to tell how many 10's, 1's or 100's a number has. The students worked on measuring length using unifix cubes and measuring from end to end and recording the number. Finally, this week. the students worked on combining sets in our "broken heart" math activity.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter forms v, w, l. Most students are now able to write their first and last names. We used the writing prompts in our Treasures Series to create lists, write sentences using target vocabulary, use nouns and verbs in our sentence, consistently use a capital letter to begin their sentence and end with a period or question mark, use the lines on their paper to properly place lowercase letters and to space between words in a sentence. The students worked on their creative writing project--If I were the president.....
Science: The students retrieved their bottles that they filled with water from outside. Each table group made and discussed their observations. The water in the bottle froze. Some of the bottles could not stand upright. The foil on the top stuck up more. The ice went past the bottle top. Why? Did something happen to the bottle? Did something happen to the water when it became ice? We discussed the word--expand. When something expands, it becomes bigger. Some students took note that water expands when it freezes. The students reflected on their original predictions. We then left the bottles on the tables for the rest of the day. What happened. Ask your child! Next week--Water as steam.
Technology: The students enjoyed our Eagle Wing DVD selection shown via LCD projector from my computer. The app Montessori Crossword was used to create and sound blend words in the short u and ng word families in reading. Students also recorded their own reading with a new app that lets us record more lengthier stories for fluency. In math, the students continue to use the app math bug for addition and subtraction, the app whiteboard, for practicing number writing and the app sam phibian for patterning and sequencing. Our favorite problem solving app continues to be the app labyrinth.
Literature: "Young Abraham Lincoln," "George Washington," African American author Cari Best--"Red Light, Green Light Mom and Me," African American author N. Joy--"Can You Keep a Secret?" "I Love You So Much," "No Matter What," "Wilma Rudolph, Olympic Star," "Kiss, Kiss," "Mouse In Love," "Clifford's Valentine Surprise," "Magic School Bus Has a Heart," "If You Were President," "So You Want to be President?"
