**We had an absolutely spectacular 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration! Thanks to C. Brock, S. Armbruster, G. Quinones-Garcia, T. Naber, I.Henry, H. Hamblin, B. Chyna, C. Bravo, J. Andersson, Lottie's Grandma, special helper, Carly and R. Leveridge for their assistance on our special day. Our "Heart" projects will be on display in the hall for the rest of this week.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 14th. All students have received notification of assessment of previous skill. This rotation will go down to 3 days a week instead of 4 days. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**SPECIAL EAGLE WING REWARD CELEBRATION--The students have received numerous eagle wing achievements these past 2 months. They have decided to combine them all for one big event that will take place on Wednesday, February 15th all afternoon. It's DVD feature, pajama and special stuffed animal/doll afternoon!!! The students can come to school dressed in their pajamas and may bring their favorite stuffed animal/doll to school. We will have a regular morning and our event in the afternoon. Our Friendship Club topic has been caring about others and how you show you care. Our DVD feature will reflect this theme. The students have chosen "King Clifford and Be My Big Red Valentine," by Norman Bridwell. It's Clifford the big red dog!!!
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Kwiatt continued her lessons and activities on being a caring individual. The students wrote caring messages to their friends and families.
**A big congratulations to our new Student Council Reps--Jordan and Reuben! They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, February 21st.
**Please Note--NO SCHOOL on Monday, February 20th in observance of President's Day.
**Hearing Screening for students will take place on Friday, February 24th probably in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!! The FUN FAIR is coming!!! Come play a game with me at the Irving Fun Fair on Saturday, February 25th from 11-3 pm. Play games, dance for desserts, prizes, food and a silent auction. Who will get the annual PIE in the FACE??!!! This year promises to be a year like no other!!! You will have to see it to believe it! As a silent auction item, I will come to your home and read a bedtime story of your child's choice to 2 lucky students. You name the day and time! Don't forget to check out our class CUB'S BASKET. We have many cool things in it for that ultimate CUBS fan.
**Report Cards will go out Friday, March 16th.
**Keep saving those giant boxes, small boxes and other cool things for our space station project after break. I will let you know when you can start bringing them in.
This week:
It was all about 100 and counting by tens! The students began their week with a partner, grouping the items of their choice in groups of ten until they had 100 items. They then labeled each group. We had 100 dinosaurs, 100 pennies, 100 blocks, 100 sticks, 100 black spots, 100 bears, 100 shells, 100 straws, 100 tiles and 100 crayons. Some ambitious students created tally marks in groups of 5 to make 100. Some students also counted by 2's to 100. Impressive! Of course, we counted by 1's to 100 by counting our caterpillar body. The students reflected back to when they first started school and we started with the number 1. Much has changed since then.
The students took a look at a new place to put a number ---100's place. The students worked on writing some 3 digit numbers. The students also began work writing 100 words! Some students are finished and some a quite close. They will finish up this week. Our 100th Day/ Valentine's Day activities included, 100th Day Sign in and Crowns, creating 100 Fruit Loop necklaces, painting 100 spots on the dogs, creating a food grid with 100 food items (yum, ) stamping 100 hearts in their Heart Book with their heart stamper, delivering their valentine's to their friends, guessing how many hearts are in our guessing jar (hint: It is not 100,) playing "Heart to Heart," finding 100 hearts in the hidden picture and reading our valentine's and thanking our friends.....Oh yes.... and enjoying a treat or two! On a more serious note--we began our month long study of famous African Americans. This week they read about the accomplishments of Ruby Bridges. The students were proud to know that a person their own age can affect change in the country. Ruby was very brave. What did she do? We will be doing a choral reading about Ruby Bridges as part of the morning announcements on Thursday, February 23rd. We will discuss what we are going to say and I will send the script home for practice. Look for it this week. The students also read about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The students were fascinated by the fact that it was not really a railroad but a series of safe homes, places and areas that were used to help slaves escape to the north to freedom.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued into week 2, Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading Series. The students accessed prior knowledge about places in their neighborhood and who you can find there. They worked with providing meaning for the words community and workers. They listened to the Big Book story, "Bus Stops." The students predicted what the story could be about and were asked to listen for what happens during the beginning , middle and ending as I read the story. The students made connections about the places in the story and how they relate to their own community. Who got off the bus? For and you were the sight words introduced this week. One student wikkie circled for, you and are in our rhyme and chant about a dinosaur. The students worked in small groups to create and read sentences using all the words and pictures presented thus far. Our target sounds this week are Dd and Rr. The students worked with the sound toys to reinforce the target sounds. The students reviewed the parts of a sentence. (naming and telling) The students re read the story, "Bus Stops," and worked on story elements and phonics. They discussed what could be the main idea. The students worked on sound blending skills using their elkonin boxes. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy, assisted the students as they worked on word building with their letter cards. The students read the decodable story, "Rod Can See It." They first made predictions about story content. They worked on sound blending in their first read through. Robust vocabulary for this week included ADMIRE, DELIVER, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY and WORKER. The students listened to the vocabulary story, "Acrefoot, the Barefoot Mailman." They made predictions about story content. The students responded to the poem, "The Park." The students listened to the poem and made a picture in their mind of the park. The students retold parts of the poem. The students read their paper story, "For You." They each read aloud and practiced their fluency. We then read as a group, chorally and reviewed our sight words presented. The students added to our neighborhood word web and created a Venn diagram about similarities and differences between hospitals and schools. The students reread the story, "Rod Can See It" with a partner and quizzed each other on story elements. The students continued to work on segmenting 3-4 phoneme words. Workstations this week included creating a guidebook about places in their neighborhood, illustrating and writing a sentence about it, word match-matching words that have the same beginning sound and recording them on paper, Reader's Response--leveled reader reading, sharing with a partner and filling out the Reader's Checklist, Map it Out--small group drawing of a neighborhood, labeling places and things and Sight Word Practice--using the app Magnetic Letters to practice writing words, recording words and emailing the finished product to me. Ms. Chinn joined our class on Wednesday and worked with a group of readers on comprehension, fluency and a follow up activity.
Math: Many activities surrounding the number 100 were worked on. The students also worked on map skills, measurement and reviewed telling time by the hour and ordering daily events in their lives. The students worked with partners on identifying and extending patterns of their choice and counting pairs of objects. They continue to work on counting and estimation.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their uppercase letters. We will continue with lowercase letter formation next week. The students worked on writing prompts from the Treasures series including writing simple directions, writing 2 sentences about their neighborhood, writing a caring message to a friend and reflecting on a story read to them. Sentence structure, letter formation, spacing between words in a sentence and placement of words on a given line continue to be stressed. The students are now rereading their sentences before coming to journal conference. We are beginning to proofread what we are writing!
Science: The students began the study of water as ice. The students prepared their containers for Experiment 9 by filling them with water using a funnel. They carefully took turns filling the container until it reached the very top. One student covered the top with a piece of aluminum foil. We set them outside for the weekend. Students made predictions in their science journal about what they thought might happen. Will it freeze and turn to ice? Will the temperature be optimum (32 or lower) in order for freezing to occur? What about the foil on the top? What about the container? What do you think about that? Stay tuned!
Technology: In the area of reading, the student small groups used the app Magnetic Letters to practice writing and saying their sight words and emailing them for me to hear and see. Individuals and pairs of students worked on the apps Sound Sort and Montessori Crossword to reinforce sound foundation and sound blending skills. In the of math, the students worked with partners using the app Doodle Buddy to tally objects by 10's, 5's and 2's.
Literature: "The 100th Day," "100 Hungry Ants," "I'll Teach my Dog 100 Words," "100 Day Worries," "The Big Heart," "Love Splat," "One Hundred Shoes." "The Story of Ruby Bridges," "Harriet Tubman," "Fluffy's 100th Day at School" chapter 1.
