**The students welcomed WINTER! The sounds of the season filled the auditorium! Our concert was fantastic! The singing, the instruments, the swaying and a few human menorahs!!! Many thanks to our own Ms. Hiolski and Mr. Mayer for their guidance. Our after the concert get togethers (not one , but two!!) were chock full of great treats and crafts. A huge thanks to our fabulous and organized room parents--C. Cummings, D. Frank, K. Jones, E. Loentz and S. Aylward for all their planning. The students were sure delighted to see parents, sisters, brothers and grandparents at the concert. It was great to see the parent/child, parent/parent and parent/teacher/child interactions between our Room 110 families. I am one lucky teacher to have such a supportive group of parents and students!
**Our BOOK BUDDY get together was awesome! Each student from our class was matched up with a 5th grade Book Buddy from Ms. Balicki's class.. They worked together to create a getting to know you book. We had lots of treats left over from our concert get together so all students helped themselves to the food. Our class taught the 5th graders how to play the Roll a Gingerbread Game. Very cool interactions. Some older students shared their favorite kindergarten experiences. Many of them were kindergarteners in my class!! We all ended the day raising our juice cups to salute our achievements of 2012 and welcome in 2013. The students cannot wait for our next meeting in January! A big thanks to Ms. Balicki's room parents for their help!
**Senorita Zaragoza talked to the students about the festival of Las Posadas. She shared a story and music about the procession in the streets re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn and the stable that became their room. I presented the story of the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. The students pointed out the use of light represented by the special candle holder called a kinara. The students made connections in their own lives while listening to the 7 principle ideas of this African American celebration. I shared some traditional stories--"The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas and its Southwestern counterpart, "Twelve Leaping Lizards." The students thanked Ms. D. (Mrs. Donaldson) our Tuesday helper by creating and illustrating a special card.
**A very special SHOUT OUT to Ms. Dennis, our truly dedicated classroom assistant who tirelessly works
to reach all students with her enthusiasm for learning! Cheer! Cheer!
**Classes resume on Monday, January 7th.
**Mid Year DIBELS testing will take place the first 2 weeks of January. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 29th. All students are progressing on the Phonemic Awareness Continuum. Some students even moved into the Phonics Continuum!!
**Vision Screening for students will take place on Friday, January 18th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 6th year listening to young readers and helping them to shape their decoding and comprehension skills. We can't wait to see her!
**For those who are traveling--your travel journals went home. It will be great to share them in January. Safe travels to everyone going to a special place!
**Start 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 bringing things in after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD in 2013.....We will begin our next cross curricular theme--WINTER and Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. We will also begin our first Science Unit--Properties of Water. In reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting 3-4-5 and even 6 phoneme words, work on decoding strategies, vowel sounds, oral and written comprehension skills and reading fluency. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. In the area of writing, the students will finish uppercase letter forms and begin formal lowercase letter formation, continue with inventive spelling, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentences to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's, identifying coins and their values, problem solving, counting down from random numbers and combining and decomposing sets (addition and subtraction) and telling time. The students will begin their process oriented math journals. Socially, the students will continue to work on becoming more responsible, independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. Technologically, the students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of the curriculum. WOW! We will be really busy!!!!
This week:
It was all about community with one another, family and friends. Our "Friendship Tree" looks amazing. Students worked together in pairs and groups to create chain patterns. Some student groups decided to link their chains together to form one giant one. They are displayed all around the room and cover our tree. The students wrote "Kindness Counts" notes to each other and pinned them to our Friendship board. Their sentiments to each other really touched my heart!
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 4 Food in the Treasures Reading series. The students built background knowledge around food traditions. This tied in nicely with our ongoing theme of traditions. The students were able to tell about their personal family food traditions including Thanksgiving turkey, New Years foods, Hanukkah foods, special Birthday foods and traditional Christmas foods. We discussed what a menu was. The students listened to the story, "Yoko." They worked together on making inferences, summarizing and making connections in the story to their own lives. They also reviewed the sight words have and to. These words were added to our daily Wacky sentence. The students are having so much fun unscrambling the daily mixed up sentence. We reviewed our target sounds Cc and Nn in isolation and at the beginning and ending of words. The students continue to use photo cards to sort nouns and verbs. Our Robust vocabulary for this week included MENU, DEVOUR, FRESH and DELICIOUS. Students used their elkonin boxes to sound blend 3-4 phoneme words. They practiced reading their decodable story, "Nat." The students made predictions about story content. The students listened to the tale, "The Three Wishes." They thought about --what if they had three wishes? What would they be? What were the man and woman's wishes in the story? A great journal prompt! The students listened and viewed pictures from the expository text, "Farming Then and Now." They responded about how farming has changed over the years. Students observed the use of animals and the gradual change to machines. Each student read the paper story, "I Have To," and retold it to a partner. There were many opportunities this week for students to practice their reading aloud. One workstations this week was a menu project where small student groups collaborated with each other to come up with a recipe for a food. Their recipe had to include nouns (what you need) and verbs (what you do) and how to sequence the steps. Each group had a different recipe. Maki Sushi, Layer Cake, Lemon Cake, Chicken Soup, Chocolate Gingerbread were the selections. The projects are on display throughout the classroom and hall. Lots of thought and working collaboratively went into these projects! The rest of the workstations included creating 3-4 phoneme word puzzles and sharing them with a partner, creating a store sign and labeling the foods on it and reading aloud and discussing the main idea of a leveled reader.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and counting by 10's and five's. The students worked on an introduction to the Calculator. They learned how solar power operates the calculators and the terms DISPLAY, ON/CLEAR, REPEAT KEY, PLUS SIGN and locating numbers. The students worked with counting on the calculator and making "one more". They also learned the counting shortcut. Many students participated in the battle of the Dreidel Game. Will was quite a master spinner and consistent winner!
Writing: The students are using their writing for many assignments. We have moved into writing conference mode where the students complete a writing assignment or journal prompt independently and then come to "conference" with me where they read their sentences and together we go over capitalization, grammar, spacing and letter placement. The students are working on starting center capitals A, I, T, J. All gingerbread writing assignments are displayed in the hallway. Ms. Dennis and I both commented this week on the transition most of the students are making in terms of becoming more independent writers! Go Room 110!!
Technology: In reading, students are able to use the iPads when the workstation is completed. Their choices this week have been the apps Spelling Bug Lite, Magic Reading 2 and 3, Rocket Speller.
In math, students have begun a project on using "Tricky Teens" with the app Doodle Buddy. The apps Number Find, Monster Squeeze, Sam Phibian, Top It-Addition and Math Bug are assisting students in reinforcing number recognition, counting, number order, adding numbers and working with number families.
It was great fun to track our first winter storm on weatherunderground. Students are learning to read a weather map. They are very interested in what the colors represent. The animate feature is cool. It allows students to see where the storm is going. Students were making predictions about how much snow we would have!
Literature: "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "Twelve Lizards Leaping," "The Night of Las Posadas," ""Kwanzaa," "How Do Dinosaurs Celebrate Hanukkah?" "Together for Kwanzaa," "The Night Before Christmas," "Bad Boys Get Cookie," "Seven Candles for Kwanzaa," "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Zero is the Leaves on the Tree," "How to Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?" "The Crunchy, Munchy Christmas Tree," "The Twelve Dogs of Christmas," (thank you, Kanohi!) "Magritte's Imagination" and "Magritte's Marvelous Hat." (thank you, Lucy!)
Friday, December 21, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
UPDATES for 12/10-12/14 2012
**It's been a busy week! The students are working on concert practice, classroom lessons, thinking about their winter break from school (lots of travel journals to make!) and sharing and caring about one another.
Tis the season! We continue to talk about traditions and celebrations and use of lights. Asher's mom came to talk to us about Hanukkah, a celebration in the Frank family. She read a story about the origins of Hanukkah and showed the students Asher's menorah. All students received a Dreidel Game to play at home. The students had great fun spinning the various types of dreidels. We also talked about the celebration in the Nordic countries of St. Lucia. How do those girls wear the candle crowns? The students listened to the story of Christmas. I shared with the students a set of special finger puppets my mom gave me that depict the Nativity Scene. Some students made connections in their own lives about nativity sets they own or special items about the Baby Jesus that they have. We are learning so much from each other! Next week, we will take a look at Kwanzaa, Las Posadas and The Epiphany, as well as the celebration of the New Year.
**Our WINTER CONCERT is THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20th in 2 seatings. The first seating is at 8:15 am and the second seating is at 9:45 am. Be sure to get there early to get a good seat! After each concert, we will have a reception in our classroom with a snack table, juice and water. In between the concerts, we will have family craft time. I am asking all parents to send a snack finger food for our table. It can chips, dip, crackers, fruit, etc. anything that we don't need a fork for. Please send it with your child the day of the concert. Our room parents will provide the juice and water. Hope to see everyone there! All are invited to attend.
**On Friday, December 21st from 1:00-2:15 pm, we will close out the 2012 year with a get together with our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Due to their heavy big kid schedule, this will be our first meeting with them. Each student will be matched up with a 5th grade buddy. They will create a interview book together, share some stories and welcome in the new year! We are excited to host them! Beginning in 2013, we will meet monthly with our book buddies.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. All students received notification of their skill development. There is no Route to Reading from December 17th to January 25th. During that time, we will do the midyear DIBELS assessments. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on January 28th. Any questions-please email me.
**Mr. Packer concluded his unit on letters and shapes with the students making a drawing out of a given letter of the alphabet. We have some very imaginative students!!!
**Ms. Bell Bey was absent of Friday. The students continued the discussion about caring, pride in yourself and your work and sharing and caring about the people around us. The students spent some time making friendship chains together to display around our tree and classroom. They wrote Kindness Counts notes to peers in their classroom and posted them for all to read. These notes are so precious and heart felt. Wait until you read them!
**Student Council raised over $3000.00 in pennies in the "Pennies for Sandy" project to help children and schools in the wake of super storm Sandy. Way to go!! Our class raised over 2,735 pennies for the cause. Student Council reps, Isabella and Angus have concluded their service on Student Council. Thanks for a
job well done!!!! In January, we will choose our next student council reps who will serve for a 3 month period. Look for information on that in January.
This week:
It was all about pride! We used the tale of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer as a spring board to discussion and dictation about taking pride in yourself and your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. In our first tale, Rudolph was made fun of because of his shiny nose. The students made connections in their own lives of similar experiences. Sometimes, it just takes one person or event to help us see our own worth. In the second tale, Rudolph loses the shine to his nose because he feels sorry for himself and runs away. The students again made connections in their own lives when they wanted to give up or not try. In the end, Rudolph's shiny nose returns as he stops thinking about himself and starts thinking about how to help find the lost bunnies. Simple stories with teachable moments! Our station day activities included creating color by code stain glass menorahs, geome-tree projects, pattern block build analyze count and record and sort, graph, analyze and count the pasta trees.
Reading/Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you have ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be part of. The students listened to the story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated the fact from the fiction--sweet potatoes are real, they do not get bigger as they roll down a hill, you can make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. They reviewed the sight word have. They "walked their words" and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." The students reviewed the letter Cc and its primary and secondary sounds. The students continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students used story sequence cards to summarize events and make inferences about what would happen in the Sweet Potato story. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to segment 3-4-5 and even 6 phoneme words. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can!" We read aloud together.
The students then took turns reading to a friend. The students continued to work on listening and responding to the vocabulary from the Puerto Rican tale, "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot." The students read the story, "I Have." They located the speech bubble and what character was doing the talking. Small student groups used their leveled readers for comprehension development as well as reading to each other to build fluency. Our workstations included creating a pretend meal in house corner, photographing it and then writing about your favorite meal and where you got it from, writing 2 question sentences using the sentence starter "Can I have a.......", creating a word web around the sentence "I like to have a...." and writing about a specific food from their web and using the app Montessori Crossword to enhance the study of silent e words, blends and 3 phoneme words during a segmenting activity.
Math: The "Pennies for Sandy" activity really helped the students move toward counting groups of ten pennies. The students continue to work on counting quantities, oral number stories and beginning number sentences. They have become more consistent in writing 2 digit numbers. The concept of place value is becoming more understandable. Students are beginning to locate numbers in the tens and one places. The students used their following direction skills as well as sequencing order in cutting out and putting together Rudolph. They continue to review their number rhymes from 0-9 to form their numbers correctly. They continue to work on their Gingerbread Pattern project using the Starfall Gingerbread app.
Writing: The students completed their Gingerbread Writing project. They designed their gingerbread person and used the word bank to write 2-3 descriptive sentences. Sentence structure and spacing of words in a sentence were stressed. The students also worked on their placement of letters on a given line. The projects came out fantastic! They really did a good job! Our projects are on display in our hallway. Letter forms for upper and lowercase letters were practiced. They continue to work on The Magic "C" center starting capitals.
Technology: In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 were used in student small groups to strengthen segmenting and blending skills. The students are working on developing fluency using the app Story Kit. In math, the apps Starfall Gingerbread, Number Find, Monster Squeeze and Number Sequencing were used to assist in development of patterning and shape recognition, sequencing numbers, place value and beginning number sentences. Students worked in small groups, partners and individually with these tools.
Literature: "Mooseltoe," "Moosetache," "Celebrations: St. Lucia," "This is the Star," "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Imogene's Antlers," "A Child is Born," "It's Christmas, David," "Count the Days to Hanukkah," "It's Hanukkah," "The Christmas Reindeer."
Tis the season! We continue to talk about traditions and celebrations and use of lights. Asher's mom came to talk to us about Hanukkah, a celebration in the Frank family. She read a story about the origins of Hanukkah and showed the students Asher's menorah. All students received a Dreidel Game to play at home. The students had great fun spinning the various types of dreidels. We also talked about the celebration in the Nordic countries of St. Lucia. How do those girls wear the candle crowns? The students listened to the story of Christmas. I shared with the students a set of special finger puppets my mom gave me that depict the Nativity Scene. Some students made connections in their own lives about nativity sets they own or special items about the Baby Jesus that they have. We are learning so much from each other! Next week, we will take a look at Kwanzaa, Las Posadas and The Epiphany, as well as the celebration of the New Year.
**Our WINTER CONCERT is THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20th in 2 seatings. The first seating is at 8:15 am and the second seating is at 9:45 am. Be sure to get there early to get a good seat! After each concert, we will have a reception in our classroom with a snack table, juice and water. In between the concerts, we will have family craft time. I am asking all parents to send a snack finger food for our table. It can chips, dip, crackers, fruit, etc. anything that we don't need a fork for. Please send it with your child the day of the concert. Our room parents will provide the juice and water. Hope to see everyone there! All are invited to attend.
**On Friday, December 21st from 1:00-2:15 pm, we will close out the 2012 year with a get together with our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Due to their heavy big kid schedule, this will be our first meeting with them. Each student will be matched up with a 5th grade buddy. They will create a interview book together, share some stories and welcome in the new year! We are excited to host them! Beginning in 2013, we will meet monthly with our book buddies.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. All students received notification of their skill development. There is no Route to Reading from December 17th to January 25th. During that time, we will do the midyear DIBELS assessments. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on January 28th. Any questions-please email me.
**Mr. Packer concluded his unit on letters and shapes with the students making a drawing out of a given letter of the alphabet. We have some very imaginative students!!!
**Ms. Bell Bey was absent of Friday. The students continued the discussion about caring, pride in yourself and your work and sharing and caring about the people around us. The students spent some time making friendship chains together to display around our tree and classroom. They wrote Kindness Counts notes to peers in their classroom and posted them for all to read. These notes are so precious and heart felt. Wait until you read them!
**Student Council raised over $3000.00 in pennies in the "Pennies for Sandy" project to help children and schools in the wake of super storm Sandy. Way to go!! Our class raised over 2,735 pennies for the cause. Student Council reps, Isabella and Angus have concluded their service on Student Council. Thanks for a
job well done!!!! In January, we will choose our next student council reps who will serve for a 3 month period. Look for information on that in January.
This week:
It was all about pride! We used the tale of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer as a spring board to discussion and dictation about taking pride in yourself and your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. In our first tale, Rudolph was made fun of because of his shiny nose. The students made connections in their own lives of similar experiences. Sometimes, it just takes one person or event to help us see our own worth. In the second tale, Rudolph loses the shine to his nose because he feels sorry for himself and runs away. The students again made connections in their own lives when they wanted to give up or not try. In the end, Rudolph's shiny nose returns as he stops thinking about himself and starts thinking about how to help find the lost bunnies. Simple stories with teachable moments! Our station day activities included creating color by code stain glass menorahs, geome-tree projects, pattern block build analyze count and record and sort, graph, analyze and count the pasta trees.
Reading/Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you have ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be part of. The students listened to the story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated the fact from the fiction--sweet potatoes are real, they do not get bigger as they roll down a hill, you can make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. They reviewed the sight word have. They "walked their words" and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." The students reviewed the letter Cc and its primary and secondary sounds. The students continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students used story sequence cards to summarize events and make inferences about what would happen in the Sweet Potato story. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to segment 3-4-5 and even 6 phoneme words. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can!" We read aloud together.
The students then took turns reading to a friend. The students continued to work on listening and responding to the vocabulary from the Puerto Rican tale, "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot." The students read the story, "I Have." They located the speech bubble and what character was doing the talking. Small student groups used their leveled readers for comprehension development as well as reading to each other to build fluency. Our workstations included creating a pretend meal in house corner, photographing it and then writing about your favorite meal and where you got it from, writing 2 question sentences using the sentence starter "Can I have a.......", creating a word web around the sentence "I like to have a...." and writing about a specific food from their web and using the app Montessori Crossword to enhance the study of silent e words, blends and 3 phoneme words during a segmenting activity.
Math: The "Pennies for Sandy" activity really helped the students move toward counting groups of ten pennies. The students continue to work on counting quantities, oral number stories and beginning number sentences. They have become more consistent in writing 2 digit numbers. The concept of place value is becoming more understandable. Students are beginning to locate numbers in the tens and one places. The students used their following direction skills as well as sequencing order in cutting out and putting together Rudolph. They continue to review their number rhymes from 0-9 to form their numbers correctly. They continue to work on their Gingerbread Pattern project using the Starfall Gingerbread app.
Writing: The students completed their Gingerbread Writing project. They designed their gingerbread person and used the word bank to write 2-3 descriptive sentences. Sentence structure and spacing of words in a sentence were stressed. The students also worked on their placement of letters on a given line. The projects came out fantastic! They really did a good job! Our projects are on display in our hallway. Letter forms for upper and lowercase letters were practiced. They continue to work on The Magic "C" center starting capitals.
Technology: In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 were used in student small groups to strengthen segmenting and blending skills. The students are working on developing fluency using the app Story Kit. In math, the apps Starfall Gingerbread, Number Find, Monster Squeeze and Number Sequencing were used to assist in development of patterning and shape recognition, sequencing numbers, place value and beginning number sentences. Students worked in small groups, partners and individually with these tools.
Literature: "Mooseltoe," "Moosetache," "Celebrations: St. Lucia," "This is the Star," "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Imogene's Antlers," "A Child is Born," "It's Christmas, David," "Count the Days to Hanukkah," "It's Hanukkah," "The Christmas Reindeer."
Sunday, December 9, 2012
UPDATES for 12/3-12/7 2012
**No snow yet but the students are hoping for just a little! The students read about the feast of St. Nicholas and some students even put their shoes out on the eve of December 5th. We also read about the Indian feast of Diwali which is considered a winter festival that took place in November. The festival of Hanukkah has begun. Asher's mom will come and share their family traditions on Monday afternoon. If you have a family tradition that you would like to come and speak about, just email me the day and time. Next week, we will also be learning more about St. Lucia Day, A Scandinavian festival and the Christmas Story. (the Bible version) We have read about the use of lights in all of these celebrations.
**Our gingerbread baking was a huge success! Everyone had a ball--students and parent volunteers alike! The smell of gingerbread filled the school. The cookies themselves were truly works of art! We made so many that our office staff and some of our teachers received a special treat. Hope you enjoyed them too! A big thanks to our volunteers, Mr. Segbawu, Mr. Meagher, Ms. Jones, Ms. Bovio, Ms. Nunes, Ms. Gurgas, Ms. Connelly, Ms. Pointer, Ms. Struckmeyer, Ms. Frank and our beloved Ms. Dennis!
**If you have questions regarding your child's report card, don't hesitate to contact me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 is concluding this week. Your child will be bringing home a paper concerning mastery of their particular skill. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin in January.
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and Craft Fair was loads of fun! Irving's own Green Team was selling cards, sun catches and cool crayons. Way to go Amare and Ivy!! Ellie was selling cool handmade ornaments and Zaria and her family were selling sweet smelling diffusers. Lots of really nice gifts. I was very impressed at the quality of the items. Hope you made it there.
**The students will begin their rehearsal in the auditorium this week. I think we are set for our performance party. We will have a treat and drink table set up for after the 8:15 am. performance with finger foods on it for participants and guests that will remain up and stocked again for after the 9:45 am performance. In between performances, the students will be working on a craft or two. I am asking all guests to send a finger food with your child the morning of December 20th. It can be veggies and dip, crackers, cookies, fruit, popcorn etc. Our room parents will provide the juice and water. Our Winter Concert featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 20th --same concert done twice--the first at 8:15 am and the second at 9:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. It is going to be great!! All are invited!
**In Mr. Packer math, the students worked on problem solving skills using stories and dots to create pictures. Cool use of the students imaginations!
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey played Feelings Bingo with the class.
This week:
It was all about the gingerbread! The students gathered information from books and internet sources to find out how gingerbread began and why it is so popular at this time of year. Ginger was a valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made using ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, cakes and houses. We read many stories about various gingerbread characters. The students worked on a compare/contrast project where they discussed each story we read and how it ended, (was he/she eaten?), who the characters were (boy, girl, baby, cowboy, fox, wolf, coyote), what the plot of the story was. They had loads of fun. The students wrote in their journals, counted gingerbread men, created their own gingerbread man/woman and graphed patterns following their gingerbread persons trail. They are now in the process of writing 4 sentences about their gingerbread figure using their word bank words. So excited to read them!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in their Treasures Reading series. The unit started with the question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yard in the summer. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." The students listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple orchard farmer. Students made connections about their recent theme on apples and the types of apples that Annie grew and what she made with them. Some students related that they had gone to a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target word for this week is to. We added this to our other sight words and it has now become part of our daily Wacky Sentence. Our target letter and sound this week is Nn. The students also reviewed action words or verbs by taking a noun picture and adding their own verb to it. The students used their retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy helped the students with their phoneme blending and segmenting skills. We continue to use our elkonin boxes and blocks to move the block where we hear the sound or phoneme. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students took turns reading each page (the other students followed along with their finger.) We reviewed what a question mark was and why we use it at the end of a sentence. Student answered questions about the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students had never made their own pizza but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to the expository (informational) text, "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." They discussed what a diagram is and how to follow a recipe. The students read their paper story, "We Go." They worked in small groups, reading aloud and discussing story elements. Workstations this week included using the sight words can and to and illustrating their sentence, feeling foods--where the students feel into the bag , pull out a food, describe it to a partner and write 2 sentences about it, Word Pies, where the students have to create 4 words-one in each corner of their pie using the letters provided (3-4 phonemes). Some students are beginning to create words using beginning blends and digraphs. Small student groups worked on reading and discussing their leveled reader and completing and answering questions on the story using the iPad Magnetic Letters. Great work on sentence structure!
Math: The students worked on their number forming rhymes from 0-5. They used their dry erase boards and markers to practice. They started to work on creating their number rhyme sticker book. The students continue to work on rote counting to 75. The students created and continued gingerbread patterns on their Starfall iPad app. They played the "Tricky Teen Game" and used tally marks to count from 11-19. They continue to listen for information in their story problems to determine if you add or take away. We are revisiting penny value and counting by tens using pennies. The students got a lot of practice counting all the "Pennies for Sandy." So many groups of ten. We were over 3.000 and I am still not finished tallying the final count!
Writing: The students are working on a Gingerbread Writing project. They created their special gingerbread girl or boy and are now using their word bank to compose 4 sentences about him or her. They began work on the "Magic C" letters which are starting center capitals. They also continue to use their writing prompts from our Treasures series. The emphasis remains on letter formation, naming and telling, spacing between words in a sentence and placement of words on a given line.
Technology: This week in reading, the students worked with the iPad app Magic Letters to complete writing assignments related to their leveled reader. The app Rocket Speller has become a favorite! Can you put the letters in the correct place to spell the word? Student small groups used the app Magic Reading 3 to work on blending and segmenting 3-4 and even 5 phoneme words. The app Story Kit is being used for student fluency checks. In math, the app Starfall-Gingerbread was used for patterning and identifying and describing shapes. The app Monster Squeeze is very popular. We wish it went beyond 30! Student partners used the app Number Find to plot strategies to find the targeted number as fast as they can on the 100's grid.
Literature: "Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Boy," "The Gingerbread Doll," "The Gingerbread Girl," "Gingerbread Jimmy," "The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "Gingerbread Fred," "The Gingerbread Baby," "Count the Days to Hanukkah," "Celebrations: St. Nicholas Day," "Celebrate Diwali," "The Story of Hanukkah," "The Gingerbread Cowboy."
**Our gingerbread baking was a huge success! Everyone had a ball--students and parent volunteers alike! The smell of gingerbread filled the school. The cookies themselves were truly works of art! We made so many that our office staff and some of our teachers received a special treat. Hope you enjoyed them too! A big thanks to our volunteers, Mr. Segbawu, Mr. Meagher, Ms. Jones, Ms. Bovio, Ms. Nunes, Ms. Gurgas, Ms. Connelly, Ms. Pointer, Ms. Struckmeyer, Ms. Frank and our beloved Ms. Dennis!
**If you have questions regarding your child's report card, don't hesitate to contact me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 is concluding this week. Your child will be bringing home a paper concerning mastery of their particular skill. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin in January.
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and Craft Fair was loads of fun! Irving's own Green Team was selling cards, sun catches and cool crayons. Way to go Amare and Ivy!! Ellie was selling cool handmade ornaments and Zaria and her family were selling sweet smelling diffusers. Lots of really nice gifts. I was very impressed at the quality of the items. Hope you made it there.
**The students will begin their rehearsal in the auditorium this week. I think we are set for our performance party. We will have a treat and drink table set up for after the 8:15 am. performance with finger foods on it for participants and guests that will remain up and stocked again for after the 9:45 am performance. In between performances, the students will be working on a craft or two. I am asking all guests to send a finger food with your child the morning of December 20th. It can be veggies and dip, crackers, cookies, fruit, popcorn etc. Our room parents will provide the juice and water. Our Winter Concert featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 20th --same concert done twice--the first at 8:15 am and the second at 9:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. It is going to be great!! All are invited!
**In Mr. Packer math, the students worked on problem solving skills using stories and dots to create pictures. Cool use of the students imaginations!
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey played Feelings Bingo with the class.
This week:
It was all about the gingerbread! The students gathered information from books and internet sources to find out how gingerbread began and why it is so popular at this time of year. Ginger was a valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made using ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, cakes and houses. We read many stories about various gingerbread characters. The students worked on a compare/contrast project where they discussed each story we read and how it ended, (was he/she eaten?), who the characters were (boy, girl, baby, cowboy, fox, wolf, coyote), what the plot of the story was. They had loads of fun. The students wrote in their journals, counted gingerbread men, created their own gingerbread man/woman and graphed patterns following their gingerbread persons trail. They are now in the process of writing 4 sentences about their gingerbread figure using their word bank words. So excited to read them!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in their Treasures Reading series. The unit started with the question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yard in the summer. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." The students listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple orchard farmer. Students made connections about their recent theme on apples and the types of apples that Annie grew and what she made with them. Some students related that they had gone to a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target word for this week is to. We added this to our other sight words and it has now become part of our daily Wacky Sentence. Our target letter and sound this week is Nn. The students also reviewed action words or verbs by taking a noun picture and adding their own verb to it. The students used their retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy helped the students with their phoneme blending and segmenting skills. We continue to use our elkonin boxes and blocks to move the block where we hear the sound or phoneme. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students took turns reading each page (the other students followed along with their finger.) We reviewed what a question mark was and why we use it at the end of a sentence. Student answered questions about the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students had never made their own pizza but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to the expository (informational) text, "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." They discussed what a diagram is and how to follow a recipe. The students read their paper story, "We Go." They worked in small groups, reading aloud and discussing story elements. Workstations this week included using the sight words can and to and illustrating their sentence, feeling foods--where the students feel into the bag , pull out a food, describe it to a partner and write 2 sentences about it, Word Pies, where the students have to create 4 words-one in each corner of their pie using the letters provided (3-4 phonemes). Some students are beginning to create words using beginning blends and digraphs. Small student groups worked on reading and discussing their leveled reader and completing and answering questions on the story using the iPad Magnetic Letters. Great work on sentence structure!
Math: The students worked on their number forming rhymes from 0-5. They used their dry erase boards and markers to practice. They started to work on creating their number rhyme sticker book. The students continue to work on rote counting to 75. The students created and continued gingerbread patterns on their Starfall iPad app. They played the "Tricky Teen Game" and used tally marks to count from 11-19. They continue to listen for information in their story problems to determine if you add or take away. We are revisiting penny value and counting by tens using pennies. The students got a lot of practice counting all the "Pennies for Sandy." So many groups of ten. We were over 3.000 and I am still not finished tallying the final count!
Writing: The students are working on a Gingerbread Writing project. They created their special gingerbread girl or boy and are now using their word bank to compose 4 sentences about him or her. They began work on the "Magic C" letters which are starting center capitals. They also continue to use their writing prompts from our Treasures series. The emphasis remains on letter formation, naming and telling, spacing between words in a sentence and placement of words on a given line.
Technology: This week in reading, the students worked with the iPad app Magic Letters to complete writing assignments related to their leveled reader. The app Rocket Speller has become a favorite! Can you put the letters in the correct place to spell the word? Student small groups used the app Magic Reading 3 to work on blending and segmenting 3-4 and even 5 phoneme words. The app Story Kit is being used for student fluency checks. In math, the app Starfall-Gingerbread was used for patterning and identifying and describing shapes. The app Monster Squeeze is very popular. We wish it went beyond 30! Student partners used the app Number Find to plot strategies to find the targeted number as fast as they can on the 100's grid.
Literature: "Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Boy," "The Gingerbread Doll," "The Gingerbread Girl," "Gingerbread Jimmy," "The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "Gingerbread Fred," "The Gingerbread Baby," "Count the Days to Hanukkah," "Celebrations: St. Nicholas Day," "Celebrate Diwali," "The Story of Hanukkah," "The Gingerbread Cowboy."
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