**The FUN RUN was great! Our class had great participation. Thanks to all who came out to cheer us on! Remember to turn in your pledge money this week!
**Our Field Trip to the MAZE LIBRARY was wonderful. We had a lovely sunny, but cool morning for our walk. Ms. Lori and Ms. Jessica were super great in showing us around the library and reading great stories. The students even got to move and dance. Students who filled out the application received their library cards. Look for them in your child's backpack. Thanks to Mr. Bernacchi, Mr. Jun and Ms. Barnett for volunteering.
**The students had their first visit with their 5th grade Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Each student was matched up with a buddy. With their buddy they took a picture using the iPad and then interviewed their book buddy and recorded the information in their take home book. They then shared some Halloween stories. A great time was had by all!
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on Tuesday. At that time you will receive information on the skill your child will be working on and the teacher teaching it.
**INFORMATION on HALLOWEEN--On Thursday, October 31st, students can bring their costumes in a bag. We will have regular morning activities and lunch. At 1:00 pm, they will change into their costumes. We do need volunteers to help with changing and details. The Parade begins at 1:30 pm. The parade route will be outside around the school grounds. Our classroom celebration and activities will begin immediately following the parade. Our room parents are taking care of the details. In keeping with our nonviolent atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, knives, light sabers, poles, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a treat for the class if they wish. (candy or non-candy) that will go home in the treat bags we are making. Room parents will have a healthy snack for all on hand. Parents and sibs are invited to attend both events.
**Our next D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) in Tuesday, October 29th from 9:30-9:50 am.
**Wednesday, November 6th is our 50th Day of School! We will be half way to 100! That week, the student will learn a little about what it was like to live in the 1950's. On Wednesday, the students can dress up like the 50's. It can be as simple as white tee shirt and jeans--slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you should have a poodle skirt on hand --WOW! We will have a morning SOCK HOP and math and literacy activities surrounding the number 50.
**Student Council meetings have begun. Our reps Blaine and Samuel attended their first meeting where everyone was introduced and Mr. Gray and Ms. Pelling talked about what Student Council is. Stay tuned for more!!!
**Green Team reps, Reid and Gina talked to our class about the "Geography Challenge" Each week will have a new question to be answered. Check out the one in your child's homework folder. Parents can help! Students can write down the answer and put it in a collection envelope. Green Team will choose a response. If it is the correct one, prizes and incentives will be given. Get out your maps, computers, globes, books!!!! Take the challenge!!
**Our Helping Grandma, Mrs. D. is back from her travels. She showed the students on our map where she traveled to in her car--from Chicago all the way to California and up the coast. She related some of her adventures. She will be working with students every Tuesday morning.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a great activity on "being in the zone." She talked about the importance of being in the zone to get work finished, to listen to directions, interact with friends and to be a good citizen.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer did a cool activity on "visual counting." He projected dots on the screen and asked how many. The time for viewing the dots became less and less. What did you see? How many do you remember? What was your strategy for getting the correct number? Fun! Fun!
**The permission slip for our November 15th Field Trip to BROOKFIELD ZOO is in your child's homework folder.
This week:
It was all about pumpkins and spiders! We have a Banana Spider visiting us! Our Nature Table is filled with spider info, pictures, toys and diagrams. The spider is not so spooky. It is really very helpful to our earth. The students learned the difference between spiders and insects and viewed some spider specimens. The students learned the term--arachnid. The students learned that spiders live almost everywhere on earth and hatch from eggs. Baby spiders are called spiderlings. Spiders can be very colorful! Students listened to nonfiction and fiction stories about spiders. We accessed information on the internet on spiders of interest like the tarantulas and black widows. Many spiders eat pesty bugs and insects that bother humans and plants. The students took a look inside a pumpkin. They closely examined the skin, flesh, pulp and seeds. The students viewed the growing sequence and counted the seeds. They listened to stories both nonfiction and fiction about the pumpkin. The topic--pumpkin was used for our common core summative sequencing prompt. Our station day activities included marble painted spider webs, colorful spiders, turning their pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns using basic shapes, spooky spider pattern color and count the dominoes on the spider legs and glue in the correct number.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began work on Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. They listened to the song "The More We Get Together." Many students remembered this song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about activities they do with friends. The students found the title page and discussed the main characters (girl and boy) and the setting of the story. The students created a whole group Venn Diagram where they compared what each child in the story liked and what they both liked. (ie--they both liked fruit, but the boy like watermelon and the girl liked apples.) The sight word LIKE was introduced. The students reviewed their previous words and played, "Hands Up, Hands Down." Our target sound in isolation was Ss. The students brainstormed words that began with the sound. They used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound.
The students reviewed what a noun was and sighted several examples throughout the Big Book story.
We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIENDS, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPLETE to our list. The students listened to the story, "From Seed to Pumpkin," and retold key events in sequence using numbers and pictures. The story was read again and the students wrote key details they remembered from the story. The students worked on their sound blending--using 3 sounds (phonemes) They read their pre decodable story, "We Like," and discussed what a speech bubble or balloon was. Workstation activities included working on a mural depicting friendship and writing about it using the sentence starter--We can...., picture sort with letters A, S, M, P, using a stuffed animal as their Book Buddy to read and write an important event form the story, leveled reading for comprehension and beginning fluency and creating 3 letter words using the app Reading Magic Two.
Math: The students continue to work on counting quantities and one to one correspondence. They are doing a great job of completing their Calendar Books daily. They are working on the concepts before and after, greater than and less than and number families. The students did a variety of activities using their ten frames. They counted pumpkin seeds, shapes spiders and bats. The students completed their number globes. They are posted in our hallway. The students worked on the apps Monster Squeeze and Sam Phibian with partners.
Writing: The students reviewed all Frog Jump Capitals and are beginning to work on their Starting Corner Capitals. They really enjoy working with the wooden pieces and their mini boards with chalk and sponges. The students continue to work on labeling pictures in their journal and beginning sentence structure. We began practice on where to write letters on a given line. Where do you write lowercase...uppercase...tall lowercase.....what about the lowercase that goes below the line? So much to think about. The students practiced on sentence strips and wrote about their trees. Check it out! They are posted in the hallway.
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad as a tool to enhance skills taught. They had lots of fun using the camera to take a picture of their Book Buddy. In reading the students used the apps Dolch Words, Magic Reading 2, Letter/Sound Match, Word Wizard and Magnetic Letters to practice their sight words. In math, the students used Sam Phibian, Monster Squeeze, Geoboard and Animal Count. Small groups of students also worked on Lexia Core 5.
Literature: "From Seed to Pumpkin," "Picking Apples and Pumpkins," "Pumpkins,""The Pumpkin Book," "Spiders," "Super Spiders," "Spiderlings and their Families," "Diary of a Spider," "Perfect Pumpkins."
Monday, October 28, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
UPDATES for 10/15-10/18 2013
**There is beginning to be a chill in the air. The students are commenting on the the change in temperature, pants and long sleeves, the leaves beginning to fall from the trees and and the anticipation of Halloween and costumes!
**REMINDER--Our Walking Field Trip to the MAZE LIBRARY is this WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd. We will depart from school at 8:30 am.--walk to the library--tour and activities from 9:00-10:45 and return to school by 10:15 am. If you completed a library card application for your child, the card will be in your child's folder. We will be walking with Ms. Ricchio's class. Mr. Jun, Mr. Bernacchi and Ms. Barnett will join us as chaperones.
** Our All School FUN RUN FUNDRAISER is this Friday, October 25th. Kindergarten will be running at 8:15 am. Stop by to cheer us on!! Go to the Irving website to submit a pledge amount.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Wednesday, October 23rd. At that time, you will receive information on your child's skill assessment.
**Our Seasonal Babies Project is awesome! Stop by and see our adorable baby pictures! It will be up the for the rest of the year.
**Pajama Day was lots of fun. Lots of cute pajamas, fuzzy slippers, bath robes, and stuff animals and blankeys.
**Congratulations to our Student Council reps, BLAINE and SAMUEL! They will attend their first meeting of Student Council on Tuesday under the direction of Mr. Gray and Ms. Pelling.
**Green Team reps, Reid and Gina will attend their second meeting on Tuesday.
**Our class will be observing Digital Citizenship Week. The students will have a short lesson each day on staying safe online. The lessons will be geared toward their age level.
**General information on our Halloween Festivities was sent home on Friday. Students can bring their costumes and accessories in a bag to school. The students will have regular morning activities and lunch. At 1:00 pm, they will change into their costumes. I will need some volunteers to help with costume changing. Parade begins at 1:30 pm. The parade route will be outside around the school grounds. Our classroom activities will be immediately following. Our room parents are taking care of the details. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a treat if they wish. (candy or non-candy) that will go in the treat bags we are making to be sent home. Room parents will have a healthy snack on hand. Parents and sibs are invited to attend both events.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on feelings and personal safety.
** In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer did a cool activity on positional words beside, above, below and on with shapes.
**Future FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO--Friday, November 15th from 9:00 -2:30 pm. More information to come.
This week:
It was all about the culmination of apple mania. The students discussed the sequence of events surrounding the making of apple sauce. They key words--recipe and ingredients. They observed the apple peeling machine work its magic. They discussed the cooking process. The students sorted the apple stars, bottoms with the left over flower or blossom and the skin that came off like a ribbon. With all the ingredients in the the pot, the apple sauce cooked for 20 minutes. The students put the finishing touches on it by smashing it with a potato masher to make it smoother. Lots of language and conversation. The students sampled the finish product as part of snack time. They read both fiction nonfiction stories about apples. Our station day activities included apple print trees, pattern block build, count and record, writing prompt/illustration.....In the fall i like to..... and apple star prints.
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 1 Families in the Treasures Reading series. They used a variety of partner and small group games to review upper and lowercase letter recognition, sound/symbol relationships at the beginning and ending of words, syllable counting, (1-5 syllables) sight vocabulary and work with sound blending strategies and word families. Workstations this week centered around practicing spelling sight word vocabulary on the ipad app Magnetic Board and composing short sentence using their words, drawing and writing--a picture of themselves as a baby and now as a 5-6 year old making a comparison about how they have changed in writing, leveled reading and discussion of story elements and using question words, reader's response where the group reads and discusses a story and states a response of whether they liked the story or not and illustrate a part of the story including labeling parts. We will begin Unit 2 Friends next week.
Math: The students continue work on counting quantities to 15, one to one correspondence to 15 and recognition of numbers 0-15. They used their number cards in a variety of games including the partner game Top It, where each partner draws a number and the partner with the greater number gets the cards, Got It--number recognition where you roll the dice and color in that number on your recording sheet, Heads or Tails, where you flip a penny and use tally marks to keep your score, number puzzles-matching written number to the number of seeds on the apple and sequencing number cards from smallest number to largest and from largest to smallest. The students also reinforced positional concepts and basic shape and pattern block recognition. The concept of "greater than" and "less than" were explored.
Writing: The students completed their practice of Frog Jump Capitals. They continue to work on starting at the top of the page when forming a letter. The students worked in their orange practice books. They are working on their writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil and the other holding down the paper. Beginning sentence structure is being worked on--begin each sentence with a capital letter, space between words in a sentence and have some kind of ending mark. Sentences should name (noun) and tell (action word.) Students are beginning to use more inventive spelling and their illustrations are slowly containing more details. Next week, the students will transition into their next writing journal with lines for upper and lowercase letters.
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad as a tool to enhance their learning. No new apps were introduced this week. The students continued to work on apps that explore letter/sound association, letter matching, word practice, segmenting and blending, number matching, number recognition, counting and creativity.
Literature: "The Pumpkin Patch," "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin," "The Four Seasons," "Autumn days," "Picking Apples," "Colorful Leaves," "Mixed Up Fall."
**REMINDER--Our Walking Field Trip to the MAZE LIBRARY is this WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd. We will depart from school at 8:30 am.--walk to the library--tour and activities from 9:00-10:45 and return to school by 10:15 am. If you completed a library card application for your child, the card will be in your child's folder. We will be walking with Ms. Ricchio's class. Mr. Jun, Mr. Bernacchi and Ms. Barnett will join us as chaperones.
** Our All School FUN RUN FUNDRAISER is this Friday, October 25th. Kindergarten will be running at 8:15 am. Stop by to cheer us on!! Go to the Irving website to submit a pledge amount.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Wednesday, October 23rd. At that time, you will receive information on your child's skill assessment.
**Our Seasonal Babies Project is awesome! Stop by and see our adorable baby pictures! It will be up the for the rest of the year.
**Pajama Day was lots of fun. Lots of cute pajamas, fuzzy slippers, bath robes, and stuff animals and blankeys.
**Congratulations to our Student Council reps, BLAINE and SAMUEL! They will attend their first meeting of Student Council on Tuesday under the direction of Mr. Gray and Ms. Pelling.
**Green Team reps, Reid and Gina will attend their second meeting on Tuesday.
**Our class will be observing Digital Citizenship Week. The students will have a short lesson each day on staying safe online. The lessons will be geared toward their age level.
**General information on our Halloween Festivities was sent home on Friday. Students can bring their costumes and accessories in a bag to school. The students will have regular morning activities and lunch. At 1:00 pm, they will change into their costumes. I will need some volunteers to help with costume changing. Parade begins at 1:30 pm. The parade route will be outside around the school grounds. Our classroom activities will be immediately following. Our room parents are taking care of the details. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a treat if they wish. (candy or non-candy) that will go in the treat bags we are making to be sent home. Room parents will have a healthy snack on hand. Parents and sibs are invited to attend both events.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on feelings and personal safety.
** In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer did a cool activity on positional words beside, above, below and on with shapes.
**Future FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO--Friday, November 15th from 9:00 -2:30 pm. More information to come.
This week:
It was all about the culmination of apple mania. The students discussed the sequence of events surrounding the making of apple sauce. They key words--recipe and ingredients. They observed the apple peeling machine work its magic. They discussed the cooking process. The students sorted the apple stars, bottoms with the left over flower or blossom and the skin that came off like a ribbon. With all the ingredients in the the pot, the apple sauce cooked for 20 minutes. The students put the finishing touches on it by smashing it with a potato masher to make it smoother. Lots of language and conversation. The students sampled the finish product as part of snack time. They read both fiction nonfiction stories about apples. Our station day activities included apple print trees, pattern block build, count and record, writing prompt/illustration.....In the fall i like to..... and apple star prints.
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 1 Families in the Treasures Reading series. They used a variety of partner and small group games to review upper and lowercase letter recognition, sound/symbol relationships at the beginning and ending of words, syllable counting, (1-5 syllables) sight vocabulary and work with sound blending strategies and word families. Workstations this week centered around practicing spelling sight word vocabulary on the ipad app Magnetic Board and composing short sentence using their words, drawing and writing--a picture of themselves as a baby and now as a 5-6 year old making a comparison about how they have changed in writing, leveled reading and discussion of story elements and using question words, reader's response where the group reads and discusses a story and states a response of whether they liked the story or not and illustrate a part of the story including labeling parts. We will begin Unit 2 Friends next week.
Math: The students continue work on counting quantities to 15, one to one correspondence to 15 and recognition of numbers 0-15. They used their number cards in a variety of games including the partner game Top It, where each partner draws a number and the partner with the greater number gets the cards, Got It--number recognition where you roll the dice and color in that number on your recording sheet, Heads or Tails, where you flip a penny and use tally marks to keep your score, number puzzles-matching written number to the number of seeds on the apple and sequencing number cards from smallest number to largest and from largest to smallest. The students also reinforced positional concepts and basic shape and pattern block recognition. The concept of "greater than" and "less than" were explored.
Writing: The students completed their practice of Frog Jump Capitals. They continue to work on starting at the top of the page when forming a letter. The students worked in their orange practice books. They are working on their writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil and the other holding down the paper. Beginning sentence structure is being worked on--begin each sentence with a capital letter, space between words in a sentence and have some kind of ending mark. Sentences should name (noun) and tell (action word.) Students are beginning to use more inventive spelling and their illustrations are slowly containing more details. Next week, the students will transition into their next writing journal with lines for upper and lowercase letters.
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad as a tool to enhance their learning. No new apps were introduced this week. The students continued to work on apps that explore letter/sound association, letter matching, word practice, segmenting and blending, number matching, number recognition, counting and creativity.
Literature: "The Pumpkin Patch," "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin," "The Four Seasons," "Autumn days," "Picking Apples," "Colorful Leaves," "Mixed Up Fall."
Thursday, October 10, 2013
UPDATES for 9/30-10/4 and 10/7-10/11 2013
**These two weeks have flown by so quickly. It's hard to believe that we are in the middle of October. The students continue to learn to work together and independently. They continue to work hard on our daily curriculum. We all are learning a lot from each other. It was great to chat with all of you and share your child's progress at conferences. As we work together during the transition to Common Core Standards and the standards based report card, please know that these standards are indicators of growth. As I have shared with you at conferences, that growth is happening!!!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send in a baby of your child. The picture will be used in a project and will remain on our wall for the remainder of the year. I have mine! We will do our project on October 16th.
** The class has chosen to have a PAJAMA DAY on Wednesday, October 16th as a result of a CLASS EAGLE WING being pulled at our weekly drawing. Students can wear their pajamas, bring fluffy slippers and a favorite blankey or stuffed animal. Our writing prompt that day will be based on a a storybook CD. Don't forget to send regular shoes. We will be going outside for recess.
**Continue to send in permission slips for our WALKING FIELD TRIP TO MAZE LIBRARY. Please note that the correct date in WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd from 8:30-10:30 am. The Tuesday, conferences goers received the wrong date! We would like all students to have a library card. Email me if you need an application.
**Irving School students will participate in a FUN RUN FUNDRAISER that will be held on Friday, October 25th. Kindergarten will be running at 8:15. Stop by and show your support! Information on how to submit a pledge amount can be found on the Irving School website.
**The students had picture perfect smiles on Picture Day. We had our class photo taken outside on our lovely new playground equipment!
**All students participated in WALK TO SCHOOL DAY this past Wednesday. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school, walked around the playground with me. All students got their hand stamped and colored a gym shoe. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Wyza will decorate the gym with all the gym shoes.
**GREEN TEAM reps, Reid and Gina participated in their first Green Team Meeting last week.
They got to know other Green Team members from all grade levels and talk about what the focus of the year is going to be with their leaders, Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Packer.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 continues for another week before assessment of the skill begins.
**The students began work in the computer lab on LEXIA CORE 5 a phonics based program that supports all levels of reading and reading readiness. The students will work 2 times a week for 30 minutes. In another 2 weeks or so, I will send an information sheet for access at home for practice.
**The Book Fair this week had many good books and activities for all students. Hope you got a chance to visit it.
**Scholastic Book order for October is due the 16th. You can access it on line by clicking on the book on the left side of the blog.
**STUDENT COUNCIL REPS.....Next week I will talking to the students about the function of Student Council at Irving School. Students Council is starting up and Mr. Gray needs 2 reps form each classroom to attend bi monthly meetings. I will send home an inquiry sheet next week for those who are interested. The first meeting is October 22nd.
**Future Field Trip --Brookfield Zoo--Friday, November 15th--9:00-2:30 pm.
The past two weeks:
It's been APPLE MANIA! It is our first cross curricular theme. The students participated in an inquiry to determine what they knew about apples. They had a fun using their magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. They learned what a blossom was. Some apples were cut on their sides to reveal the star! We read informational (non fiction) books on the subject and used the internet search to find out names the apples have. The students explored some of the many types of apples and observed their similarities and differences. The students learned how to create a diagram and created a diagram of the apple and labeled their parts. They looked at a Red Delicious skin and a seed under the microscope. What is growing out of that seed??? Way cool! The students participated in a taste test and graphed their favorite apple. It was Granny Smith with Honey Crisp not far behind. Station Day activities included apple art mixed media, apple ten frame counting book, unifix cube build, count and record, create a word wheel for target word see and read it, "pinky painting" the given numbers of seeds on the apples, create an apple fact book, count the apples and record (1-10) and writing prompt--describe an apple. Next--simple cooking with apples.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue working on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students completed their lists of people, places, things, animals and learned that they are called nouns.
They continue to work on listening comprehension using the Big Book stories"Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animal," and "Family Fun." They identified the characters and the setting and made predictions about story content. The students responded and retold events in a story sequence. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. The students worked on the concepts, same and different. The students began the process of phoneme blending...or putting together sounds to create words. We used AM and AT word families to create new words by adding a consonant to the beginning. Robust Vocabulary for the past 2 weeks included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER, CELEBRATE, CHANGE, EAGER, OCCASION and RELATIVE. Our thinking story was "The Squeaky Old Bed" which reflected the culture of Puerto Rico. The students reviewed all their sight vocabulary paying special attention to our target words the and see. The non fiction story, "Panda Kindergarten," helped the students work on the common core standard of asking and answering questions from a given text. After reading and discussing the story, we took out our question posters and students came up with who, what, where, when and why questions for the story. They went back to their seats and drew pictures of their questions. Workstations included interview a friend about their family and what they like to do--draw your family and write a sentence about what they like to do, ABC upper/lowercase match, leveled reading practice, using word sight words and pictures, create 4 sentences and record them on paper and read them to a friend, draw it and add to it--read a story, talk about it in your group and add another page of what you think might happen,
Math: We are "feeling the numbers" written on our backs, made with clay and touched on sand paper. Students worked with partners and to sequence their apple counting cards to twenty. Other pairs of students created apple puzzles matching the number with amount of seeds on the apple. The students worked on their apple ten frame books--saying the numbers and drawing circles on the frame to match the written number. The students worked on positional concepts before, between, beneath, behind. We worked with physicality by having the students demonstrate the concept. The students began a formal calendar book for October. No only are they reviewing days of the week and calendar numbers, but also counting, patterning, adding, sequencing, reviewing concepts before and after and writing numbers. We will have a new calendar book each month.
Writing: The students continue to work on adding more details to their drawings and having their drawings reflect the words they are using to describe them. Some students are labeling items in their pictures, writing a beginning sound, ending sound, short sentence. All students are learning that a sentence names (subject) and tells (action.) They are working on using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and an ending mark--period, question mark, exclamation mark. The students continue to work on their Frog Jump letters--F, E, D, B, R, P.
Technology: The students continue to work on a counting project using Doodle Buddy.
The iPad continues to be a valuable tool to enhance our learning. In reading and writing, the apps Intro to Letters, Alphatots, Magic Reading-picture to picture match and letter to picture match, ABC touch and Magnetic Board for writing sight vocabulary and in differentiated workstations the app Reading 1 was used for blending and segmenting 3-4 phoneme words. In math, the apps Doodle Buddy, Intro to Numbers, Number Find and Numbers to assist in recognition and patterning.
Literature: "How Do Apples Grow," "I Am Growing," "Night Animals," "Picnic at Apple Park,"
"Apples, Apples, Apples," "The Big Apple Mystery," "What if you Had Animal Teeth?"(Thanks Colin!) "The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Let's Go Apple Picking,""The Four Seasons," "The Apple Countdown."
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send in a baby of your child. The picture will be used in a project and will remain on our wall for the remainder of the year. I have mine! We will do our project on October 16th.
** The class has chosen to have a PAJAMA DAY on Wednesday, October 16th as a result of a CLASS EAGLE WING being pulled at our weekly drawing. Students can wear their pajamas, bring fluffy slippers and a favorite blankey or stuffed animal. Our writing prompt that day will be based on a a storybook CD. Don't forget to send regular shoes. We will be going outside for recess.
**Continue to send in permission slips for our WALKING FIELD TRIP TO MAZE LIBRARY. Please note that the correct date in WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd from 8:30-10:30 am. The Tuesday, conferences goers received the wrong date! We would like all students to have a library card. Email me if you need an application.
**Irving School students will participate in a FUN RUN FUNDRAISER that will be held on Friday, October 25th. Kindergarten will be running at 8:15. Stop by and show your support! Information on how to submit a pledge amount can be found on the Irving School website.
**The students had picture perfect smiles on Picture Day. We had our class photo taken outside on our lovely new playground equipment!
**All students participated in WALK TO SCHOOL DAY this past Wednesday. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school, walked around the playground with me. All students got their hand stamped and colored a gym shoe. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Wyza will decorate the gym with all the gym shoes.
**GREEN TEAM reps, Reid and Gina participated in their first Green Team Meeting last week.
They got to know other Green Team members from all grade levels and talk about what the focus of the year is going to be with their leaders, Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Packer.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 continues for another week before assessment of the skill begins.
**The students began work in the computer lab on LEXIA CORE 5 a phonics based program that supports all levels of reading and reading readiness. The students will work 2 times a week for 30 minutes. In another 2 weeks or so, I will send an information sheet for access at home for practice.
**The Book Fair this week had many good books and activities for all students. Hope you got a chance to visit it.
**Scholastic Book order for October is due the 16th. You can access it on line by clicking on the book on the left side of the blog.
**STUDENT COUNCIL REPS.....Next week I will talking to the students about the function of Student Council at Irving School. Students Council is starting up and Mr. Gray needs 2 reps form each classroom to attend bi monthly meetings. I will send home an inquiry sheet next week for those who are interested. The first meeting is October 22nd.
**Future Field Trip --Brookfield Zoo--Friday, November 15th--9:00-2:30 pm.
The past two weeks:
It's been APPLE MANIA! It is our first cross curricular theme. The students participated in an inquiry to determine what they knew about apples. They had a fun using their magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. They learned what a blossom was. Some apples were cut on their sides to reveal the star! We read informational (non fiction) books on the subject and used the internet search to find out names the apples have. The students explored some of the many types of apples and observed their similarities and differences. The students learned how to create a diagram and created a diagram of the apple and labeled their parts. They looked at a Red Delicious skin and a seed under the microscope. What is growing out of that seed??? Way cool! The students participated in a taste test and graphed their favorite apple. It was Granny Smith with Honey Crisp not far behind. Station Day activities included apple art mixed media, apple ten frame counting book, unifix cube build, count and record, create a word wheel for target word see and read it, "pinky painting" the given numbers of seeds on the apples, create an apple fact book, count the apples and record (1-10) and writing prompt--describe an apple. Next--simple cooking with apples.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue working on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students completed their lists of people, places, things, animals and learned that they are called nouns.
They continue to work on listening comprehension using the Big Book stories"Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animal," and "Family Fun." They identified the characters and the setting and made predictions about story content. The students responded and retold events in a story sequence. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. The students worked on the concepts, same and different. The students began the process of phoneme blending...or putting together sounds to create words. We used AM and AT word families to create new words by adding a consonant to the beginning. Robust Vocabulary for the past 2 weeks included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER, CELEBRATE, CHANGE, EAGER, OCCASION and RELATIVE. Our thinking story was "The Squeaky Old Bed" which reflected the culture of Puerto Rico. The students reviewed all their sight vocabulary paying special attention to our target words the and see. The non fiction story, "Panda Kindergarten," helped the students work on the common core standard of asking and answering questions from a given text. After reading and discussing the story, we took out our question posters and students came up with who, what, where, when and why questions for the story. They went back to their seats and drew pictures of their questions. Workstations included interview a friend about their family and what they like to do--draw your family and write a sentence about what they like to do, ABC upper/lowercase match, leveled reading practice, using word sight words and pictures, create 4 sentences and record them on paper and read them to a friend, draw it and add to it--read a story, talk about it in your group and add another page of what you think might happen,
Math: We are "feeling the numbers" written on our backs, made with clay and touched on sand paper. Students worked with partners and to sequence their apple counting cards to twenty. Other pairs of students created apple puzzles matching the number with amount of seeds on the apple. The students worked on their apple ten frame books--saying the numbers and drawing circles on the frame to match the written number. The students worked on positional concepts before, between, beneath, behind. We worked with physicality by having the students demonstrate the concept. The students began a formal calendar book for October. No only are they reviewing days of the week and calendar numbers, but also counting, patterning, adding, sequencing, reviewing concepts before and after and writing numbers. We will have a new calendar book each month.
Writing: The students continue to work on adding more details to their drawings and having their drawings reflect the words they are using to describe them. Some students are labeling items in their pictures, writing a beginning sound, ending sound, short sentence. All students are learning that a sentence names (subject) and tells (action.) They are working on using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and an ending mark--period, question mark, exclamation mark. The students continue to work on their Frog Jump letters--F, E, D, B, R, P.
Technology: The students continue to work on a counting project using Doodle Buddy.
The iPad continues to be a valuable tool to enhance our learning. In reading and writing, the apps Intro to Letters, Alphatots, Magic Reading-picture to picture match and letter to picture match, ABC touch and Magnetic Board for writing sight vocabulary and in differentiated workstations the app Reading 1 was used for blending and segmenting 3-4 phoneme words. In math, the apps Doodle Buddy, Intro to Numbers, Number Find and Numbers to assist in recognition and patterning.
Literature: "How Do Apples Grow," "I Am Growing," "Night Animals," "Picnic at Apple Park,"
"Apples, Apples, Apples," "The Big Apple Mystery," "What if you Had Animal Teeth?"(Thanks Colin!) "The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Let's Go Apple Picking,""The Four Seasons," "The Apple Countdown."
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