UPDATES for 10/21-10/25 2013

**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."