The temperature is dropping and the snow is falling! The students had a spectacular week culminating in our 18th Annual Gingerbread cookie baking! What a success for students and parent volunteers! The smell of gingerbread filled the school. The cookies themselves were really works of art. The students worked together, created and shared some of their cookies with each other. Tis the season! A HUGE THANKS to our great parent volunteers--Ms. Wojcik, Mr. Smyth, Ms. Barnett, Mr. Bernacchi, Ms. Quinones and our beloved Ms. Jack for their help. Hope you enjoyed the cookies too.
**Report cards will go home on Monday, December 9th. Please read the information included to better understand the grading system. Lexia reports are also included as well as any goal updates by specialists your child may be seeing in the area of the speech and language or Tier 3 Intervention for Reading Readiness. If you have any questions please contact me. The common core standards and grading system is a big change for all of us (me included!) It continues to be a work in progress. The main idea to remember is that this is growth model of progress toward an end of the year goal.
**If you didn't get a chance to hear our class version of the Brown Bear story--check it out at the end of this blog post. Totally cute!
**Our WINTER CONCERT is fast approaching. Please join us for the Kindergarten/Grade 1 concert on Friday, December 20th. The students will perform twice--8:15 am and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. We will have a family reception after both concerts in our classroom. Come see your child perform and join us for some treats and community!
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and craft Fair is Saturday, December 14th from 9-12 pm in the lunchroom and hallways. There are really great things to buy for every age. I went last year and bought cool stocking stuffers.....and COOKIES!!!!
**The Geography Challenge #3 is on for a few more days.
**School is closed--December 21st-January 5th-WiNTER BREAK! School reopens on Monday, January 6th.
**We have begun our cross curricular unit on Celebrations and Traditions. Our first guest speaker was Julia's mom. Ms. Heisler spoke about her native country of Ukraine. We located it on our world map. She read a story in Russian which Julia helped translate into English! Cool! Julia came dressed in a beautiful skirt and shirt with cool blue needle work. Ms. Heisler spoke about particular holiday traditions and the students made Ukrainian flags and paper dolls dressed like Julia and boys dressed dressed in native clothing found in one of the story books. Thanks so much, Ms. Heisler and Julia! If have a particular holiday or winter tradition you would like to share with the class---email me and we can set up a time for you to come in. Kindergarten students LOVE to have their parents come to the classroom!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey worked with the students on asking and answering questions using an activity where students try to guess an animal that Ms. Bell Bey is thinking about by asking questions as clues.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer continued his activity on dots and letters--visual imagery and perception.
This week:
It was all about celebrations, traditions and gingerbread. The students talked about what a tradition was--activities that are done routinely at the same time every year and are passed down thru generations. I spoke about my family traditions at holiday time and my school tradition of making gingerbread with my students at this time of year. The students made connections in their own lives and related activities that they do every year at this time. We did a little research on how the activity of gingerbread making began and why it is so popular 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 of ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, cakes and houses. The students began listening to some stories about various gingerbread characters. We will continue our story listening and compare and contrast the characters and plots in the coming weeks.
Reading/Social Studies: The students are working to complete Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students built background knowledge about the different ways wheels are used to move people and things around. They worked on their listening comprehension while listening to David Shannon's story, "Duck on a Bike," read both in English and in Spanish. Students identified the characters and the plot (what is happening in the story.) They took a closer look at the way the story is organized (a beginning, a middle and an ending), and responded to the story by discussing the connections that can be made from the story to their daily lives. (I can ride a bike.) (I see kids riding bikes in my neighborhood.) The students reviewed target sounds Tt and Short i and used their elkonin boxes and cubes to segment and blend 4 letter words. Lots of discussion on nouns and action words. The students worked with partners to create noun/verb sentences using picture cards. The students were introduced to Consonant Blends and Digraphs. Do you know the difference? Ask your child! Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included ADVENTURE, WHEELS, ATTACH, HAUL, MASSIVE. The students read their pre decodable story "I See a Truck Go" and made predictions about story content. The students listened to the thinking story, "Timimoto" and discussed the storytellers message. Workstation activities this week included recording their reading using the app iTalk and playing it back to hear themselves (beginning fluency checks,) leveled reading comprehension, creating sentences using the target words Go and See, read it and add to it activity, sound match, air, land and water vehicles graph/comparison, asking and answering questions about a trip you might like to take.
Math: The students continued work on rote counting to 75. The students continue to work in their calendar books on recording numbers, sequencing numbers, counting on from a random number and recording ways to say a number (number combinations.) The students are also using tally marks to show how many. They are using pattern blocks to count quantities and also using them for patterning. This week, the students learned how to play "Roll a Gingerbread Man." They will play at home for homework.
Writing: The students completed work on forming their "Magic C" capitals--C, O, Q, G, S. They applied what they learned in their orange practice book. Ms. Chinn is continuing to work with the student in Writer's Workshop. This weeks focus was on an exercise called "Stars" and "Wishes." Each student shared a piece of writing/illustrating from their folder. The class critiqued the sample. What did they like? What was your favorite detail? They also made suggestions to enhance the piece. I wanted to hear more about...... What about a picture of...... The students were gracious and offered up many compliments and suggestions. Students helping each other become better writers!
Technology: In the area of reading small group and individual work the students used the apps Magnetic Letters to complete writing assignments relating to their leveled reading, Sound Sort for initial sound/picture practice and Montessori Crossword for blending and segmenting sounds. One group of students used the app iTalk to record their reading for fluency and clarity. It is very fun to hear what you sound like! In math, small group and individual work centered around the apps Number Find, Monster Squeeze, Math Bug and the introduction of Starfall Gingerbread for patterning, identifying and describing shapes.
Literature: "Ginger Bear," "The Gingerbread Man," ""Duck on a Bike," "Gingerbread Man," Poetry--"My Bike, ""Riding the Subway Train," "Celebrations Around the World," "Hibernation," "Animals in Winter," "The Story of Hannukah," "The Gingerbread Boy."
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