**The students are getting back into the swing of things! We played a bit of catch up on skill review, reading and science and are working on midyear assessments. The students prepared for their upcoming field trip to see the production of "Alexander and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." We read the story aloud and sequenced the parts of the story verbally. The students reflected on a time when they had a bad day and what happened to them. The students reflected in writing in their journal about their experiences.
**The temperatures will be dipping again this week. I am asking that you send snow pants and boots along with hats and mittens with your child each day. Students will be able to enter the classroom instead of waiting outside. Please do not come any earlier than 7:50 am. Thanks!
**I still need a couple of permission slips and money for our Field Trip. Please get those to me on Tuesday. FIELD TRIP REMINDER: Students need to bring a bag lunch to school on Thursday, January 23rd for our field trip. We will be eating lunch back at school but are not sure if we will be back in time for school lunch services. We will be taking one parent volunteer with us (thanks to Samantha's mom!) Please send your child at the regular school time (8:00 am.) The bus will leave promptly at 9:00 am. We will return to school around noon. We will have a regular afternoon session.
**Please send in your confirmation for Mid year Parent/Teacher Conferences. Conferences will be held on Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. At that time, I will be sharing with you midyear assessments and behavior, DIBELS and DARRELL MORRIS scores and other student work.
**Please note that THURSDAY and FRIDAY, January 30th and 31st, school will be in session ONLY in the MORNING. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and District School Bus pick up will be a t 11:00 am.
**In your child's home work folder are directions for set up for at home XTRMATH and BRAINPOP activities. These activities, like the other online activities listed on the blog are optional. I am still experimenting myself with all the activities on BRAINPOP. XTRAMATH is a drill and practice math addition and subtraction program. Try them if you like!
**Friendship Club resumes this Friday.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer did a hands on activity about attributes using pattern blocks.
** Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm.
We need LOTS of volunteers! We have 4 so far, but could use 5 more. Parent volunteers will help facilitate learning stations surrounding the number 100, counting by 10's to 100, grouping by 10's, rote counting and writing numbers to 100 and art activities illustrating the numbers 100. Email me if you can help.
**The students have a 100th Day-100 Item project that will be sent home on Friday, January 24th. It will be due on February 4th. Instructions on what to do and more information on our special day will be included.
**Reading Grandma Mary began hearing young readers last week! She will be here every Monday from 9-11:15 am. We are so happy to have her!
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, food, silent auction, dancing for deserts and more. Each classroom is donating a special basket of their choice. Our class is donating a basket of "baking items." Look for an email from our room parents with the details. You can send in your donation with your child to me at school or directly to the room parents. Donations have already started coming. Come on......join in the fun!!!!
**No School--February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**Hearing Screening for all students is Tuesday, February 25th.
This week:
It was all about doing something nice for others, Martin Luther King and water. The students turned our "Complimen-tree" into a mitten tree after reading and discussing the inspirational story, "The Mitten Tree, " by Candace Christiansen. The students began inquiries into the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so interesting! We read several stories on Martin Luther King Jr. and used our map skills to trace the path of the March on Washington. The students were so thankful of his accomplishments and his use of non violence to promote change. There were some very reflective moments during our discussions where students could not believe that there was a time when they would not have had the opportunity to go to school together. We love our classmates! Station Day activities included, creating "climbing water" snowflakes, creating conversations in a speech balloon to go with our painted snowman, working with number quantities 1-20 (cut and paste) and working with sight word vocabulary--word search and word shapes. Students are exploring pattern block created designs and using the "Marble Works" to experiment with hills and inclines during choice time.
Reading/ Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading Series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing in the zoo. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions the cat or kitten might perform. Those students who had cats as pets shared information about the kinds of actions their pets perform and compared it to the story. Our sight words for this week are is and in. We added them to our current list. Our target sound is short and long Oo. The students worked on associating the sound using picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme, "The
Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the short Oo words. They continued their study of action words (verbs) by creating a list of action words that kittens can do. Our Robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, GENTLE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCES. The students worked with sequencing story events in the Big Book story. They worked with their elkonin boxes to blend sounds using short Oo to make words. The students worked on asking and answering questions about a text after listening to the folk tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato." They also used the Venn Diagram model to record similarities and differences between mice and cats. They also worked on retelling key events in the folk tale using the format--first---next--then--last. In our work on sound foundation, the students did an exercise there they placed a marker where they heard the target sound--beginning ---middle ---end. Our workstations this week included word maker---where the students choose a picture and find the letters to spell it (3-4 phonemes,) sight word spell and sentence practice using the app Magnetic Letters, " I can," "they can" people and animals sentences and illustrations and leveled reading and comprehension activities and fluency practice.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond with 70 being the approaching proficiency benchmark. Small group workstations included writing numbers to 0-20, using pattern blocks to sort by common attributes, using ten frames to illustrate teen numbers, writing 2 digit numbers and using digits 1-4 to record ways to say the number 5. Students continue to work on recognizing even and odd numbers and representing the idea of addition with objects, drawings, fingers and images.
Writing: The students continued work on their Snowman writing projects. Ms. Chinn has completed our Writer's Workshop lessons and we will take it from here. She ended her activities with "Stars" and "Wishes" student to student critique of each others writing. We will be continuing the format of journaling via labeling, sentences, diagramming stressing sentence structure....naming and telling....expanding sentence length...using punctuation and sharing our writing with our peers as well as the teacher during the individual journal conference. Lowercase letter formation will begin next week.
Science: The students began with a discussion/dictation on what they know about water. They were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student was given an experiment book as well as a science reflection journal to record their experiments as well as their own thoughts, questions, comments and drawings and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools--spoon, straws, sticks, cups. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, the students discovered water droplets have their own shape and have the ability to "stick" to one another. Using a pipet, the students practiced sucking up water into it and releasing the water back into their cup. It was fun to watch the students carefully trying to capture one droplet of water and placing it on their wax paper. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet. We talked about the scientific word--cohesion-- to describe the sticking together process. The students could not separate the droplets back into two. In Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towels, paper, sponges and kleenex in wiping up water. What makes paper towels and sponges best at doing this? The students talked with their tablemates about the answer. Some tables said the water is sucked up into the paper towel and sponges....but how? As the students used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, some notice holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. The students then suspended a paper towel on a dowel rod into a cup and I pour in red water. What happened???? The water climbed up into the spaces or holes in the towel and made its way up the towel. Cool! The next day, the students observed the red water in their cup was gone. What have we leaned so far about water? Ask your child! Friday, the students did the same experiment using celery instead of paper towel. They made some predictions. Philippe mentioned a root system....Colin mentioned veins in the stem......Stay tuned for the result on Tuesday!
Technology: In reading, student small groups and individual used the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling sight words and creating sentences, the apps Rocket Speller, Montessori Crossword and Reading Magic 3 were used for reinforcing segmenting and blending sounds and creating words. The app iTalk was used by leveled reading groups to record and play back reading for fluency. In math, student small groups and individuals used the apps Number Find, 100's Board and Monster Squeeze for enrichment.
Literature: "Water," "A Drop of Water," "Investigating Water--Chapter 1," "Water is Everywhere," "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin's BIG Words," "Martin's Dreams," "Dreams"--Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King.
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