**Our SPACE STATION PROJECTS are complete!! SURPRISE!! Our movie detailing each teams journey is ready too. You all will get the first look. Scroll down to the end of this post for the reveal! The students will see it on Monday, but feel free to share it with them. I am enormously proud of all their hard work. Kudos to our tech adviser, Ms. Diehl, for helping us upload the movie. This project is a culmination of our Kindergarten year in the areas of social/emotional growth, reading, math, writing, social studies, science and technology, with elements of engineering, organization, the Eagle Essentials and most of all working with one another. Enjoy!!
**Thanks to Student Council (Go Gina and Reid!) for a very informative Earth Week. We read stories about water conservation, the rain forest, littering, recycling, wore green and yellow, studied about solar energy and read our Sunny Notes. Last Friday, we each planted a seed that will grow into a plant for our new Butterfly Gardens.
**The Academic Fair/Egg Drop Contest was awesome! A shout out to BEN for his project entitled, "What color were dinosaurs?" Great work and effort. Ben was able to talk about this project at the Academic Fair both in the day and in the evening. We were 7 for 7 in the Egg Drop contest. NO EGGS broke as they fell to the ground in their vehicles!! Thanks to our participants GINA, COLIN, BLAINE, PHILIPPE, EMILY, BEN, ETHAN and ALLY for their unique vehicle design!
**The Irving Book Fair was a success. A special thanks those students who purchased a book for our classroom---Ben for "U.S. Presidents," Anayla for "Llama, Llama and the Bully Goat," Samantha for "The Gingerbread Man," and "The Cool Friend," and to Ainsley from Ms. Collin's class for "Night Time Ninja." We will finish reading them next week.
**Irving Pacers are back!!!! It was a great Friday for a run/walk. Irving Pacers will continue until the end of the year. Don't forget to wear gym shoes/socks every Friday.
**The OPERA for the YOUNG presentation of "The Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th at 9:30 am in the gym. The students have been practicing some group singing parts. Should be fun.
** Tasty Dog Challenge is Wednesday, April 30th.
**Please read the information on Student Council's project of creating a Cook Book. The proceeds will benefit the Oak Park Food Pantry. Reps Ally and Colin are counting on you! Turn in your recipes by May 6th.
**Swap, Shop and Read is Thursday, May 8th from 6-8 pm. Bring those used books!
**POETRY ALERT! POETRY ALERT! Help your child practice his/her poem for the TRAVELING POETS PROJECT under the direction of Ms. Noonan. Watch for more
information regarding the Poetry Slam/Art Fest in next weeks Tuesday Packet. A super great event!
**District 97's Annual Ethnic Festival is Saturday, May 3rd with the parade beginning a 9:30 am. See the flyer in the Tuesday Packet for details. Irving School will have a float in it.
**Run With Me! Join the District 97 Fun Run on Saturday, May 10th at 8:00 am at Lindberg Park celebrating Fitness Week. Don't forget to fill out the form in your homework folder.
** We will begin our final science unit on PLANTS this coming week. On Wednesday, April 30th at 1:00 pm. gardener and Irving parent, Isabelle Henry will introduce the students to the worm composting process. We will have our "wormy" friends in our classroom so the students can really observe the wonder of worms and how they help the earth by creating more of it!
**Future Field Trip--Oak Park Conservatory--Tuesday, May 13th at 9:30 am. Permission slips will be out next week.
**Future Field Trip--Pizza and Play End of the Year Picnic at Rehm Park--Wednesday, May 28th from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park. Look for info soon. We need lots of help for this!
**Future Field Trip--Chicken Coop at the Gurgas Residence on Tuesday, June 3rd at 10:30 am. More info soon.
**Future Field Trip--Chef Ashley's Studio--Constructive Chaos in River Forest on Monday, June 9th at 12:30-2:00 pm. More info soon.
**Last Day of school is Tuesday, June 10th. It is a regular full day.
This week:
It was all about putting the finishing touches on space station projects and coming up with a name for them. Lots of work went into drawing, making, placing and staging items and materials in, on and around the space stations. Great use of conversation, negotiation, compromise and teamwork during this process. Their projects are truly out of this world!!! Our space stations will be in the classroom until the end of the school year. Feel free to come in before or after school to see them up close. They will be used for imaginative play, choice time and for a cozy space to read. Station day activities included creating star gazers, pattern block sponge print art and moon phase wheels.
Reading /Social Studies: The students completed Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. This will serve as a nice introduction for our final science unit--"From Seed to Plant." The students reviewed all the vocabulary presented thus far. In our Haggerty Blue Book exercises, the students continue to work on blending, segmenting, adding and deleting sounds in 4-6 sound words orally and the students are now using their dry erase boards to record t heir changes. The students also continued to work on decoding words with the CVC, CCVC, and CVCC patterns, recognizing blends and digraphs and using pronouns and adjectives along with nouns and verbs in their sentence work. They continue to work on responding in writing to story elements, asking and answering questions about a given text and locating details in a given story that support those answers. Workstations this week included leveled readers with discussion/comprehension, writing about living things, diagramming a flower and writing about its parts, creating a garden map, long vowel review, using quotation marks activity, word building and using the app Magnetic ABC's to compose and write 3 sentences using their Writer's Checklist.
Math: The students completed activities that reviewed pattern block shapes and geometric solids. They discussed how many sides a given flat shape has and worked to create a new shape from 2 shapes using straws, sticks or blocks. The students continued their fun exploring geometric solids using marshmallows/clay and toothpicks/straws. The app Subitize Tree is now on the students iPads. The students had a great time working in pairs and taking the Subitize challenge. So fun. They continue to work on rote counting 1-130, listening to a story problem and illustrating and writing the number sentence for it, using the reckenreck to determine the number that when added will make 10 and refining written number forms. We will finish our first math journals and begin our new ones next week.
Writing: The students continue to work on sentence writing--making sure they begin with a capital letter, name and tell, add adjectives and end with a punctuation mark. We are also continuing to work on refining uppercase and lowercase forms.
Science: The students used their star gazers. It was cool for them to see the "stars" inside of their tube. We talked about the moon phases and the fact that we are really seeing different amounts of light being reflected on the moon. How much light we see depends on the positions of the Earth, sun and moon. They will make their final reflections in their science journal next week. Next week, we will begin prep on our final science unit--seeds.
Technology: The kindergarten iPads received a bit of updating. Some apps were added to them. We worked on the videotaping process for our iMovie. The students assisted on some of the stills. I hoped to capture the essence of the student's actions and interactions as well as conversation related to their space stations. I will say for me that editing was a challenge! I wanted to include everything!!! In the area of reading, student small groups and individuals used the apps LexiaCore 5, Magnetic ABC's, Sentence Reading Magic and Phonics/Vowels. In the area of math, students small groups and individuals used the apps Subitize Tree, 10 Frame Fill, Geoboard and Math Bug.
In science we continue to keep track of the weather via the app weatherunderground and check in with NASA and Moon Globe. The students continue to enjoy setting their sight words on "fire" using Fire Finger.
Literature: "Phases of the Moon," "Don't Be a Litterbug," "What is Happening to Our Rain Forests?" "What is Global Warming?" "The Moon" (poetry) "Magic School Bus-Get's Recycled," "Let's Be Water Wise," "Watch Over Water," "Grow, Tree, Go," "The Grand Old Tree," "U. S. Presidents," (Thanks, Ben!) "Night Time Ninja," (Thanks, Ainsley.)
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
UPDATES for 4/14-4/17 2014
**The students have been kept very busy this week working on their space stations. Per the teams specifications, I cut and taped the boxes together. Each team discussed the color palette--white, gray and black were the colors. I observed lots of discussion and compromise related to what color and where to used that color. The students spent 3 days painting and are now ready for the detailing part which will begin on Monday. They are looking pretty cool already! The students did a wonderful job of keeping the paint contained to their area. Very few spills! There was discussion and praise for each other on the work completed. Monday and Tuesday will be our detail days. If you have some spare time in the afternoon, stop by and I will put you to work with a glue gun! Email me for the exact times.
**The Egg Drop/Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd. Students with projects can bring them for set up in the gym before school begins. Our class will visit the Fair in the morning. The projects will be displayed during the day. Students with projects will return in the evening from 6:30-7:30 pm. when families and the community will view and hear about the projects. Students can bring in their Egg Drop Vehicles on Wednesday morning. The contest will begin at 12:30 on the black top. Students will drop their vehicles from the third floor window. Please join us if you can. It should be very exciting!!! We have quite a few students who have created vehicle and 2 students with projects!
**Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 22nd. At that time, you will receive notification of your child's skill level.
**A SHOUT OUT to Reid and Samantha whose writing was featured in the Irving School Newspaper, "The Irving Inquirer." All of you received a copy!
**Our GREEN TEAM reps, Reid and Gina along with all the Green Team members have prepared some great activities to celebrate EARTH WEEK! See the flyer in our child's homework folder. Monday--Sunny Notes will be sold for 25 cents. Don't forget to fill out your Earth Day Report Card for home!
**Our class came in 5th place in the Scholastic Books for All Coin Challenge! Our class alone raised more than $100!!!! Our school raised over $1000!!! Thanks to all who participated!
**OPERA for the YOUNG'S presentation of the "Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th at 9:30 am. in the gym. Ms. Hiolski has been working with students on some interactive singing parts!
This event is always lots of fun!
**Please read the information on the Tasty Dog Challenge.
**The Irving Book Fair will take place this week (4/21-4/24.) A flyer with information is in your child's homework folder.
**Upcoming Event--Traveling Poets, under the direction of Ms. Noonan will begin traveling in early May. Look for information on how this all works soon. It is really something!!
**Run With Me!! Join the Fun Run on Saturday, May 10th at 8:00 am in Lindberg Park celebrating National Fitness Week. Information on this will be in this week's Tuesday Packet!
This week:
It was all about space stations, the moon and Easter bunnies! Much of our afternoons were spent painting and thinking about details that each team wanted on or in their space station. We will see how it all comes together! Look at the science section to hear about the moon. The students shared their family traditions about Easter in both religious and social contexts. Julia brought in a Ukrainian Egg to share. The students had many questions about how the paint got on the egg and why the egg didn't crack. Together we gathered some information on Ukrainian Eggs via the internet. We learned that the inside of the egg is emptied by making a tiny hole. The design is drawn on and the pattern is made thru wax resist. Very beautiful. You can view on the thumbprint photo. Julia shared that she got it while in the Ukraine when she was very little. Thanks, Julia!!
Reading/Social Studies: The students have nearly completed Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. We will tie up any loose ends at t he beginning of next week. This week the students read and talked about what grows in a garden. Students thought aloud and accessed prior knowledge about gardens in their backyard and other gardens they know about. The students listened to the trade book, "Sunflower House." They paid special attention to the beginning , middle and end of the story. They responded to the literature by making connections in their own lives about the process of growing a sunflower and seeing how big it can get. All students reviewed the target words here, little, said and was. We played, "Hands Up, Hands Down" for a good review. The students continue to review target wounds short u, Kk and use of ck. The students also reviewed use of adjectives and created a group list to describe a sunflower. We read the story and students contemplated aloud clues that help them draw conclusions about the story. The students worked in small groups using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary included ARRANGE, TEND, BASIC, SENSES, GARDEN. We continue to work in the Haggerty Blue Book on blending, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion and fluency checks, word family word building, hide and seek words, mixed up sentences, short vowel round up activity, silent e word find and playing the "Super Sweet Parts of Speech Game."
Math: The students continue to work on story problems in their math process journals. Being able to show how they got their answer is becoming easier to figure out. They are beginning to understand the relationship between numbers in a number family using both addition and subtraction. The students continue to work on reading and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, rote counting from 1-130, counting on from a random number and using ten frames to describe 2 digit numbers. Math workshop activities included solving addition and subtraction story problems, telling time by the hour and number writing practice. The students continue to work on 3 dimensional structures using magnetos, straws and pipe cleaners and Connects. Our "Structure Museum" looks really cool!
Writing: The students are working on their final copy of their shadow pose paragraphs. I have begun to put them up in the hall. Stop by and see them!
Science: The students pondered the question--What is the moon? They compared elements of the daytime and nighttime sky. They discovered that unlike the sun, the moon can be seen in both the day and night sky. The students discussed the terms sunrise and sunset and their true meanings. Thru our internet sources and pictures, they examined the moons surface. In an experiment, students recreated the surface of the moon using flour and cocoa powder as the moons surface and dropped marbles in it to create craters, seas (flat dark areas) and mountains. Very cool! The students took a look at the different shapes the moon appears to make at night in the course of a month. It appears that the "phases" repeat themselves like a pattern each month. The students reflected their thoughts in their science journals. They continue to study space travel, space vehicles and travel to the moon. Next week--let's try some space food and make some star gazers!
Technology: The students continue to help video tape our space station project phases on the iPad. They have watched short sequences about the moon via the app BrainPop and checked in with app NASA for latest updates in space during science. In reading small group, the students used the app iTalk to record their reading for fluency and used the reader's checklist to critique themselves. In math whole group the app Subitize Tree was used to reinforcement "mental" math skills. The students continue to use the app Math Rack for adding and subtracting activities on the rekenrek.
Literature: "Life in Space," "One Giant Leap," "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "It's Spring," "I Want to be an Astronaut," "Mooncake," "Black Holes," "The Moon Book," "Finding the Moon," "Magic School Bus-Walk on the Moon," "Phases of the Moon."
**The Egg Drop/Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd. Students with projects can bring them for set up in the gym before school begins. Our class will visit the Fair in the morning. The projects will be displayed during the day. Students with projects will return in the evening from 6:30-7:30 pm. when families and the community will view and hear about the projects. Students can bring in their Egg Drop Vehicles on Wednesday morning. The contest will begin at 12:30 on the black top. Students will drop their vehicles from the third floor window. Please join us if you can. It should be very exciting!!! We have quite a few students who have created vehicle and 2 students with projects!
**Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 22nd. At that time, you will receive notification of your child's skill level.
**A SHOUT OUT to Reid and Samantha whose writing was featured in the Irving School Newspaper, "The Irving Inquirer." All of you received a copy!
**Our GREEN TEAM reps, Reid and Gina along with all the Green Team members have prepared some great activities to celebrate EARTH WEEK! See the flyer in our child's homework folder. Monday--Sunny Notes will be sold for 25 cents. Don't forget to fill out your Earth Day Report Card for home!
**Our class came in 5th place in the Scholastic Books for All Coin Challenge! Our class alone raised more than $100!!!! Our school raised over $1000!!! Thanks to all who participated!
**OPERA for the YOUNG'S presentation of the "Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th at 9:30 am. in the gym. Ms. Hiolski has been working with students on some interactive singing parts!
This event is always lots of fun!
**Please read the information on the Tasty Dog Challenge.
**The Irving Book Fair will take place this week (4/21-4/24.) A flyer with information is in your child's homework folder.
**Upcoming Event--Traveling Poets, under the direction of Ms. Noonan will begin traveling in early May. Look for information on how this all works soon. It is really something!!
**Run With Me!! Join the Fun Run on Saturday, May 10th at 8:00 am in Lindberg Park celebrating National Fitness Week. Information on this will be in this week's Tuesday Packet!
This week:
It was all about space stations, the moon and Easter bunnies! Much of our afternoons were spent painting and thinking about details that each team wanted on or in their space station. We will see how it all comes together! Look at the science section to hear about the moon. The students shared their family traditions about Easter in both religious and social contexts. Julia brought in a Ukrainian Egg to share. The students had many questions about how the paint got on the egg and why the egg didn't crack. Together we gathered some information on Ukrainian Eggs via the internet. We learned that the inside of the egg is emptied by making a tiny hole. The design is drawn on and the pattern is made thru wax resist. Very beautiful. You can view on the thumbprint photo. Julia shared that she got it while in the Ukraine when she was very little. Thanks, Julia!!
Reading/Social Studies: The students have nearly completed Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. We will tie up any loose ends at t he beginning of next week. This week the students read and talked about what grows in a garden. Students thought aloud and accessed prior knowledge about gardens in their backyard and other gardens they know about. The students listened to the trade book, "Sunflower House." They paid special attention to the beginning , middle and end of the story. They responded to the literature by making connections in their own lives about the process of growing a sunflower and seeing how big it can get. All students reviewed the target words here, little, said and was. We played, "Hands Up, Hands Down" for a good review. The students continue to review target wounds short u, Kk and use of ck. The students also reviewed use of adjectives and created a group list to describe a sunflower. We read the story and students contemplated aloud clues that help them draw conclusions about the story. The students worked in small groups using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary included ARRANGE, TEND, BASIC, SENSES, GARDEN. We continue to work in the Haggerty Blue Book on blending, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion and fluency checks, word family word building, hide and seek words, mixed up sentences, short vowel round up activity, silent e word find and playing the "Super Sweet Parts of Speech Game."
Math: The students continue to work on story problems in their math process journals. Being able to show how they got their answer is becoming easier to figure out. They are beginning to understand the relationship between numbers in a number family using both addition and subtraction. The students continue to work on reading and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, rote counting from 1-130, counting on from a random number and using ten frames to describe 2 digit numbers. Math workshop activities included solving addition and subtraction story problems, telling time by the hour and number writing practice. The students continue to work on 3 dimensional structures using magnetos, straws and pipe cleaners and Connects. Our "Structure Museum" looks really cool!
Writing: The students are working on their final copy of their shadow pose paragraphs. I have begun to put them up in the hall. Stop by and see them!
Science: The students pondered the question--What is the moon? They compared elements of the daytime and nighttime sky. They discovered that unlike the sun, the moon can be seen in both the day and night sky. The students discussed the terms sunrise and sunset and their true meanings. Thru our internet sources and pictures, they examined the moons surface. In an experiment, students recreated the surface of the moon using flour and cocoa powder as the moons surface and dropped marbles in it to create craters, seas (flat dark areas) and mountains. Very cool! The students took a look at the different shapes the moon appears to make at night in the course of a month. It appears that the "phases" repeat themselves like a pattern each month. The students reflected their thoughts in their science journals. They continue to study space travel, space vehicles and travel to the moon. Next week--let's try some space food and make some star gazers!
Technology: The students continue to help video tape our space station project phases on the iPad. They have watched short sequences about the moon via the app BrainPop and checked in with app NASA for latest updates in space during science. In reading small group, the students used the app iTalk to record their reading for fluency and used the reader's checklist to critique themselves. In math whole group the app Subitize Tree was used to reinforcement "mental" math skills. The students continue to use the app Math Rack for adding and subtracting activities on the rekenrek.
Literature: "Life in Space," "One Giant Leap," "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "It's Spring," "I Want to be an Astronaut," "Mooncake," "Black Holes," "The Moon Book," "Finding the Moon," "Magic School Bus-Walk on the Moon," "Phases of the Moon."
Sunday, April 13, 2014
UPDATES for 4/7-4/11 2014
**What a great week! Spring weather is finally here! (I hope!) Space station construction began. The K-2 Spelling Bee was fantastic! Chef Ashley had her final session with students for some literature and food art. Our field trip to Adler Planetarium was great. The students listened to a cool program provided by Hatch School's Steel Drum Band under the direction of Evan and Paul Jacobson. Wow!
**There is still time to create an Egg Drop vehicle or Academic Fair project!! Sign up on line via the flyer enclosed in your child's homework folder. The Egg Drop and Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd!! Come on.....It will be fun!!
**A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to our Spelling Bee participants, ALLY and EMILY for their participation in the Spelling Bee. They were fabulous! Great poise and control. A SHOUT OUT also to REID who was our alternate.
**Our field trip to the PLANETARIUM was very fine. The students saw the movie, "One World, One Sky." They visited exhibits about space travel, the planets, the moon and saw some cool experiments about air pressure and block holes. They thoroughly enjoyed the interactive Planet Explorers exhibit dressing up like astronauts, blasting off, walking in space, seeing a space toilet, food and beds, building, crawling under space tunnels and driving the lunar rover and seeing space rocks. The weather did cooperate and we were able to picnic outside. The students will be reflecting on their experiences in writing for homework. Thanks to B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason, J. Flannery and H. Lim for their help on this trip. We all had a very productive and fun day.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude next week. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**BRING IN YOUR COINS!! This year, in conjunction with the Book Fair, the students will participate in Scholastic's All for the Books program. Money raised will be added to the library funds to purchase books for our Irving Library and we will be also donating used books to the Parenthesis Family Center--a local organization that aids families with young children. We already have our coin bucket and will be ready for donations of coins beginning on Monday, April 14th thru April 17th.
**REID and GINA and the GREEN TEAM participants are working some cool things for EARTH WEEK. (4/21-4/25) Look for a flyer of events in next week's Tuesday Packet.
**OPERA for the YOUNG'S presentation of the "Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th. Ms. Hiolski has been working with the students on some interactive singing parts! Families and siblings welcome. I am not sure of the time so stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued to work with students on being a "social detective. She is reading from a marvelous book called, "Being a Social Detective." The students are taking a look a behavior that is "expected" in social situations.
**No math with Mr. Packer this week. We were watching the Steel Drum Band form Hatch.
This week:
It was about many things this week. I spoke about our field trip already. Our final session with Chef Ashley centered around the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an Italian portrait painter best know for his creating imaginative portraits made entirely of vegetables, fruits, flowers, fish or books. The students looked at some of his portraits and then used the "food" Chef Ashley provided to create a portrait of their own. They used 2 kinds of noodles, oatmeal, lentils, 4 types of beans, bay leaves, corn seeds and rice. They turned out totally cool! The students will be bringing them home on Monday. We are working on arrangements to take a field to Chef Ashley's studio called "Constructive Chaos" in June. Stay tuned for details. This program was made available to students thru District 97's Oak Park Education Foundations Art Start. Kudos to Chef Ashley and her mom, Ms. Kris for their work! Space station work has begun. Each group has 5 or 6 participants. They then elected a project manager. Our field trip fueled more passion about construction. The student are using social, analytical, scientific and behavioral skills that they have embraced throughout the year. It is truly teamwork with a capital T! The students really did use their prior knowledge and new ideas about space and space station design. With their team, they discussed and sketched out some drawings or "prototypes" of what their space station might look like. Prior to all this, the class talked about the word "compromise" and what it means. Our room was filled with boxes. Each team received 3 giant boxes. They then decided as a team what other boxes they might need from the middle of the room. They made pencil lines where they wanted me to cut and placed the boxes in a places their team all agreed on. I cut and taped with"gorilla tape." The students crawled in to try them out to see if any other cutting/taping was needed. On Monday afternoon, we will begin the painting process. We are keeping track of progress by making a video which we will add to this blog when everything is complete. Station Day activities included creating 3D constellations with marshmallows and tooth picks, addition story problems--read, show your word, write the number sentence, creating a 2D constellation and naming it.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work on Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They talked about and read about seeds and plants. They accessed prior knowledge from our earlier fall unit on apples. The students revisited our apple seed tray. They made connections in their own lives of blowing dandelion seeds everywhere or helping their parents in backyard gardens planting different types of seeds. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Seed Secrets." The story contained ways that seeds travel. The students observed the pictures and tracked the print as I read. They were able to verbally ask and answer questions about the text. Our target words for this week are here and was. The students used these and all of their other words along with pictures to create sentences with a partner. Our target sound continues to be short u. We continue to revisit adjectives and how to use them to enhance the way we speak and write. The students took turns recalling events in the story and created a recall list of how seeds travel. In additional vocabulary development, the students worked on position words. The students worked with their white boards on exercises involving adding, deleting and substituting sounds. We revisited blends and digraphs in the initial and final position in words. The students read the decodable story, "The Bud is Up." They made predictions about story content. They also made a note about the sequential order in planting a seed. They reread the story to a partner to practice fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included GRADUALLY, SEEDS, OBSERVE. Workstations this week included leveled reader discussions and fluency checks, writing about seeds and plants, playing the game--"Super Sweet Parts of Speech," (noun, verb, adjective sort) building word family words--at, op, ug et, drawing and writing about vegetables, mixed up sentences solving, writing about people who have jobs with plants and playing, "What's my Ending Mark?"
Math: The students continue to work in their math process journals. They continue to work on reading the story problem, figuring out the process, illustrating their work and writing a number sentence. They reviewed time by the hour using analog and digital clocks. The students are enjoying searching for numbers 0-100 in the activity called "Number Hunt." The students continue to work with shapes experimenting with combining certain shapes to make a new shape. What happens when you combine 2 trapezoids? This week the students experimented with 3 dimensional shapes structure and beginning engineering! (who knew!) How do you construct a 3D shapes that will remain standing? You need a strong supportive base! It was really awesome to see the students figuring out how to get their structure to not fall over. Lots of brain work going on here! The students continue to work on refining number forms with practice writing of 2 and 3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students continue to work on their Shadow Pose paragraphs. Most students are working to finish their drafts. They are learning the importance of reading or proofing their own writing and making their own corrections.
Science: The students continue the study of shadows. We have 2 more experiments to complete outside and will move on to study of the moon next week. This week the students learned about constellations. We accessed information on our iPads about star patterns in the sky. The students are very interested in how constellations are formed and named. We read several books on Greek and Roman mythology and found out some of the stories and names behind the constellations. The students were totally fascinated by it! The students created and named their own constellation. They are displayed on out door.
Technology: The students looked at creating a video and how to position the iPad so your movie will not "jump" around. It does take some practice. No new apps were introduced this week.
Literature: "Zoo in the Sky," "Once Upon a Starry Night," "Seeing Stars," "Sun, Moon and Stars," "Stars and Planets," "Stories in the Stars," "Stars, Stars, Stars," "Cosmic Light Shows," "Un lazo a la luna," "Dwarf Planet Pluto," "The Asteroid Belt," "Meteors and Comets."
**There is still time to create an Egg Drop vehicle or Academic Fair project!! Sign up on line via the flyer enclosed in your child's homework folder. The Egg Drop and Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd!! Come on.....It will be fun!!
**A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to our Spelling Bee participants, ALLY and EMILY for their participation in the Spelling Bee. They were fabulous! Great poise and control. A SHOUT OUT also to REID who was our alternate.
**Our field trip to the PLANETARIUM was very fine. The students saw the movie, "One World, One Sky." They visited exhibits about space travel, the planets, the moon and saw some cool experiments about air pressure and block holes. They thoroughly enjoyed the interactive Planet Explorers exhibit dressing up like astronauts, blasting off, walking in space, seeing a space toilet, food and beds, building, crawling under space tunnels and driving the lunar rover and seeing space rocks. The weather did cooperate and we were able to picnic outside. The students will be reflecting on their experiences in writing for homework. Thanks to B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason, J. Flannery and H. Lim for their help on this trip. We all had a very productive and fun day.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude next week. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**BRING IN YOUR COINS!! This year, in conjunction with the Book Fair, the students will participate in Scholastic's All for the Books program. Money raised will be added to the library funds to purchase books for our Irving Library and we will be also donating used books to the Parenthesis Family Center--a local organization that aids families with young children. We already have our coin bucket and will be ready for donations of coins beginning on Monday, April 14th thru April 17th.
**REID and GINA and the GREEN TEAM participants are working some cool things for EARTH WEEK. (4/21-4/25) Look for a flyer of events in next week's Tuesday Packet.
**OPERA for the YOUNG'S presentation of the "Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th. Ms. Hiolski has been working with the students on some interactive singing parts! Families and siblings welcome. I am not sure of the time so stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued to work with students on being a "social detective. She is reading from a marvelous book called, "Being a Social Detective." The students are taking a look a behavior that is "expected" in social situations.
**No math with Mr. Packer this week. We were watching the Steel Drum Band form Hatch.
This week:
It was about many things this week. I spoke about our field trip already. Our final session with Chef Ashley centered around the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an Italian portrait painter best know for his creating imaginative portraits made entirely of vegetables, fruits, flowers, fish or books. The students looked at some of his portraits and then used the "food" Chef Ashley provided to create a portrait of their own. They used 2 kinds of noodles, oatmeal, lentils, 4 types of beans, bay leaves, corn seeds and rice. They turned out totally cool! The students will be bringing them home on Monday. We are working on arrangements to take a field to Chef Ashley's studio called "Constructive Chaos" in June. Stay tuned for details. This program was made available to students thru District 97's Oak Park Education Foundations Art Start. Kudos to Chef Ashley and her mom, Ms. Kris for their work! Space station work has begun. Each group has 5 or 6 participants. They then elected a project manager. Our field trip fueled more passion about construction. The student are using social, analytical, scientific and behavioral skills that they have embraced throughout the year. It is truly teamwork with a capital T! The students really did use their prior knowledge and new ideas about space and space station design. With their team, they discussed and sketched out some drawings or "prototypes" of what their space station might look like. Prior to all this, the class talked about the word "compromise" and what it means. Our room was filled with boxes. Each team received 3 giant boxes. They then decided as a team what other boxes they might need from the middle of the room. They made pencil lines where they wanted me to cut and placed the boxes in a places their team all agreed on. I cut and taped with"gorilla tape." The students crawled in to try them out to see if any other cutting/taping was needed. On Monday afternoon, we will begin the painting process. We are keeping track of progress by making a video which we will add to this blog when everything is complete. Station Day activities included creating 3D constellations with marshmallows and tooth picks, addition story problems--read, show your word, write the number sentence, creating a 2D constellation and naming it.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work on Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They talked about and read about seeds and plants. They accessed prior knowledge from our earlier fall unit on apples. The students revisited our apple seed tray. They made connections in their own lives of blowing dandelion seeds everywhere or helping their parents in backyard gardens planting different types of seeds. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Seed Secrets." The story contained ways that seeds travel. The students observed the pictures and tracked the print as I read. They were able to verbally ask and answer questions about the text. Our target words for this week are here and was. The students used these and all of their other words along with pictures to create sentences with a partner. Our target sound continues to be short u. We continue to revisit adjectives and how to use them to enhance the way we speak and write. The students took turns recalling events in the story and created a recall list of how seeds travel. In additional vocabulary development, the students worked on position words. The students worked with their white boards on exercises involving adding, deleting and substituting sounds. We revisited blends and digraphs in the initial and final position in words. The students read the decodable story, "The Bud is Up." They made predictions about story content. They also made a note about the sequential order in planting a seed. They reread the story to a partner to practice fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included GRADUALLY, SEEDS, OBSERVE. Workstations this week included leveled reader discussions and fluency checks, writing about seeds and plants, playing the game--"Super Sweet Parts of Speech," (noun, verb, adjective sort) building word family words--at, op, ug et, drawing and writing about vegetables, mixed up sentences solving, writing about people who have jobs with plants and playing, "What's my Ending Mark?"
Math: The students continue to work in their math process journals. They continue to work on reading the story problem, figuring out the process, illustrating their work and writing a number sentence. They reviewed time by the hour using analog and digital clocks. The students are enjoying searching for numbers 0-100 in the activity called "Number Hunt." The students continue to work with shapes experimenting with combining certain shapes to make a new shape. What happens when you combine 2 trapezoids? This week the students experimented with 3 dimensional shapes structure and beginning engineering! (who knew!) How do you construct a 3D shapes that will remain standing? You need a strong supportive base! It was really awesome to see the students figuring out how to get their structure to not fall over. Lots of brain work going on here! The students continue to work on refining number forms with practice writing of 2 and 3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students continue to work on their Shadow Pose paragraphs. Most students are working to finish their drafts. They are learning the importance of reading or proofing their own writing and making their own corrections.
Science: The students continue the study of shadows. We have 2 more experiments to complete outside and will move on to study of the moon next week. This week the students learned about constellations. We accessed information on our iPads about star patterns in the sky. The students are very interested in how constellations are formed and named. We read several books on Greek and Roman mythology and found out some of the stories and names behind the constellations. The students were totally fascinated by it! The students created and named their own constellation. They are displayed on out door.
Technology: The students looked at creating a video and how to position the iPad so your movie will not "jump" around. It does take some practice. No new apps were introduced this week.
Literature: "Zoo in the Sky," "Once Upon a Starry Night," "Seeing Stars," "Sun, Moon and Stars," "Stars and Planets," "Stories in the Stars," "Stars, Stars, Stars," "Cosmic Light Shows," "Un lazo a la luna," "Dwarf Planet Pluto," "The Asteroid Belt," "Meteors and Comets."
Monday, April 7, 2014
UPDATES for 3/31-4/4 2014
**The students returned well rested and eager to begin the week. The weather is slowly warming up. The students are using their daily stretching and yoga poses to get in shape for Friday PACERS running club which will resume soon.
**Our Spelling Bee Reps, ALLY and EMILY along with our alternate, REID are studying for the K-2 Spelling Bee that will be held this Wednesday, April 9th at 11:25 am. in the Irving Auditorium. We will be there to cheer them on. Stop in if you like. Relax and have fun is our mantra! It will be exciting.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Adler Planetarium in this Thursday, April 10th. We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and return to school by 2:00 pm. Thanks so much for the overwhelming response to volunteer. Unfortunately, I can only take 4 chaperones. For this trip, B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason and J. Flannery will assist. We have 4 trips left plus our End of the Year Family Picnic so we will need many more volunteers! Parent volunteers will carpool courtesy of B. Ahring. ALL STUDENTS need a BAG LUNCH (peanut/tree nut free,) GYM SHOES, SOCKS and dress for the weather. We are hoping for an outside picnic! Keep your fingers crossed!! We will be seeing an Imax movie called, "One World, Once Sky" at 10:15 am. From there, the groups will see Our Solar System, Shoot for the Moon, and Planet Explorers exhibit rooms. Planet Explorers is an interactive exhibit that allows only 2 classrooms at a time for a 30 minute period. We will eat our lunch and then go to that exhibit with Ms. Weigel's class. It is going to be a great time!
**Sign up for the Egg Drop and Academic Fair continues! Ms. Creehan spoke to the class about each event and show examples of academic fair projects. Don't forget to sign up on line for one or the other or both. Let me know if I can help in any way. The Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair are Wednesday, April 23rd.
**Thanks for all the great boxes and cool stuff. We will begin our prep for Space Station design and construction this week. Because of our field trip and Good Friday off, we will work the next 2 weeks on the project.
**Future event--Opera for the Young presents "The Barber of Seville." Ms. Hiokski has begun prep for this interactive event that will take place on Tuesday, April 29th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a lesson on being a "social detective." The students explored different social situations and roll played appropriate ways to deal with them.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer shared with the students their student completed EST Book with each student's writing and illustrations.
This week:
It was all about planets, beginning to write about our paragraphs about our shadow pose. and tubers sprouting! The students learned a song about the order of the planets and some interesting facts about each one. Which ones are land planets? Which are gas planets? We accessed information on our iPads about NASA'S space station daily report. Students are particularly interested in new and dwarf planets and moons that the other planets have. In writing, the students started to learn what a paragraph is and how to write one. They are working on their draft ideas. Our tubers are both sprouting! We have some very healthy root systems and shoots growing out of the eyes! Stay tuned. Our station day activities this week included clock clocks, name rockets-addition project, ranking the planets in order and pattern block rockets.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 8 Plants this week in our Treasures Reading series. They began by building background knowledge around how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. Our class took a walk outside with our Tree Finder Book to see if there were oak trees in the area and what other types of trees were in our school neighborhood. They located maple, ginko and ash trees. The students understood that a tree is a plant that takes many years to grow. They also understood that a tree grows from a seed. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted that the book was non fiction or informational. The students responded to the literature expressing that they had seen acorn (the seed) and some students even collected them. Our sight words for the week are little and said. The students reviewed these words along with all of our other sight words. The students noted that the word said does not sound how it looks. Our target sounds for the week are short u and ck. We reread the big book story and the students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4,5, and 6 phoneme words. The students read the decodable story, paper story, "A Little Acorn." They made predictions about story content and orally answered questions about the story. The students took turns reading to a partner and filling out the Reader's Checklist. They used the story element guide to ask and answer Who, What, Where, When and Why questions about the story. Our Robust Vocabulary included PLANT, GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. Our oral vocabulary story, "The Conceited Apple Branch," gave us a healthy new respect for dandelions. The students listened to the poem, "Acorns." They discussed what they thought the author's message was and noted the rhyming pattern. We had a discussion about the quotation marks used in our decodable story. They tell that someone is speaking. The word said, like speech bubbles, tell that some is speaking too. Workstations this week included save the trees posters, short u sentences, sentences riddles, CVC sentence making, leveled reader oral fluency and comprehension checks and discussion, classifying long and short vowels, opinion piece: Why do we need trees? tree fact paper and Montessori Crossword iPad exercise on short u, ck and long e words.
Math: The student continue to work on counting beyond 100 and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They are continuing to work on listening to a story problem, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence for it. We are working with numbers 1-10. Students continue to work on telling time by the hour. The students had a great time this week using the app Subitize Tree to work on memory and retention of numbers. Working on pattern block rockets gave them a chance to work on visual perception skills and problem solving.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their upper and lowercase letter forms. We are almost finished with lowercase letter formation. The discussion this week centered around the question, "What is a paragraph?" The student learned that a paragraph is multiple sentences about one topic that flow together and have an introduction, middle and ending. The students used their shadow pose pictures as the topic for their paragraph and generated ideas about what they could write about. They are in the process of writing a draft and using a question format to guide them in organizing their ideas. Their draft will be a place where they can make any changes or corrections before they write their final copy. Stay tuned!
Science: The students continue to study shadows, the planets and the sun. In did an experiment where they placed plastic wrap, a book, a cup of water and wax paper on the overhead to create a shadow. They each created a graph answering yes or no to seeing if a shadow is produced. The students discovered they can produce light shadows and dark shadows or no shadow at all. They also found out that it depends how much light is allowed to pass through the object. We used some scientific words! Shadows can opaque--they do not allow light to pass through, so they produce a dark shadow or translucent--some light does pass through but produces a light shadow. The students enjoyed trying out other objects in their choice time. They reflected their thoughts in their science journal.
Technology: In reading and math this week, no new apps have been introduced. Student small groups continue to use all previously mentioned apps that enhance and reinforce blending, segmenting, vocabulary recognition, phonics, reading, and reading fluency recordings, addition, subtraction, counting, place value, writing numbers, problem solving, subitizing, number order and more or less concepts. In science, the students explored the app NASA to view pictures of space and spacecraft and get daily news from the international Space Station.
Literature: "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "My Place in Space," "Frog in Space," "Children's Atlas of the World," "1000 Facts About Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "The Planets," "Can You See My Shadow?"
**Our Spelling Bee Reps, ALLY and EMILY along with our alternate, REID are studying for the K-2 Spelling Bee that will be held this Wednesday, April 9th at 11:25 am. in the Irving Auditorium. We will be there to cheer them on. Stop in if you like. Relax and have fun is our mantra! It will be exciting.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Adler Planetarium in this Thursday, April 10th. We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and return to school by 2:00 pm. Thanks so much for the overwhelming response to volunteer. Unfortunately, I can only take 4 chaperones. For this trip, B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason and J. Flannery will assist. We have 4 trips left plus our End of the Year Family Picnic so we will need many more volunteers! Parent volunteers will carpool courtesy of B. Ahring. ALL STUDENTS need a BAG LUNCH (peanut/tree nut free,) GYM SHOES, SOCKS and dress for the weather. We are hoping for an outside picnic! Keep your fingers crossed!! We will be seeing an Imax movie called, "One World, Once Sky" at 10:15 am. From there, the groups will see Our Solar System, Shoot for the Moon, and Planet Explorers exhibit rooms. Planet Explorers is an interactive exhibit that allows only 2 classrooms at a time for a 30 minute period. We will eat our lunch and then go to that exhibit with Ms. Weigel's class. It is going to be a great time!
**Sign up for the Egg Drop and Academic Fair continues! Ms. Creehan spoke to the class about each event and show examples of academic fair projects. Don't forget to sign up on line for one or the other or both. Let me know if I can help in any way. The Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair are Wednesday, April 23rd.
**Thanks for all the great boxes and cool stuff. We will begin our prep for Space Station design and construction this week. Because of our field trip and Good Friday off, we will work the next 2 weeks on the project.
**Future event--Opera for the Young presents "The Barber of Seville." Ms. Hiokski has begun prep for this interactive event that will take place on Tuesday, April 29th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a lesson on being a "social detective." The students explored different social situations and roll played appropriate ways to deal with them.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer shared with the students their student completed EST Book with each student's writing and illustrations.
This week:
It was all about planets, beginning to write about our paragraphs about our shadow pose. and tubers sprouting! The students learned a song about the order of the planets and some interesting facts about each one. Which ones are land planets? Which are gas planets? We accessed information on our iPads about NASA'S space station daily report. Students are particularly interested in new and dwarf planets and moons that the other planets have. In writing, the students started to learn what a paragraph is and how to write one. They are working on their draft ideas. Our tubers are both sprouting! We have some very healthy root systems and shoots growing out of the eyes! Stay tuned. Our station day activities this week included clock clocks, name rockets-addition project, ranking the planets in order and pattern block rockets.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 8 Plants this week in our Treasures Reading series. They began by building background knowledge around how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. Our class took a walk outside with our Tree Finder Book to see if there were oak trees in the area and what other types of trees were in our school neighborhood. They located maple, ginko and ash trees. The students understood that a tree is a plant that takes many years to grow. They also understood that a tree grows from a seed. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted that the book was non fiction or informational. The students responded to the literature expressing that they had seen acorn (the seed) and some students even collected them. Our sight words for the week are little and said. The students reviewed these words along with all of our other sight words. The students noted that the word said does not sound how it looks. Our target sounds for the week are short u and ck. We reread the big book story and the students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4,5, and 6 phoneme words. The students read the decodable story, paper story, "A Little Acorn." They made predictions about story content and orally answered questions about the story. The students took turns reading to a partner and filling out the Reader's Checklist. They used the story element guide to ask and answer Who, What, Where, When and Why questions about the story. Our Robust Vocabulary included PLANT, GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. Our oral vocabulary story, "The Conceited Apple Branch," gave us a healthy new respect for dandelions. The students listened to the poem, "Acorns." They discussed what they thought the author's message was and noted the rhyming pattern. We had a discussion about the quotation marks used in our decodable story. They tell that someone is speaking. The word said, like speech bubbles, tell that some is speaking too. Workstations this week included save the trees posters, short u sentences, sentences riddles, CVC sentence making, leveled reader oral fluency and comprehension checks and discussion, classifying long and short vowels, opinion piece: Why do we need trees? tree fact paper and Montessori Crossword iPad exercise on short u, ck and long e words.
Math: The student continue to work on counting beyond 100 and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They are continuing to work on listening to a story problem, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence for it. We are working with numbers 1-10. Students continue to work on telling time by the hour. The students had a great time this week using the app Subitize Tree to work on memory and retention of numbers. Working on pattern block rockets gave them a chance to work on visual perception skills and problem solving.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their upper and lowercase letter forms. We are almost finished with lowercase letter formation. The discussion this week centered around the question, "What is a paragraph?" The student learned that a paragraph is multiple sentences about one topic that flow together and have an introduction, middle and ending. The students used their shadow pose pictures as the topic for their paragraph and generated ideas about what they could write about. They are in the process of writing a draft and using a question format to guide them in organizing their ideas. Their draft will be a place where they can make any changes or corrections before they write their final copy. Stay tuned!
Science: The students continue to study shadows, the planets and the sun. In did an experiment where they placed plastic wrap, a book, a cup of water and wax paper on the overhead to create a shadow. They each created a graph answering yes or no to seeing if a shadow is produced. The students discovered they can produce light shadows and dark shadows or no shadow at all. They also found out that it depends how much light is allowed to pass through the object. We used some scientific words! Shadows can opaque--they do not allow light to pass through, so they produce a dark shadow or translucent--some light does pass through but produces a light shadow. The students enjoyed trying out other objects in their choice time. They reflected their thoughts in their science journal.
Technology: In reading and math this week, no new apps have been introduced. Student small groups continue to use all previously mentioned apps that enhance and reinforce blending, segmenting, vocabulary recognition, phonics, reading, and reading fluency recordings, addition, subtraction, counting, place value, writing numbers, problem solving, subitizing, number order and more or less concepts. In science, the students explored the app NASA to view pictures of space and spacecraft and get daily news from the international Space Station.
Literature: "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "My Place in Space," "Frog in Space," "Children's Atlas of the World," "1000 Facts About Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "The Planets," "Can You See My Shadow?"
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