**It's May! The students began work on their final science unit on seeds and plants. We will be creating an indoor class garden so students can bring in seeds from home or ones they may find while walking to school. Our potato plants are also growing tall! We are slowly turning our classroom into a seed and plant wonderland. Our "wormy" friends will help make compost for our outdoor garden space. We will begin talking about plant selection this week.
**Our ABC COUNTDOWN to the end of the school year will begin on Monday, May 5th. Check out the student planned week. First off is A--Act Like and Astronaut Day. B--Bubble Day. C--Favorite COLOR Day. D--Disco Dance Day. E--Wear RED, WHITE, BLACK for Irving EAGLE Day.
**This week is also NATIONAL SPORTS AND FITNESS WEEK! Check the sheet for each days activity.
**I hope some of you went to the Ethnic Festival Parade to cheer Gina on! I was out of town and unable to go. It was a beautiful day for a parade!
**The Opera for the Young presentation of the "Barber of Seville" was fabulous! Lots of great sets and costumes and awesome singing. Ezekiel's brother was one of the student performers!
**There is still time to help Student Council with their recipe book by sending in a favorite recipe. Reps Ally and Colin are counting on you!
**"Swap, Shop and Read" is this Thursday, May 8th from 6:30-8:00 pm. Hope to see you there.
**Thanks to all of you who participated in the Tasty Dog Challenge!!
**Permission slips for our Field Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory was in your child's homework folder. Please send it back ASAP. It is Tuesday, May 13th. Please let me know if you would like to volunteer to walk with the class.
**Route to Reading Rotation 7 will conclude on Wednesday. This is our final Route to Reading for the year. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**POETRY ALERT! POETRY ALERT! Please continue to work with your child on their poem for the Traveling Poets Project. Our class will begin "traveling" on May 13th and again on May19th during our Library time.
**Irving Art Fest and Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 15th from 6:30-8:00 pm all over the school. A piece of art from every child in the school will be on display along with music from the chorus, Spanish games and dances and the Poetry Slam. Come on...join in the fun! Your child can say a poem from a book, write their own poem, rap, sing---solo, group, with a partner or parent or sib. Fill out the form located in your child's homework folder. Mr. Williams will be out on the playground with the "Mr. Microphone" so kids can practice.
**Family Math "Monopoly Math" Night is Thursday, May 22nd 6:30-8:00 pm. Information will be in the Tuesday packet.
**RUN with ME on Saturday, May 10th at 8:00 am at Lindberg Park. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Wyza will also be there. Don't forget to fill out the form enclosed in your child's back pack.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued work on being a "social detective." She showed a video with different social scenes and the students discussed how to do the expected.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer continued work on using shapes to make a certain object.
**Future Field Trip--Pizza and Play End of the Year Picnic at Rehm Park on Wednesday, May 28th from 9:30-12:20 pm. We need lots of help with this.
**Future Field Trip--Chicken Coop at the Gurgas Residence on Tuesday, June 3rd from 10:30-11:30.
**Future Field Trip--Chef Ashley's Studio at Constructive Chaos in River Forest on Monday, June 9th from 12:30-2:30 pm.
This week:
It was all about worms and seeds! The very "green" Ms. Henry gave an informative talk and hands on experience on worm composting. She brought us some starter compost with lots of red wiggler worms. She showed the students the different stages of worm life in the compost including worm eggs and egg shells, baby and adult worms. The students got to see some worms up close and personal under the magnifier. Ben was selected to bring in the first food to feed the compost. The students read nonfiction stories to get information about worms and listened to fiction stories about worm adventures. The students brainstormed what they knew about seeds. They had some prior knowledge from their recent Treasures unit. Much of our discussion centered on seeds and what they produced. More about that in the science section. Station Day activities included ladybug math--facts to 10, origami tulip art, seed sequence and pattern block flowers.
Reading/Social Studies: I am combining vocabulary, skills and literature of our Treasures Reading series Units 9 Amazing Creatures and 10 We Know A Lot. We are also going to do a poetry unit and experience the feelings, types and vocabulary associated with it. This format will also give us time to complete work on the Common Core Standard lessons that will continue to prepare students for the rigors of First Grade. The target sight words for this week are she and he. Target sounds are Gg, Ww. Student small groups created sentences using all the kindergarten words taught thus far and incorporating some of the First Grade sight words. Students continue to focus on long and short vowel sounds. Students worked in small group with leveled readers discussing story elements, cause and effect, making connections, drawing conclusion and making inferences. Student small groups worked on recognizing nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. Many students have become curious about use of articles and adverbs. The true quest of reading for meaning has become more apparent to our kindergarten readers. The process of asking and answering questions about a text, identifying the meaning of unknown words using context clues and looking for details in the story are becoming clearer to our young readers. Robust Vocabulary this week included AMAZING, DEEP, INVITE, OCEAN and REASON. The students are using of iPad apps and games as reinforcement. Students continue to review phoneme blending, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes as well as consonant blend and digraphs, silent e, and even vowel teams and controlled r. Workstations this week included leveled readers with story retelling, writing about bugs using describing words, favorite picture and what information is gained from a picture, word building, composing and writing sentences about plant and bug workers using the app Magnetic ABC's and unscrambling words with silent e.
Math: Students are working in their new math journal where they read the story problem, identify the operation, illustrate the problem, use ten frames to work out the answer and then write down the number sentence. Students are continuing to write 2 and 3 digit number forms, review pattern blocks and geometric solids and show how you can create new shapes out of using other shapes. I introduced some new apps on the iPad to help enhance their learning. Students continue to work on counting to 100 and beyond, count by 2's and 5's and use ten frames to show a number.
Writing: Students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters. We are almost finished with our orange practice books. I continue to stress spacing between words in a sentence, placement of letters on a given line and where tall lowercase letters go. Reading back what they have written is key as well as making sure their sentences name and tell and have an ending mark. Students are using their Writer's Checklist before they come to journal conference with me. Next week, we will begin our final writing project on our "wormy" friends!
Science: The students began with an inquiry question--What is a seed? In our first experiment, the students took their magnifiers and closely examined a variety of objects--some were seeds and some were not. Each table conducted sorting activities and tried to decide which were seeds and which were not. They looked at shape, color, size and texture. Each able presented their findings. Students were fascinated by seeds that appeared as sticks, or ovals and ones that were hard and bumpy. We took a look at several types of real seeds. In our next experiment, each student selected a seed for planting and nurturing. They observed the shapes of the Nasturtium, Marigold, Morning Glory and Sunflower seeds. All had very different shapes, sizes and color. Students accessed information on the internet on growth patterns--horizontal vs. vertical, stems and root structures--tiny, thin, wide large, and leaf shapes--wagon wheel, long and pointy, small. Key vocabulary words--germination, sprouting, root, shoot were explained. Each student planted their seed and will now be responsible for checking and watering when needed. Students knew from previous knowledge that plants need sunlight, water and soil to grow. All seed cups were placed in a sunny window----stay tuned!!!!
Technology: In reading this week, student individuals and small groups used the apps Magnetic ABC's, Dolch Words, Write a Word, Montessori Crossword and Short Vowels to reinforce skills. In the area of math, student individuals and small groups experimented with the apps Easy Math, Ten Frame Fill, Subitize Tree, Top It Addition, Butterfly Math, Geoboard, Find the Sums, Number Rack, Zentromino and Zoolandia to work on skills in addition/subtraction, shapes, number sequence, number bonding to 10. In science the apps Lifecycle, Plant, Solar System and BrainPop were used to get information on the science subjects studied.
Literature: "Yucky Worms," "Diary of a Worm," "Wonderful Worms," "How Do Seeds Grow?" "Seed Story," "Beetles," "Insects," "Beautiful Bugs."
No comments:
Post a Comment