**Please check your child's homework folder for permission slip and library card application for our Field Trip to Maze Branch Library. I need to turn all card applications to the library for processing on Thursday, October 2nd. I will need 2 volunteers to walk with us.
**National Education Association President, Lily Garcia and Illinois Education Association President, Cinda Klickna visited Irving as part of their visits to selected schools across the country. They were treated to breakfast and got to tour the school and visit some classrooms and our playground. We were so proud that Irving and Julian Middle Schools represented Oak Park!!
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. Please check your child's homework folder for the order form. You can also fill out the form and pay on line. Our picture taking time is 10:20 am. Kate Meier has signed up to make sure we look our best!
**Route to Reading Skills groups will begin on Tuesday, September 30th. Students were screened and placed at a particular skill level. That skill will be taught for 3 weeks and then assessed. 90% mastery is needed for the student to go on to the next skill. Students can remain in a skill, move to the next skill or skip skills depending upon mastery. Skills are also taught as part of their regular class. All Kindergarten teachers as well as Ms. Chinn, Language Arts Specialist and Reading Tutors Ms. Simon, Ms. Diehl, Ms. Cruz and Ms. Cairns will each have a small grouping of students. Route to Reading will meet 3 times a week for 30 minutes. You will receive notification of the skill your child is working on and the teacher working with your child.
**The math baseline assessment, EASY CBM was given on Thursday. This assessment gives me a better idea of skills that students have come in with to assist in planning. I will share these with you at conference time.
**The sign up form for TRIVIA NIGHT--sponsored by PTO is in your child's homework folder. It's great fun for grown ups! Check it out!
**Don't forget to sign up your child for the FUN RUN FUNDRAISER--PTO'S BIGGEST FUNDRAISER of the YEAR!! Sign up on line. The event is WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd. Kindergarten will "run" from 8:15-8:30 am around the turf. Help raise money for our school!!
**Family Math Night!!! " Let's Rock Around the Clock!! " It's Thursday, October 16th from 6:30-8:00 pm. Look for the green sign up/info sheet in your child's homework folder. You and your child solve the math problems......I will serve the root beer floats in the lunchroom soda shop!
**Congratulations to our GREEN TEAM REPS--Evan and Atessa!! They attended their first meeting under the direction of Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Packer on Tuesday. They will be creating projects that involve the whole school and reporting back to our class. They are working to make our school a "greener" place to be!! This is a whole year commitment!
**STUDENT COUNCIL REPS for this trimester have been chosen! Congratulations to Ethan and Lily!! They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, October 7th during their lunch recess time.
**Look for a letter in next Friday's homework folder that will remind you about your conference day and time. Please Note---School is in session MORNING ONLY on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday, October 24th. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. District School Bus, Hephzibah and Magical Minds will also pick up at this time.
**Author visit by Eileen Christelow in Tuesday, October 28th at 1:00 pm.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued discussion and role play on the Zones of Regulation. She brought out her puppets, Puppy and Snail to help reinforce making good and safe choices in the classroom and with our friends.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students finished their project on positional concepts and sang their concept song.
This week:
We are now in the season of fall or autumn. The students are beginning to notice subtle changes that signal the season. Some students are observing leaves on the ground. In the mornings, they are needing sweat shirts or light jackets. A few trees have leaves that are changing color. They are noticing less bugs around. Our Station Day activities for this week included sort and glue signs of Fall, cover and count with unifix cubes, stamp your words, decorate your PACER necklace envelope and read one the Treasures leveled readers to a friend.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continued working on Units 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. They worked on isolating the beginning sound by saying the picture name. The students completed their brainstormed lists of people, places and things and learned that they are called nouns. They continued work on listening comprehension and identifying story elements--characters, setting and events happening the story. In our Big Book story, "Picnic in Apple Park," the students also looked for language patterns as I read. (question--answer) The students responded and retold events in the story sequence. They had an "elbow chat" to discuss with a partner WHO was in the story, WHERE did the story happen and WHAT was happening. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. In our FICTION Big Book story, one character was a skunk. In our NONFICTION story, "Night Animals," students worked on asking and answering questions from a given text. They made comparisons about each text--skunks in the park vs. facts about skunks as nocturnal animals. We charted our responses. Students worked on the concepts same and different. The students began the process of phoneme (sound) blending.....putting together sounds to create words. We used the AM and AT word families to create new words by adding a consonant to the beginning. Robust Vocabulary included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER. Students reviewed their sight vocabulary paying particular attention our target words we and the. The students read the story "I See the Apple." They also practiced their tracking skills in our group read aloud, "The Baseball." Workstations this week included ABC upper and lowercase match, counting syllable activity, read it--add to it/draw and write a new page to the story, leveled readers comprehension/discussion focusing on story elements, "Walk Your Words"--write your words, interview a friend--draw a picture of what their family likes to do, create sentences using your sight words and pictures and punctuation, Mm picture sort, sound/picture match up.
Math: Students continue to count by ones to various numbers. They are locating the number that comes before a random number and after by looking at our giant number board, thinking in their head or looking at our growing caterpillar. Students continue to work on counting activities using the reckenrek. This week we did the pattern block hokey pokey. Students worked with positional concepts as well as pattern blocks--hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus and skinny rhombus. We discussed how many sides each shape had and how many corners. Do you know the differences between the square, rectangle and trapezoid???? The students counted pennies by "hearing" them fall into the jar. Our "listening" jar was full of fun! "Slide and Say" and "Show Me" activities using a ten frame continue to reinforce number recognition and counting quantity. Math workstations this week included matching one to one, sequencing number cards, counting quantities, playing "Swat the Number," and reviewing positional concepts. and learning to record tally marks (counting by 5's.)
Writing: Students continue to work on written formation of uppercase letters. This week, Frog Jump letter D was introduced along with a sensory practice called---Wet, Dry, Try. Students use tiny wet sponges and chalk pieces that just fit their tri pod grasp. When working on letter formation on their mini chalk boards they first...Wet.....make the letter on their board with the wet sponge...then....Dry.....fan it quick with their kleenex ...it will leave a print....then Try......trace over the print let by the wet sponge. Students sang their song about starting letters at the top. This week, the students applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We learned correct posture for working on writing and coloring......sitting up straight so that our back touches the back of the chair, feet under the table....one hand has our pencil or marker....the other hand is holding down the paper or book page. Students worked on their journal entries selecting a piece they already worked on and adding more to it....whether it was more writing or more picture details. Students are beginning to grasp the concept of beginning with an uppercase letter if they are writing a sentence and using an ending mark.
Technology: I continue to slowly introduce appropriate apps that will support our reading, language, phonemic awareness and math. This week, the apps Sound Sort and Alpha Tots as well as I Write Letters were introduced to small groups. The number recognition app, Numbers was also introduced. Students are becoming more comfortable using the mouse in the lab when we are at Lexia Core 5. All students have been auto placed and are working on a variety of activities including naming pictures, rhyming, beginning sounds and recognizing upper and lowercase letters. Once or twice a week home practice can really help build the phonemic awareness foundation.
Literature: "Night Animals," "Coyote and the Rabbit,""The ABC's of Yoga," "The Day the Crayons Quit," "Pete the Cat-Rocking in My School Shoes," "Clifford's Family," "The Color of Us," "Patterns All Around," "The Bundle of Sticks,"(fable) "Why Do We Write."
Sunday, September 28, 2014
Sunday, September 21, 2014
UPDATES for 9/15-9/19 2014
**Parent/Teacher Conferences for Ms. Gullo's Kindergarten class will be held on Monday, October 20th, Tuesday, October 21st and Wednesday, October 22nd. Thanks to all of you who have already signed up. If you have not signed up or need to change your day and time, please email me. PLEASE NOTE: School will be in session MORNING ONLY on Thursday, October 23rd and Friday, October 24th. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am.
**DIBELS testing and PHONEMIC AWARENESS SCREENERS have been completed. Our math baseline assessment EASY CBM will be administered sometime in the next week or two. All testing and assessments will be shared with you at conference time. We are looking at beginning Route to Reading Skill specific groups on September 30th. You will receive notification of your child's skill group placement at that time.
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. I usually try to have the students pictures taken first thing in the morning. You will be receiving more info soon.
**Pledge information on PTO's BIGGEST FUNDRAISER of the YEAR--THE FUN RUN went home on Tuesday. You can also sign up and pledge on line. It will take place on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd. Kindergarten will "run" around the turf from 8:15-8:30 am. Help raise money for our school!!
**Irving PACERS Running/Walking club began last Friday. Students used their lunch recess time to run/walk around the school grounds. 3 times around (1mile) and the student earns a special necklace with a foot on it. Each week, the students will get another opportunity to add a foot. The students are making special envelopes to hold their necklaces and we will keep them in the classroom for safekeeping. PACERS will meet 9/26, 10/3, 10/17, 11/7, 11/14, 11/21 weather permitting and resume in the spring. Let's say YES to exercise!!
**I will be choosing our STUDENT COUNCIL REPS on MONDAY. Anyone else interested...let me know. The first meeting will be October 7th at lunch recess time.
**We have a GREEN TEAM!! Each class will send 2 reps to the meetings that meet every other Tuesday with our Green Team Leaders, Mr. Packer and Ms. Parkinson. They will plan projects, discuss how to create a "greener" environment for our school and will relay information to our class.
We need 2 reps for our class. I will be having a discussion with the class on Monday to see if anyone is interested. It is a commitment for the entire school year and we will talk about what that means.
**Author of "Five Little Monkeys" fame, Eileen Christelow will visit Irving School on Tuesday, October 28th at 1:00 pm. She will speak about her work and how she gets her ideas. Ms. Noonan will send an order form of Ms. Christelow's books prior to her visit. There will be a book signing.
**Information on Irving School's TRIVIA NIGHT was in your child's homework folder. SAVE THE DATE--Thursday, November 6th, 7:00 pm at The Wire in Berwyn. Registration begins next week.
**No School--Friday, October 10th---Teacher's Institute Day.
**No School--Monday, October 13th---Columbus Day Observance.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her discussion on the Zones of Regulation and what it means to be in the YELLOW ZONE and RED ZONE. She also went into more detail about being a "Social Detective." We have been having some well thought out and heart felt discussions and comments about our behavior and what we can do to shape it.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, we went to Mr. Packer's room to continue our project on positional concepts. Concepts in, on, under, next to, behind, in front of, between were discussed and the students looked again at the video demonstrating the concepts.
This week:
It was all about letters and numbers. The students have found letters around the classroom and school. They also located numbers around the classroom and school. What is the difference between letters and numbers? The students began a conversation about consonants (letters that have 1-2 sounds) and vowels (letters that have many different sounds.) The students found the consonants and vowels in their name. They compared that number to the number of consonant and vowels in a friends name. We are counting everything in sight---markers, crayons, chairs, books, feet, fingers, noses, shoes........What is a reckenrek?????? Station Day activities included creating patterns and counting teddy bears, continued exploration of pattern block shapes, playing "Show Me" using their ten frames, reading their paper stories to a partner, reading their word wheel sentences.
Reading/Language Arts: We have begun Unit 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading Series. Students build background knowledge about types of families they knew about. They discussed human families and animal families. We all shared experiences about our families and the number of family members we have. The students listened to the Big Book story,"Whose Baby is It?" The students reviewed parts of a book--front cover, back cover, title page, spine. They also located where to find the page number. The students noted the question and answer pattern in the book. They reviewed their previous sight words and added new target words we and the. We played "Hands Up, Hands Down" adding our new words. Our target sound in isolation this week is Mm. The students worked with the sound toy box and sound cards and created a list of words that began with Mm. They also listened for the sound of Mm at the end of words. Our puppet friends, Mr. Happy and Mr. G. assisted in our Mm sound reinforcing activities. The students worked on additional vocabulary when listening to the fable," The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary is referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Ask your child about the words ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER and RESEMBLE. We defined each word and gave a sample sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. The students used retelling cards to retell the Big Book story to a partner. The students worked on story words JOEY, PUP and CUB in the baby animal world. We read aloud our pre decodable story, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking each word and picture using their pointing finger while reading. They also read the paper story, "I Can" to a partner. The students continue to work on additional Common Core skills---recognizing FICTION and NON FICTION stories and examining the similarities and differences between a story and a poem. The students continued to work on recognizing certain parts of speech. They brainstormed lists of words that named people, animals and places (NOUNS) and words that name an action (VERBS.)
Formal literacy workstations began this week. While I worked with small group leveled readers each day, the students also worked in rotating small groups writing an I am.....sentence with picture, "walking"/writing their words, comparing family sizes project, play the beginning sound game, playing upper and lowercase match, draw a picture of your family and write about something you do together and retelling their leveled reader story to a person in their group. Each week each group is assigned a "table manager" for their group. Their jobs are setting up their workstation, controlling the noise level, gentle reminders to keep working etc. We spent time last week role playing various scenes in a workstations. Our table managers did an excellent job!
Math: The students reviewed simple shape recognition. They did the "Shape Rap" a cool listening as well as shape recognizing song activity. The students continued their exploration of pattern blocks. We looked at hexagons, trapezoid, rhombus and ovals. Students brought up how many sides each shape had. The students worked on a variety of counting activities using their 10 frame. We played "Show Me' where I write a number and the students have to create it on their 10 frame. Students worked with a variety of objects--pennies, bears, blocks and cubes matching one to one. Students worked with number cards and partners to match and sequence and sequence numbers 0-5, 0-10, 0-15 or 0-20. Movement activities that included work on greater than, less than, over, under, between, beside, behind, above, below had the students up and moving and having fun!
What is a reckenrek?????? Check out the photo on the side of the blog. Looks somewhat like an abacus but a little different..... 10 rows---5 white beads and 5 red beads in each row........mmmm. The reckenrek is a calculating frame that acts a visual model for developing strategic reasoning in math. Students are beginning to see or visualize patterns and strategies for solving math problems. There may be more than one way to solve a problem. Right now we are in the beginning stages of its use. We started by looking at the 5 white and 5 red.....10 all together. If you already know that there are 5 white....what if I add one more??? Do you have to count it???? The students worked on an activity called "slide and say." I slid the the beads from one side to another they had to "figure out" what number was being illustrated. Loads of fun........I have some serious math heads in the house!!!!!!
Writing: The students began work on their FROG JUMP capitals. They are using their mini chalk boards, chalk and sponges. The small chalk and sponge pieces help to reinforce their tri pod grasp. The students are also working with large wooden straight, curved and slant shapes to create the letter. Letters F and E were introduced this week. The students also learned a song about where ALL LETTERS start.......Where do you start your letters....AT THE TOP!!!! Appearing in the upper left corner is Mr. Smiley. He is there to remind the students to always begin on the left side. Next week the students will apply what they have learned in their orange practice books. Students continue to work on journal entries in Writer's Workshop. The student are using journal prompts from our Treasures Unit. Lots of writing and drawing about family members. Students are now seeing that they can come back to a piece of writing they have done and add more to it or they can continue to work on a piece of writing that is not finished. The students saw the video, "Arthur is a Writer."
It helped reinforce to the students that they can write about any topic that interests them.
Technology: I have begun to work with small groups of students on iPad etiquette. The apps Sound Sort and Alpha Tots were introduced to one group. Next week I will work the remainder of the groups and introduce 2 math apps. Feel free to download these apps thru the App Store on your devices. Many of them are free or between $.99-2.99.
Literature: "Arthur's Back to School Surprise," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Fox in Socks,"
"Oops, David," "Hands Are Not For Hitting," "If You Give a Pig a Pancake," "Whose Baby Am I?' "Maya Was Grumpy," "A Rainbow All Around Me," "The Alphabet Adventure," "Big and Small Animals," "Animal Babies," "How Do We Learn," "Where in the Wild."
**DIBELS testing and PHONEMIC AWARENESS SCREENERS have been completed. Our math baseline assessment EASY CBM will be administered sometime in the next week or two. All testing and assessments will be shared with you at conference time. We are looking at beginning Route to Reading Skill specific groups on September 30th. You will receive notification of your child's skill group placement at that time.
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. I usually try to have the students pictures taken first thing in the morning. You will be receiving more info soon.
**Pledge information on PTO's BIGGEST FUNDRAISER of the YEAR--THE FUN RUN went home on Tuesday. You can also sign up and pledge on line. It will take place on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd. Kindergarten will "run" around the turf from 8:15-8:30 am. Help raise money for our school!!
**Irving PACERS Running/Walking club began last Friday. Students used their lunch recess time to run/walk around the school grounds. 3 times around (1mile) and the student earns a special necklace with a foot on it. Each week, the students will get another opportunity to add a foot. The students are making special envelopes to hold their necklaces and we will keep them in the classroom for safekeeping. PACERS will meet 9/26, 10/3, 10/17, 11/7, 11/14, 11/21 weather permitting and resume in the spring. Let's say YES to exercise!!
**I will be choosing our STUDENT COUNCIL REPS on MONDAY. Anyone else interested...let me know. The first meeting will be October 7th at lunch recess time.
**We have a GREEN TEAM!! Each class will send 2 reps to the meetings that meet every other Tuesday with our Green Team Leaders, Mr. Packer and Ms. Parkinson. They will plan projects, discuss how to create a "greener" environment for our school and will relay information to our class.
We need 2 reps for our class. I will be having a discussion with the class on Monday to see if anyone is interested. It is a commitment for the entire school year and we will talk about what that means.
**Author of "Five Little Monkeys" fame, Eileen Christelow will visit Irving School on Tuesday, October 28th at 1:00 pm. She will speak about her work and how she gets her ideas. Ms. Noonan will send an order form of Ms. Christelow's books prior to her visit. There will be a book signing.
**Information on Irving School's TRIVIA NIGHT was in your child's homework folder. SAVE THE DATE--Thursday, November 6th, 7:00 pm at The Wire in Berwyn. Registration begins next week.
**No School--Friday, October 10th---Teacher's Institute Day.
**No School--Monday, October 13th---Columbus Day Observance.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her discussion on the Zones of Regulation and what it means to be in the YELLOW ZONE and RED ZONE. She also went into more detail about being a "Social Detective." We have been having some well thought out and heart felt discussions and comments about our behavior and what we can do to shape it.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, we went to Mr. Packer's room to continue our project on positional concepts. Concepts in, on, under, next to, behind, in front of, between were discussed and the students looked again at the video demonstrating the concepts.
This week:
It was all about letters and numbers. The students have found letters around the classroom and school. They also located numbers around the classroom and school. What is the difference between letters and numbers? The students began a conversation about consonants (letters that have 1-2 sounds) and vowels (letters that have many different sounds.) The students found the consonants and vowels in their name. They compared that number to the number of consonant and vowels in a friends name. We are counting everything in sight---markers, crayons, chairs, books, feet, fingers, noses, shoes........What is a reckenrek?????? Station Day activities included creating patterns and counting teddy bears, continued exploration of pattern block shapes, playing "Show Me" using their ten frames, reading their paper stories to a partner, reading their word wheel sentences.
Reading/Language Arts: We have begun Unit 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading Series. Students build background knowledge about types of families they knew about. They discussed human families and animal families. We all shared experiences about our families and the number of family members we have. The students listened to the Big Book story,"Whose Baby is It?" The students reviewed parts of a book--front cover, back cover, title page, spine. They also located where to find the page number. The students noted the question and answer pattern in the book. They reviewed their previous sight words and added new target words we and the. We played "Hands Up, Hands Down" adding our new words. Our target sound in isolation this week is Mm. The students worked with the sound toy box and sound cards and created a list of words that began with Mm. They also listened for the sound of Mm at the end of words. Our puppet friends, Mr. Happy and Mr. G. assisted in our Mm sound reinforcing activities. The students worked on additional vocabulary when listening to the fable," The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary is referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Ask your child about the words ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER and RESEMBLE. We defined each word and gave a sample sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. The students used retelling cards to retell the Big Book story to a partner. The students worked on story words JOEY, PUP and CUB in the baby animal world. We read aloud our pre decodable story, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking each word and picture using their pointing finger while reading. They also read the paper story, "I Can" to a partner. The students continue to work on additional Common Core skills---recognizing FICTION and NON FICTION stories and examining the similarities and differences between a story and a poem. The students continued to work on recognizing certain parts of speech. They brainstormed lists of words that named people, animals and places (NOUNS) and words that name an action (VERBS.)
Formal literacy workstations began this week. While I worked with small group leveled readers each day, the students also worked in rotating small groups writing an I am.....sentence with picture, "walking"/writing their words, comparing family sizes project, play the beginning sound game, playing upper and lowercase match, draw a picture of your family and write about something you do together and retelling their leveled reader story to a person in their group. Each week each group is assigned a "table manager" for their group. Their jobs are setting up their workstation, controlling the noise level, gentle reminders to keep working etc. We spent time last week role playing various scenes in a workstations. Our table managers did an excellent job!
Math: The students reviewed simple shape recognition. They did the "Shape Rap" a cool listening as well as shape recognizing song activity. The students continued their exploration of pattern blocks. We looked at hexagons, trapezoid, rhombus and ovals. Students brought up how many sides each shape had. The students worked on a variety of counting activities using their 10 frame. We played "Show Me' where I write a number and the students have to create it on their 10 frame. Students worked with a variety of objects--pennies, bears, blocks and cubes matching one to one. Students worked with number cards and partners to match and sequence and sequence numbers 0-5, 0-10, 0-15 or 0-20. Movement activities that included work on greater than, less than, over, under, between, beside, behind, above, below had the students up and moving and having fun!
What is a reckenrek?????? Check out the photo on the side of the blog. Looks somewhat like an abacus but a little different..... 10 rows---5 white beads and 5 red beads in each row........mmmm. The reckenrek is a calculating frame that acts a visual model for developing strategic reasoning in math. Students are beginning to see or visualize patterns and strategies for solving math problems. There may be more than one way to solve a problem. Right now we are in the beginning stages of its use. We started by looking at the 5 white and 5 red.....10 all together. If you already know that there are 5 white....what if I add one more??? Do you have to count it???? The students worked on an activity called "slide and say." I slid the the beads from one side to another they had to "figure out" what number was being illustrated. Loads of fun........I have some serious math heads in the house!!!!!!
Writing: The students began work on their FROG JUMP capitals. They are using their mini chalk boards, chalk and sponges. The small chalk and sponge pieces help to reinforce their tri pod grasp. The students are also working with large wooden straight, curved and slant shapes to create the letter. Letters F and E were introduced this week. The students also learned a song about where ALL LETTERS start.......Where do you start your letters....AT THE TOP!!!! Appearing in the upper left corner is Mr. Smiley. He is there to remind the students to always begin on the left side. Next week the students will apply what they have learned in their orange practice books. Students continue to work on journal entries in Writer's Workshop. The student are using journal prompts from our Treasures Unit. Lots of writing and drawing about family members. Students are now seeing that they can come back to a piece of writing they have done and add more to it or they can continue to work on a piece of writing that is not finished. The students saw the video, "Arthur is a Writer."
It helped reinforce to the students that they can write about any topic that interests them.
Technology: I have begun to work with small groups of students on iPad etiquette. The apps Sound Sort and Alpha Tots were introduced to one group. Next week I will work the remainder of the groups and introduce 2 math apps. Feel free to download these apps thru the App Store on your devices. Many of them are free or between $.99-2.99.
Literature: "Arthur's Back to School Surprise," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Fox in Socks,"
"Oops, David," "Hands Are Not For Hitting," "If You Give a Pig a Pancake," "Whose Baby Am I?' "Maya Was Grumpy," "A Rainbow All Around Me," "The Alphabet Adventure," "Big and Small Animals," "Animal Babies," "How Do We Learn," "Where in the Wild."
Sunday, September 14, 2014
UPDATES for 9/8-9/12 2014
**Thanks so much for your attendance at OPEN HOUSE/CURRICULUM NIGHT! I know there was a lot of material presented and I could have talked for another 30 minutes! Please read through your curriculum packet. If you have any questions or would like to meet me after school or early evening to go over anything, please email me. I know the students had a great time. They were a bit sleepy eyed the next day but full of conversation about who they saw and who they introduced. Most of you signed up for Parent/Teacher Conferences. The list is posted in the room. I will send you a formal confirmation and reminder letter. Parent/Teacher Conferences for my class will be held Monday, October 20th, Tuesday, October 21st and Wednesday, October 22nd. At that time, I will be sharing my assessments, student progress in all academic areas, participation and social/emotional growth reflections. I will also share with you the standards based report card.
**I was not able to attend Barriefest but heard the Pet Parade was the bomb!!
**Eagle Extras after school classes will begin on Monday, September 15th. The students signed up will be picked up from the classroom at dismissal.
**I have completed DIBELS testing and am almost finished with the Phonemic Awareness Screening. These screeners will be used to create groupings for our Route to Reading Skill specific groups. We hope to begin Route to Reading September 30th. You will receive notification of your child's skill group at that time.
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. More information will be forthcoming.
**We have LIBRARY every MONDAY. Don't forget to send the book back. Next week, the students will get to select 2 books to take out.
**The PTO's BIGGEST FUND RAISER of the YEAR is coming up on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd!! It's the annual FUN RUN!! Students seek pledges from family and friends. They in turn will "run" around the turf on October 22nd. Incentives and prizes galore!! KINDERGARTEN will RUN from 8:15-8:30 am. All are welcome to attend and cheer us on!!! Pledge packets will go home on Tuesday, September 16th. Help up raise money for our school!!!
**Author of "Five Little Monkeys" fame, Eileen Christelow will visit Irving School on Tuesday, October 28th at 1:00 pm. She will talk about her work and how she gets her ideas. Ms. Noonan will send a an order form of Ms. Christelow's books prior to her visit. There will be a book signing.
**If your child will be "TRAVELING" over any weekend or taking a vacation, let me know.....I will send a Travel Journal with them. Our class will track our "travels" throughout the year on our state and world map. It can be anywhere Chicago, Florida, Lombard, Colorado, South Carolina, a water park, hotel, France......if you go there...we will track it!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey talked about the Zones of Regulation and what it means to be in the GREEN ZONE and the BLUE ZONE. I will send you information on this topic as we delve deeper into working with the students on shaping and regulating their own behavior.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, the students got to go up to Mr. Packer's room to view a video on the positional concepts--in, on, under, behind, next to, in front of and between. There were dancing fish and a cute catchy tune! The students then began work on a project that will give them a better understanding about the various positional concepts covered. Stay tuned for part 2 next week.
This week: It was all about getting ready for OPEN HOUSE. The students worked hard on projects to display in our hallway. They thought about their future in their illustrations and writing of what they wanted to be when they grew up. They work on retelling a story both verbally and with the help of their classmates recording letters and words. It was a total group effort! The students shared information on who was in their family with each other. They drew a picture of their family members.....even their pets. Totally adorable!! The discussions on expectations, behavior, Eagle slips and direction following remain important topics.
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Week 3 of our prep for Treasures Reading series called Smart Start. They completed their Activity Book for the unit. It is in their homework folder. The students worked on reinforcing the recognition of letter names A-Z and sounds A-P. They again used mirrors to observe where each sound came from...open/closed mouth?...puff of air?....vibrations?.....where is your tongue? The students continue to work on sight word vocabulary. They had fun with an activity called, "Walk Your Words." Sight words introduced so far--red, blue, go, I, am, yes, no, can. I read the trade book, "Jazz Baby." Before the first read, the students made predictions about story content. They were able to point out the title, title page, spine and that the story was fiction. After the second reading, the students used the retelling cards to orally retell the story. Some students volunteered to write words under the picture cards. It was a group effort to help in the sounding out words and the recording of letters to create the sentences. The students continued to work on the common core standards of comparing texts and asking and answering questions about a story read. The students compared the fiction story, "Jazz Baby," to the informational (nonfiction) story, "Made From Clay." They noted the real from the make believe, photo vs. illustrations and what each story was about (main idea. ) They also continued work on recognizing the CHARACTERS and SETTING (where the story happens.) The positional words under, in, on and over were reviewed. During oral read aloud time, the students read their paper story, "I Can." They concentrated on finger pointing each word and picture and noting each sentence begins with a capital letter and has an ending mark (period, question mark, exclamation mark.) Students took turns reading aloud while the other students followed along with their finger. (tracking)
Workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy Where's Your Home?" (upper/lowercase match), Sound Toy Bag Game (matching toy to its appropriate initial sound box,) "Walk Your Words," and Initial Sound Magnet Board.
The students continue to work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises which include rhyming, letter naming, sound recognition, segmenting, substituting, adding and deleting sounds and counting syllables.
Math: The students worked on common core standards matching one to one on their number boards and building number. Students worked in groups-recognition 0-5 and 0-10. They also worked on sequencing numbers 0-15. The students continue to use our calendar ten frames to count the number of days they have been in school. They also played "Swat It," (similar to Hand Up, Hands Down) The students played Towers of Ten where they drew number cards to build their tower. Concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN were worked on. Students began exploration of pattern block shapes (hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, square and triangle) They use the blocks to create really cool designs and then counted how many blocks it took to make their design. Workstations this week included egg carton math, sorting and classifying activities, matching number with quantity, counting and writing to 5 or 10, playing number bingo 0-20.
Writing: Now that the students have awareness that different types of lines form our letters, we have begun to explore our writing series, Handwriting Without Tears. The students used wooden pieces (straight lines, curved lines and slant lines) to construct their name on the floor. We talked about always starting at the top when producing a letter in writing. Next week, we will begin learning to form our FROG JUMP letters and working in our orange practice book. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students are enthusiastically working in their journals. They have been using their idea lightbulb when choosing a topic to write and draw about. Students are also labeling parts of their drawings and beginning to us their inventive or phonetic spelling when sounding out words. The students are beginning to grasp the concept of a sentence NAMING (subject) and TELLING (action.) As you saw when you came to Open House---lots of exciting stuff happening with regards to writing!
Technology: The students are continuing to work on iPad etiquette. How to turn on and off, using the pad of their finger, control the sound, adding the headset and where to find activities. Our data coach, Mr. Degman will be assisting in fostering greater independence in using the iPad. iPad use in our classroom is another tool the students can use to enhance and support what they are learning in the classroom. Stay tuned!
Literature: "When I Grow Up," "The Pout, Pout Fish," "1,2,3 Peas," "A Hippopotamus Ate the Teacher," "I Like Me," "The Colors of Us," "The Alphabet Mystery," "The Cat in the Hat," "Hop on Pop," Alphabatics," "I Will Try," "Smile If You Are Human," "Ten Black Dots," "Big and Little," "How Will I Get to School this Year?" "Made from Clay,"
**I was not able to attend Barriefest but heard the Pet Parade was the bomb!!
**Eagle Extras after school classes will begin on Monday, September 15th. The students signed up will be picked up from the classroom at dismissal.
**I have completed DIBELS testing and am almost finished with the Phonemic Awareness Screening. These screeners will be used to create groupings for our Route to Reading Skill specific groups. We hope to begin Route to Reading September 30th. You will receive notification of your child's skill group at that time.
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. More information will be forthcoming.
**We have LIBRARY every MONDAY. Don't forget to send the book back. Next week, the students will get to select 2 books to take out.
**The PTO's BIGGEST FUND RAISER of the YEAR is coming up on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22nd!! It's the annual FUN RUN!! Students seek pledges from family and friends. They in turn will "run" around the turf on October 22nd. Incentives and prizes galore!! KINDERGARTEN will RUN from 8:15-8:30 am. All are welcome to attend and cheer us on!!! Pledge packets will go home on Tuesday, September 16th. Help up raise money for our school!!!
**Author of "Five Little Monkeys" fame, Eileen Christelow will visit Irving School on Tuesday, October 28th at 1:00 pm. She will talk about her work and how she gets her ideas. Ms. Noonan will send a an order form of Ms. Christelow's books prior to her visit. There will be a book signing.
**If your child will be "TRAVELING" over any weekend or taking a vacation, let me know.....I will send a Travel Journal with them. Our class will track our "travels" throughout the year on our state and world map. It can be anywhere Chicago, Florida, Lombard, Colorado, South Carolina, a water park, hotel, France......if you go there...we will track it!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey talked about the Zones of Regulation and what it means to be in the GREEN ZONE and the BLUE ZONE. I will send you information on this topic as we delve deeper into working with the students on shaping and regulating their own behavior.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, the students got to go up to Mr. Packer's room to view a video on the positional concepts--in, on, under, behind, next to, in front of and between. There were dancing fish and a cute catchy tune! The students then began work on a project that will give them a better understanding about the various positional concepts covered. Stay tuned for part 2 next week.
This week: It was all about getting ready for OPEN HOUSE. The students worked hard on projects to display in our hallway. They thought about their future in their illustrations and writing of what they wanted to be when they grew up. They work on retelling a story both verbally and with the help of their classmates recording letters and words. It was a total group effort! The students shared information on who was in their family with each other. They drew a picture of their family members.....even their pets. Totally adorable!! The discussions on expectations, behavior, Eagle slips and direction following remain important topics.
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Week 3 of our prep for Treasures Reading series called Smart Start. They completed their Activity Book for the unit. It is in their homework folder. The students worked on reinforcing the recognition of letter names A-Z and sounds A-P. They again used mirrors to observe where each sound came from...open/closed mouth?...puff of air?....vibrations?.....where is your tongue? The students continue to work on sight word vocabulary. They had fun with an activity called, "Walk Your Words." Sight words introduced so far--red, blue, go, I, am, yes, no, can. I read the trade book, "Jazz Baby." Before the first read, the students made predictions about story content. They were able to point out the title, title page, spine and that the story was fiction. After the second reading, the students used the retelling cards to orally retell the story. Some students volunteered to write words under the picture cards. It was a group effort to help in the sounding out words and the recording of letters to create the sentences. The students continued to work on the common core standards of comparing texts and asking and answering questions about a story read. The students compared the fiction story, "Jazz Baby," to the informational (nonfiction) story, "Made From Clay." They noted the real from the make believe, photo vs. illustrations and what each story was about (main idea. ) They also continued work on recognizing the CHARACTERS and SETTING (where the story happens.) The positional words under, in, on and over were reviewed. During oral read aloud time, the students read their paper story, "I Can." They concentrated on finger pointing each word and picture and noting each sentence begins with a capital letter and has an ending mark (period, question mark, exclamation mark.) Students took turns reading aloud while the other students followed along with their finger. (tracking)
Workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy Where's Your Home?" (upper/lowercase match), Sound Toy Bag Game (matching toy to its appropriate initial sound box,) "Walk Your Words," and Initial Sound Magnet Board.
The students continue to work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises which include rhyming, letter naming, sound recognition, segmenting, substituting, adding and deleting sounds and counting syllables.
Math: The students worked on common core standards matching one to one on their number boards and building number. Students worked in groups-recognition 0-5 and 0-10. They also worked on sequencing numbers 0-15. The students continue to use our calendar ten frames to count the number of days they have been in school. They also played "Swat It," (similar to Hand Up, Hands Down) The students played Towers of Ten where they drew number cards to build their tower. Concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN were worked on. Students began exploration of pattern block shapes (hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, square and triangle) They use the blocks to create really cool designs and then counted how many blocks it took to make their design. Workstations this week included egg carton math, sorting and classifying activities, matching number with quantity, counting and writing to 5 or 10, playing number bingo 0-20.
Writing: Now that the students have awareness that different types of lines form our letters, we have begun to explore our writing series, Handwriting Without Tears. The students used wooden pieces (straight lines, curved lines and slant lines) to construct their name on the floor. We talked about always starting at the top when producing a letter in writing. Next week, we will begin learning to form our FROG JUMP letters and working in our orange practice book. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students are enthusiastically working in their journals. They have been using their idea lightbulb when choosing a topic to write and draw about. Students are also labeling parts of their drawings and beginning to us their inventive or phonetic spelling when sounding out words. The students are beginning to grasp the concept of a sentence NAMING (subject) and TELLING (action.) As you saw when you came to Open House---lots of exciting stuff happening with regards to writing!
Technology: The students are continuing to work on iPad etiquette. How to turn on and off, using the pad of their finger, control the sound, adding the headset and where to find activities. Our data coach, Mr. Degman will be assisting in fostering greater independence in using the iPad. iPad use in our classroom is another tool the students can use to enhance and support what they are learning in the classroom. Stay tuned!
Literature: "When I Grow Up," "The Pout, Pout Fish," "1,2,3 Peas," "A Hippopotamus Ate the Teacher," "I Like Me," "The Colors of Us," "The Alphabet Mystery," "The Cat in the Hat," "Hop on Pop," Alphabatics," "I Will Try," "Smile If You Are Human," "Ten Black Dots," "Big and Little," "How Will I Get to School this Year?" "Made from Clay,"
Saturday, September 6, 2014
UPDATES for 9/2-9/5 2014
**The students are becoming more familiar with our daily routines and expectations of all of their teachers and classes. Lunch is going well! The students are learning to eat their main entre first, drink all of their beverage and recycle school lunch trays and milk cartons. A big shout out to our parent volunteers at lunch! You have helped make a big difference. Next week will be our final week of parent helpers. I believe I have 2 parents signed up. If you would like to help, just meet us out on the playground at noon.
**The Irving Back to School Party was rained out. Bummer!!! We all were hoping it would clear up! On the bright side---next week looks like very comfortable weather.
**COME ONE, COME ALL TO Irving School's OPEN HOUSE/CURRICULUM NIGHT on Thursday, September 11th beginning at 6:30 pm. The schedule is as follows: A PARENT ONLY Curriculum Overview for Kindergarten families is from 6:30-7:00 pm in our classroom. You can drop off your child in the auditorium for a supervised special feature. I will be speaking about our daily routine, all subject areas, testing that is done in Kindergarten, Route to Reading skills specific groupings and special area classes. I will also have handouts with other information on our year. There will be a SIGN UP SHEET for PARENT CONFERENCES, ROOM PARENTS SIGN UP (I have 2 so far) and OTHER FUN EVENTS. Please pick up your child in the auditorium at 7:00 pm and let them be your TOUR GUIDE as they bring you to meet the teachers who will be working with them. I will give you a list with the teacher's name, subject and room number as an assist. Don't forget--from 6:30-7:00 pm is PARENTS ONLY in my classroom. Hope to see everyone on Thursday!
**We will have our first LIBRARY TIME with teacher librarian, Ms. Noonan on Monday morning. The students will be able to take out a book from the library and keep it out for 7 days until the next library time. After awhile, the students will be able to take out 2 books. Ms. Noonan will be reading many types of fiction and nonfiction books, helping with projects and showing the students how the library is organized and where to find certain books. It is recommended that if a student is not reading his/her library book....it should be kept in their backpack for safe keeping.
**The students had their first Friendship Club meeting with Ms. Bell Bey, our social worker. She will be working with the class on a variety of lessons centering around fostering positive peer relationships, feelings, conflict resolution, sharing, bullying and other topics. She will use a variety of materials and approaches including stories, videos, role playing, acting, games, puppets to name a few. This week, Ms. Bell Bey showed a video on school rules and being ready to learn and being a social detective knowing how to respond to different situations.
**The students also had their first meeting with Mr. Packer who will work with the students on problem solving skills and higher level thinking skills. He played a cool name game to get to know each student and remember their name.
**Last week I began screening students with the DIBELS test and a PHONOLOGICAL SCREENER. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific ROUTE to READING groups. You will hear much more about this at CURRICULUM NIGHT.
**We had our first FIRE DRILL on Friday. We talked at length about a practice to help us get out of the building safely and quickly in the event of a fire. The students did a super job of following directions. We even got to see the Fire Chief! We will be having fire drills periodically during the school year.
**Don't forget--a healthy snack each day. Gym shoes and socks for gym days.
**The students continue to learn about the process of earning an individual Eagle Slip and how the whole class an earn an Eagle Slip. This is in conjunction with our school wide PBIS behavior incentive. Many students have gotten Eagle Slips this past week!! Yeah!!! Every Friday, Mr. Hodge will put his hand in the big purple box and pull out 10 lucky winners. Lily's Eagle Slip was drawn the first week of school and she got to pick a prize!
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. More info to follow.
**Don't forget to check out the cool after school Eagle Extra classes handed out last week. Email me with any questions.
This week:
It was all about the students continued effort to feel comfortable with daily routines and meet all of their teachers for the year. It was also about ABC's everywhere! Why do we need them? What do they look like? How do they sound? What does our mouth do when we say them. Many sounds? Only one or two sounds? Uppercase? Lowercase? What happens when we put letters together? The students experienced many activities surrounding the alphabet.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are continuing to work on their prep for our Treasures Reading series using SMART START. The students are focusing on letter recognition and sounds for letters A-M. They are learning about imprinting sound and how our mouth looks when we make that sound. The students are using mirrors to really see what happens when a letter sound is produced. Is their mouth open or closed? Is there air coming out of their mouth? Is there a vibration in their throat? Lots to think about! The students are learning to work with me to create word webs on suggested topics---What do we do in Kindergarten? What do hands do? How do we look? These exercises generate conversation and participation that stimulate oral vocabulary. The students continue to listen to rhyming patterns in words. They are learning to chant the ending. An example would be--bat, cat they end in at. Rhyming words have the same ending part. The students continue to work on their sight words--I, can, am, yes, no. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Hands Can." We discussed the TITLE and found the TITLE PAGE and SPINE of the book. The students also talked about the job of an AUTHOR and ILLUSTRATOR. They have also begun to notice certain story elements such as WHO is in the story (characters) and WHERE the story takes place (setting.) As I read the story, the students are watching as I model tracking each word from the left to the right as I read. The story was read a second time and the students made connections in their own lives about what their hands do. The students read aloud from their paper story, "I Can." They practiced finger pointing each word and picture. Together, we worked on story structure and sequence. The students then practiced their reading to a partner. In our Haggerty Blue Book exercises, the students continue to work on letter naming, rhyming, blending, saying the beginning sound, segmenting and substituting sounds and counting how many words there are in a given sentence. Our small group workstations this week included Alphabet Bingo, "Go Fish for Letters," sound sorting board, sequencing upper and lowercase letters, upper and lowercase match, stamping your name, "Hands Up, Hands Down" sight word swat and oral comprehension and story retelling.
Math: This year District 97 has added the curriculum, My Math along with Everyday Math to support the teaching of the math Common Core Standards. Students worked on a number of recognition/counting activities including Egg Carton Math, Listen and Count, building number boards, "Got It," Number/Object Match, sorting and classifying in their small group workstations. We did a whole class activity called, "Name Train" where the students wrote their name, one letter in each box and place one cube in the box for each letter in their name. They connected the cubes to form a train and then they went around comparing---is my name train longer or shorter then yours? Who has the longest name train? Shortest? The same number of cubes? They each counted how many letters they had in their name box and matched it with the number on our big chart. Who had the most letters in their name??? (10) Ask you child! We talked about the patterns we see around us. The students noted the shape and color pattern on our calendar. The students continued to work using the calendar for number sequencing and counting. We are using a ten frame to keep track of how many days we have been in school. Our AGE CHANGE CHART has everyone's picture on it waiting for their birthday so they can make the change. Ethan has already moved to the land of the 6 year olds! The students reviewed basic flat shapes--circle, square, triangle, rectangle and positional words--ABOVE, BELOW, BETWEEN, IN THE MIDDLE.
Writing: The students are learning about what types of lines we use to form letters--straight, curved and slanted. The students used these lines to form MAT MAN. We even learned a song about him. Students used the body image in MAT MAN to make their own "One thing you should know about me" portrait. They are displayed in our room. Too cute! We are working on strengthening our hands and fingers. We use clay to do this. Kneading, squishing, rolling are good ways to get our hands and fingers moving. We even made some letters with straight, curved and slant snakes! In Writer's Workshop, the students the students talked about writing about ideas that interest them. This week, the topics were friends, family, animals, what you like to do at home. During our journal conferencing, the student may have tried to write words, the first of a word in their picture, label one of the pictures or tried to write a complete sentence. We just begun to chat about what a sentence is--a group of words that NAMES and TELLS. Students will use "inventive spelling" just what they hear--it could be just the beginning sound, beginning and ending sound. Many times the vowel will be omitted. This is just the beginning of their sound foundation. Let them spell what they hear!
Technology: We are just in the beginning stages of iPad use. We are learning about iPad care and operation in our classroom. More on this next week.
Literature: "Pirates Go To School," "Crazy Hair Day," "Two Eyes, A Nose, A Mouth," "When Dinosaurs Go To School," "The Recess Queen," "What Will the Fat Cat Sit On," "This is the Teacher," "The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Cool Dog, School Dog," "Hands Can," "I Measure Myself," (poem) "Schools Around the World," "New Bear At School."
**The Irving Back to School Party was rained out. Bummer!!! We all were hoping it would clear up! On the bright side---next week looks like very comfortable weather.
**COME ONE, COME ALL TO Irving School's OPEN HOUSE/CURRICULUM NIGHT on Thursday, September 11th beginning at 6:30 pm. The schedule is as follows: A PARENT ONLY Curriculum Overview for Kindergarten families is from 6:30-7:00 pm in our classroom. You can drop off your child in the auditorium for a supervised special feature. I will be speaking about our daily routine, all subject areas, testing that is done in Kindergarten, Route to Reading skills specific groupings and special area classes. I will also have handouts with other information on our year. There will be a SIGN UP SHEET for PARENT CONFERENCES, ROOM PARENTS SIGN UP (I have 2 so far) and OTHER FUN EVENTS. Please pick up your child in the auditorium at 7:00 pm and let them be your TOUR GUIDE as they bring you to meet the teachers who will be working with them. I will give you a list with the teacher's name, subject and room number as an assist. Don't forget--from 6:30-7:00 pm is PARENTS ONLY in my classroom. Hope to see everyone on Thursday!
**We will have our first LIBRARY TIME with teacher librarian, Ms. Noonan on Monday morning. The students will be able to take out a book from the library and keep it out for 7 days until the next library time. After awhile, the students will be able to take out 2 books. Ms. Noonan will be reading many types of fiction and nonfiction books, helping with projects and showing the students how the library is organized and where to find certain books. It is recommended that if a student is not reading his/her library book....it should be kept in their backpack for safe keeping.
**The students had their first Friendship Club meeting with Ms. Bell Bey, our social worker. She will be working with the class on a variety of lessons centering around fostering positive peer relationships, feelings, conflict resolution, sharing, bullying and other topics. She will use a variety of materials and approaches including stories, videos, role playing, acting, games, puppets to name a few. This week, Ms. Bell Bey showed a video on school rules and being ready to learn and being a social detective knowing how to respond to different situations.
**The students also had their first meeting with Mr. Packer who will work with the students on problem solving skills and higher level thinking skills. He played a cool name game to get to know each student and remember their name.
**Last week I began screening students with the DIBELS test and a PHONOLOGICAL SCREENER. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific ROUTE to READING groups. You will hear much more about this at CURRICULUM NIGHT.
**We had our first FIRE DRILL on Friday. We talked at length about a practice to help us get out of the building safely and quickly in the event of a fire. The students did a super job of following directions. We even got to see the Fire Chief! We will be having fire drills periodically during the school year.
**Don't forget--a healthy snack each day. Gym shoes and socks for gym days.
**The students continue to learn about the process of earning an individual Eagle Slip and how the whole class an earn an Eagle Slip. This is in conjunction with our school wide PBIS behavior incentive. Many students have gotten Eagle Slips this past week!! Yeah!!! Every Friday, Mr. Hodge will put his hand in the big purple box and pull out 10 lucky winners. Lily's Eagle Slip was drawn the first week of school and she got to pick a prize!
**School Pictures will be taken on Tuesday, September 30th. More info to follow.
**Don't forget to check out the cool after school Eagle Extra classes handed out last week. Email me with any questions.
This week:
It was all about the students continued effort to feel comfortable with daily routines and meet all of their teachers for the year. It was also about ABC's everywhere! Why do we need them? What do they look like? How do they sound? What does our mouth do when we say them. Many sounds? Only one or two sounds? Uppercase? Lowercase? What happens when we put letters together? The students experienced many activities surrounding the alphabet.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are continuing to work on their prep for our Treasures Reading series using SMART START. The students are focusing on letter recognition and sounds for letters A-M. They are learning about imprinting sound and how our mouth looks when we make that sound. The students are using mirrors to really see what happens when a letter sound is produced. Is their mouth open or closed? Is there air coming out of their mouth? Is there a vibration in their throat? Lots to think about! The students are learning to work with me to create word webs on suggested topics---What do we do in Kindergarten? What do hands do? How do we look? These exercises generate conversation and participation that stimulate oral vocabulary. The students continue to listen to rhyming patterns in words. They are learning to chant the ending. An example would be--bat, cat they end in at. Rhyming words have the same ending part. The students continue to work on their sight words--I, can, am, yes, no. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Hands Can." We discussed the TITLE and found the TITLE PAGE and SPINE of the book. The students also talked about the job of an AUTHOR and ILLUSTRATOR. They have also begun to notice certain story elements such as WHO is in the story (characters) and WHERE the story takes place (setting.) As I read the story, the students are watching as I model tracking each word from the left to the right as I read. The story was read a second time and the students made connections in their own lives about what their hands do. The students read aloud from their paper story, "I Can." They practiced finger pointing each word and picture. Together, we worked on story structure and sequence. The students then practiced their reading to a partner. In our Haggerty Blue Book exercises, the students continue to work on letter naming, rhyming, blending, saying the beginning sound, segmenting and substituting sounds and counting how many words there are in a given sentence. Our small group workstations this week included Alphabet Bingo, "Go Fish for Letters," sound sorting board, sequencing upper and lowercase letters, upper and lowercase match, stamping your name, "Hands Up, Hands Down" sight word swat and oral comprehension and story retelling.
Math: This year District 97 has added the curriculum, My Math along with Everyday Math to support the teaching of the math Common Core Standards. Students worked on a number of recognition/counting activities including Egg Carton Math, Listen and Count, building number boards, "Got It," Number/Object Match, sorting and classifying in their small group workstations. We did a whole class activity called, "Name Train" where the students wrote their name, one letter in each box and place one cube in the box for each letter in their name. They connected the cubes to form a train and then they went around comparing---is my name train longer or shorter then yours? Who has the longest name train? Shortest? The same number of cubes? They each counted how many letters they had in their name box and matched it with the number on our big chart. Who had the most letters in their name??? (10) Ask you child! We talked about the patterns we see around us. The students noted the shape and color pattern on our calendar. The students continued to work using the calendar for number sequencing and counting. We are using a ten frame to keep track of how many days we have been in school. Our AGE CHANGE CHART has everyone's picture on it waiting for their birthday so they can make the change. Ethan has already moved to the land of the 6 year olds! The students reviewed basic flat shapes--circle, square, triangle, rectangle and positional words--ABOVE, BELOW, BETWEEN, IN THE MIDDLE.
Writing: The students are learning about what types of lines we use to form letters--straight, curved and slanted. The students used these lines to form MAT MAN. We even learned a song about him. Students used the body image in MAT MAN to make their own "One thing you should know about me" portrait. They are displayed in our room. Too cute! We are working on strengthening our hands and fingers. We use clay to do this. Kneading, squishing, rolling are good ways to get our hands and fingers moving. We even made some letters with straight, curved and slant snakes! In Writer's Workshop, the students the students talked about writing about ideas that interest them. This week, the topics were friends, family, animals, what you like to do at home. During our journal conferencing, the student may have tried to write words, the first of a word in their picture, label one of the pictures or tried to write a complete sentence. We just begun to chat about what a sentence is--a group of words that NAMES and TELLS. Students will use "inventive spelling" just what they hear--it could be just the beginning sound, beginning and ending sound. Many times the vowel will be omitted. This is just the beginning of their sound foundation. Let them spell what they hear!
Technology: We are just in the beginning stages of iPad use. We are learning about iPad care and operation in our classroom. More on this next week.
Literature: "Pirates Go To School," "Crazy Hair Day," "Two Eyes, A Nose, A Mouth," "When Dinosaurs Go To School," "The Recess Queen," "What Will the Fat Cat Sit On," "This is the Teacher," "The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Cool Dog, School Dog," "Hands Can," "I Measure Myself," (poem) "Schools Around the World," "New Bear At School."
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