Sunday, December 7, 2014

UPDATES for 11/24-11/25 and 12/1-12/5 2014

**WOW!!  Busy.  Busy.  I will back track a little to 11/24.   The students heard last minute details about their trip to Brookfield Zoo.  We read information on other types of Bears.  The students chatted about their question for their research project.  The students worked on their writing pieces for Polar and Black/Brown Bears.  What do we know now?  They chose the stories for read aloud and decided what other activities to do in their workstations.  In the afternoon, the students had a great time investigating the animal track stamps courtesy of the Field Museum.   Each child chose an specific animal track and stamped their paper.  They then wrote about where their animal tracks were going.  Totally cute!! They are up in our classroom. Come and check them out!
**11/25--FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD  ZOO!!  It was super chilly but we dressed warmly and had an absolutely fabulous time.  A HUGE THANKS to Ms. Frank, Ms. Cummings, Ms. Matta and Ms. Connelly for braving the elements to help out.  Hamill Play Zoo had face painting, dramatic play at the vet's office, craft, a cool chicken and bunny to pet and plants to water.  Students saw bison, penguins, snakes to name a few.  We had an indoor lunch and traveled to our Bear Class.  Our docent, Jim was the best!  The students got to examine black bear and polar bear fur and see how many students it took end to end to equal the size of a grizzly bear.  They learned many more interesting facts about bears.  We toured the Bear Grotto and saw a sleeping brown bear up close and personal as well as a polar bear fluffing up his bed of straw.  It felt so good to get back on the warm bus.  Back at school, the students reflected in their journal about their experience and then topped it off with Art Class with our beloved Ms. Tague.
**The Frosty Fun Friday Jam was a hoot!! Lots of students rocking out to the tunes spun by by our own DJ Mick.  There were some very cool  moves by our own Jaylen and the newest addition to our classroom---Ashton.  Room 110 had some great representation.  Hope everyone had a blast.   I did!
**We are ready for Room 110's Annual GINGERBREAD BAKING!!  It's an 18 year tradition!   It's Thursday, December 11th form 12:30-2:55 pm.  A BIG SHOUT OUT to our volunteers Ms. Frank, Ms. Meier, Ms. Peterson, Ms. Ferrigno, Mr. Hellman, Tate's Grandma and Lily's Grandma.  It is a bit messy and dusty so DO NOT come dressed in your best.  Students with long hair--please wear a pony tail or up.  We will be caring and sharing our cookies with our tablemates.  We will get some of our own and get some of theirs too. 
**Report Cards go home on Friday, December 12th.   Please read the information included to better understand the grading system.  Lexia reports will also be included as well as any goal updates by specialists your child may be seeing in the area of speech and language or Tier 3 intervention for reading readiness.  The main idea to remember for our report card system is that it is a growth model of progress toward an end of the year goal.  If you should have any questions after reviewing it, please email me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 had concluded.  Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 6, 2015!!
**Our WINTER CONCERT is fast approaching.  Please join us for Kindergarten/Grade 1 Concert on Wednesday, December 17th.  The students will perform twice--once at 8:15 and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium.  We will have a reception in our classroom after both concerts.  Come join us for some refreshments. 
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and Craft Fair is Saturday, December 13th from 9:00-1:00 pm.  Stock up on those holiday treasures.  Our own Green Team will be selling some nature art. 
**Take a look at the cool programs offered by after school Eagle Extras.  The brochure is in your child's homework folder. 
**We have begun our cross curricular unit on Celebrations and Traditions.  If you have a particular holiday or winter tradition you would like to share with the class--email me and we can set it up.  Kindergarten students LOVE to have their parents come to the classroom!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey had an awesome and heartfelt sharing and discussion about staying safe at school, at home and in our community and what you can do if you do not feel safe.  Being a Social Detective was part of the spotlight.  The students remembered that if you do the EXPECTED (pay attention, treat others with respect) others will think nice thoughts about you.  If you do the UNEXPECTED (bully, bother, hit) others may not want to be around you. 
**In Mr. Packer Problem solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with the students on subitizing skills, symmetry and number recognition using dots.  Very cool!!!
**School is closed for Winter Break--December 20th-January 4th.  Classes resume on Monday, January 5th.
This week:
It was all about traditions and celebrations.  The students talked about what a tradition was--activities that are done routinely at about the same time every year and can be passed down thru generations.   I spoke about my family tradition of making ravioli and my school tradition of making gingerbread with my students at this time of year.  The students made connections in their own lives and related activities that they do every year at this time.  Station day activities included using pattern blocks to build using teen numbers, ten frame activities with teen numbers, writing a caption for their Bear Art Projects made in Ms. Tague's class and taking the subitize challenge with a partner.
Reading/Language Arts:    The students completed Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series.  The students built background knowledge  about the different ways wheels are used to move people and things around.  They worked on their listening comprehension while listening to David Shannon's story, "Duck on a Bike" read both in English and in Spanish.  Students identified the characters and the plot (what is happening in the story.)  They took a closer look at the way the story was organized (a beginning, a middle and an end) and responded to the story by discussing the connections that can be made from the story to their daily lives.  (I can ride a bike.  I see kids riding bikes in my neighborhood.)  The students reviewed target sounds Tt and Short i and used their elkonin boxes and cubes to segment and blend 3 and 4 letter words.  Lots of discussion on nouns and action words.  The students worked with partners to create noun/verb sentences using picture cards.  The students were introduced to Consonant Blends and Consonant Digraphs.  Do you know the difference?  They are learning to.  Robust vocabulary for this week included ADVENTURE, WHEE:LS, ATTACH, HAUL, MASSIVE.   The students read their pre decodable story, "I See A Truck Go," and made predictions about story content.  The students listened to the thinking story, "Timimoto" and discussed the storyteller's message.  Workstations this week included recording of level reader reading using iTalk and evaluating how they sounded, creating sentences using words Go and See, read it and add to it activity, sounds match, air, land and water vehicles graph and compare and asking and answering questions about a trip you might like to take.
Math:    The students continued work on counting to 75, sequencing what comes before and after a random number, working on teen numbers 11-19 and the idea that a teen number is 1 group of ten (1 complete ten frame) and so many ones (how many on the new ten frame.)  The students worked on a shape review project with shapes-circle, oval, trapezoid, hexagon, square, rectangle and triangle counting the side and corners (vertices) using the app Doodle Buddy.  The students are working in their new calendar books on recording numbers, sequencing numbers, counting on from a random number, using tally marks to show how many and the idea of number bonds--ways to say a number--ie:  4 and 4 is a way to say 8.  Are they other ways to say 8?  3 and 5   6 and 2 etc. 
Writing:     The students have completed their Starting Corner Capital and applied what they learned in their orange practice books.  They continue to work on sentence  structure, spacing of words in a sentence, where to put lowercase letters, punctuation and beginning a sentence with a capital letter.  The students are working at adding more details to their sentence.
Technology:    Students participated in whole group work using  the app Montessori Crossword on the projector to strengthen blending and segmenting skills and the app Sound Sort to strengthen automaticity of sound to symbol.   Student small groups used iTalk to record and listen to their reading for fluency and clarity.  Students are continuing to record their story sentence for our talking book on Sonic Pics.  In math, students worked with a partner on the app Subitize Tree to challenge each other to strengthen subitizing/counting skills.  Doodle Buddy was used by individual students to create their shape and record their name for the sides and corners project.
Literature:    "Duck on a Bike," Poems--"My Bike," "Riding the Subway Train," "Celebrations Around the World," "Which Animals Travel in the Fall?" "Animal Homes," "If You Had Animal Hair," "Adding with Animals," "Animals in Winter."

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