**BRRRRR!! The cold air prevails!! Tate remarked,"Ms. Gullo, that ground hog was really right!" Keep sending snow pants and boots!! Our kindergarten door will be open to let students in before the bell. The door will also be open to let parents in at dismissal so that you all do not have to stand out in the cold. March will soon be here. Think Spring!!!
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular! I hope you all had as much fun as I did! There were fun games and prizes, creative desserts and a cool Photo Booth. Our class WINTER FUN basket was superb! Thanks to our room parents for organizing it and all your contributions. It was great to see many of there enjoying yourselves. I was thrilled to see a former student who is now a college grad---so proud!! The teacher acts were a scream! Check them out on the Irving website. The teacher team of PIE SCHMIE featuring Mr. Hodge, Mr. Sak, Ms. Parkinson, Ms. Heaphy and Ms. Hiolski collected the most money to get the PIE in the FACE!!!! The silent auction items were amazing. If you are the recipient of one of my auction items, I will be contacting you in the next few weeks. Once again, this event truly represents our Irving community at its best. I am so proud to be a part of it! Go Irving!!
**The students participated in a visit from "Honest" Abe Lincoln last Tuesday. Abe share some of the aspects of his life as a boy, young man and as the 16th president. The students asked questions and shared their thoughts on slavery and the Civil War with Abe. Great presentation!
**We were so busy Friday that I forgot to choose our 2 next reps for Student Council. I will do that on Monday. The first meeting is Tuesday, February 24th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 24th. At that time you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**Field trip permission slip for the production of "Click, Clack, Moo" is in your child's homework folder. Please sign it and return it with $12 as soon as you can. I will need 1 parent volunteer for this. First come, first serve! We will be gone from 9:30-11:30 am. on Friday, March 6th.
**Please send your book orders in for Author Aaron Reynolds books. He will be visiting Irving School on Thursday, March 5th. Our students will see his presentation at 12:45 pm.
**The end of Trimester 2 is Friday, March 5th. Report cards will go home on Friday, March 20th.
** Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 16th.
**Future event: Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch will come to our class on Monday, March 16th to speak about the the instrument--the bag pipe. A bit of history, putting together the parts and lively music will follow.
**No Friendship Club or Mr.Packer Problem Solving this week.
**We are getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and all the other cool things you can find. Our space stations will use all recyclable materials. You can start bringing them in after spring break.
This week:
The students read about the particular accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. They learned that presidents come from all walks of life. They shared some great insight into what makes a good leader of a country. We concluded our author study of Mo Willems books and will write an opinion on our favorite story next week. The students celebrated the Chinese Year by finding out what animal sign they were born under and their character traits. They practiced picking up objects using their tri pod grasp using their chopsticks. The students listeneed to stories about the origin of the lunar new year. Station Day activities this week included creating a tri cornered hat, graphing winter animal habitats, addition problems color the code and problem solving/visual motor integration building with unifix cubes.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about places in and around their neighborhood and who you can find there. The students talked about what the words community and workers meant. They listened to the Big Book story, "Bus Stop." They made predictions about story content and listened for what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. They also made connections about places in the story and how they relate to their own community. The students reviewed the target words for, you, are and target sounds Dd, Hh, and Rr. The students worked in small groups to create sentences using words and pictures. The students listened to the story for a second reading and worked on retelling it in their own words as well as identifying the characters, setting and plot. They used their elkonin boxes to work on sound blending 3,4 and 5 phoneme words. They also used their dry erase boards to work on substituting sounds to create new words. In the decodable story "Are You?" students worked on telling the main idea. We also used the story to review that some stories have a problem and then a solution. The students elbow chatted about the problem and solution. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ADMIRE, DELIVER, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY, WORKER, ALERT, JOB, CELEBRATION, PRECISE and REPAIR. The students responded to the poem, "The Park." They retold parts of the poem in their own words. Workstations remained the same this week so all groups could cycle through.
Math: As a salute to the Chinese New Year, the students learned about tangrams. They are a geometric Chinese puzzle consisting of a square cut into 5 triangles, a square and a rhombus. The students practiced with paper tans to create different figures . They then worked with partners on the app TanZen lite to create figures on their iPad. Very cool for problem solving, expanding mindset and visual discrimination. They also continued to work on writing 2 digit numbers and figuring out how many ten frames they need to make a number. Other workstations included even/odd sort, number bonds to 10, geometric solid sort, make 5 Bingo and creating shapes using existing shapes.
Writing: Students continued to work on forming lowercase letters a, d, g, u. They applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. The students continue to work on sentence structure and placement of letters on a given line.
Science: The students reviewed their investigation so far about water. They began experiments on water as ice. The students made predictions about what will happen to the water that is put into a bottle and a piece of tin foil put on to seal it. Each table has a plastic bottle. Each member of the table took turns using the funnel to help fill the bottle with water. The bottles were placed outside overnight. When the bottles were brought in, the students observed the water had frozen and became a solid. Students noticed that the frozen water went over the bottle. (it expanded) There was not enough room in the bottle for all the ice. Students commented in their science journals and sketched the results. The bottles were left on their tables for the rest of the day. What happened? The students observed the water in the bottle melting and changing back into liquid. We discussed the idea of temperature for something to freeze (32 and lower) and for melting (above 32) They will continue to observe the water bottles to see if there are any other changes. Next week--water as a gas.
Technology: In reading individual and small group, students continued to work with the apps Montessori Crosswords, Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller and Dolch Words to reinforce segmenting and blending, letter sounds and sight vocabulary. Whole group work used Oz Phonics to work on sentence order and ccvc and cvcc word combinations. In math, individual and student small groups worked on the apps Tanzen Lite, Kids Math, Butterfly Math and Number Find to reinforce number order, place value, problem solving, simple addition and subtraction and shape recognition. Students used BrainPop Jr to watch a video on Abraham Lincoln, the water cycle and Harriet Tubman.
Literature: "Investigating Water-Water as Ice," "George Washington," "A Picture Book of George Washington," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Harriet Tubman," "Rosa Parks," "Chinese New Year," "Bringing in the New Year," "Ruby's Wish," "Honey I Love You and Other Poems by Eloise Greenfield," "What is a Tangram?" "Abraham Lincoln's Hat."
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
UPDATES for 2/9-2/13 2015
**The frigid weather continues! Please keep sending your child with snow pants and boots. We may be watching more "Wild Kratts" during our lunchtime recess this week. The good news is....we will be able to do all of our "water as ice" experiments this week without using the freezer! We can use the the great outdoors!!!
**Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day and long weekend. Thanks once again for your attendance at Parent/Teacher conferences. It was great to share your child's progress with you. Parents and teachers make such a great team when we work together. The students surely shine! I am very fortunate to have you on my team! Thanks for your continued support.
**The students had an awesome visit from Atessa's Dad, Mr. Chris! He spoke to the them about the bones of the human body. He brought bones, bones and more bones. The students inspected hand, leg, femur, backbone and skull bones among the many. The students were mesmerized by how many bones we have in our body. So much fun---they want him to come back!
**The students will have a visit from "Abraham Lincoln" on Tuesday, February 17th. He will speak about his life and work as President.
**The FUN FAIR is SATURDAY!!!!! Come one, Come all to the Annual Irving Fun Fair on Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, photo booth and other attractions plus silent auction (bed time stories read by me and 5 friends for lunch at the Junction Diner--bid! bid!) information for early on line bidding is on the Irving website. Tickets will be sold everyday after school and on the day of the fair. Online bidding opens up on Wednesday, February 18th!! You received an info packet on the auction items in your child's homework folder. There are some REALLY COOL things to be had! Special attraction: Who will get the PIE IN THE FACE???? Three teacher teams are assembled and want your coins. The team with the most money---gets PIES in their faces!!!!I The students can bring in coins all next week including the day of the fun fair. I saw Senorita Zaragoza's picture....was that Ms. Sakamoto and Ms. Aguilar???? The teacher attractions and pie in the face will take place beginning at 2:30 pm. You don't want to miss it!! All the proceeds from the day go to Irving School. Come play a game with me!!
**I hear our class WINTER BASKET is awesome! Thanks to everyone who made a contribution.
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps for the Trimester 2. I will send info home on Tuesday, February 17th. Interested students came sign up and on Friday, I will put their names in the bucket and choose.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 24th. We will take this week to work on formative and summative common core assessments in the areas of English language arts, language foundational skills and writing.
**Information on Tech Night for Parents featuring Ms. Noonan is in your child's homework folder.
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th at 1:45 pm.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. Permission slips will be sent home this week.
This week:
The students listened to stories about Abraham Lincoln and his accomplishments. They also listened to the story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The students were fascinated by the fact that it was not really a railroad but a series of safe places that were used to help slaves escape to the north for freedom.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our treasures reading Series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listen to the Big Book story, "Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as nonfiction. The students discussed the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? Target words for this week were are and for. They added these words to our growing list of sight words. The target sounds for the week were Hh and short and long u. They reviewed all consonant and vowels sounds learned thus far. The students worked with a partner and practice asking a WH question to their partner, having the partner answer it. They then worked with their sight words, pictures and punctuation to create sentences. In the second reading of the Big Book story, the student discussed the main idea of the story and created a list of the jobs that Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards summarize the events. They used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats?" The students made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read the story aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Were you able to blends sounds together to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to read to. They then listened to their partner reread the story. The partners listened, discussed and critiqued each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers with comprehension check and asking and answering questions, creating a page for our neighborhood book, short vowel written cloze, writing about a neighborhood place using the sentence starter I go to the....., text to picture match, Write about it--Where is your favorite place to go in your neighborhood? What do you do there? Why do you like it?
Math: The students continue working in their calendar books on a variety of math concepts--number bonding to 10, even and odd numbers, counting on from a given number, creating a number pattern, tally marks, ten frames, completing a subtraction number story problem and writing numbers 0-20. The students worked on a project concentrating on the concepts biggest to smallest when arranging hearts. They worked with a partner to complete an addition color by code activity. The students topped it off by playing Heart to Heart.
Writing: The students continue to work on composing sentences independently using their daily writing journals, reflecting in their science journals and writing in their reading workstations. They continue to work on Magic "C" lowercase letter formation.
Science: We did a little review in science about what we have discovered so far in our investigation of water. Next week--water as ice.
Technology: No new apps used this week.
Literature: "Love Splat," "The Night Before Valentine's Day," "Abraham Lincoln," "Just Like Abraham Lincoln," "Big Hearts," "Rosa Parks," "The Story of Harriet Tubman," a rereading and discussion of "Knuffle Bunny," " I am Sad," and "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus."
**Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day and long weekend. Thanks once again for your attendance at Parent/Teacher conferences. It was great to share your child's progress with you. Parents and teachers make such a great team when we work together. The students surely shine! I am very fortunate to have you on my team! Thanks for your continued support.
**The students had an awesome visit from Atessa's Dad, Mr. Chris! He spoke to the them about the bones of the human body. He brought bones, bones and more bones. The students inspected hand, leg, femur, backbone and skull bones among the many. The students were mesmerized by how many bones we have in our body. So much fun---they want him to come back!
**The students will have a visit from "Abraham Lincoln" on Tuesday, February 17th. He will speak about his life and work as President.
**The FUN FAIR is SATURDAY!!!!! Come one, Come all to the Annual Irving Fun Fair on Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, photo booth and other attractions plus silent auction (bed time stories read by me and 5 friends for lunch at the Junction Diner--bid! bid!) information for early on line bidding is on the Irving website. Tickets will be sold everyday after school and on the day of the fair. Online bidding opens up on Wednesday, February 18th!! You received an info packet on the auction items in your child's homework folder. There are some REALLY COOL things to be had! Special attraction: Who will get the PIE IN THE FACE???? Three teacher teams are assembled and want your coins. The team with the most money---gets PIES in their faces!!!!I The students can bring in coins all next week including the day of the fun fair. I saw Senorita Zaragoza's picture....was that Ms. Sakamoto and Ms. Aguilar???? The teacher attractions and pie in the face will take place beginning at 2:30 pm. You don't want to miss it!! All the proceeds from the day go to Irving School. Come play a game with me!!
**I hear our class WINTER BASKET is awesome! Thanks to everyone who made a contribution.
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps for the Trimester 2. I will send info home on Tuesday, February 17th. Interested students came sign up and on Friday, I will put their names in the bucket and choose.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 24th. We will take this week to work on formative and summative common core assessments in the areas of English language arts, language foundational skills and writing.
**Information on Tech Night for Parents featuring Ms. Noonan is in your child's homework folder.
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th at 1:45 pm.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. Permission slips will be sent home this week.
This week:
The students listened to stories about Abraham Lincoln and his accomplishments. They also listened to the story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The students were fascinated by the fact that it was not really a railroad but a series of safe places that were used to help slaves escape to the north for freedom.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our treasures reading Series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listen to the Big Book story, "Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as nonfiction. The students discussed the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? Target words for this week were are and for. They added these words to our growing list of sight words. The target sounds for the week were Hh and short and long u. They reviewed all consonant and vowels sounds learned thus far. The students worked with a partner and practice asking a WH question to their partner, having the partner answer it. They then worked with their sight words, pictures and punctuation to create sentences. In the second reading of the Big Book story, the student discussed the main idea of the story and created a list of the jobs that Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards summarize the events. They used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats?" The students made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read the story aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Were you able to blends sounds together to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to read to. They then listened to their partner reread the story. The partners listened, discussed and critiqued each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers with comprehension check and asking and answering questions, creating a page for our neighborhood book, short vowel written cloze, writing about a neighborhood place using the sentence starter I go to the....., text to picture match, Write about it--Where is your favorite place to go in your neighborhood? What do you do there? Why do you like it?
Math: The students continue working in their calendar books on a variety of math concepts--number bonding to 10, even and odd numbers, counting on from a given number, creating a number pattern, tally marks, ten frames, completing a subtraction number story problem and writing numbers 0-20. The students worked on a project concentrating on the concepts biggest to smallest when arranging hearts. They worked with a partner to complete an addition color by code activity. The students topped it off by playing Heart to Heart.
Writing: The students continue to work on composing sentences independently using their daily writing journals, reflecting in their science journals and writing in their reading workstations. They continue to work on Magic "C" lowercase letter formation.
Science: We did a little review in science about what we have discovered so far in our investigation of water. Next week--water as ice.
Technology: No new apps used this week.
Literature: "Love Splat," "The Night Before Valentine's Day," "Abraham Lincoln," "Just Like Abraham Lincoln," "Big Hearts," "Rosa Parks," "The Story of Harriet Tubman," a rereading and discussion of "Knuffle Bunny," " I am Sad," and "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus."
Monday, February 9, 2015
UPDATES for 2/3-2/6 2015
**Snow Day! Snow Day! It was one for the books. The students came back to school with stories of their day.....sledding, snow tunnels, snow forts, snow ball fights or just cozy and warm inside. Lots of conversation and sharing. Please keep sending boots and snow pants. Don't forget to send gym shoes on Gym Days. (Monday-Wednesday)
**Parent/Teacher conferences begin Monday. Looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you. REMINDER: On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th) school is only in session in the MORNING. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Pick up for Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds will be at 11:00 am.
**Atessa's dad, Chris is scheduled to come in on Monday to speak to our class on all things "Boney."
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was awesome!! 100 Fruit Loop necklace, 100 heart stamps, 100 food grid, writing 100 words, writing numbers to 100, making 100 Day crowns and sharing Valentine's with friends were just some of the many activities that filled our day. A HEART felt thanks to our volunteers: B. Howell, D. Pacelli, J. Hellman, K. Meier, C. Goldbeck, P. Ferrigno and our own Ms. Dennis and Ms. Chamblis.
**We were all inspired on 100's Day with a presentation by BMX Bicycle champ Matt Wilhelm. He did some super cool bike tricks and spoke to the students on never giving up, following their dreams, working hard and never letting a bully win. Lily was lucky enough to receive a poster from him.
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening last Friday.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude this week. You should be receiving notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 17th.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The FUN FAIR is COMING! Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts, food and much more. Teacher acts......Pie in the face.....Class WINTER theme basket......Students can start bringing in their coins to vote for the teacher pie in the face. Ticket sales begin this week after school. Online bidding for auction items begins Wednesday, February 18th. Check the Irving School website for details. Come and play a game with me and bid on some silent auction items sponsored by ME.
**A shout out to Book Buddy, Olivia Lonergan and Josie's brother, Matt Novak for their work in "Seussical the Musical." Ms. Balicki and I got to see it last Sunday. It was lots of fun!!
**In honor of President's Day--the students will see a presentation by Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday, February 17th.
**No School on Monday, February 16th-President's Day.
**Our own Ms. Noonan, along with other teacher librarians from the district will present a Tech Night for Parents at the Oak Park Library on Wednesday, February 18th from 6-8 pm. Come hear about the latest kid friendly apps and sites for your computer and tablet.
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey revisited being a Social Detective. She used her puppet friend, "Puppy" to guide the students in a lesson about impulse control and being able to calm yourself in an uneasy situation. Great lesson.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students created their illustration for their version of "The Most in the World" book.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, finishing our sink and float experiments and BUBBLE MANIA. What is a bubble? Why does it pop? More in the science section. Station day activities included blizzard bubble paintings, working on our 100 word books, build and blend ccvc and cvcc words, pattern block build the puzzle on 2 levels, create and build a sentence, write the sentence and experimenting with building inclines with marble works.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading Series. They reviewed all their sight words leaned thus far. We played a game of "Hands Up, Hands Down," The students worked on sequencing a mixed up sentence that was projected the board using the app Oz Phonics. Then they worked in small groups with their word cards and pictures and created 3 sentences. The students worked on sequencing events in the trade book, "Mole and Baby Bird." We continued our author study of Mo Willems books. Workstations this week included leveled readers-comprehension and fluency check, opinion writing activity, story elements, segmenting 4 and 5 phoneme words, Lexia Core 5 work and describing the relationship between pictures and text in a given story.
Math: The students continued their work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping items by tens to 100 and beyond. They worked on writing numbers from 1-100. Students continue to sort items into the categories GREATER than 10, LESS than 10. Workstations included 10 frame activities, number bond activities using numbers 1-10, continuing work on subtraction using objects, drawings and mental images and listening to a story problem and deciding on the operation (add or subtract.)
Writing: The students worked on Magic "C" lowercase letters a and d and slant letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the format first, next, then and last when sequencing events. Students are beginning to use lowercase letters more consistently. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters given line. They also practiced writing an opinion piece about their favorite animal.
Science: The students completed their experiments on sinking and floating by each building a boat out of tin foil. Each student had the same size piece of tin foil. They could construct their boat any way they wished. Question: How many marbles do you think it would take to sink your boat? How would you build it to hold the greatest number of marbles? It was very interesting to see how each student approached the construction. Folding the tin foil, modeling it after a boat they saw, sides up, back up, front pitched like a triangle, shaped into a circle and shaped like a raft were some of the models. The students sketched a drawing of their boat and made a guess at how many marbles it would take to sink it. The students took turns placing their boat into the water and adding marbles. Such fun! Some were very surprised at what occurred. Ask your child about the experiment. The students explored bubbles. What makes a bubble? The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by air (gas.) The outside layer is like a skin. We took the bubble machine outside and there were bubbles everywhere. Students observed the bubbles as they chased them and popped them. They noted that bubbles remained round or oval and were spheres. Why do bubbles pop? Some students got the idea that water around the bubble evaporates. The students had a ball. We will get a chance to blow their own bubbles on Monday and record their reflections and thoughts.
Technology: In reading small groups the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, i Write Words, and Magic Reading 3 were use to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice and beginning fluency. In math small groups and individual work the apps Number Find, 100"s Board, Subitize Tree and Butterfly Math were used to enhance place value, adding, number order and visual memory. We used the internet to search for bubble pictures.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Floating and Sinking," "Whiteout," "The Boy Who Cried Ninja," "The Biggest Snowball Fight Ever," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "All About Water," "The Snow Day," "Sick Simon."
**Parent/Teacher conferences begin Monday. Looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you. REMINDER: On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th) school is only in session in the MORNING. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Pick up for Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds will be at 11:00 am.
**Atessa's dad, Chris is scheduled to come in on Monday to speak to our class on all things "Boney."
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was awesome!! 100 Fruit Loop necklace, 100 heart stamps, 100 food grid, writing 100 words, writing numbers to 100, making 100 Day crowns and sharing Valentine's with friends were just some of the many activities that filled our day. A HEART felt thanks to our volunteers: B. Howell, D. Pacelli, J. Hellman, K. Meier, C. Goldbeck, P. Ferrigno and our own Ms. Dennis and Ms. Chamblis.
**We were all inspired on 100's Day with a presentation by BMX Bicycle champ Matt Wilhelm. He did some super cool bike tricks and spoke to the students on never giving up, following their dreams, working hard and never letting a bully win. Lily was lucky enough to receive a poster from him.
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening last Friday.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude this week. You should be receiving notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Tuesday, February 17th.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The FUN FAIR is COMING! Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts, food and much more. Teacher acts......Pie in the face.....Class WINTER theme basket......Students can start bringing in their coins to vote for the teacher pie in the face. Ticket sales begin this week after school. Online bidding for auction items begins Wednesday, February 18th. Check the Irving School website for details. Come and play a game with me and bid on some silent auction items sponsored by ME.
**A shout out to Book Buddy, Olivia Lonergan and Josie's brother, Matt Novak for their work in "Seussical the Musical." Ms. Balicki and I got to see it last Sunday. It was lots of fun!!
**In honor of President's Day--the students will see a presentation by Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday, February 17th.
**No School on Monday, February 16th-President's Day.
**Our own Ms. Noonan, along with other teacher librarians from the district will present a Tech Night for Parents at the Oak Park Library on Wednesday, February 18th from 6-8 pm. Come hear about the latest kid friendly apps and sites for your computer and tablet.
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey revisited being a Social Detective. She used her puppet friend, "Puppy" to guide the students in a lesson about impulse control and being able to calm yourself in an uneasy situation. Great lesson.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students created their illustration for their version of "The Most in the World" book.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, finishing our sink and float experiments and BUBBLE MANIA. What is a bubble? Why does it pop? More in the science section. Station day activities included blizzard bubble paintings, working on our 100 word books, build and blend ccvc and cvcc words, pattern block build the puzzle on 2 levels, create and build a sentence, write the sentence and experimenting with building inclines with marble works.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading Series. They reviewed all their sight words leaned thus far. We played a game of "Hands Up, Hands Down," The students worked on sequencing a mixed up sentence that was projected the board using the app Oz Phonics. Then they worked in small groups with their word cards and pictures and created 3 sentences. The students worked on sequencing events in the trade book, "Mole and Baby Bird." We continued our author study of Mo Willems books. Workstations this week included leveled readers-comprehension and fluency check, opinion writing activity, story elements, segmenting 4 and 5 phoneme words, Lexia Core 5 work and describing the relationship between pictures and text in a given story.
Math: The students continued their work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping items by tens to 100 and beyond. They worked on writing numbers from 1-100. Students continue to sort items into the categories GREATER than 10, LESS than 10. Workstations included 10 frame activities, number bond activities using numbers 1-10, continuing work on subtraction using objects, drawings and mental images and listening to a story problem and deciding on the operation (add or subtract.)
Writing: The students worked on Magic "C" lowercase letters a and d and slant letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the format first, next, then and last when sequencing events. Students are beginning to use lowercase letters more consistently. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters given line. They also practiced writing an opinion piece about their favorite animal.
Science: The students completed their experiments on sinking and floating by each building a boat out of tin foil. Each student had the same size piece of tin foil. They could construct their boat any way they wished. Question: How many marbles do you think it would take to sink your boat? How would you build it to hold the greatest number of marbles? It was very interesting to see how each student approached the construction. Folding the tin foil, modeling it after a boat they saw, sides up, back up, front pitched like a triangle, shaped into a circle and shaped like a raft were some of the models. The students sketched a drawing of their boat and made a guess at how many marbles it would take to sink it. The students took turns placing their boat into the water and adding marbles. Such fun! Some were very surprised at what occurred. Ask your child about the experiment. The students explored bubbles. What makes a bubble? The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by air (gas.) The outside layer is like a skin. We took the bubble machine outside and there were bubbles everywhere. Students observed the bubbles as they chased them and popped them. They noted that bubbles remained round or oval and were spheres. Why do bubbles pop? Some students got the idea that water around the bubble evaporates. The students had a ball. We will get a chance to blow their own bubbles on Monday and record their reflections and thoughts.
Technology: In reading small groups the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, i Write Words, and Magic Reading 3 were use to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice and beginning fluency. In math small groups and individual work the apps Number Find, 100"s Board, Subitize Tree and Butterfly Math were used to enhance place value, adding, number order and visual memory. We used the internet to search for bubble pictures.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Floating and Sinking," "Whiteout," "The Boy Who Cried Ninja," "The Biggest Snowball Fight Ever," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "All About Water," "The Snow Day," "Sick Simon."
Sunday, February 1, 2015
UPDATES for 1/26-1/30 2015
**The snow is falling as I update my blog. Once again, please send snow pants and boots all next week. Perhaps we will build a snowman later next week! I will email you for sure.
**Our BUSY READER CLUB is going great! The students are excited to read to you and their peers. At the beginning of each morning, I have set aside time for BUSY READING and sharing stories with peers. Reading Grandma Mary has also noticed a difference in fluency and decoding. Let's keep it going! Remember....students can record their readers on their reading log. Students need to bring their book back in order to choose a new one.
**Our other helping Grandma, Ms. D. spoke to the students about her travels to the country of Peru. She brought many artifacts and spoke about the people and culture. She also read the students a story containing many facts.
**Our visit with Japanese speaking students from Oak Park High School was really cool. The students spoke about Japan, read stories, taught our class origami and wrote the students name in Japanese. They loved it!!
**I was not able to visit Japan Fest on Saturday, but hope some of you got a chance to.
**We had a fabulous time with our Book Buddies. It is so cool to see the positive interactions and learning going on. We have 2 more movie trailers to complete and then I will email your child's "movie" to you. That are absolutely adorable!!
**100th Day-100 Item Projects are due by Wednesday, February 4th. Don't forget.......please bring a picture of a person your think is 100 years old and a picture of someone you think is 100 days old.
**Our 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY celebration is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th beginning at 12:30 until dismissal. Don't forget to send a Valentine card for each child in the class. There are 19 students. Thanks to B. Howell, L. Wojcik, L. Makonnen, C. Cummings, K. Meier, C. Goldbeck, P. Ferrigno and D. Pacelli for volunteering to help. Students can also bring a nut free item or non food item that will be put into a treat bag.
** Don't forget to confirm your Parent Conference Day and Time. I have a few more of you to contact for rescheduling. Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th,) school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**We are excited to have Atessa's dad, Chris come to speak to our class on all things "BONEY," on Monday, February 2nd at 9:30 am. Skeletons, x-rays and the like will be part of the fun.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Look for information from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class WINTER theme basket. It will be a great day! Come play a game with me and bid on some silent auction events sponsored by ME.
**If you have a chance.......go see "SEUSSICAL the MUSICAL" put on by Spotlight Children's Theater. Our own Josie's brother, Matthew and our Book Buddy, Olivia are in it! Next weekend will have the final performances. I am going on Sunday. Can't wait!
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO!" We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey's lesson focused on what or who we care about in our lives. The students created a tee shirt ornament with the things or the people they care about written on it. We now have turned our "mitten tree" into our "I Care Tree."
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students began work on their own page to "The Most in the World Book." Writing, details--the what, how, why or where and an illustration are part of the project.
**We are getting closer-----Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. You can bring them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Peru and Japan and spending time with our Book Buddies finishing up our getting to know you movie trailers. We also spoke about the upcoming Ground Hog Day. Will it be six more weeks of winter????? Stay tuned. We used our station day time on Friday for working with our Book Buddies on the movie trailers.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are working to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they know of. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Animal Offspring ABC'S." We discussed what offsprings were. The students use the story as a springboard to discuss what the name of the animal was and where and what their habitat looked like. The students reviewed the sight words in and play. They partnered up to create sentences using their sight words, pictures and punctuation. We continued working on sentence lifting. The students are becoming quicker in spotting what needs to be done to make the sentence correct. They reviewed target sounds short and long o and Ff. We took time to do a quick review of all of our consonant and vowel sounds, as well as consonant blends and digraphs. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. Students practiced segmenting and blending 3 and 4 phoneme words using their elkonin boxes. Using the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap," the students discussed the terms problem and solution. Students elbow chatted about the what the problem in the story was and how the problem was fixed or solved. I read a selection from our oral vocabulary cards called "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that might not be seen. Are some homes beneath the ground? The students also listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." They had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on sound spelling CVC and CCVC/CVCC words using their dry erase boards. Workstation activities included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, drawing and labeling an animal habitat of their choice, CVC sound page, Rhyme It review and sentence writing, read it and write about the problem and solution, life cycle drawing, write a question about your story....answer your question. We continue our author study on Mo Willems.
Math: The students continued to rote count to 100 and beyond. They worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect certain numbers. How many complete ten frames do we need to make 48? Students also worked with number bonds for ways to say 5 and 10. They showed their work using cubes, markers, bears, pencils. The students continue to work on grouping objects by 10's to get to 100. Math workstations this week centered on writing numbers 0-20, playing adding game- Snowball Fight, sorting objects into greater than 10 less then 10 groups and listening to a story problem and illustrating it and its outcome.
Writing: The students are working on placement of letters on a given line. In their homework folder you will find a sheet that gives some guide lines for short lowercase, tall lowercase and letters that go below the bottom line (diving down.) The students worked on their writing project--writing about their snowman sequence using the words first, next, then and last.
Science: The students made some great discoveries this week about water. The student experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that the water took the shape of the container it was put into. It has no shape of its own. In their sink or float experiment, the students worked with their table mates taking turns first making a guess (what they thought might happen,) dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened. I used some big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass.) Why did one item sink and another item float? Why did the cork keep floating even though students kept trying to push it under? Why did the washer sink straight tot the bottom? Lots of discussion. Their science journals reflected their sketches, thoughts and comments. Besides our water experiments, the students are also exploring the use of force and motion weaving in some Next Generation Science standards. This week the students are exploring incline planes with slanted or sloped surfaces. They are using our giant marble works sets to design ramps that a marble will go down, in some cases using multiple levels. Very fun to observe their discussion and trials. What works? What doesn't work? Next week--We will finish sink and float and start bubbles!!!
Technology: No new apps were used this week. The students really enjoyed working on their movie project using the app iMovie.
Literature: "Go to Sleep Ground Hog," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late," "The Pigeon Needs a Bath!" "Don't Let the Pigeon Finish this Activity Book!" "The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "It's Ground Hog Day,"
**Our BUSY READER CLUB is going great! The students are excited to read to you and their peers. At the beginning of each morning, I have set aside time for BUSY READING and sharing stories with peers. Reading Grandma Mary has also noticed a difference in fluency and decoding. Let's keep it going! Remember....students can record their readers on their reading log. Students need to bring their book back in order to choose a new one.
**Our other helping Grandma, Ms. D. spoke to the students about her travels to the country of Peru. She brought many artifacts and spoke about the people and culture. She also read the students a story containing many facts.
**Our visit with Japanese speaking students from Oak Park High School was really cool. The students spoke about Japan, read stories, taught our class origami and wrote the students name in Japanese. They loved it!!
**I was not able to visit Japan Fest on Saturday, but hope some of you got a chance to.
**We had a fabulous time with our Book Buddies. It is so cool to see the positive interactions and learning going on. We have 2 more movie trailers to complete and then I will email your child's "movie" to you. That are absolutely adorable!!
**100th Day-100 Item Projects are due by Wednesday, February 4th. Don't forget.......please bring a picture of a person your think is 100 years old and a picture of someone you think is 100 days old.
**Our 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY celebration is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th beginning at 12:30 until dismissal. Don't forget to send a Valentine card for each child in the class. There are 19 students. Thanks to B. Howell, L. Wojcik, L. Makonnen, C. Cummings, K. Meier, C. Goldbeck, P. Ferrigno and D. Pacelli for volunteering to help. Students can also bring a nut free item or non food item that will be put into a treat bag.
** Don't forget to confirm your Parent Conference Day and Time. I have a few more of you to contact for rescheduling. Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th,) school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**We are excited to have Atessa's dad, Chris come to speak to our class on all things "BONEY," on Monday, February 2nd at 9:30 am. Skeletons, x-rays and the like will be part of the fun.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Look for information from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class WINTER theme basket. It will be a great day! Come play a game with me and bid on some silent auction events sponsored by ME.
**If you have a chance.......go see "SEUSSICAL the MUSICAL" put on by Spotlight Children's Theater. Our own Josie's brother, Matthew and our Book Buddy, Olivia are in it! Next weekend will have the final performances. I am going on Sunday. Can't wait!
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO!" We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey's lesson focused on what or who we care about in our lives. The students created a tee shirt ornament with the things or the people they care about written on it. We now have turned our "mitten tree" into our "I Care Tree."
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students began work on their own page to "The Most in the World Book." Writing, details--the what, how, why or where and an illustration are part of the project.
**We are getting closer-----Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. You can bring them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Peru and Japan and spending time with our Book Buddies finishing up our getting to know you movie trailers. We also spoke about the upcoming Ground Hog Day. Will it be six more weeks of winter????? Stay tuned. We used our station day time on Friday for working with our Book Buddies on the movie trailers.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are working to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they know of. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Animal Offspring ABC'S." We discussed what offsprings were. The students use the story as a springboard to discuss what the name of the animal was and where and what their habitat looked like. The students reviewed the sight words in and play. They partnered up to create sentences using their sight words, pictures and punctuation. We continued working on sentence lifting. The students are becoming quicker in spotting what needs to be done to make the sentence correct. They reviewed target sounds short and long o and Ff. We took time to do a quick review of all of our consonant and vowel sounds, as well as consonant blends and digraphs. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. Students practiced segmenting and blending 3 and 4 phoneme words using their elkonin boxes. Using the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap," the students discussed the terms problem and solution. Students elbow chatted about the what the problem in the story was and how the problem was fixed or solved. I read a selection from our oral vocabulary cards called "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that might not be seen. Are some homes beneath the ground? The students also listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." They had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on sound spelling CVC and CCVC/CVCC words using their dry erase boards. Workstation activities included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, drawing and labeling an animal habitat of their choice, CVC sound page, Rhyme It review and sentence writing, read it and write about the problem and solution, life cycle drawing, write a question about your story....answer your question. We continue our author study on Mo Willems.
Math: The students continued to rote count to 100 and beyond. They worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect certain numbers. How many complete ten frames do we need to make 48? Students also worked with number bonds for ways to say 5 and 10. They showed their work using cubes, markers, bears, pencils. The students continue to work on grouping objects by 10's to get to 100. Math workstations this week centered on writing numbers 0-20, playing adding game- Snowball Fight, sorting objects into greater than 10 less then 10 groups and listening to a story problem and illustrating it and its outcome.
Writing: The students are working on placement of letters on a given line. In their homework folder you will find a sheet that gives some guide lines for short lowercase, tall lowercase and letters that go below the bottom line (diving down.) The students worked on their writing project--writing about their snowman sequence using the words first, next, then and last.
Science: The students made some great discoveries this week about water. The student experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that the water took the shape of the container it was put into. It has no shape of its own. In their sink or float experiment, the students worked with their table mates taking turns first making a guess (what they thought might happen,) dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened. I used some big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass.) Why did one item sink and another item float? Why did the cork keep floating even though students kept trying to push it under? Why did the washer sink straight tot the bottom? Lots of discussion. Their science journals reflected their sketches, thoughts and comments. Besides our water experiments, the students are also exploring the use of force and motion weaving in some Next Generation Science standards. This week the students are exploring incline planes with slanted or sloped surfaces. They are using our giant marble works sets to design ramps that a marble will go down, in some cases using multiple levels. Very fun to observe their discussion and trials. What works? What doesn't work? Next week--We will finish sink and float and start bubbles!!!
Technology: No new apps were used this week. The students really enjoyed working on their movie project using the app iMovie.
Literature: "Go to Sleep Ground Hog," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late," "The Pigeon Needs a Bath!" "Don't Let the Pigeon Finish this Activity Book!" "The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "It's Ground Hog Day,"
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