**CONGRATULATIONS to our Spelling Bee Reps--Juancarlos and Jeremy!!!! Evelyn will serve as our alternate. These students will participate in the Irving School Spelling Bee for K-2 to be held Wednesday, April 15th beginning at 11:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. I was so proud that ALL of my students participated the our classroom "bee." It went 7 rounds before we were left with 3! It was a great show of interest, effort and courage! All are to be commended for their great show of sportsmanship and support of others!
**School Spirit Week was the BOMB! We had cozy pajamas, "twin" friends (and even Mr. Degman's twin--Tate!) lots of adorable stuffed animals and a great show of School Spirit on Friday with our school colors represented. Thanks Student Council for a great idea!
**Information/sign up for the Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest is in your child's homework folder. I have given you a paper copy, but you can also sign up on line thru the Irving School website. I have talked to the students about ideas for Academic Fair projects and Egg Drop vehicles. Ms. Creehan will come in after break to show students some past projects and answer any questions they may have. I would love to see our class represented by some projects and vehicles!! What are YOU interested in??? Start with a question! Both the Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest are Wednesday, April 22nd. Students will share their projects in the gym during the day. The Fair will be open to the public in the evening and students can return to chat about their projects. The Egg Drop Contest will begin at 12:45 out on the black top. The students name will be announced and the vehicle will be dropped by the student from the 3rd floor window! Come out and join us!
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 has concluded. You should have received notification of skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 (our final rotation for the year) will begin on Tuesday, April 7th. The students have worked super hard!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a great lesson on Brain/Body connection and the ability to control your own actions. Awesome!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued small group work on dots and position and direction following and I worked with a group on 2D and 3D shapes.
**Opera for the Young is coming to Irving School! On Monday, April 13th at 1:30 pm, the students will see a production of "Beauty and the Beast." It is an interactive production! Ms. Hiolski is already teaching classes the 4 songs that will be sung during the performance.
**Spring Break begins 3/28-4/5. Classes resume on Monday, April 6th. All students traveling near and far have their travel journals. Some students have requested a journal for home use. We can't wait to read about their adventures!
** Future Field Trip--Adler Planetarium on Monday, April 20th from 9-2 pm. Information and permission slips will be sent out after break. I will need 4 volunteers.
**YES! It's finally time!!! You can now begin to bring in your GIANT boxes, medium and small boxes, paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes, cup tops, containers, fabric and any other COOL things you have been saving for our Space Station Projects. I showed the students some of the materials left by previous classes. We are getting excited! Our space station prep, design, construction and detailing will take place the week of April 27th-30th. We will need some hot glue volunteers during our detailing phase. Stay tuned!!
**Please have a safe and restful spring break! It is somewhat of a homework holiday....but......you can read your Busy Reader, work on your idea or begin your project for the Academic Fair or vehicle for the Egg Drop Contest, write and illustrate in your travel journal, log on to Lexia, BrainPop, play some of our old homework games, go outside and get some exercise, do some yoga poses, observe nature (spring is here,) spend some time with family and friends.
This week:
It was all about our wacky weather--boots again and having fun during Spirit Week. The students also worked on building 2D and 3D structures to add to our "Structure Museum." Our station day was truly special! We invited Mrs. Aguilar 2nd grade class to collaborate with us on activities. Mrs. Aguilar, an army sergeant in her nonteaching life, is being deployed to Germany for 4 weeks. We are so happy to have her at Irving! Station day activities included students each choosing a story and reading it with a buddy from Mrs. Aguilar's class. They then worked together to draw an event from their story and write a question about the story and doing "Egg Math" where they got a plastic egg with their buddy, opened it and created a story problem about what was inside. Safe travels Mrs. Aguilar!
Reading/ Language Arts: The students completed Unit 7 Weather in their Treasures Reading series. They reviewed all their sight words and letter sounds paying particular attention to short and long vowel sounds. Students began sharing their Weather Diary projects. Great work! We also tracked the weather of many of the students travel destinations on weatherunderground. I read the trade book, "Bear Snores On." Students made predictions about story content. While I read the story, the students listened for the order of events in the story. After a second reading and whole class discussion, the students formed teams an worked collaboratively to complete a story elements butterfly identifying the characters, setting and plot. Each group shared their work. Toward the end of the week, the students made choices on creating their own workstations. Their workstations included leveled readers, elbow chatting about asking and answering questions about their story, sentence building using nouns, verbs and adjectives, working with word families, putting mixed up sentences in the correct order, working with consonant blends and digraphs, responding in writing to squencing events and playing CVC and consonant blend games.
Math: Our story problem math journals are going well. The students are currently reading, creating the problem using ten frames, illustrating the problem and writing a number sentence. I am then choosing a student to record on the projected page. The students are continuing to explore and build 2D and 3D shapes to add to our "Structure Museum." They continue learning the vocabulary associated with flat and solid shapes--flat, solid, sides, vertex, vertices, corners and faces. Math workstations this week included counting on from a random number, working with a partner to create a story problem, working with the app Butterfly Math, time by the hour activities.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. They used their stuffed animals for a writing prompt--describing them and telling why they were special. Students shared their writing with their table mates. Their peers critique their writing using the writer's checklist noting beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence, placement of words on a given line and using punctuation.
Science: The weather did not cooperate in order for us to continue with our shadow experiments. We will finish them up after break. The students began an inquiry on the sun. What do you know about the sun? I recorded their responses. The students listened to informational stories about the sun. Many knew the sun was a star and was made up of burning hot gases. Some students were surprised to learn that the sun is a medium star. The students also began learning a song about the order of the planets. The students used the wind tunnels outside yesterday. Lots of fun and running around! Much more to come after break!
Technology: The students continued to use the iPads for whole group, small group and individual use. Vocabulary development apps have been the focus this week in reading. The apps Oz Phonics, Spelling Bug, I Write Words, Tic, Tac, Toe and Read on Sight were used. In math, the students continue to work on addition and subtraction processes with the apps Butterfly Math, Animal Math, Kids Math, Number Find and Sam Phibian. In science, students explored the apps NASA, weatherunderground, and Solar System.
Literature: "The Sun," "The Amazing Sun," "The Universe," "Aliens in Underpants Save the World," "Fly Guy Presents Space," "Sun, Earth and Moon," "Super Storms," "Morning, Noon and Night," "What Color is the Sky," "Moondance."
Friday, March 27, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
UPDATES for 3/16-3/20 2015
**Many signs of Spring are appearing......HOWEVER......I believe more....dare I say it.....SNOW is in the forecast for the beginning of next week. PAJAMA DAY is Monday, so please send snow pants and boots. Here's hoping the snow melts fast!
**Student Council sponsored School Spirit Week begins Monday with Pajama Day, Tuesday, Decade Day.....We have chatted a little about what that means but your child may have questions for you, Wednesday, Stuffed Animal Day, Thursday, Twin Day and Friday, Irving Day wearing red, black, white.
**I will be preparing Travel Journals for our little travelers. Please let me know if you are leaving early for your vacations.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch was amazing! The students really enjoyed his presentation and lively music! The whole school was out on the playground on a absolutely lovely day to hear him!
**Super Tuber Day was very fun. The students learned a little history about the potato and its connection to Ireland. We examined, observed and measured our tubers and I showed the class how to grow one. We have 4 varieties beginning in our class and are watching for root systems! Two of our tubers are potatoes from our last harvest from the Irving Garden. Thanks to Ms. Dennis, Ms. Frank, Ms. Meier and Ms. Peterson for volunteering to help.
**Report cards are in your child's homework folder. If you have any questions, please email me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, March 25th. At that time you will receive notice of skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on April 7th.
**We will have our Classroom "Bee" on Monday, March 23rd. Since I have students leaving for vacation early, I wanted to give everyone a chance to participate. This will a be a cold "bee." No studying beforehand. No stress...just fun! Remember....students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and vowels. You know our English language can very wacky!!!! The last 2 students standing will represent our class and the 3rd will be the alternate just in case a rep is ill or unable. The reps will receive a spelling list to study from. Irving School's K-2 Annual Spelling Bee will take place on Wednesday, April 15th at 11:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium.
**Do you have something that you are REALLY interested in?? Do you have a question you want answered on a certain topic?? Can you create a project out of it?? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a 3rd floor window?? Think about it!!!! Be part of the Irving School's Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest on Wednesday, April 22nd. More info to come!
**OPERA for the YOUNG is coming to Irving School. On Monday, April 13th at 1:30 pm, the students will see the production of "Beauty and the Beast." It is an interactive production! Ms. Hiolski is already teaching classes the 4 songs that will be sung during the performance.
**Future Field Trip---Adler Planetarium. Monday, April 20th from 9-2 pm. I will need 4 volunteers. Information and permission slip will be sent out after our spring break.
**Get ready to bring in your BOXES and cool stuff! After spring break...our engineering project will begin to take shape! We are looking for boxes that students can climb in and other smaller boxes. You can break them down to get them here and I can tape them back up.
This week:
It continues to be about our study of weather, shadows and fun potato facts! Science abounds in our classroom! Our science and weather study includes math, reading and writing all woven together. Great fun! Very motivating! The students observed daily wind speeds, weather instruments and how a meteorologist uses data to make predictions about what kind of weather we will have in our area. Yes..."they sometimes do not get it right," was Jeremy's comment. So true! We tried to our wind tunnels.....not enough wind!! We will try again next week. This weeks station day activities included 2D/3D construction projects, writing on a specific topic--spring break-(2-5 sentences) focusing on placement of words on a given line and learning to play Spring Memory Match-addition match up.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are working to complete Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. This week the students built background knowledge about how weather effects people and animals. Students came to the board to write what they experience in snowy, hot, rainy and cold weather. They also spoke about how animals react to those weather conditions. The students reviewed all sight vocabulary presented thus far. We had game of "Hands Up, Hands Down." They are becoming so quick at finding the correct word! The students worked in teams on story elements using the story elements butterfly and the text, "In the Yard." Story recall, character, setting and main events and working together to chat about the elements and choosing a recorder. Great group work! A group rep then recorded their responses on our giant story butterfly. The students are working more collaboratively. The students reviewed target sounds Bb, Ll, and short Ee and words that describe (adjectives). The students continued work on sound blending and segmenting 3,4, and 5 phoneme words on their white boards along with addition, deletion and substitution activities. The students listened to the oral language selection, "Animals in Winter," They recalled many of their facts from our Changing Seasons theme. Robust vocabulary for this week included CLEAR, COZY, EXPERIENCE, HIBERNATE, RETREAT. The students worked on verbally asking and then answering a question they may have had about the text. Workstations this week included leveled reading fluency check and discussion about asking and answering questions about a text, written exercise in asking and answering questions, reader's checklist reflection, sentence building to include adjectives and recoding of the sentences made, sentence writing using pertinent vocabulary, elbow chatting about story events sequencing/written response and walking your words.
Math: The students continue their exploration of 2D and 3D shapes. They have been using a variety of materials including straws and pipe cleaners, k-nects, magnetos and mini magnetos. Discussion centered around the terms flat, solid, sides, vertex-vertices or corners and faces of the shapes. Can the shape roll or can you only stack it? What is a rectangular prism? The students participated in an activity where they match certain pictures according to their shape. The students were excited to begin work in their math process journals. I have so many students raising their hands to read the story problem! Awesome! This week, the students worked using the interactive board and the story problem was projected. We will continue this way--different students can contribute different parts--story reading--illustration on a ten frame--illustration on a model--writing the number sentence all projected on the screen. Math workstations this week included Subitize Challenge using the app Subitize Tree, number writing to 100, counting on from a random number and exploring 3D shapes.
Writing: Students are loving having more room for writing in their new green journals. They continue working on writing prompts using topics they have read about or personal experiences. More focus is being paid during writer's workshop to placement of letters on a given line and proofreading sentences before coming to their journal conference. All students continue work on formal lowercase letter formation.
Science: The students continued their study on shadows, the sun/moon and space. They reviewed what makes a shadow and created a shadow pose outside that was photographed and will be used for our beginning paragraph writing project. They observed their classmates shadow poses. Some students observed that a bigger shadow will "hide" a smaller one. Back in the classroom, we did an experiment where I created shadows using different objects. The students observed and chatted with their tablemates. "That shadow is really dark." "I can hardly see that shadow." The students learned that different types of shadows are made depending upon how much light is passing thru. Light can pass thru some objects and not others. The student made predictions about what kind of shadow a certain object might produce. We worked on vocabulary-opaque shadow--no light passing thru--like a books shadow, translucent shadow--some light passing thru--like waxpaper and a transparent shadow--has no shadow at all--all light passing thru--like a mirror. The students had a chance to plce certain objects of their own on the overhead first making a prediction of the kind of shadow they might see. They recorded their reflections in their science journal. Our shadow silhouette projects and photos will be put up in the hallway next week. Can you guess the shadow that goes with the silhouette??
Technology: No new apps introduced this week.
Literature: "Clouds, Rain, Clouds Again," "I Have a Friend," "Weather Instruments," "The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow," "The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day Ever," "It's St. Patrick's Day," "Potatoes," "Ireland," "In the Yard," "Wind," "Shadows," "Clever Tom and the Leprechaun," "The Wind Blew," "Rain," "Dark as a Shadow."
**Student Council sponsored School Spirit Week begins Monday with Pajama Day, Tuesday, Decade Day.....We have chatted a little about what that means but your child may have questions for you, Wednesday, Stuffed Animal Day, Thursday, Twin Day and Friday, Irving Day wearing red, black, white.
**I will be preparing Travel Journals for our little travelers. Please let me know if you are leaving early for your vacations.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch was amazing! The students really enjoyed his presentation and lively music! The whole school was out on the playground on a absolutely lovely day to hear him!
**Super Tuber Day was very fun. The students learned a little history about the potato and its connection to Ireland. We examined, observed and measured our tubers and I showed the class how to grow one. We have 4 varieties beginning in our class and are watching for root systems! Two of our tubers are potatoes from our last harvest from the Irving Garden. Thanks to Ms. Dennis, Ms. Frank, Ms. Meier and Ms. Peterson for volunteering to help.
**Report cards are in your child's homework folder. If you have any questions, please email me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, March 25th. At that time you will receive notice of skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on April 7th.
**We will have our Classroom "Bee" on Monday, March 23rd. Since I have students leaving for vacation early, I wanted to give everyone a chance to participate. This will a be a cold "bee." No studying beforehand. No stress...just fun! Remember....students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and vowels. You know our English language can very wacky!!!! The last 2 students standing will represent our class and the 3rd will be the alternate just in case a rep is ill or unable. The reps will receive a spelling list to study from. Irving School's K-2 Annual Spelling Bee will take place on Wednesday, April 15th at 11:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium.
**Do you have something that you are REALLY interested in?? Do you have a question you want answered on a certain topic?? Can you create a project out of it?? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a 3rd floor window?? Think about it!!!! Be part of the Irving School's Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest on Wednesday, April 22nd. More info to come!
**OPERA for the YOUNG is coming to Irving School. On Monday, April 13th at 1:30 pm, the students will see the production of "Beauty and the Beast." It is an interactive production! Ms. Hiolski is already teaching classes the 4 songs that will be sung during the performance.
**Future Field Trip---Adler Planetarium. Monday, April 20th from 9-2 pm. I will need 4 volunteers. Information and permission slip will be sent out after our spring break.
**Get ready to bring in your BOXES and cool stuff! After spring break...our engineering project will begin to take shape! We are looking for boxes that students can climb in and other smaller boxes. You can break them down to get them here and I can tape them back up.
This week:
It continues to be about our study of weather, shadows and fun potato facts! Science abounds in our classroom! Our science and weather study includes math, reading and writing all woven together. Great fun! Very motivating! The students observed daily wind speeds, weather instruments and how a meteorologist uses data to make predictions about what kind of weather we will have in our area. Yes..."they sometimes do not get it right," was Jeremy's comment. So true! We tried to our wind tunnels.....not enough wind!! We will try again next week. This weeks station day activities included 2D/3D construction projects, writing on a specific topic--spring break-(2-5 sentences) focusing on placement of words on a given line and learning to play Spring Memory Match-addition match up.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are working to complete Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. This week the students built background knowledge about how weather effects people and animals. Students came to the board to write what they experience in snowy, hot, rainy and cold weather. They also spoke about how animals react to those weather conditions. The students reviewed all sight vocabulary presented thus far. We had game of "Hands Up, Hands Down." They are becoming so quick at finding the correct word! The students worked in teams on story elements using the story elements butterfly and the text, "In the Yard." Story recall, character, setting and main events and working together to chat about the elements and choosing a recorder. Great group work! A group rep then recorded their responses on our giant story butterfly. The students are working more collaboratively. The students reviewed target sounds Bb, Ll, and short Ee and words that describe (adjectives). The students continued work on sound blending and segmenting 3,4, and 5 phoneme words on their white boards along with addition, deletion and substitution activities. The students listened to the oral language selection, "Animals in Winter," They recalled many of their facts from our Changing Seasons theme. Robust vocabulary for this week included CLEAR, COZY, EXPERIENCE, HIBERNATE, RETREAT. The students worked on verbally asking and then answering a question they may have had about the text. Workstations this week included leveled reading fluency check and discussion about asking and answering questions about a text, written exercise in asking and answering questions, reader's checklist reflection, sentence building to include adjectives and recoding of the sentences made, sentence writing using pertinent vocabulary, elbow chatting about story events sequencing/written response and walking your words.
Math: The students continue their exploration of 2D and 3D shapes. They have been using a variety of materials including straws and pipe cleaners, k-nects, magnetos and mini magnetos. Discussion centered around the terms flat, solid, sides, vertex-vertices or corners and faces of the shapes. Can the shape roll or can you only stack it? What is a rectangular prism? The students participated in an activity where they match certain pictures according to their shape. The students were excited to begin work in their math process journals. I have so many students raising their hands to read the story problem! Awesome! This week, the students worked using the interactive board and the story problem was projected. We will continue this way--different students can contribute different parts--story reading--illustration on a ten frame--illustration on a model--writing the number sentence all projected on the screen. Math workstations this week included Subitize Challenge using the app Subitize Tree, number writing to 100, counting on from a random number and exploring 3D shapes.
Writing: Students are loving having more room for writing in their new green journals. They continue working on writing prompts using topics they have read about or personal experiences. More focus is being paid during writer's workshop to placement of letters on a given line and proofreading sentences before coming to their journal conference. All students continue work on formal lowercase letter formation.
Science: The students continued their study on shadows, the sun/moon and space. They reviewed what makes a shadow and created a shadow pose outside that was photographed and will be used for our beginning paragraph writing project. They observed their classmates shadow poses. Some students observed that a bigger shadow will "hide" a smaller one. Back in the classroom, we did an experiment where I created shadows using different objects. The students observed and chatted with their tablemates. "That shadow is really dark." "I can hardly see that shadow." The students learned that different types of shadows are made depending upon how much light is passing thru. Light can pass thru some objects and not others. The student made predictions about what kind of shadow a certain object might produce. We worked on vocabulary-opaque shadow--no light passing thru--like a books shadow, translucent shadow--some light passing thru--like waxpaper and a transparent shadow--has no shadow at all--all light passing thru--like a mirror. The students had a chance to plce certain objects of their own on the overhead first making a prediction of the kind of shadow they might see. They recorded their reflections in their science journal. Our shadow silhouette projects and photos will be put up in the hallway next week. Can you guess the shadow that goes with the silhouette??
Technology: No new apps introduced this week.
Literature: "Clouds, Rain, Clouds Again," "I Have a Friend," "Weather Instruments," "The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow," "The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day Ever," "It's St. Patrick's Day," "Potatoes," "Ireland," "In the Yard," "Wind," "Shadows," "Clever Tom and the Leprechaun," "The Wind Blew," "Rain," "Dark as a Shadow."
Sunday, March 15, 2015
UPDATES for 3/9-3/13 2015
**NO MORE BOOTS!! (I hope!) Spring is in the air!!! I spotted snowdrops in my neighborhood!!
**SPRING PICTURES will be taken Monday, March 16th at 8:50 am. Don't forget--if you having siblings pictures taken you need to have the form filled out.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 2:00 pm to share and speak about the instrument--the bag pipe. Parents and siblings are welcome to join us if you can.
A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow. Mr. Lynch will be playing his bag pipes outside on the playground for all to enjoy beginning at 2:45 pm. Join us there if you cannot make the classroom experience.
**Please send a POTATO (not cooked....any kind) on Tuesday, March 17th--IT"S SUPER TUBER DAY! It is our salute to Ireland and the potato. I have K. Meier and D. Frank volunteering to help out but could use 2 more volunteers to help facilitate learning stations. The time is 10:45-11:45 am. Email me if you can help!
**Report cards go home on Friday, March 20th.
**Route to Reading will reconvene beginning Tuesday, March 17th. The 3 week rotation will conclude on Wednesday, March 25th.
**No School--Spring Break--March 28-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if your child needs a travel journal.
**Irving School's annual K-2 Spelling Bee will be held on Wednesday, April 15th at 11:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. There will be 2 students representing each K-2 class. In preparation for the Bee, we will have our own "classroom bee" on Thursday, March 26th to see who will represent our class. Our "bee" will be cold--meaning no study.....anyone who wants to try out can. I will be speaking to the students this week about participating. No worries!! Remember--Students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and all the different vowel combos. Words will be given at random beginning with a K-1 list. The 2 top spellers and 1 alternate will be chosen. They will receive a word list from Mr. Packer (MC of the Spelling Bee!) that Friday for study.
**Do you have something you are really interested in? Do you have a question you want answered on a topic? Can you create a project out of it? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a 3rd floor window? Think about it! Be part of Irving School's Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest on Wednesday, April 22nd. More info to come!!!!
**Future Field Trip--Adler Planetarium--Monday, April 20th from 9-2 pm. We will need 4 volunteers help with supervision.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT boxes and other cool stuff for our space station construction projects. You can bring them in after spring break.
**No Friendship Club and Mr. Packer Math due to PARCC testing. Both will resume next week.
This week:
The students continued to gather information about weather. They observed cloud types and examined weather maps and radar online. Lots of conversation on extreme weather and its meaning. We began our inquiry about what they knew about space. What is space? How were the planets formed? What is the universe? Wow! Lots to think about. The students also began their next science unit on Shadows, Sunshine, the Moon and Space. We are slowly turning our classroom into a space place! Station day activities included mixed media suns, cosmic frames for our silhouettes, word family find, sun color by code.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continued work in Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. This week the students built background knowledge around the idea of seasons or certain times of the year and different activities and ways people and animals relate to them. The students listened to the Big Book story, "In the Yard." They made predictions about story content by reading the title and looking at the book cover illustrations. After reading the story, the students discussed what the main idea of the story was. They made connections in the story about activities they do in their backyards at different times of the year. They noted certain details in the story. The sight words and and what were introduced. The students reviewed target sounds Bb and Ll. They did an activity where they listened to a word and told me if they heard the target sound at the beginning, middle or end of the word. Other word work centered around adding, deleting and substituting sounds to form new words on their dry erase boards. The students reviewed the function of nouns, action words-verbs and adjectives (words that describe.) The students worked in pairs to come up with a question about the Big Book story and answer it verbally and then in writing. The students worked on decoding CVC and CVCC and CCVC words on our interactive screen. It is wonderful to hear the students read aloud during our read around. They are certainly becoming more confident readers. The first 10 minutes of class each morning has been devoted to their independent reading to a partner or themselves. Workstations included leveled readers, using the readers checklist, sentence building and recording, writing a sentence using this and do, writing a question and answering it from a story read, short vowel review, elbow chatting about story element and main events, written responses to WHAT questions, short e and short a word sort and reader's response.
Math: The students began exploration of the study of geometric solids and 3D shapes. They learned that 3D shapes are solid like cones, cubes and cylinders. 2D shapes like circles, squares and triangles are flat. Students created 2D shapes using straws and pipe cleaners and went on to experiment making 3D shapes. It was interesting for me to observe the different ways students approached the task. Next week, we will explore vocabulary related to shapes. In preparation for our new math journals, students worked on the interactive screen reading a story problem, figuring out the operation, illustrating it and writing the number sentence to solve it.
Writing: The students received their new green writing journals. There are more lines for writing and a little less space for illustrations. They were excited. Our journal prompts this week focused on their reflections about the stories, "Little Cloud" and "Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow." The students are working on refining letter formation and sentence structure. The students are becoming a bit more consistent in reading their own writing and making their own corrections. Phonetic or inventive spelling is still a big acceptable part of their word building. Lowercase letters i, e, u, and l were introduced.
Science: The students began with the inquiry question, "what makes a shadow?" Students took turns creating shadows using the overhead projector. Do we need certain elements before we can have a shadow? All students agreed we needed some kind of light source. Some commented that a body or some kind of object blocked the light source. Other students said we needed a place to see the shadow. The recipe for creating a shadow became----a light source, something to block the light and a surface in which to see the shadow on. Some students also noted that some shadows were lighter or darker. Why was that? Stay tuned for more!!!
Technology: In student small groups and individual instruction the apps Montessori Crossword, Magic Reading 2 and iTalk were used to enhanced sound blending skills, review use of consonant blends and digraphs, and emphasize work with word families. The app Oz Phonics was used to work on sentence order. Students listened to their own reading via iTalk and critiqued themselves using the Reader's Checklist. In math whole group and small group instruction worked with the apps Top-It Addition, Monster Squeeze, Butterfly Math, and Number Find. Weatherunderground and BrianPop Jr. were sources of material for weather and science.
Literature: "Sunshine and Shadows," "Chasing Shadows," "Guess Who's Shadow?" "Super Storms," "Shadows," "I Love My Shadow," "Clouds," "Walkabout Weather," "Clifford's Stormy Day Rescue," "National Geographic Kids Weather," "How Thunder and Lightening Came to Be," Poem--"The Wind," Poem--"The Four Seasons."
**SPRING PICTURES will be taken Monday, March 16th at 8:50 am. Don't forget--if you having siblings pictures taken you need to have the form filled out.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 2:00 pm to share and speak about the instrument--the bag pipe. Parents and siblings are welcome to join us if you can.
A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow. Mr. Lynch will be playing his bag pipes outside on the playground for all to enjoy beginning at 2:45 pm. Join us there if you cannot make the classroom experience.
**Please send a POTATO (not cooked....any kind) on Tuesday, March 17th--IT"S SUPER TUBER DAY! It is our salute to Ireland and the potato. I have K. Meier and D. Frank volunteering to help out but could use 2 more volunteers to help facilitate learning stations. The time is 10:45-11:45 am. Email me if you can help!
**Report cards go home on Friday, March 20th.
**Route to Reading will reconvene beginning Tuesday, March 17th. The 3 week rotation will conclude on Wednesday, March 25th.
**No School--Spring Break--March 28-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if your child needs a travel journal.
**Irving School's annual K-2 Spelling Bee will be held on Wednesday, April 15th at 11:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. There will be 2 students representing each K-2 class. In preparation for the Bee, we will have our own "classroom bee" on Thursday, March 26th to see who will represent our class. Our "bee" will be cold--meaning no study.....anyone who wants to try out can. I will be speaking to the students this week about participating. No worries!! Remember--Students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and all the different vowel combos. Words will be given at random beginning with a K-1 list. The 2 top spellers and 1 alternate will be chosen. They will receive a word list from Mr. Packer (MC of the Spelling Bee!) that Friday for study.
**Do you have something you are really interested in? Do you have a question you want answered on a topic? Can you create a project out of it? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a 3rd floor window? Think about it! Be part of Irving School's Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest on Wednesday, April 22nd. More info to come!!!!
**Future Field Trip--Adler Planetarium--Monday, April 20th from 9-2 pm. We will need 4 volunteers help with supervision.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT boxes and other cool stuff for our space station construction projects. You can bring them in after spring break.
**No Friendship Club and Mr. Packer Math due to PARCC testing. Both will resume next week.
This week:
The students continued to gather information about weather. They observed cloud types and examined weather maps and radar online. Lots of conversation on extreme weather and its meaning. We began our inquiry about what they knew about space. What is space? How were the planets formed? What is the universe? Wow! Lots to think about. The students also began their next science unit on Shadows, Sunshine, the Moon and Space. We are slowly turning our classroom into a space place! Station day activities included mixed media suns, cosmic frames for our silhouettes, word family find, sun color by code.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continued work in Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. This week the students built background knowledge around the idea of seasons or certain times of the year and different activities and ways people and animals relate to them. The students listened to the Big Book story, "In the Yard." They made predictions about story content by reading the title and looking at the book cover illustrations. After reading the story, the students discussed what the main idea of the story was. They made connections in the story about activities they do in their backyards at different times of the year. They noted certain details in the story. The sight words and and what were introduced. The students reviewed target sounds Bb and Ll. They did an activity where they listened to a word and told me if they heard the target sound at the beginning, middle or end of the word. Other word work centered around adding, deleting and substituting sounds to form new words on their dry erase boards. The students reviewed the function of nouns, action words-verbs and adjectives (words that describe.) The students worked in pairs to come up with a question about the Big Book story and answer it verbally and then in writing. The students worked on decoding CVC and CVCC and CCVC words on our interactive screen. It is wonderful to hear the students read aloud during our read around. They are certainly becoming more confident readers. The first 10 minutes of class each morning has been devoted to their independent reading to a partner or themselves. Workstations included leveled readers, using the readers checklist, sentence building and recording, writing a sentence using this and do, writing a question and answering it from a story read, short vowel review, elbow chatting about story element and main events, written responses to WHAT questions, short e and short a word sort and reader's response.
Math: The students began exploration of the study of geometric solids and 3D shapes. They learned that 3D shapes are solid like cones, cubes and cylinders. 2D shapes like circles, squares and triangles are flat. Students created 2D shapes using straws and pipe cleaners and went on to experiment making 3D shapes. It was interesting for me to observe the different ways students approached the task. Next week, we will explore vocabulary related to shapes. In preparation for our new math journals, students worked on the interactive screen reading a story problem, figuring out the operation, illustrating it and writing the number sentence to solve it.
Writing: The students received their new green writing journals. There are more lines for writing and a little less space for illustrations. They were excited. Our journal prompts this week focused on their reflections about the stories, "Little Cloud" and "Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow." The students are working on refining letter formation and sentence structure. The students are becoming a bit more consistent in reading their own writing and making their own corrections. Phonetic or inventive spelling is still a big acceptable part of their word building. Lowercase letters i, e, u, and l were introduced.
Science: The students began with the inquiry question, "what makes a shadow?" Students took turns creating shadows using the overhead projector. Do we need certain elements before we can have a shadow? All students agreed we needed some kind of light source. Some commented that a body or some kind of object blocked the light source. Other students said we needed a place to see the shadow. The recipe for creating a shadow became----a light source, something to block the light and a surface in which to see the shadow on. Some students also noted that some shadows were lighter or darker. Why was that? Stay tuned for more!!!
Technology: In student small groups and individual instruction the apps Montessori Crossword, Magic Reading 2 and iTalk were used to enhanced sound blending skills, review use of consonant blends and digraphs, and emphasize work with word families. The app Oz Phonics was used to work on sentence order. Students listened to their own reading via iTalk and critiqued themselves using the Reader's Checklist. In math whole group and small group instruction worked with the apps Top-It Addition, Monster Squeeze, Butterfly Math, and Number Find. Weatherunderground and BrianPop Jr. were sources of material for weather and science.
Literature: "Sunshine and Shadows," "Chasing Shadows," "Guess Who's Shadow?" "Super Storms," "Shadows," "I Love My Shadow," "Clouds," "Walkabout Weather," "Clifford's Stormy Day Rescue," "National Geographic Kids Weather," "How Thunder and Lightening Came to Be," Poem--"The Wind," Poem--"The Four Seasons."
Sunday, March 8, 2015
UPDATES for 3/2-3/6 2015
**Dare I say it.........No snow pants needed next week......but please continue to send BOOTS as it will be quite wet and messy with the melting snow. Spring may finally be in the air!
**The students had a great time on their field trip to see "Click, Clack Moo." Lots of singing and dancing, plus great costumes. Thanks to B. Howell for volunteering her time.
**Author Aaron Reynolds was the bomb according to my students. The students really enjoyed his presentation. I was sorry I missed it. I was attending the Illinois Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's Kindergarten Conference. I found inspiration and validation as well as some cool ideas to enhance my teaching.
**Due to PARCC testing of older students, Route to Reading will be suspended for next week.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lunch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 1:45 pm to share and speak about the instrument-the bagpipe. A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow!
**Please send a POTATO (not cooked...any kind) with your child on Tuesday, March 17th---It's SUPER TUBER DAY! It is our salute to Ireland and the potato. I have K. Meier and D. Frank volunteering but need at least 2 more volunteers to help facilitate potato learning stations. The time will be 10:15-11:15 am. that morning. We will learn a little history about the potato and Ireland, examine its surface, measure its length, count the "eyes" and take a look at the different varieties. We will also begin to grow a potato plant.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 16th during the morning. It will be an individual picture with a backdrop. Siblings from Irving an have their pictures taken together.
**Information on New Eagle Extras After School Programs is in your child's homework folder.
**Information on the Irving Classic Basketball Tournament (a PTO fundraiser) is also inyour child's homework folder.
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK--March 28-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if you are traveling and I will send along a Travel Journal for your child.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. You can bring everything in after spring break.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP to Adler Planetarium on Monday, April 20th from 9:00-2:00 pm.
**FUTURE ALL SCHOOL ACTIVITIES---Irving Spelling Bee (date and time TBA) and Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair on Wednesday, April 22nd. More information soon.
This week:
It was all about the weather and Dr Seuss! We began tracking the weather in the United States via the site Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our current unit in reading. The students have been observing "fronts" moving in and the directions that weather patterns move. They love watching the color changes on the animated radar. They have also become interested in the chance or percentage of precipitation on any given day. Cool! We celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss, learning a bit about his life and works. The students listened to and read their own Dr. Seuss books. We discussed the rhyming and nonsense word patterns to many of his stories. We topped off his birthday by playing Seuss Subtraction with partners during our math workshop. Station Day activities included topic writing about spring and playing Penguin Dial-a-Sum.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began by pondering the question, "What's the weather like today?" They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but in other parts of the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea could be. They made connections about rain in their own daily lives. Sight words this, do and what were introduced. The target sound for this week is short Ee. The students used pictures as well as words to make a group short Ee web. The students continued to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. They listened to a rereading of the story and created a picture in their minds (visualize) about what it looks like after it rains. The students reviewed the water cycle (go science!) and facts about rain. They examined 2 more parts of a book--the glossary and the index and what they are used for. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words. The student read their paper stories to a partner to practice their fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUDY and WEATHER. The students also listened to 4 poems related to weather. They did some comparing of information across weather related texts. Students used their white boards and dry erase markers to work on a group substitution activity. Workstations included leveled reader fluency reading, discussion on sequencing main events, draw and write about what you can do outside today, write and draw about you favorite weather activity, reading to a buddy and elbow chatting about what the words and pictures tell us about, walking your words, graphing your favorite season and writing about why it is your favorite season--what can you do, small group sentence building with punctuation and recording sentences made and playing CVC "Pot of Gold Game" and "Three Little Pigs" short vowel game.
Math: The students began work in their March Math Calendar. Among their daily activities contained in the calendar book are number patterns, tally marks, ten frames, number sequence-before and after, addition and subtraction sentences, number bonds, time by the hour and temperature, graphing daily weather and number hunt. The students also worked on the geometric solids-cylinder and cube. They also began an introduction to the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. In math workstations this week students worked on Suess Subtraction, Don't Spill the Beans--addition families, exploring geometric solids, exploring building 3D shapes and writing 2-3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation and their writing prompts.
This week the students worked on a project on writing on a topic--What do you do in the spring?
Science: The students made their final comments on the subject of water, We traced the path of water and the stages it goes through before it comes into our homes via the faucet. The students observed that more water is gone (evaporated) from the container of water that once was filled to the top. We will begin experiments on Shadows next week. Keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather. Many of our experiments are done outside.
Technology: In reading, students worked individually and with partners on the app Magic Reading 2 building short e words, beginning and ending blends and digraphs, iTalk for recording fluency when reading aloud and Rocket Speller for sound spelling. In the Math, students worked whole group on the app Top It Math Addition, Brainy Bugs for number sequencing and visual integration. Other whole group activities include Number Rack (subitizing,) Oz Phonics (sentence order) and Kids Math (addition.)
Literature: "The Cat in the Hat," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Green Eggs and Ham," "Fox in Socks," "Oh the Things you Can Think," "A Walk in the Rain with a Brain," "When Will It Be Spring," "Weather," "Look at the Weather," "The Cloud Book," "Little Cloud."
**The students had a great time on their field trip to see "Click, Clack Moo." Lots of singing and dancing, plus great costumes. Thanks to B. Howell for volunteering her time.
**Author Aaron Reynolds was the bomb according to my students. The students really enjoyed his presentation. I was sorry I missed it. I was attending the Illinois Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's Kindergarten Conference. I found inspiration and validation as well as some cool ideas to enhance my teaching.
**Due to PARCC testing of older students, Route to Reading will be suspended for next week.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lunch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 1:45 pm to share and speak about the instrument-the bagpipe. A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow!
**Please send a POTATO (not cooked...any kind) with your child on Tuesday, March 17th---It's SUPER TUBER DAY! It is our salute to Ireland and the potato. I have K. Meier and D. Frank volunteering but need at least 2 more volunteers to help facilitate potato learning stations. The time will be 10:15-11:15 am. that morning. We will learn a little history about the potato and Ireland, examine its surface, measure its length, count the "eyes" and take a look at the different varieties. We will also begin to grow a potato plant.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 16th during the morning. It will be an individual picture with a backdrop. Siblings from Irving an have their pictures taken together.
**Information on New Eagle Extras After School Programs is in your child's homework folder.
**Information on the Irving Classic Basketball Tournament (a PTO fundraiser) is also inyour child's homework folder.
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK--March 28-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if you are traveling and I will send along a Travel Journal for your child.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. You can bring everything in after spring break.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP to Adler Planetarium on Monday, April 20th from 9:00-2:00 pm.
**FUTURE ALL SCHOOL ACTIVITIES---Irving Spelling Bee (date and time TBA) and Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair on Wednesday, April 22nd. More information soon.
This week:
It was all about the weather and Dr Seuss! We began tracking the weather in the United States via the site Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our current unit in reading. The students have been observing "fronts" moving in and the directions that weather patterns move. They love watching the color changes on the animated radar. They have also become interested in the chance or percentage of precipitation on any given day. Cool! We celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss, learning a bit about his life and works. The students listened to and read their own Dr. Seuss books. We discussed the rhyming and nonsense word patterns to many of his stories. We topped off his birthday by playing Seuss Subtraction with partners during our math workshop. Station Day activities included topic writing about spring and playing Penguin Dial-a-Sum.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began by pondering the question, "What's the weather like today?" They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but in other parts of the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea could be. They made connections about rain in their own daily lives. Sight words this, do and what were introduced. The target sound for this week is short Ee. The students used pictures as well as words to make a group short Ee web. The students continued to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. They listened to a rereading of the story and created a picture in their minds (visualize) about what it looks like after it rains. The students reviewed the water cycle (go science!) and facts about rain. They examined 2 more parts of a book--the glossary and the index and what they are used for. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words. The student read their paper stories to a partner to practice their fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUDY and WEATHER. The students also listened to 4 poems related to weather. They did some comparing of information across weather related texts. Students used their white boards and dry erase markers to work on a group substitution activity. Workstations included leveled reader fluency reading, discussion on sequencing main events, draw and write about what you can do outside today, write and draw about you favorite weather activity, reading to a buddy and elbow chatting about what the words and pictures tell us about, walking your words, graphing your favorite season and writing about why it is your favorite season--what can you do, small group sentence building with punctuation and recording sentences made and playing CVC "Pot of Gold Game" and "Three Little Pigs" short vowel game.
Math: The students began work in their March Math Calendar. Among their daily activities contained in the calendar book are number patterns, tally marks, ten frames, number sequence-before and after, addition and subtraction sentences, number bonds, time by the hour and temperature, graphing daily weather and number hunt. The students also worked on the geometric solids-cylinder and cube. They also began an introduction to the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. In math workstations this week students worked on Suess Subtraction, Don't Spill the Beans--addition families, exploring geometric solids, exploring building 3D shapes and writing 2-3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation and their writing prompts.
This week the students worked on a project on writing on a topic--What do you do in the spring?
Science: The students made their final comments on the subject of water, We traced the path of water and the stages it goes through before it comes into our homes via the faucet. The students observed that more water is gone (evaporated) from the container of water that once was filled to the top. We will begin experiments on Shadows next week. Keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather. Many of our experiments are done outside.
Technology: In reading, students worked individually and with partners on the app Magic Reading 2 building short e words, beginning and ending blends and digraphs, iTalk for recording fluency when reading aloud and Rocket Speller for sound spelling. In the Math, students worked whole group on the app Top It Math Addition, Brainy Bugs for number sequencing and visual integration. Other whole group activities include Number Rack (subitizing,) Oz Phonics (sentence order) and Kids Math (addition.)
Literature: "The Cat in the Hat," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Green Eggs and Ham," "Fox in Socks," "Oh the Things you Can Think," "A Walk in the Rain with a Brain," "When Will It Be Spring," "Weather," "Look at the Weather," "The Cloud Book," "Little Cloud."
Monday, March 2, 2015
UPDATES for 2/23-2/27 2015
**FIELD TRIP REMINDER: We will be going to Dominican University Lund Auditorium on FRIDAY, MARCH 6th to see the production of "Click, Clack Moo!" We will leave school at 9:30 am and return in time for lunch recess at 11:30 am. Lunch is as usual. Our parent volunteer will be B. Howell. I still need permission slips and money from a few students. Please get that in ASAP.
**Author Aaron Reynolds will visit Irving School on Thursday, March 5th. Kindergarten students will hear him speak at 12:45 pm in the Irving Auditorium.
**Trimester 3 has begun!! Report cards reflecting growth from Trimester 2 will be sent home on Friday, March 20th.
**Due to PARCC testing of the older students, Route to Reading will be suspended the week of March 9th-13th.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 1:45 pm to share and speak about the instrument--the bagpipe. A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow!
**It's SUPER TUBER DAY on Tuesday, March 17th. It is our salute to the country of Ireland and the potato. We will hear a bit about leprechuans too! Please send a POTATO (not cooked ...any kind) on March 17th. I need about 3 volunteers to help facilitate potato learning stations. I have K.Meier already signed up. Email me if you can help. The time will be 10:15-11:15 am. that morning. We will learn a little history about the potato and Ireland, examine its surface, measure its length, count the "eyes," and take a look at some different varieties. We will also try to grow a potato plant.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 16th during the morning. It will be an individual picture with a backdrop. Siblings from Irving can have their pictures taken together.
**Our new Student Council Reps for this trimester are Clara and Tate. Ailsa was an original pick but she had another class conflict so Tate stepped in. The reps reported back to our class that they are working on activities for an All School Spirit Week. Stay tuned!!!
**Green Team Reps Evan and Atessa are working on creating houses out of recycled materials...Cool!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey spoke about inspiration and things or ideas that inspire us in our world. She read the story "Little Melba and Her Big Trombone," about trombone player, Melba Liston, who used music as her inspiration. Even as a young girl, she wanted to study the trombone and ended up playing with the jazz greats of her time. The students had a lively discussion on what inspires them. Some said it was their school or family, others said it was a famous person or a just regular person in their life. Insightful lesson!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began preparation for the next class project that has to do with listening very carefully for key vocabulary in order to complete a directive using dots. The lessons come from Logic Links. He began by teaching vocabulary (directly, neither, left, right, immediately.)
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK March 28th-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if you are traveling and I will send along a Travel Journal for your child.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. You can bring everything in after spring break.
This week:
We continue to brave the elements. The students expressed some thoughts on the coming of spring and WHEN it will exactly be here. We will be beginning a new reading unit aptly entitled Weather next week. They long to get outside everyday for recess!!! The students saw "The Story of Ruby Bridges," and learned about the accomplishments of a little girl who was the first African American child to go to a white school in 1960 in the south. They were proud to know that even a child can affect change in our country. We used our station day time this week to write letters to our former classmate, Walker, who lives in Michigan. He sent us a postcard last week. It was a great way to practice our letter formation and sentence writing.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading Series. The students talked and read about jobs people do in the neighborhood such as driving a bus or preparing food. Lots of discussion about workers they see in their neighborhood. We made a group word web of community worker titles. The students reviewed all their sight vocabulary thus far and all of the target sounds covered. I read the trade book, "Alicia's Happy Day" to the students. The students made predictions about story content. As they listened to the story, I asked them to think about the events that happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. The students also made connections in their own lives about why Alicia might feel happy. As she walks down the street....what does she see and hear? Students took turns retelling the story in their own words. In their journals, they reflected their connection by writing about when they had a happy day. Students worked with a partner and filled out a Story Elements Butterfly identifying the characters, setting, main events and main idea. Each group shared their butterfly with the class. Workstations for this week included leveled readers/discussion/reader's checklist, completing their group neighborhood maps, sentence completions, word work with short vowels, writing a question for their particular story and answering that question and CVC word sort. We also took time this week to write our opinion piece for our common core summative using Mo Willems books.
Math: The students worked on number bonds to 10 and recognizing geometric solids. We continue work on counting to 130 and writing 2-3 digit numbers. The students are working on story problems as a whole group to prepare them for future work in their new math journals. We are reading the problem together, deciding the operation, illustrating the operation and writing the number sentence. They will begin working in them next week! Whole group work on a new app Brainy Bugs was very fun.....counting, puzzles, building and connecting. TanZen Lite and Butterfly Math continue to be the favorites. Math workstations for this week centered around written number practice, story problem practice, working with geometric solids and creating shape patterns.
Writing: The students continued work on forming lowercase letters. Some of these letters can be very tricky and require lots of thought. The students applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students learned about basic letter writing. They wrote letters to their former classmate, Walker. They learned about the greeting and the body of a letter. The students are also doing more "proofing" themselves, reading their writing before coming to journal conference. Their journal entries this week included writing about a happy day they had, writing about a community worker, and using target words in their writing.
Science: The students kept up their observation of their water bottles noting that each day the water level is decreasing. The scientific term evaporation was talked about. The students know about water as a liquid and solid and this week experimented with water as a gas in the form of steam. We discussed the freezing temperature of water (32 degrees) and boiling temperature (212 degrees) and from that boiling created steam. The students observed the "smoke" or steam coming out of the container. After releasing some steam, I covered the container with plastic wrap. What will happen? Students gave their thoughts. We left the container and went to class. Upon returning, students observed water droplets on the top of the plastic wrap. How did they get there? Jeremy thought, "the water cannot evaporate because it is trapped by the plastic and can't get out into the air." Wow! The water droplets got bigger and bigger until they fell back into the water. mmmmm....precipitation!!It is raining inside the container. Cool! The students reflected in their science journals what they experienced. They then watched a BrainPop movie of the water cycle and the idea of evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
Technology: In reading, student small groups and individuals used the apps Spelling Bug, Dolch Words and Rocket Speller for vocabulary development and word practice. Whole group skill building centered around Montessori Crosswords (blending and segmenting) and Oz Phonics (sentence building and adding and deleting sounds.) In math, student small groups and individuals used the apps Number Find, Monster Squeeze and Math Bug for number order, addition and subtraction. Whole group skill building centered around the apps Brainy Bug and Kids Math. The app Fire Finger enhanced students groups working with substitution and CVC word making. BrainPop and Flocabulary had awesome movie and raps song about the water cycle.
Literature: "Little Melba Liston and Her Big Trombone," "The Story of Ruby Bridges," "Night on Neighbor Street," Langston Hughes--"Poetry for Young People," "Honey, I Love"--Poetry by Eloise Greenfield, "The Water Cycle," "Water's Journey," "Rosa Parks," "Wilma Rudolph," "Knuffle Bunny," "I Am Sad," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus."
**Author Aaron Reynolds will visit Irving School on Thursday, March 5th. Kindergarten students will hear him speak at 12:45 pm in the Irving Auditorium.
**Trimester 3 has begun!! Report cards reflecting growth from Trimester 2 will be sent home on Friday, March 20th.
**Due to PARCC testing of the older students, Route to Reading will be suspended the week of March 9th-13th.
**Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch will visit our class on Monday, March 16th at 1:45 pm to share and speak about the instrument--the bagpipe. A bit of history, examining and putting together the parts and lively music will follow!
**It's SUPER TUBER DAY on Tuesday, March 17th. It is our salute to the country of Ireland and the potato. We will hear a bit about leprechuans too! Please send a POTATO (not cooked ...any kind) on March 17th. I need about 3 volunteers to help facilitate potato learning stations. I have K.Meier already signed up. Email me if you can help. The time will be 10:15-11:15 am. that morning. We will learn a little history about the potato and Ireland, examine its surface, measure its length, count the "eyes," and take a look at some different varieties. We will also try to grow a potato plant.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 16th during the morning. It will be an individual picture with a backdrop. Siblings from Irving can have their pictures taken together.
**Our new Student Council Reps for this trimester are Clara and Tate. Ailsa was an original pick but she had another class conflict so Tate stepped in. The reps reported back to our class that they are working on activities for an All School Spirit Week. Stay tuned!!!
**Green Team Reps Evan and Atessa are working on creating houses out of recycled materials...Cool!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey spoke about inspiration and things or ideas that inspire us in our world. She read the story "Little Melba and Her Big Trombone," about trombone player, Melba Liston, who used music as her inspiration. Even as a young girl, she wanted to study the trombone and ended up playing with the jazz greats of her time. The students had a lively discussion on what inspires them. Some said it was their school or family, others said it was a famous person or a just regular person in their life. Insightful lesson!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began preparation for the next class project that has to do with listening very carefully for key vocabulary in order to complete a directive using dots. The lessons come from Logic Links. He began by teaching vocabulary (directly, neither, left, right, immediately.)
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK March 28th-April 5th. School resumes on Monday, April 6th. Let me know if you are traveling and I will send along a Travel Journal for your child.
**We are getting closer to the collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. You can bring everything in after spring break.
This week:
We continue to brave the elements. The students expressed some thoughts on the coming of spring and WHEN it will exactly be here. We will be beginning a new reading unit aptly entitled Weather next week. They long to get outside everyday for recess!!! The students saw "The Story of Ruby Bridges," and learned about the accomplishments of a little girl who was the first African American child to go to a white school in 1960 in the south. They were proud to know that even a child can affect change in our country. We used our station day time this week to write letters to our former classmate, Walker, who lives in Michigan. He sent us a postcard last week. It was a great way to practice our letter formation and sentence writing.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading Series. The students talked and read about jobs people do in the neighborhood such as driving a bus or preparing food. Lots of discussion about workers they see in their neighborhood. We made a group word web of community worker titles. The students reviewed all their sight vocabulary thus far and all of the target sounds covered. I read the trade book, "Alicia's Happy Day" to the students. The students made predictions about story content. As they listened to the story, I asked them to think about the events that happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. The students also made connections in their own lives about why Alicia might feel happy. As she walks down the street....what does she see and hear? Students took turns retelling the story in their own words. In their journals, they reflected their connection by writing about when they had a happy day. Students worked with a partner and filled out a Story Elements Butterfly identifying the characters, setting, main events and main idea. Each group shared their butterfly with the class. Workstations for this week included leveled readers/discussion/reader's checklist, completing their group neighborhood maps, sentence completions, word work with short vowels, writing a question for their particular story and answering that question and CVC word sort. We also took time this week to write our opinion piece for our common core summative using Mo Willems books.
Math: The students worked on number bonds to 10 and recognizing geometric solids. We continue work on counting to 130 and writing 2-3 digit numbers. The students are working on story problems as a whole group to prepare them for future work in their new math journals. We are reading the problem together, deciding the operation, illustrating the operation and writing the number sentence. They will begin working in them next week! Whole group work on a new app Brainy Bugs was very fun.....counting, puzzles, building and connecting. TanZen Lite and Butterfly Math continue to be the favorites. Math workstations for this week centered around written number practice, story problem practice, working with geometric solids and creating shape patterns.
Writing: The students continued work on forming lowercase letters. Some of these letters can be very tricky and require lots of thought. The students applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students learned about basic letter writing. They wrote letters to their former classmate, Walker. They learned about the greeting and the body of a letter. The students are also doing more "proofing" themselves, reading their writing before coming to journal conference. Their journal entries this week included writing about a happy day they had, writing about a community worker, and using target words in their writing.
Science: The students kept up their observation of their water bottles noting that each day the water level is decreasing. The scientific term evaporation was talked about. The students know about water as a liquid and solid and this week experimented with water as a gas in the form of steam. We discussed the freezing temperature of water (32 degrees) and boiling temperature (212 degrees) and from that boiling created steam. The students observed the "smoke" or steam coming out of the container. After releasing some steam, I covered the container with plastic wrap. What will happen? Students gave their thoughts. We left the container and went to class. Upon returning, students observed water droplets on the top of the plastic wrap. How did they get there? Jeremy thought, "the water cannot evaporate because it is trapped by the plastic and can't get out into the air." Wow! The water droplets got bigger and bigger until they fell back into the water. mmmmm....precipitation!!It is raining inside the container. Cool! The students reflected in their science journals what they experienced. They then watched a BrainPop movie of the water cycle and the idea of evaporation, condensation, precipitation.
Technology: In reading, student small groups and individuals used the apps Spelling Bug, Dolch Words and Rocket Speller for vocabulary development and word practice. Whole group skill building centered around Montessori Crosswords (blending and segmenting) and Oz Phonics (sentence building and adding and deleting sounds.) In math, student small groups and individuals used the apps Number Find, Monster Squeeze and Math Bug for number order, addition and subtraction. Whole group skill building centered around the apps Brainy Bug and Kids Math. The app Fire Finger enhanced students groups working with substitution and CVC word making. BrainPop and Flocabulary had awesome movie and raps song about the water cycle.
Literature: "Little Melba Liston and Her Big Trombone," "The Story of Ruby Bridges," "Night on Neighbor Street," Langston Hughes--"Poetry for Young People," "Honey, I Love"--Poetry by Eloise Greenfield, "The Water Cycle," "Water's Journey," "Rosa Parks," "Wilma Rudolph," "Knuffle Bunny," "I Am Sad," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus."
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