**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."
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