**If you haven't already--don't forget to check out our Space Station Creation Movie at the bottom of this blog page! It is all about them!
**PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Family is Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30 -noon. I am missing some permission slips and money. Please send them in ASAP! Thanks! Our room parents will send out a final message about the where to drop off items and when to come to walk with class. We are looking forward to a great day!
**In class presentation by Ms. Henry on Worms and Worm Composting is Tuesday, May 26th at 8:30 am. We will have a little "worm village" in our classroom to nurture and observe until the end of school.
**Walking Field Trip slip to the Gurgas/Chien Chicken Coup is in your child's homework folder. We will be walking there on Friday, June 5th leaving at12:40 and returning to school at 1:15 pm.
**ALL LIBRARY BOOKS ARE DUE on MAY 29th per Ms. Noonan.
**ALL BUSY READERS ARE DUE BACK TO MS. GULLO on MAY 29th.
**Last day of school is Friday, June 5th. We will have a regular morning session. In the afternoon--walking field trip to Gurgas Chien Chicken Coup 1:40-1:15 and beginning at 1:30 until dismissal is our Family Hour. Please join us for autograph signing, light refreshments, report cards and summer packets and maybe even something special on the blacktop!!!!
**The ABC Countdown continued this week with a chilly outside day, notes to nice people, cozy pajamas and Queens ruling for an afternoon. Their decree--extra recess, another choice time, extra page in our math journal, extra snack and more game time. We were so busy on Friday with Olympic Day and Queen Day that we actually forgot to think of countdown activities for next week. We will skip R and decide on Tuesday, when we get back!
**Representatives from the Oak Park Library spoke to the students about the Summer Reading Challenge that begins on June 4th. Sign up will continue throughout the summer. This summer's theme is "UNMASKED." Super heroes abound!!! Read and earn prizes. I have encouraged all of my students to sign up at Maze Library to participate.
**We had a pleasant walk to the Oak Park Conservatory. Our docents, Ms. Mary and Ms. Jeanette were super knowledgeable! Each room the students visited contained plants, animals and even fish with colorful histories and interesting facts. The students spent some time after sketching in the Desert Room. Awesome! Back at school, the students reflected in their journals on their experience. Their favorites--the Ponderosa Lemmon Tree, Venus Fly Trap, George, the parrot, and all the cactus plants! It was a great trip! Thanks to our volunteers, Ms. Frank, Ms. Pacelli and Ms. Tapia!! Oh yes--a special thanks to our class mascots--Asa and Samara!
**The students showed off their talents and sportsmanship on Olympic Day. Each student tried out their skills at all of the events. Obstacle Course, 50 Yard Dash (could you beat Mr. Degman?) Soccer Relay run by Senorita Zaragosa and her soccer playing nephew, Nerf Ball Battle, Stall Bar Relay, Team Skiing--super great working together and Parachute were just some of the events. Team Gullo was so amazing!
This week:
It was all about sprouting seed sponges, seed bags and monitoring our class garden. Our potato plants are nearly ready for planting in our outside bed. We will plant potatoes, edamame and the students will choose one more plant. We also have nasturtiums started for bug control. We will begin amending that soil. We are preparing our room for our "worm village." The students began their inquiry into worms and how beneficial they are to the earth. We will be doing our final paragraph on the topic of worms. This week we also have the "Traveling Seeds Kit" from the Oak Park Conservatory. More about that in the science section. The Queen's ruled for Friday afternoon so station day took a different turn---choice time, math journals, recess, games!
Reading/Language Arts: Students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures Units 9 and 10. Sight words for this week are with and my. Target sounds are Jj and Qu. The students continued to review all skills on the Phonemic Awareness Continuum as per our Route to Reading format. They used their dry erase boards to practice blending and segmenting 3-4-5 and even 6 phoneme words. The students also worked on substitution and sound addition activities. Most students are working on the first half of the First Grade sight word list. Robust Vocabulary for this week included CONFUSED, DESCRIBE, INSIST, TEXTURE, UNDERSTAND. The students built background knowledge about things that they learned this year. We made a group list of things we already knew and things we now know from being in kindergarten. The students amazed themselves!! They have learned so much! Once again, student small groups chose their own literature and activities to go with them. They read, discussed together and elbow chatted about story elements, main events and sequencing of events. I checked in with the groups, heard individual readers, check comprehension and worked on students reading for meaning. Students spent the remainder of their workstation time reading independently from their literacy bags or playing a reading game. Their top favs this week were, "Very Silly Sentences," "Spot a Word," "Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives Cookie Jar," and the app "Tic, Tac, Toe."
Math: The students have started their new math journals. They continue to work on reading the problem, illustrating the process and writing their equation or number sentence. We have been also working with vertical as well as horizontal addition. The students are enjoying the graphing, counting and teen number activities. Next week, we will work on subtraction story problems. The students continue to practice number bonds 1-10, writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, counting on from a random number 1-150 and counting by 2's, 5's and 10's beyond 100.
Writing: The students continue to reflect on various topics in their journals and writing "meaty" sentences. The students began the process of finding information thru books and internet on worms. Stay tuned!
Science: The students continue to observe plants growing in our class garden, Our potato plants are ready to be planted in our outdoor garden bed. We will do that the first week in June. In Experiment 4, we removed a baby plant sunflower, nasturtium, morning glory and marigold from our garden to take a closer look at their root systems. The students noted the similarities and differences in the stems, leaves and roots. Thicker shoots, skinny shoots, straight shoots, curvy shoots, lots of roots, stringy roots, straight roots and tons of tiny roots were their observations. The students also looked at the leaf structure of each plant and made a sketch of the leaves. They noted wagon wheels (nasturtium) ovals (sunflower) dragonfly wings (morning glory) and butterfly wings (marigold.) How do these shoots, stems and root systems help each plant? They reflected in their science journals. In Experiment 5, the students are observing seeds growing without soil. Water, sunlight and air are the ticket! Pretty cool! This week, we had the "Traveling Seeds" Kits from the Oak Park Conservatory.
The students got to experiment with the way seeds travel. They floated a coconut seed, blew milkweed seeds, "popped" a baptisia seed pod, had a stuffed dog run with tickseed on him and helped to dig out acorns that "squirrels" might have buried for the winter. Next week--a plant in a closed box with only a small window---what will happen to the plant? Stay tuned!
Technology: No new apps this week. The students are beginning work on their final project of the year.
Literature: "The Seed Song," "How and Why Seeds Travel," "A Seed is a Promise," "In the Garden,""The Atlas of Plants," "Growing a Garden," "Roots," "Leaves," "A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds," "The Tiny Seed." "Not All Princesses Dress in Pink."
Monday, May 25, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
UPDATES for 5/11-5/15 2015
**The month of May is really flying by! The students are acting more and more like first graders! The are becoming very independent workers and thinkers. They are enjoying using their space stations during their morning independent reading, choice time and literacy bag reading time. Our indoor class garden is beginning to sprout! Along with our potato plants we have corn and beans germinating. The students are observing the stem and leaf structures of the marigold, morning glory, sunflower and nasturtium.
**Public Service Announcement-----With the weather warming up, many of my students will want to wear sandals. Sandals will be okay in the classroom, but I would like all students to wear gym shoes and socks as we play more outside and go on walking field trips. Let's protect our feet! Thanks for your attention to this matter.
**A presentation on the SUMMER READING PROGRAM at MAZE LIBRARY will take place on Monday, May 18th at 10:30 am in the gym. It is a super fun program for our soon to be first graders!!!!!
**Our Walking Field Trip to the OAK PARK CONSERVATORY is Tuesday, May 19th. We will walk beginning at 9:00 am and return by 11:00 am. D, Pacelli, D. Frank and P. Tapia will be walking with us. I am still missing 3 permission slips so send them in on Monday.
**Permission slips for PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Picnic are in your child's homework folder. The cost is $2.00. The parent helper on line Sign Up Genius was sent to all families by our room parents. Please send back permission slip and money ASAP. The picinic is being held at Rehm Park on Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon. Pizza, veggies and fruit along with juice and water will be served. All are invited.
**Our PACERS Running/Walking Club during Friday Lunch will continue for 2 more Fridays! Please send your child with gym shoes and socks.
**IRVING OLYMPIC DAY is FRIDAY, MAY 22nd from 8:30-11:00. If you have the time---come check us out on Team Gullo as we run, jump, ski, shoot baskets, throw, bounce, battle (with nerf balls) and test our strength, stamina and sportsmanship. Please send your child in comfortable clothes, gym shoes and socks.
**Our ABC Countdown continues. Lots of Helping with a capital H. Our Space ice cream and Earth Ice cream (crunchy vs. cold) was tasty. Ashton jumped up 22 inches on Jump High Day! Boys did rule on King Day but their rules were insightful----1. Play "Don't Spill the Beans Game". 2. Extra recess in the afternoon. 3. 2 Choice times. 4. Be honest. 5. Don't be mean. 6. Don't tell people what to so. That says it all!
**The last week of Traveling Poets is the week of May 18th-22nd. The students have been doing a fabulous job of traveling to classrooms and reciting their poems. We have enjoyed students from 4th, 5th and 3rd grades traveling to our classroom.
**The Irving Art Fest and Poetry Slam was spectacular!!! A huge SHOUT OUT to our "Lil Slammers" Ailsa and Tate and to the Blecha Family (Dad, Tate and Asa) for their participation. Great fun! The art work was beautiful, the chorus mesmerizing, the games, plays and poetry breaks cool. I had a blast. Hope you did too!
**Please check out the info in your child's homework folder on the TEACHER vs PARENT SOFTBALL GAME on Friday, May 22nd. Come on down to watch or play. Following the game is an adult only LAUGH OUT LOUD COMEDY BENEFIT beginning at 8:00 pm at the WIRE in Berwyn. Sean Flannary, parent of an Irving first grader is very funny and so is the rest of his crew. It's a fun night out full of laughs!
**Look for portfolios and writing journals from Trimesters 1 and 2 to come home this week. I am working on final assessments for our last report card period. Time flies!!!!!
**This was our last Friday with Reading Grandma Mary. She has seen much progress in our students reading, decoding and comprehension. We will really miss her! Thanks so much for your time!
**Future Walking Field Trip to the Gurgas/Chien backyard to see and hear about raising chickens will be sometime in the first week of June. Stay tuned.
**Last Day of School Family Hour--please join us for our Family Hour on Friday, June 5th from 1:45 until dismissal. We will sign autographs, have some refreshments, get our report cards and summer packets and read a closing story. There might even be something going on outside on the blacktop!!
This week:
Change is in the air! The students are sensing the end of kindergarten is near. They are thinking about new teachers, new classrooms, new friendships, new expectations. They are also thinking about students who may be moving away. Turning into a First Grader is BIG!!!! Your child may chat with you on his/her feelings about moving on. There is definitely excitement in the air---and maybe a little anxiety. We will be working through it in our classroom too! Station Day activities this week included ladybug math, seed germination sequencing part 1-illustration and building with Legos and contributing to our Lego Museum.
Reading/Language Arts: Students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures Units 9 and 10. Sight words for this week were has and look. Target sounds this week are Jj and Yy. Students spent time with partners using their word cards, picture cards and punctuation cards to create sentences. Students continue to work on recognizing and using nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. Each day this week, the students worked on group substitution activities to strengthen sound recognition and automatic recording of phonemes to create words. The students read their decodable story and leveled readers independently and worked on story elements and sequencing events and then came together into small groups to discuss key details and vocabulary. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ENORMOUS, GULP, FANTASY, INCREDIBLE, REALITY. Workstations this week included leveled readers reading for meaning and fluency, word building activities using blends and digraphs, responding in writing to what you have read about, asking and answering questions about an unknown word in a text, finding details in an informational reading and clarifying the meaning of multiple meaning words and working with word families ut, et, un, en.
Math: The students continue to work on reading simple story problems, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence or equation. We have finished our first math journal and the students have brought it home. Our new math journal is one that we will start but can be continued over the summer. It contains addition and subtraction story problems, number sequencing, patterns and counting quantities. The students worked on math games this week including "Don't Spill the Beans"--facts to 10, "Sand Pail Addition and Subtraction," "Blastoff" (greater/less than) and "Carnival" using 2 or 3 dice--addition.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their writing, They are choosing many of our daily writing topics. We will begin our final writing project on the topic of "Worms" next week. We will also begin to reflect in writing on all of our wonderful volunteers and teachers that have worked in our classroom.
Science: The students continued their study of seeds I can't wait to read their plant updates on how their plants are doing at home. This week we observed the inside of a seed. We soaked pinto beans and pea seeds in warm water overnight. The students observed the soaked seeds were bigger! Yes--the water climbed up into the spaces in the seed! With some assistance, the students split their seeds in half. they observed the outer covering (coat) and in the inside corner was the tiny baby plant (embryo.) The rest of the inside is the seed food where the seed gets its nourishment. The students made a diagram in their science journals labeling parts of the seed. The students made sketches of their particular baby plant and noted the leaf structure and shape. In Experiment 5, the question was asked--What if the seed had no soil? Could it still germinate/sprout? Each table had a sponge where the students sprinkled seeds on it and then watered it well. It was placed in a sunny window. The student made their predictions about what will happen. They also put 5 different kinds of seeds in a ziplock bag with a wet paper towel. What will happen? Stay tuned!!! Next week--Examining root systems. Preparing for worms!
Technology: Our Space Station iMovie is almost ready! The students are already thinking about an end of the year movie. Oh my!!! In reading workstations, students small groups used the apps Magnetic ABC to work on sentence making and word building, Reading Magic for blending and segmenting activities and RocketSpeller for sound sequencing and sound blending, Whole group activities included the apps CVC Sound Sorts, Oz Phonics for Word Finder, Sentence Word Order, and missing CCVC and CVCC words and Montessori Crosswords focus on short u and short e words and silent e words. In math workshop, student small groups worked on the apps Subitize Tree, Sam Phibian and Butterfly Math Addition. Whole group work centered on the app Number Find. In science, the students watched a seed germinating sequence and video on raised bed gardening which is the type of gardening we will be doing outside.
Literature: "The Tiny Seed," "Eating the Alphabet," "I Am the King," "Spring Changes," "Plants," "The Bug Patrol," "Muncha, Muncha, Muncha," "Leaves," "The Reason for a Flower."
**Public Service Announcement-----With the weather warming up, many of my students will want to wear sandals. Sandals will be okay in the classroom, but I would like all students to wear gym shoes and socks as we play more outside and go on walking field trips. Let's protect our feet! Thanks for your attention to this matter.
**A presentation on the SUMMER READING PROGRAM at MAZE LIBRARY will take place on Monday, May 18th at 10:30 am in the gym. It is a super fun program for our soon to be first graders!!!!!
**Our Walking Field Trip to the OAK PARK CONSERVATORY is Tuesday, May 19th. We will walk beginning at 9:00 am and return by 11:00 am. D, Pacelli, D. Frank and P. Tapia will be walking with us. I am still missing 3 permission slips so send them in on Monday.
**Permission slips for PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Picnic are in your child's homework folder. The cost is $2.00. The parent helper on line Sign Up Genius was sent to all families by our room parents. Please send back permission slip and money ASAP. The picinic is being held at Rehm Park on Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon. Pizza, veggies and fruit along with juice and water will be served. All are invited.
**Our PACERS Running/Walking Club during Friday Lunch will continue for 2 more Fridays! Please send your child with gym shoes and socks.
**IRVING OLYMPIC DAY is FRIDAY, MAY 22nd from 8:30-11:00. If you have the time---come check us out on Team Gullo as we run, jump, ski, shoot baskets, throw, bounce, battle (with nerf balls) and test our strength, stamina and sportsmanship. Please send your child in comfortable clothes, gym shoes and socks.
**Our ABC Countdown continues. Lots of Helping with a capital H. Our Space ice cream and Earth Ice cream (crunchy vs. cold) was tasty. Ashton jumped up 22 inches on Jump High Day! Boys did rule on King Day but their rules were insightful----1. Play "Don't Spill the Beans Game". 2. Extra recess in the afternoon. 3. 2 Choice times. 4. Be honest. 5. Don't be mean. 6. Don't tell people what to so. That says it all!
**The last week of Traveling Poets is the week of May 18th-22nd. The students have been doing a fabulous job of traveling to classrooms and reciting their poems. We have enjoyed students from 4th, 5th and 3rd grades traveling to our classroom.
**The Irving Art Fest and Poetry Slam was spectacular!!! A huge SHOUT OUT to our "Lil Slammers" Ailsa and Tate and to the Blecha Family (Dad, Tate and Asa) for their participation. Great fun! The art work was beautiful, the chorus mesmerizing, the games, plays and poetry breaks cool. I had a blast. Hope you did too!
**Please check out the info in your child's homework folder on the TEACHER vs PARENT SOFTBALL GAME on Friday, May 22nd. Come on down to watch or play. Following the game is an adult only LAUGH OUT LOUD COMEDY BENEFIT beginning at 8:00 pm at the WIRE in Berwyn. Sean Flannary, parent of an Irving first grader is very funny and so is the rest of his crew. It's a fun night out full of laughs!
**Look for portfolios and writing journals from Trimesters 1 and 2 to come home this week. I am working on final assessments for our last report card period. Time flies!!!!!
**This was our last Friday with Reading Grandma Mary. She has seen much progress in our students reading, decoding and comprehension. We will really miss her! Thanks so much for your time!
**Future Walking Field Trip to the Gurgas/Chien backyard to see and hear about raising chickens will be sometime in the first week of June. Stay tuned.
**Last Day of School Family Hour--please join us for our Family Hour on Friday, June 5th from 1:45 until dismissal. We will sign autographs, have some refreshments, get our report cards and summer packets and read a closing story. There might even be something going on outside on the blacktop!!
This week:
Change is in the air! The students are sensing the end of kindergarten is near. They are thinking about new teachers, new classrooms, new friendships, new expectations. They are also thinking about students who may be moving away. Turning into a First Grader is BIG!!!! Your child may chat with you on his/her feelings about moving on. There is definitely excitement in the air---and maybe a little anxiety. We will be working through it in our classroom too! Station Day activities this week included ladybug math, seed germination sequencing part 1-illustration and building with Legos and contributing to our Lego Museum.
Reading/Language Arts: Students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures Units 9 and 10. Sight words for this week were has and look. Target sounds this week are Jj and Yy. Students spent time with partners using their word cards, picture cards and punctuation cards to create sentences. Students continue to work on recognizing and using nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns. Each day this week, the students worked on group substitution activities to strengthen sound recognition and automatic recording of phonemes to create words. The students read their decodable story and leveled readers independently and worked on story elements and sequencing events and then came together into small groups to discuss key details and vocabulary. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ENORMOUS, GULP, FANTASY, INCREDIBLE, REALITY. Workstations this week included leveled readers reading for meaning and fluency, word building activities using blends and digraphs, responding in writing to what you have read about, asking and answering questions about an unknown word in a text, finding details in an informational reading and clarifying the meaning of multiple meaning words and working with word families ut, et, un, en.
Math: The students continue to work on reading simple story problems, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence or equation. We have finished our first math journal and the students have brought it home. Our new math journal is one that we will start but can be continued over the summer. It contains addition and subtraction story problems, number sequencing, patterns and counting quantities. The students worked on math games this week including "Don't Spill the Beans"--facts to 10, "Sand Pail Addition and Subtraction," "Blastoff" (greater/less than) and "Carnival" using 2 or 3 dice--addition.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their writing, They are choosing many of our daily writing topics. We will begin our final writing project on the topic of "Worms" next week. We will also begin to reflect in writing on all of our wonderful volunteers and teachers that have worked in our classroom.
Science: The students continued their study of seeds I can't wait to read their plant updates on how their plants are doing at home. This week we observed the inside of a seed. We soaked pinto beans and pea seeds in warm water overnight. The students observed the soaked seeds were bigger! Yes--the water climbed up into the spaces in the seed! With some assistance, the students split their seeds in half. they observed the outer covering (coat) and in the inside corner was the tiny baby plant (embryo.) The rest of the inside is the seed food where the seed gets its nourishment. The students made a diagram in their science journals labeling parts of the seed. The students made sketches of their particular baby plant and noted the leaf structure and shape. In Experiment 5, the question was asked--What if the seed had no soil? Could it still germinate/sprout? Each table had a sponge where the students sprinkled seeds on it and then watered it well. It was placed in a sunny window. The student made their predictions about what will happen. They also put 5 different kinds of seeds in a ziplock bag with a wet paper towel. What will happen? Stay tuned!!! Next week--Examining root systems. Preparing for worms!
Technology: Our Space Station iMovie is almost ready! The students are already thinking about an end of the year movie. Oh my!!! In reading workstations, students small groups used the apps Magnetic ABC to work on sentence making and word building, Reading Magic for blending and segmenting activities and RocketSpeller for sound sequencing and sound blending, Whole group activities included the apps CVC Sound Sorts, Oz Phonics for Word Finder, Sentence Word Order, and missing CCVC and CVCC words and Montessori Crosswords focus on short u and short e words and silent e words. In math workshop, student small groups worked on the apps Subitize Tree, Sam Phibian and Butterfly Math Addition. Whole group work centered on the app Number Find. In science, the students watched a seed germinating sequence and video on raised bed gardening which is the type of gardening we will be doing outside.
Literature: "The Tiny Seed," "Eating the Alphabet," "I Am the King," "Spring Changes," "Plants," "The Bug Patrol," "Muncha, Muncha, Muncha," "Leaves," "The Reason for a Flower."
Sunday, May 10, 2015
UPDATES for 5/4-5/8 2015
**The Space Stations are amazing!! Come check them out before or after school. They will be in our classroom until the end of the school year. Our blast off was out of this world! The students wore their jet packs and helmets and had great fun.
**Our ABC Countdown activities were the bomb---great costumes/dress up and lots of cool dance moves. The students tried snap peas for a healthy snack and enjoyed their question and answer session with the First Grade. Game Day was the best! Games included Hedbanz, Clue, War, Hiss, Sorry, Barbie Memory Match and Sleeping Queens. Super great team and partner work!
**Our ABC Countdown continues!! Next weeks' student created activities are: H-Help Day....Take some time to help someone or help the Earth. I-Ice Cream Day....We will have Earth ice cream and Space ice cream and compare the two. J-Jump Day....At lunch recess, Ms. Gullo will measure how high we can jump! K-King Day-boys will create the activities and rules for the day. L-Lego Day...We will build with Ms. Gullo's Legos and bring a Lego creation from home and display it in the Lego Museum.
**TRAVELING POETS begins Monday, May 11th. Do you know your poem?? Students will travel to other classrooms to recite their poems during a "poetry break." Traveling Poets will continue next week. There will also be Traveling Poets opportunities at the Art Fest/Poetry Slam on Thursday, May 14th.
**The Irving Art Fest/Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 14th from 6-8 pm. There will be activities all around the school. Sign up to recite your traveling poets poem, say a poem with a friend or sibling or even have the whole family recite the poem of their choice. Students can recite their favorite poem, sing, rap or write their own poem. Our own Mr. Williams will be the MC! We hope to have some "little slammers!" Come on....join in the fun!!!
**It was a very chilly and damp morning, but the District 97 Irving Fun Run took place as scheduled. The runners braved the elements. Thanks to those who participated!
**A presentation about the SUMMER READING Program at Maze Library will take place on Monday, May 18th at 10:30 am. in the gym.
**Information and permission slip for our WALKING FIELD TRIP to the OAK PARK CONSERVATORY is in your child's homework folder. It is Tuesday, May 19th from 9-11 am. I will need 2 parent volunteers.
**We will have an in house field trip on Worm Composting with Irving parent, Ms. Henry is Monday, May 26th at 8:30 am.
**PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Kindergarten Family Picnic is Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park. Look for more information soon.
**The students had their last Friendship Club session. Ms. Bell Bey took the students out on the playground for a social time.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer did a cool project involving problem solving and spatial reasoning using shapes to create a figure based on a set of directions given by Mr. Packer.
This week:
It was all about dramatic space station play and seeds. The students are using their space stations for a leisure reading space complete with flashlights. The team invited other teams to explore their space stations. The students began their final Science unit on seeds and plants. Station day activities this week included all the board and card games the students brought in to play as partners and in small groups.
Reading/Language Arts: I am combining vocabulary, phonetic skills, comprehension and literature of our final Treasures Reading series Unit 9 Amazing Creatures and Unit 10 We Know A Lot. We will also do a mini poetry unit to close out our school year. This week the students read stories about different types of bugs. Target sight words are he and she. Target sounds are Gg, Ww and a review of long and short vowel sounds. Student small groups created sentences using all the sight words taught thus far and incorporating some of the First Grade sight words. The students also worked in small groups with leveled readers discussing story elements, cause and effect, making connections, drawing conclusions and making inferences. Word work centered on using context clues to figure out the meaning of an unknown word. They also continued to work on recognizing nouns, verbs and adjectives. The true quest of reading for meaning is becoming more apparent to our kindergarten readers. Locating details in the text and arriving at the main idea of the story with support continues to be worked on. Robust Vocabulary for this week included AMAZING, DEEP, INVITE, OCEAN, REASON. The students continue to review sound blending strategies, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes in words as well as recognizing consonant blends and digraphs and even use of silent e. Workstations included written questions and answers pertaining to a given text, word families un and ut work, using he and she in sentences, writing a sentence about a bug you have seen, writing an opinion piece about which bug you like the best and why, picking 2 insects and writing about how they are alike and different, observing details--writing about what you see in a text picture and what information that picture gives you about the story and elbow chatting with table mates about particular story elements.
Math: The students are working in their new calendar books. Some new features include number puzzles, writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, dice subtraction and domino addition, number find thru 100 and nonstandard measurement using unifix cubes. Math workshop included writing numbers 1-100, illustrating and solving addition story problems, counting before and after a random target number and building new shapes using existing pattern block shapes.
Writing: Students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters. We are almost finished with our orange practice books. Students are using their Writer's Checklist before coming to journal conference. Writing prompts included writing about their costume/dress up, what they did on the weekend, describing their baby plants leaves and final comments about their space stations.
Science: The students began with an inquiry question--what is a seed? In our first experiment, the students took their magnifiers and examined a variety of objects--some were seeds and some were not. Each table conducted sorting activities and tried to decide which were seeds and which were not. They looked at color, shape, size and texture. Each table presented their findings. Students were fascinated by seeds that appeared as sticks or ovals and ones that were hard and bumpy. We took a look at several types of real seeds. Students reflected in their new science journals with their observations. In our next experiment, the students selected a seed for planting and nurturing. They observed the seed shapes of the Nasturtium, Marigold, Morning Glory and Sunflower seeds. All had very different shapes, colors and sizes. Students accessed information on growth patterns--horizontal vs. vertical, stems and root structure--tiny, wide, large. They also looked at leaf shapes--wagon wheel, butterfly wings, oval, skinny oval. Key vocabulary words--germination, sprout, shoot, root. Each student planted their seed and became responsible for checking and watering. Seed cups were placed in a sunny window. Each student knew from prior knowledge that seeds need sun, soil and water to grow. At 4 days the Sunflower, Marigold and Morning Glory sprouted--a tiny shoot appeared followed by tiny leaves. Jeremy's choice of Nasturtium took 9 days to sprout. Each student observed their baby plants leaf structure. The experiment continues as students took their plants home for Mother's Day presents and will continue to observe and nurture them. Students helped plant our indoor class garden also examining a wide variety of seeds. Atessa brought in a watermelon seed and Evelyn brought a maple tree seed. They will be planted along with, pumpkin, cucumber, corn, beans, peas and the flower seeds already mentioned. Stay tuned for seed dissection next week.
Technology: The students finished with filming their space stations adventure. On to the editing by Ms. Gullo and students deciding on an introduction and conclusion piece. Stay tuned! No new apps this week.
Literature: "How Do Seeds Grow?" "Beetles," "Beautiful Bugs," "Insects," "From Seed to Plant Part 1," "Bug Patrol," "The Tiny Seed," ""Plants."
**Our ABC Countdown activities were the bomb---great costumes/dress up and lots of cool dance moves. The students tried snap peas for a healthy snack and enjoyed their question and answer session with the First Grade. Game Day was the best! Games included Hedbanz, Clue, War, Hiss, Sorry, Barbie Memory Match and Sleeping Queens. Super great team and partner work!
**Our ABC Countdown continues!! Next weeks' student created activities are: H-Help Day....Take some time to help someone or help the Earth. I-Ice Cream Day....We will have Earth ice cream and Space ice cream and compare the two. J-Jump Day....At lunch recess, Ms. Gullo will measure how high we can jump! K-King Day-boys will create the activities and rules for the day. L-Lego Day...We will build with Ms. Gullo's Legos and bring a Lego creation from home and display it in the Lego Museum.
**TRAVELING POETS begins Monday, May 11th. Do you know your poem?? Students will travel to other classrooms to recite their poems during a "poetry break." Traveling Poets will continue next week. There will also be Traveling Poets opportunities at the Art Fest/Poetry Slam on Thursday, May 14th.
**The Irving Art Fest/Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 14th from 6-8 pm. There will be activities all around the school. Sign up to recite your traveling poets poem, say a poem with a friend or sibling or even have the whole family recite the poem of their choice. Students can recite their favorite poem, sing, rap or write their own poem. Our own Mr. Williams will be the MC! We hope to have some "little slammers!" Come on....join in the fun!!!
**It was a very chilly and damp morning, but the District 97 Irving Fun Run took place as scheduled. The runners braved the elements. Thanks to those who participated!
**A presentation about the SUMMER READING Program at Maze Library will take place on Monday, May 18th at 10:30 am. in the gym.
**Information and permission slip for our WALKING FIELD TRIP to the OAK PARK CONSERVATORY is in your child's homework folder. It is Tuesday, May 19th from 9-11 am. I will need 2 parent volunteers.
**We will have an in house field trip on Worm Composting with Irving parent, Ms. Henry is Monday, May 26th at 8:30 am.
**PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Kindergarten Family Picnic is Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park. Look for more information soon.
**The students had their last Friendship Club session. Ms. Bell Bey took the students out on the playground for a social time.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer did a cool project involving problem solving and spatial reasoning using shapes to create a figure based on a set of directions given by Mr. Packer.
This week:
It was all about dramatic space station play and seeds. The students are using their space stations for a leisure reading space complete with flashlights. The team invited other teams to explore their space stations. The students began their final Science unit on seeds and plants. Station day activities this week included all the board and card games the students brought in to play as partners and in small groups.
Reading/Language Arts: I am combining vocabulary, phonetic skills, comprehension and literature of our final Treasures Reading series Unit 9 Amazing Creatures and Unit 10 We Know A Lot. We will also do a mini poetry unit to close out our school year. This week the students read stories about different types of bugs. Target sight words are he and she. Target sounds are Gg, Ww and a review of long and short vowel sounds. Student small groups created sentences using all the sight words taught thus far and incorporating some of the First Grade sight words. The students also worked in small groups with leveled readers discussing story elements, cause and effect, making connections, drawing conclusions and making inferences. Word work centered on using context clues to figure out the meaning of an unknown word. They also continued to work on recognizing nouns, verbs and adjectives. The true quest of reading for meaning is becoming more apparent to our kindergarten readers. Locating details in the text and arriving at the main idea of the story with support continues to be worked on. Robust Vocabulary for this week included AMAZING, DEEP, INVITE, OCEAN, REASON. The students continue to review sound blending strategies, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes in words as well as recognizing consonant blends and digraphs and even use of silent e. Workstations included written questions and answers pertaining to a given text, word families un and ut work, using he and she in sentences, writing a sentence about a bug you have seen, writing an opinion piece about which bug you like the best and why, picking 2 insects and writing about how they are alike and different, observing details--writing about what you see in a text picture and what information that picture gives you about the story and elbow chatting with table mates about particular story elements.
Math: The students are working in their new calendar books. Some new features include number puzzles, writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, dice subtraction and domino addition, number find thru 100 and nonstandard measurement using unifix cubes. Math workshop included writing numbers 1-100, illustrating and solving addition story problems, counting before and after a random target number and building new shapes using existing pattern block shapes.
Writing: Students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters. We are almost finished with our orange practice books. Students are using their Writer's Checklist before coming to journal conference. Writing prompts included writing about their costume/dress up, what they did on the weekend, describing their baby plants leaves and final comments about their space stations.
Science: The students began with an inquiry question--what is a seed? In our first experiment, the students took their magnifiers and examined a variety of objects--some were seeds and some were not. Each table conducted sorting activities and tried to decide which were seeds and which were not. They looked at color, shape, size and texture. Each table presented their findings. Students were fascinated by seeds that appeared as sticks or ovals and ones that were hard and bumpy. We took a look at several types of real seeds. Students reflected in their new science journals with their observations. In our next experiment, the students selected a seed for planting and nurturing. They observed the seed shapes of the Nasturtium, Marigold, Morning Glory and Sunflower seeds. All had very different shapes, colors and sizes. Students accessed information on growth patterns--horizontal vs. vertical, stems and root structure--tiny, wide, large. They also looked at leaf shapes--wagon wheel, butterfly wings, oval, skinny oval. Key vocabulary words--germination, sprout, shoot, root. Each student planted their seed and became responsible for checking and watering. Seed cups were placed in a sunny window. Each student knew from prior knowledge that seeds need sun, soil and water to grow. At 4 days the Sunflower, Marigold and Morning Glory sprouted--a tiny shoot appeared followed by tiny leaves. Jeremy's choice of Nasturtium took 9 days to sprout. Each student observed their baby plants leaf structure. The experiment continues as students took their plants home for Mother's Day presents and will continue to observe and nurture them. Students helped plant our indoor class garden also examining a wide variety of seeds. Atessa brought in a watermelon seed and Evelyn brought a maple tree seed. They will be planted along with, pumpkin, cucumber, corn, beans, peas and the flower seeds already mentioned. Stay tuned for seed dissection next week.
Technology: The students finished with filming their space stations adventure. On to the editing by Ms. Gullo and students deciding on an introduction and conclusion piece. Stay tuned! No new apps this week.
Literature: "How Do Seeds Grow?" "Beetles," "Beautiful Bugs," "Insects," "From Seed to Plant Part 1," "Bug Patrol," "The Tiny Seed," ""Plants."
Sunday, May 3, 2015
UPDATES for 4/27-5/1 2015
**What a week the students have had!! They have been working on their space station projects. Each group of students has 5 team members. They then elected a project manager. Our field trip fueled passion and ideas about construction. The students used their social, behavioral, analytical, scientific and beginning engineering skills that they have embraced throughout the school year. It was truly teamwork with a capital T! The students used their prior knowledge and new ideas about space and space station design. With their team, they discussed and sketched out drawings or "prototypes" of what they thought their projects might look like. Prior to all of this, the class talked about the word "compromise" and "communication" and what they both mean. The students discussed and created a set of rules to guide them throughout the process. The role of the project manager was keep workers on task, gently remind them of their rules and stress the "compromise " piece! More about their work in the Science section.
**We are counting down the days the ABC way to the last day of school!! The students are brainstorming ideas on a week by week basis. Look for what they have planned for the week of 5/4-5/8 in their homework folder. MONDAY: A-Act like an astronaut and B-Blast off into space! Wear any kind of space or robot shirt or dark clothes. We have our jet packs, helmets and star gazers made. We will blast off at 2:00 pm. TUESDAY: C-Costume Day (wear a costume or dress up clothes and we will D-have a Dance Party. WEDNESDAY: E-Eat a Healthy Snack (They can bring their own/I will also have some on hand.) THURSDAY: F-First Grade Day (We will visit First Grade classes.) FRIDAY: G-Game Day (bring your favorite board or card games to play with friends.)
**It it also National Sports and Fitness Week! (5/4-5/8) Look for details in your child's homework folder for each days activities.
**TRAVELING POETS PROJECT is underway under the direction of Ms. Noonan. Each child has their poem. Practice! Practice! Practice! It is part of their homework. The students will travel to other classrooms to recite their poem the weeks of May 11th and May 18th.
**Did you catch the Ethnic Festival Parade?? Irving had a really cool float! Hope some of you made it to the festivities. Check out the photo.
**RUN with ME! Join the District 97's Annual Fun Run on Saturday, May 9th at 8:00 am at beautiful Lindberg Park to help celebrate Fitness Week. The sign up form is online and a paper copy was sent home. I will be there along with Mr. Hancock, Mr. Wiza. Jeremy has signed up! Come on...join the fun!
**Irving Art Fest 2015 is Thursday, May 14th from 6-8 pm. all around our school. Ms. Tague will display a piece of art from each student in the school. Lots of activities going on including Spanish games, folk dancing, traveling poets, a performance by our chorus and the culmination: THE POETRY SLAM, under the direction of Mr. Williams. Information on the SLAM will be out next week. I hope to have some "little slammers!"
FUTURE FIELD TRIPS--Pizza and Play-End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon. More info soon. Everyone is invited!! We are also planning a field trip to the Oak Park Conservatory around the third week of May. Stay tuned for more info. We will are also planning a field trip to see chicks in the yard of an Irving parent in June. Stay tuned. We will have an in house "field trip" on Worm Composting with Irving parent, Ms. Henry on Monday, May 26th! Yikes!! There is a lot going on!!!!
This week:
It was all about space station construction and working with our team. All of our afternoons this week were spent on our space stations. The students continued to work on math, literacy and writing activities during their morning. They worked on detailing their space stations during our station day time on Friday. Thanks to Jeremy's mom who was on hot glue patrol! The students did begin prep for our final science unit "From Seed to Plant" by completing their initial inquiry on "What is a seed?"
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series and that unit became the introduction to our final science unit. The students accessed their prior knowledge about what plants need to grow. They completed an initial inquiry on what a seed was. We will begin our seed experiments next week. The students used the rest of the week in small groupings and with partners working on leveled readers receiving feedback about fluency from their group and their partners, elbow chatting about characters, setting and main events, asking and answering questions about a given text both oral and written, using context clues to find out the meaning of an unknown word and working to compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in common texts. The students used their iPads as skill builders with partners. They worked on sight vocabulary and word building with the apps Sight Words, Spelling Magic 3, sound matching with the app ABC Magic and blending and segmenting sounds with the app Reading Magic 3. Whole group work centered on the apps Oz Phonics for ccvc and cvcc words and Montessori Crossword for short u and ck word practice.
Math: The students enjoyed a game week with partners and small groups. Games included "Don't Spill the Beans (sums to 5 and 10,) "Blast Off," (number comparison,) "Addition and Subtraction Pails," (adding and decomposing numbers to 10) and "What's My Shape?" (2D and 3D shape recognition.) The students also used their iPads to enhance and build on learned skills. The apps Geoboard, Number Find, Butterfly Math, Sam Phibian and Subitize Tree were some of their favorites.
Writing: The students completed their primary paragraph on the topic: "My Shadow." They wrote about their shadow pose picture. They began with a discussion and questions and answers to prompt their writing and details to support their paragraph. Students wrote their draft--proofed their work and used peer readers to help with editing and then wrote their final copy. Temporary or phonetic spelling continues to be very acceptable. The students letter formation and placement of letters on a given line continue to develop. Great work!
Science: Back to our space stations----Each team got 3 giant boxes. They chatted about how to use them and them went to the middle of the room for other boxes in different sizes. Per their specifications, I cut and taped boxes together. Each team discussed the color palette--white, gray and black were the choices. I observed lots of discussion and compromise on what color and where to use the color. The students painted for 2 days. No spills!! Next cam the detailing. Pictures, writing, stickers, drawing, knobs, computer parts, curtains and other cool things were used. We will finish up detailing on Monday morning and blast off on Monday afternoon. I have been filming the students during the entire process and hope to complete the editing after our blast off.
Technology: All the apps used this week were mentioned in the Reading and Math sections.
Literature: "One Great Leap," "I Want To Be An Astronaut," "Living in Space," "Space Rocks," "If You Decide to Go to the Moon," "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "Saturn," "Uranus," "Neptune," "Pluto, the Dwarf Planet," "Space Vehicles," "Magic School Bus--Walk on the Moon."
**We are counting down the days the ABC way to the last day of school!! The students are brainstorming ideas on a week by week basis. Look for what they have planned for the week of 5/4-5/8 in their homework folder. MONDAY: A-Act like an astronaut and B-Blast off into space! Wear any kind of space or robot shirt or dark clothes. We have our jet packs, helmets and star gazers made. We will blast off at 2:00 pm. TUESDAY: C-Costume Day (wear a costume or dress up clothes and we will D-have a Dance Party. WEDNESDAY: E-Eat a Healthy Snack (They can bring their own/I will also have some on hand.) THURSDAY: F-First Grade Day (We will visit First Grade classes.) FRIDAY: G-Game Day (bring your favorite board or card games to play with friends.)
**It it also National Sports and Fitness Week! (5/4-5/8) Look for details in your child's homework folder for each days activities.
**TRAVELING POETS PROJECT is underway under the direction of Ms. Noonan. Each child has their poem. Practice! Practice! Practice! It is part of their homework. The students will travel to other classrooms to recite their poem the weeks of May 11th and May 18th.
**Did you catch the Ethnic Festival Parade?? Irving had a really cool float! Hope some of you made it to the festivities. Check out the photo.
**RUN with ME! Join the District 97's Annual Fun Run on Saturday, May 9th at 8:00 am at beautiful Lindberg Park to help celebrate Fitness Week. The sign up form is online and a paper copy was sent home. I will be there along with Mr. Hancock, Mr. Wiza. Jeremy has signed up! Come on...join the fun!
**Irving Art Fest 2015 is Thursday, May 14th from 6-8 pm. all around our school. Ms. Tague will display a piece of art from each student in the school. Lots of activities going on including Spanish games, folk dancing, traveling poets, a performance by our chorus and the culmination: THE POETRY SLAM, under the direction of Mr. Williams. Information on the SLAM will be out next week. I hope to have some "little slammers!"
FUTURE FIELD TRIPS--Pizza and Play-End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on Wednesday, May 27th from 9:30-noon. More info soon. Everyone is invited!! We are also planning a field trip to the Oak Park Conservatory around the third week of May. Stay tuned for more info. We will are also planning a field trip to see chicks in the yard of an Irving parent in June. Stay tuned. We will have an in house "field trip" on Worm Composting with Irving parent, Ms. Henry on Monday, May 26th! Yikes!! There is a lot going on!!!!
This week:
It was all about space station construction and working with our team. All of our afternoons this week were spent on our space stations. The students continued to work on math, literacy and writing activities during their morning. They worked on detailing their space stations during our station day time on Friday. Thanks to Jeremy's mom who was on hot glue patrol! The students did begin prep for our final science unit "From Seed to Plant" by completing their initial inquiry on "What is a seed?"
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series and that unit became the introduction to our final science unit. The students accessed their prior knowledge about what plants need to grow. They completed an initial inquiry on what a seed was. We will begin our seed experiments next week. The students used the rest of the week in small groupings and with partners working on leveled readers receiving feedback about fluency from their group and their partners, elbow chatting about characters, setting and main events, asking and answering questions about a given text both oral and written, using context clues to find out the meaning of an unknown word and working to compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in common texts. The students used their iPads as skill builders with partners. They worked on sight vocabulary and word building with the apps Sight Words, Spelling Magic 3, sound matching with the app ABC Magic and blending and segmenting sounds with the app Reading Magic 3. Whole group work centered on the apps Oz Phonics for ccvc and cvcc words and Montessori Crossword for short u and ck word practice.
Math: The students enjoyed a game week with partners and small groups. Games included "Don't Spill the Beans (sums to 5 and 10,) "Blast Off," (number comparison,) "Addition and Subtraction Pails," (adding and decomposing numbers to 10) and "What's My Shape?" (2D and 3D shape recognition.) The students also used their iPads to enhance and build on learned skills. The apps Geoboard, Number Find, Butterfly Math, Sam Phibian and Subitize Tree were some of their favorites.
Writing: The students completed their primary paragraph on the topic: "My Shadow." They wrote about their shadow pose picture. They began with a discussion and questions and answers to prompt their writing and details to support their paragraph. Students wrote their draft--proofed their work and used peer readers to help with editing and then wrote their final copy. Temporary or phonetic spelling continues to be very acceptable. The students letter formation and placement of letters on a given line continue to develop. Great work!
Science: Back to our space stations----Each team got 3 giant boxes. They chatted about how to use them and them went to the middle of the room for other boxes in different sizes. Per their specifications, I cut and taped boxes together. Each team discussed the color palette--white, gray and black were the choices. I observed lots of discussion and compromise on what color and where to use the color. The students painted for 2 days. No spills!! Next cam the detailing. Pictures, writing, stickers, drawing, knobs, computer parts, curtains and other cool things were used. We will finish up detailing on Monday morning and blast off on Monday afternoon. I have been filming the students during the entire process and hope to complete the editing after our blast off.
Technology: All the apps used this week were mentioned in the Reading and Math sections.
Literature: "One Great Leap," "I Want To Be An Astronaut," "Living in Space," "Space Rocks," "If You Decide to Go to the Moon," "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "Saturn," "Uranus," "Neptune," "Pluto, the Dwarf Planet," "Space Vehicles," "Magic School Bus--Walk on the Moon."
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