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."




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