**Our Walk to School Day was a success! Over half of our class walked to school in the morning. The rest of the class walked with Mr. Hancock at lunchtime. Each student colored their gym shoe and received a hand stamp. Mr Hancock will put up all the shoes on the gym walls. Cool!
**Thanks for sending in your Parent Conference confirmed responses. Keep them coming! I will reschedule parents who need a new day and time this week. I will email you. Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, October 19th, Tuesday, October 20th and Wednesday, October 21st. Please note: On Thursday, October 22nd and Friday, October 23rd school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. There will be district bus service, Hephzibah and Clubhouse pick up at 11:00 am. There is NO afternoon session.
**CALLING ALL CURIOUS KIDS!!! There is still time to design a vehicle for the Egg Drop or create a project for the Academic Fair. Both events are Wednesday, October 14th. We have 2 students doing projects that I know of and 5 students who have designed vehicles. Don't forget you need to sign up online for one or both events on the Irving website. Come on....the more the merrier!!! Come join us on Wednesday afternoon beginning at 1:00 pm on the turf for the Egg Drop Contest. Come to view and hear the students speak about their projects on Wednesday night beginning at 6:30 pm in the gym. It will be one FUN day!
**The students began prep for Lexia Core 5 in the lab this week. They will be getting their usernames and passwords next week and will begin work in the lab 2X week for 30 minutes. I will also send information home with them on adding Lexia Core 5 to your home computer or tablet for practice at home.
**Our Pacer's Walking/Running Club is in full swing. The students are enjoying the fresh air and the activity. Each student has earned 2 foot charms to put on their necklaces. We will keep our necklaces in a special envelope here at school.
**The first rotation of Route to Reading skills specific groups will begin on Tuesday. October 13th. You will receive notification of the phonemic awareness skill your child will be working on and the teacher who is teaching it. Route to Reading will meet Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9:05-9:45. Each rotation is 3 weeks with assessment of the skill in the third week. Students must score 90% on the skill to move to another skill. Students have the opportunity to remain at the skill, move to the next skill or skip skills. I will speak about this in more detail at parent conferences.
**WOW! Thanks to the great response for Friday Station Day helpers. The Sign Up Genius did the trick. If you are interested and there are no more spots.....email me a Friday and we can have 2 parents helping out. I would love it and your child would too. I believe Sign Up Genius will send out a reminder to you. Thanks again K. Meier for suggesting this.
**Let's Run!!!! Information about the Annual Irving Fun Run in is your child's homework folder. This is a BIG fundraiser for our PTO. Sign up online to pledge your support. The Fun Run will be held on Wednesday, October 21st beginning at 8:30 am. Our Kindergarten classes will run first at 8:15 am. Come out and support us on Wednesday morning!! Cheer, make signs, take a picture of us with the Irving Eagle!! Let's get moving!!
**While we are on the subject of fundraisers.......sign up for TRIVIA NIGHT another huge fundraiser. It's super great for grown ups. It will be held on Thursday, November 5th from 7-10 pm at the Wire in Berwyn.
**Our Student Council Reps, Quinn and Jackson went to their first meeting. They met with other students representing grades K-5. They discussed their mission and began chatting about different projects and events that would benefit Irving School and our community. They came back to class and reported on some of the ideas. Stay tuned!
**No School Monday, October 12th in observance of Columbus Day.
**Walking Field Trip to Maze Library is in the works for the first week in November. Details and permission slip soon. I will need 1-2 volunteers.
**Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 23rd from 9-2 pm. I will need 4-5 volunteers.
**Yes......Halloween is coming (the afternoon of October 30th) There is chatter amongst the children!!! We have not talked about it as a class yet. Too early. Our approach will be to study nocturnal animals, the skeleton as it relates to humans and animals and a mini unit on spiders. Informational and noncreepy!! I will be chatting with our room parents as soon as I know what the PTO has planned for that day. Our afternoon usually begins with a all school parade, some all school event and then our class party. We will follow our regular schedule in the morning. More info on costumes and treats to come. All families are welcome to attend!
This week:
Yes! We do have a striped skunk visiting our class for a few weeks courtesy of the Field Museum. The students were all a buzz about this nocturnal animal......Is it dead? How did it get in that exhibit case? We discussed how the museum can let us borrow an animal that is stuffed so we can learn about it and see it up close. Yes...It was once alive! The students observed its fur, face and claws. Skunks are common to Oak Park and they are nocturnal. Skunks, like humans are mammals. We also talked about what makes a mammal. We humans are observing what happens in the fall. What are skunks doing in the fall? Stay tuned. The students began an initial inquiry about what they knew about apples. Next week is all about apple science!
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed how families can change. Family members move away or move in. Children grow older. Family sizes can increase. The students elbowed chatted with a partner about an activity they did when they were a baby and an activity they can now do as a 5/6 year old. We made a list of activities we did when we were babies.....cry, be carried, crawl, drink a bottle and a list of activities that we can now do.....ride a bike, dress ourselves, walk.....This preparation will assist the students next week when they begin their summative text activity using the trade book, "Peter's Chair." We continue to work on story structure and will begin to look more closely at the details that support the story. The students continue work on retelling a story and that most stories have a beginning, middle and ending part. We use the text, "Picnic at Apple Park" from last week. The students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in order. They worked on thinking about the big or main idea of the story. What is this story about? How do you know? Can you find evidence for your thinking in the story? Can the pictures help you? The students reviewed the sight words taught thus far. They "walked their words." Robust Vocabulary for this week included CHANGE, RELATIVES, EAGER, OCCASION, CELEBRATE. In our phonemic awareness activities this week, the students continue to work on rhyme patterns, 2-4 syllables words and beginning sound blending of 2 sound words. During our read aloud time, the students read "Can We." Students caught on to the story structure.....a question and an answer. Tracking skills are becoming more consistent. Pointing to each word and picture and keeping your place while other are reading are important in our whole group read aloud. Target sounds reviewed were Mm and Ss and short A. Students did a formative text Blueprint Workmat about characters, setting and main event on the nonfiction story, "How Do You Get To School?" Our Haggerty BlueBook exercises continue to reinforce rhyming, initial and final sounds, syllables, blending sounds, counting words in a sentence and adding and substituting word parts. Workstations this week included leveled read aloud, elbow chatting about characters, setting and main events, walking your words, drawing your family and writing about an activity you like to do with them (sentence starter....We like to.....) sentence building with sight words and pictures, sentence writing, What can happen next?--adding to the story you read, the syllable game and roll, cover and bump-initial sounds and Monster Mash--initial sound activity.
Math: This week, the students began work on their number rhymes for 6-9. They continue to work on counting quantities to 15 and writing their numbers. In their calendar books, the students are becoming more comfortable telling and writing which number will come next, recording the date, writing the number of the day, working on A/B, AA/B and ABC patterns and completing their ten frames. The students are finding the temperature on the weatherunderground app and recording it and what kind of weather we are having each day. They are working to understand place value--number of groups of tens and ones. The students worked on reckenrek activities "Slide and Say" and "Show Me." They learned and played the game "Heads or Tails Tally" with a partner. Our math workstations included pattern block shape find, "Heads or Tails Tally," "Swat the Number," Writing numbers 0-20 and how high can you count?
Writing: The students continue to work on Frog Jump capitals. This week, letters N and M were introduced. Students experimented with using the wooden pieces to form the letters. They used their mini boards and tripod grasp with their tiny chalk. In Writer's Workshop, the students illustrated and wrote about an animal and one fact about it, something they like to do with their family and something they can see outside. The students are working on beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words and having an ending mark. At this point, it is still very early in letter formation and all letter types (all upper or some lowercase) are acceptable. Students continue to use their letter/sound cards to assist in their writing. Labeling of pictures is occurring along with inventive or phonetic spelling. Students are talking more chances and feeling more confident about trying to write on their own. During Journal conference time, I am working individually with students on sentence structure.
Technology: In reading whole group, the app My ABC was used to reinforce letter recognition, sound/symbol and upper and lowercase math and Word Wizard to reinforce blending sounds to creating words. The app Oz Phonics was used to enhance knowledge od beginning and ending sounds. In Math whole group, the apps Easy Match, Number Rack (reckenrek app) and Geoboard were used to enhance study of number patterns, shapes and visual thinking. Next week, iPad assignment may be part of a student workstation in reading and math.
Literature: "How Do You Go To School?" "Me and My Family Tree," "In 1492," "Where in the Wild," "Why Do Leaves Change Color?" "Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animals."
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