**We were all smiles for our Class Picture Day! The individual photos were pretty cute too! A big thanks to K. Meier for helping us look our best.
**Family Math Night was a huge success! Thanks to those of you that attended. The attendees followed the Yellow Brick Road to fun activities and were treated to an Emerald City Sundae in the lunchroom. Some students and parents even dressed the part!
**Our school wide PACERS Running/Walking Club began on Thursday. Every Thursday at lunchtime until Thanksgiving break, students will be able to run or walk around the block of the school. For every mile students run or walk, they will receive a foot charm to attach to a necklace. Our class has decorated a special envelope to keep their necklace in. At the end of the year, it should look pretty cool with lots of foot charms.
**We had our first parent facilitated Station Day on Friday. Ella's mom was our first volunteer. My room parents have offered to create a Sign Up Genius so that parents can see actual dates for the entire year and sign up on line. Great idea! Look for that soon. Some of you have sent back the form.....please go ahead and sign up on line when it becomes available. Thanks!!!!!
**Notices for Parent/Teacher Conferences are in your child's homework folder. Many of you had signed up during Open House. Please send back your confirmation. If you didn't not sign up, I sent you a day and time. Please confirm or send me some suggestions for a new and day and time. 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.
**Wednesday, October 7th is Walk to School Day. All students who walk to school will receive a hand stamp and gym shoe to color. The colored shoe will be displayed in the gym. If you cannot walk to school on Wednesday......no worries.....You can walk with Mr. Hancock at lunchtime and get your hand stamp and shoe to color.
**CONGRATULATIONS to QUINN and JACKSON who are our Student Council Reps. They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, October 6th and report back to us. We can't wait to hear about projects they are thinking up. Thanks to all of the students who were interested. We will choose new reps in December for the new trimester.
**Our Route to Reading skills groups have been pushed back to begin on Monday, October 13th so that all teachers can complete the necessary testing for skills placement groups.
**This week, our students participated in a Math baseline screening called AIMSWEB. This screening will assist us in planning our daily lessons and allow for differentiation of instruction. I will share the results of this screening with you at conference time.
**Lots of student conversation around the Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest that will be held on Wednesday, October 14th. Ms. Creehan visited our class this week to share project format and talk to the students about ideas they might have for a project. She also discussed with the students the idea of a vehicle that can hold a raw egg securely so that when it is dropped out of a 3rd floor window.....it will not break. Some students have already created theirs!!!!! WOW!!!! Online registration is necessary. I had sent the information in your child's homework folder last week. You can also access it on the Irving School website. Think about assisting your child in a project or vehicle. It's so fun!!!!! Email me with any questions you may have. Ms. Noonan and myself can be a resource for you too.
**The sign up for for TRIVIA NIGHT---sponsored by PTO is in your child's homework folder. It is super great fun for grown ups! Check it out! It is Thursday, November 5th from 7-10 pm at the Wire in Berwyn.
**Information on PTO's BIGGEST FUNDRAISER of the YEAR will be posted soon. The FUN RUN FUNDRAISER will be held on Wednesday, October 21st. Our primary students will run around the turf beginning at 8:30 am. Come cheer us on!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued the discussion, role playing and puppetry surrounding the zones of regulation The students are getting lots of ideas about how to regulate their own behavior. I am seeing evidence of this in class. Yeah!!!!!
** In Mr. Packer's first Problem Solving session, he spoke to the students about teaching them how to be a good thinker and problem solver. He did a really cute activity using the students names and a word of something they like beginning with the beginning sound that is the same as the first letter sound in their name.
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech, Mr. Degman worked with groups of students on an app called Educreations. The students worked on different shape configurations. Cool!
**Planning a walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library sometime at October or early November. As soon as I have the details, I will pass them on to you. 2 volunteers needed
**Future Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 23rd from 9-2 pm. 4-5 volunteers needed.
This week:
We are now in the season of fall/autumn. The students are beginning to notice some changes taking place outside and in their home. Some students are noticing leaves falling from the trees and whole trees beginning to change color. In the morning, more students are coming to school with jackets and sweatshirts. They are noticing less bugs outside. Our nature table and microscope areas are beginning to fill up with items from outdoors. Next week, we will begin to chat more about changes both for humans and animals as we dive into fall. Shhhhhh.....We will have surprise "visitor" in our class on Monday. Station Day activities included writing and illustrating about a fall activity, pattern block build and count, number writing and quantity review 0-5 and initial sound roll, cover and bump with partners.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue working on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonemic awareness portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students brainstormed a word list for words that name animals. Next week, they will brainstorm a word list for words that name items or things. The students continue to work on listening comprehension and identifying story elements--characters, setting, main events and why the events are important tot the story. In our Big Book story, "Picnic at Apple Park," the students also looked for language patterns as I read. (question-answer) The students responded and retold events in the story sequence. They had an "elbow chat" to discuss with a partner WHO was in the story, WHERE the story happens and WHAT was happening. We discussed how story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. Our summative text this week was "How Rocket Learned to Read." The students worked on the same Blueprint Workmat format. They acted out certain parts and took turns being the characters. They elbow chatted with a partner about the elements of the story. During our second reading of the story, students were already volunteering to help me write or draw a picture on the projected workmat. They are remembering key vocabulary and special words that enhance the story. They are becoming more familiar with the format now. I encouraged the students to try some of their own writing. Their summative Blueprints showed more details in their pictures and more students taking that chance to write about an event, characters and setting. Cool! Robust Vocabulary for this week included COOPERATIVE, EXCITING, CAPTIVATED, STARTLED, GATHER, EXHAUSTED. The students practiced their tracking skills in our group read aloud, "The Baseball." Part of this exercise is to see if students can track the words while another student is reading aloud. Students continue work in our Haggerty Book on phonemic awareness exercises---initial sound and final sound recognition, working with short and long vowel sounds. syllables, adding and deleting sounds to create words and substituting word parts to create new words. Our workstations are in full swing. The table managers are getting the hang of positive management skills and the groups are working more cooperatively to complete assignments. It is lovely to hear the sounds of beginning and sometimes very eager readers!!!!! Workstations this week included upper and lowercase match, counting syllables activity, creating sentence using sight words and pictures, sound/picture match up, finishing up paper dolls of your family members and leveled readers-read aloud and partner comprehension check.
Math: What is a reckenrek??? Check out the photo on the side of the blog. Looks a little like an abacus but a little different.....10 rows.....5 white beads....5 red beads in each row.....mmmm. The reckenrek is a calculating frame that acts as a visual model for developing strategic reasoning in math. Students are beginning to see or visualize patterns and strategies for solving math problems. There may be more than one way to solve a problem. Right now the students are at the beginning stages. We started by looking at the 5 white and 5 red beads....10 altogether. If you already know that there are 5 white and I add 1 more???? Do you have to count it or can you see it???? The students worked on an activity call count and slide. I slid beads from one side to another. They had to figure out what number was being illustrated. I may have some serious math heads here!!!! Loads of fun. Next week, we will be using app with reckenrek activities. The students continue to work on recognizing pattern block shapes. We did the pattern block shape "Hokey Pokey." Hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus and skinny rhombus--we discussed how many sides and corners each shape has. What do a trapezoid, square, rectangle and rhombus have in common???? The students counted pennies by hearing to them fall into a jar. Our "listening jar" was tons of fun! Our math workstations this week included "swat the number," count and record, beginning work with tally marks, sequencing number cards, number rhymes for 6 and 7 and working on positional concepts.
Writing: The students continue work on their Frog Jump capitals. This week letters P, B and R were introduced. The students applied what they learned in their orange practice books. Proper writing posture continues to be reinforced--sitting up straight so that our back touches the back of the chair--feet under the table---one hand holding our pencil or marker (tripod grasp) and the other hand holding down our paper. In our Writer's Workshop this week, the students worked on labeling parts of their pictures with a word that describes their drawing. They continue to add more details and color to their drawings. More students are attempting to write down a word and use their sounds and sound cards as an assist. Sentence writers are beginning to use a capital letter at the beginning more consistently.
Technology: In reading whole group, the app Montessori Crosswords was used to enhance knowledge of putting sounds together to form a word. We have been concentrating on short a words with a simple consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. Magnetic Letters HD was used to reinforce sight words and sentence building. In math, the apps Subitize Tree and Geoboard were used whole group to work on visual recognition of number and shape recognition. Student small groups used the app Educreations with Mr. Degman work on shapes and shape concepts. As we begin to chart our weather patterns, the app Storm and Weatherunderground was used this week to track temperature, wind speed and the amount of sun or clouds. The students enjoyed watching clouds moving across the screen!
Literature: "How Rocket Learned to Read," "Where In The Wild," "Chipmunck at Hollow Tree Lane," "I am a Leaf,""Leaves Fall Down,""The Way I Feel,""Mean Jean the Recess Queen," "Smile If You Are Human," "I Can, We Can," "The Clever Turtle," "It's Autumn."
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