**Our field trip to BROOKFIELD ZOO is TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24th from 9:30-2 pm. ALL STUDENTS MUST BRING A BAG LUNCH WITH NAME ON IT and DRESS FOR THE WEATHER. No glass bottles or thermos containers. A big thanks to A. Pillacela, M. Daniel, N. Bell, U. Allgood, N. Massett and M. Harris for volunteering to help. Students and teachers will ride the school bus. Parent volunteers will carpool and meet us at the zoo. I will provide money for your parking fee. I am not able to have younger siblings on this trip. Our trip includes a special tour of the Great Bear Wilderness, a classroom experience, a spot for our picnic lunch and time for your group to explore exhibits on your own.
**Keep those gloves and mittens coming!! The end of the month is soon approaching. Student Council reps Quinn and Jackson are so excited by your contributions. Glove and mitten donations will go to the Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 has concluded. You should have received a notice about your child's skill mastery. Please email if you did not. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, November 30th.
**This year the Turkey Trot took place during our scheduled Art Time. We wished our Book Buddies well but did not get to see them run. We will see our Book Buddies on Monday, November 23rd. They will be helping us create some props for a Winter Concert piece the kindergarten students are working on.
**Bus Evacuation Drill for students will be held on Monday, November 23rd at 9:45 am.
**Meet Children's author, Paul Orchoski ("The Ant and Pancake" and "The Mouse in My House") on Tuesday, December 1st from 6-7 pm. He will be talking to parents and students about coming up with story ideas, writing tips, understanding craft and structure and poetry inspiration.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!! As part of our Traditions and Celebrations cross curricular theme for the month of December, I am looking for volunteers to help with Room 110's Annual Gingerbread Cookie Making and Baking on Friday, December 11th beginning at 1:15 until dismissal. No experience necessary! Roll out, create, decorate, bake and share. Email me if interested. We have 2 volunteers so far. I need about 4 more volunteers for the event to run smoothly. Think about it! I will provide the dough, sprinkles and aprons......you provide the baking sheets, spatulas, man/woman power and the love! I will provide the recipe for your viewing. It is a no egg/no dairy/no nut recipe.
**Come to the Irving Annual Handmade Craft Fair and Cookie Crumble on Saturday, December 12th from 9-1 pm. in the lunchroom and hallways. Great place to shop for holiday items.
**WINTER CONCERT featuring our own Kindergarten and First Graders is Thursday, December 17th. Due to the size of our auditorium, it will be performed twice--once at 8:15 am and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. All are welcome to attend! I will be chatting with our Room Parents about refreshments between concerts.
**Please note that you can order from the NOVEMBER and DECEMBER See Saw Book Magazines until November 30th.
**Trimester 1 ends on November 24th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 11th.
**NO SCHOOL November 25th-29th in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Classes resume on Monday, November 30th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on behavior and reviewed the behavior hero and challenges to appropriate behavior. The students participated in activities where they thought out solutions to situations posing conflicts.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began a new project on positional concepts. He showed a video/catchy song about the concepts--in--on--under--in front of---behind --next to--between.
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech, students completed their project on teen numbers counting using the app Chatter Pix.
This week: It continues to be all about bears and preparing for our field trip to the Brookfield Zoo. The students reviewed the facts they know thus about all bears. They discussed the similarities and differences of black and brown/grizzly bears. They looked at some cool video feed from National Geographic kids on bears/habitats/foods. We read about and found information via the internet on polar bears. The students discovered that they are different from black/brown bears because of the environment they live in. Waxy waterproof fur and black skin underneath their fur help the polar to stay dry and reflect the suns rays. Their diet is mainly seals, much to the dismay of the class. There is not a lot of plant life. The students began to compare and contrast the types of bears. How are they alike? How are they different? We used a Venn Diagram to help us sort it out. The students began work on an author/illustrator study using the works of Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. They make a great team! The student are using the craft and structure of the story, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear , What Do You See" to write their own class version of the story. They will write and illustrate and then record themselves reading their page. Stay tuned! Station day activities for this week included bear cave habitats, writing and illustrating a page for our class Brown Bear story, teen teddies cut, count and sequence, labeling parts of a bear and partner challenge using the app Top It.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began work on Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed what is meant by transportation --a way to move people and things from one place to another. They brainstormed ways to get around and discussed forms of transportation that go fast and slow. We constructed a group transportation word web. The students built background on their travels near and far. They listened to the Big Book story, "On the Go." The students observed how people travel from one place to another and the vehicles they used. We looked up each country on the globe. The students asked and answered questions about the types of vehicles used in other countries. They also worked on words that show ACTION. Our Big Book text became the basis for a summative assessment on naming key details and using text evidence. In their comprehension study, the students compared and categorized the types of travel and vehicles. The sight words go and see where reviewed. The students worked on target sounds Tt and short i. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included TRAVEL, JOURNEY, PREPARE, RELAX, FAMILIAR. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 3 phoneme words. They read their pre decodable story, "Go, Go, Go." They learned about a comma and how it is used. They made predictions about story content and elbow chatted with a partner about characters, setting and events in the story. The students listened to 2 poems about transportation--"The Bike" and "Riding the Subway." They noticed the rhyming pattern in both and tracked the words as I read them. Workstations this week included leveled readers with focus on fluency and main idea, "How do you go to school?"--graph and compare, using the app Magnetic Letters HD to create sentences using their sight words, word search-ip words, creating your own retelling cards, beginning and ending sound search, word work and writing about your favorite vehicle.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 75 and beyond. The students are really getting the hang of working with ten frames and counting by tens. They worked with partners on counting and cardinality activities representing a group of objects with a written number. The students continue to work with teen numbers sequencing the order/writing them and decomposing the group of ten and what is left over. Workstations this week included working with monkey in the middle teens, sorting by common attribute, working with geometric solids cone, cube, cylinder and sphere and finishing tech teen project with Mr. Degman.
Writing: The students completed work on Starting Corner Capitals. They reviewed H, L, K, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. The students practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students are working hard in their new writing journals to begin with a capital letter, space between words in a sentence and where to place letters on a given line and reading their work before they come to conference with me. I love when I hear them reading their work back to themselves as they are beginning the process of self editing their writing.
Technology: In reading, whole and small group used the apps Montessori Crosswords and Rocket Speller to reinforce segmenting and blending as well as sound foundation, In Math, whole and small group used the apps Top It, Monster Squeeze to reinforce greater than/less than and number order. Students began to learn about the app Sonic Pics to record their sentence for our talking story.
Literature: "Desert Homes," "Hibernation Station," "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You Hear/" "Tree Homes," "Who Lives Here?" "Polar Bears," "Follow the Polar Bears," "Amazing Polar Bears."
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Sunday, November 15, 2015
UPDATES for 11/9-11/13 2015
**Our 50th Day of School was sure fun! Bobby socks, blue jeans, poodle skirts, pony tails, slick back hair and sun glasses. So cool!! The student saw a video depicting the era of the 1950's and the comparison to present day. We did a group compare and contrast Venn Diagram. They enjoyed dancing to the music of the 1950's. Some of these kids can sure "cut a rug." The students worked on math and literacy stations involving the number 50. The countdown continues!! Only 50 more days until our 100th Day celebration.
**Keep those gloves and mittens coming!! Students are continuing to bring in donations. Student Council reps, Jackson and Quinn continue to spread the word. They will take donations until the end of November. Glove and mitten donations will go to the Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will conclude on Wednesday, November 18th. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, November 30th.
**Our BROOKFIELD ZOO FIELD TRIP is Tuesday November 24th from 9-2 pm. We would like to have all permission slips and money in by FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20th please. ALL STUDENTS MUST BRING A BAG LUNCH with NAME on it and DRESS for the WEATHER. No glass bottles or thermos containers. Thanks to U. Allgood, A. Pillacela, M. Daniel, N. Bell and N. Massett for volunteering to come on the trip. Students and teachers will ride the bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will provide money for the parking fee. I am not able to have younger siblings on this trip. Our trip includes a special tour of the Great Bear Wilderness, a class at the Great Bear Wilderness Center, a picnic lunch spot and time for your group to explore other exhibits on your own.
**The Grade 3-5 Annual Turkey Trot will take place on Thursday, November 19th at 2:00 pm. We will be making posters and signs to cheer our Book Buddies on.
**Come to the Irving Annual Handmade Craft Fair and Cookie Crumble on Saturday, December 12th from 9-1 pm in the lunchroom and hallways. Great place to shop for holiday items.
**Meet Children's author, Paul Orchoski ("The Ant and Pancake" and "The Mouse in My House") on Tuesday, December 1st from 6-7 pm. He will be talking to parents and students about coming up with story ideas, writing tips, understanding craft and structure and poetry inspiration.
**SAVE THE DATE!! Our WINTER CONCERT featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 17th. Due to the size of our auditorium, it will be performed twice--once at 8:15 am. and again at 9:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. I will be chatting with my Room Parents about refreshments between the concerts.
**Please note that you can order from the NOVEMBER and DECEMBER See Saw Catalogs until November 30th. They are in your child's homework folder.
**Trimester 1 ends on November 24th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 11th.
**NO SCHOOL November 25th-29th in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Classes resume on Monday, November 30th.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!! As part of our Traditions and Celebrations cross curricular theme for the month of December, I am looking for volunteers to help with Room 110's Annual Gingerbread Cookie Making and Baking on Friday, December 11th beginning at 1:15 until dismissal. No experience necessary. Roll out, create, decorate, bake and share. Email me if interested. I will provide the dough, sprinkles and aprons.......you provide the baking sheets, rolling pins, man/woman power and the love! I will provide the recipe for your viewing. It is a no egg/no dairy/no nut recipe.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on Behavior Hero-Super Flex and the introduction of Glass Man--who gets upset quickly, doesn't want you to be flexible and thinks everything is not fair. Students saw a video followed by a discussion on behavior choices.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer presented his final "thinking outside of the box" project incorporating both letters and a black dot to create a picture or scene. Totally cool!
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week students began working on teen number counting using the app Chatter Pix.
This week: The students took time out of their morning to chat about the meaning of Veteran's Day and to salute those who are in service for our country. The students were interested in the different branches of the military. They made connections in their own lives about people they knew in the military. Ms. Gullo shared her special connection--her wonderful nephew and niece in the Air Force. Then it was all about our new cross curricular theme BEARS/ADAPTATIONS. The students completed and inquiry about what they knew about bears. They gathered information from books and the internet about characteristics all bears share. The students were excited to learn that humans share something in common with bears--they are both mammals. Students found out that the black bear is the most common bear in North America. They read about where they are found, their habitats, characteristics and food. Our nature table has a black bear skull and jaw bone, black bear fur and claw and other interesting artifacts courtesy of the Field Museum. The students noticed that black bears have smaller claws and paws than brown/grizzly bears. They noted similar habitats and foods. Students learned the terms-omnivore (eating plants and meat) carnivore (meat eating) and herbivore (planting eating) BrainPop Jr. provided students with some cool movies and video feed on bears and hibernation. Next week--more study on grizzly and polar bears and prep for our trip. On a vegetable note: Jackson brought back a big carrot with huge green stems and leaves. (check out the photo!) He described his adventure pulling out the carrot from the ground. Cool! Station day activities this week included adding an action word sentence to our sponge painted bears, color by code shape review, writing around the room-50 words and roll, add and color with 2 dice.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They used the text "Simon and Molly Plus Hester"to work on key details in the story and what a character says that is important. The text was also used to explore the idea of a problem and a solution in a story. Who are the characters? How are they alike? Different? What do you think the author's message is? This text was used for a Blueprint Workmat summative assessment on key details and why they are important to the story. The student put their finishing touches on their dioramas. They are learning to work cooperatively to create a detailed project. Great job! The students reviewed all their sight words presented thus far and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." They also wrote their words and partnered up to use them in oral sentences. Students reviewed target sounds Pp, Tt, Ss, and short Aa. They participated in an activity where they had to tell if they heard a target sound at the beginning, middle or end of a word. We began a conversation on words naming people, places, things being called nouns and looked for them in the stories they read in small group workstations. Students began work on using elkonin boxes and blocks to segment and blend phonemes to create CVC words. The students read the pre decodable story,"We Like Sam." They made predictions about story content, elbow chatted with a partner about characters, setting and recalled an event from the story. The students listened to the thinking tale, "The Little Red Hen." They listened to fluent reading and reoccurring phrases and once again thought about the problem and solution in the tale and sequencing events. Workstations included leveled reading with emphasis on fluency and story elements, word search for short a and short e words, word family sort with word families ad, ap, at words, creating a speech bubble around what 2 friends might say to each other and creating CVC words.
Math: The students worked on rote counting and writing numbers to 50 and played the game "Race to 50." They continue to work on reinforcing recognition and writing of teen numbers, adding quantities to 5 with manipulatives and using their ten frames to build teen numbers. They also reviewed positional concepts, counting by 10's to 100, number rhymes, counting quantities to 30 and greater than/less than activities.
Writing: The students continue to work on Starting Corner Capital letter formation. This week the letters V, W, X were introduced, They worked on letters via their mini boards and chalk, using the wooden pieces and applied what they had learned in their orange practice books. The students are beginning to explore the use of top and bottom lines and a broken middle line for upper and lowercase letters. They will begin using their new Yellow journals with lines soon. The students continue to work on more consistency in using a capital letter at the beginning, spacing between words and having an ending mark. Using inventive or phonetic spelling is very acceptable. They also continue to work on reading their own writing.
Technology: In reading, student whole and small groups are using the apps Magnetic Letters HD to compose sentences using sight words, Sound Sort, Montessori Crosswords for initial sound recognition and segmenting and blending sounds to create words and Reading Magic 2 to reinforce onset and rime word families. In math whole and small groups, students used the apps Top It for greater/less/compare, Monster Squeeze for number sequencing, Number Rack for ways to say 5 and Subitize Tree for number quantity/visualizing number.
Literature: "Amazing Bears," "Bears," "Black Bear Cub," "Sleep Big Bear, Sleep," "Time to Sleep," "Day in the Life of Baby Bear," "Bears in the Forest," "Bears of the World."
**Keep those gloves and mittens coming!! Students are continuing to bring in donations. Student Council reps, Jackson and Quinn continue to spread the word. They will take donations until the end of November. Glove and mitten donations will go to the Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will conclude on Wednesday, November 18th. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, November 30th.
**Our BROOKFIELD ZOO FIELD TRIP is Tuesday November 24th from 9-2 pm. We would like to have all permission slips and money in by FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20th please. ALL STUDENTS MUST BRING A BAG LUNCH with NAME on it and DRESS for the WEATHER. No glass bottles or thermos containers. Thanks to U. Allgood, A. Pillacela, M. Daniel, N. Bell and N. Massett for volunteering to come on the trip. Students and teachers will ride the bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will provide money for the parking fee. I am not able to have younger siblings on this trip. Our trip includes a special tour of the Great Bear Wilderness, a class at the Great Bear Wilderness Center, a picnic lunch spot and time for your group to explore other exhibits on your own.
**The Grade 3-5 Annual Turkey Trot will take place on Thursday, November 19th at 2:00 pm. We will be making posters and signs to cheer our Book Buddies on.
**Come to the Irving Annual Handmade Craft Fair and Cookie Crumble on Saturday, December 12th from 9-1 pm in the lunchroom and hallways. Great place to shop for holiday items.
**Meet Children's author, Paul Orchoski ("The Ant and Pancake" and "The Mouse in My House") on Tuesday, December 1st from 6-7 pm. He will be talking to parents and students about coming up with story ideas, writing tips, understanding craft and structure and poetry inspiration.
**SAVE THE DATE!! Our WINTER CONCERT featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 17th. Due to the size of our auditorium, it will be performed twice--once at 8:15 am. and again at 9:45 am. in the Irving Auditorium. I will be chatting with my Room Parents about refreshments between the concerts.
**Please note that you can order from the NOVEMBER and DECEMBER See Saw Catalogs until November 30th. They are in your child's homework folder.
**Trimester 1 ends on November 24th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 11th.
**NO SCHOOL November 25th-29th in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Classes resume on Monday, November 30th.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!! As part of our Traditions and Celebrations cross curricular theme for the month of December, I am looking for volunteers to help with Room 110's Annual Gingerbread Cookie Making and Baking on Friday, December 11th beginning at 1:15 until dismissal. No experience necessary. Roll out, create, decorate, bake and share. Email me if interested. I will provide the dough, sprinkles and aprons.......you provide the baking sheets, rolling pins, man/woman power and the love! I will provide the recipe for your viewing. It is a no egg/no dairy/no nut recipe.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on Behavior Hero-Super Flex and the introduction of Glass Man--who gets upset quickly, doesn't want you to be flexible and thinks everything is not fair. Students saw a video followed by a discussion on behavior choices.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer presented his final "thinking outside of the box" project incorporating both letters and a black dot to create a picture or scene. Totally cool!
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week students began working on teen number counting using the app Chatter Pix.
This week: The students took time out of their morning to chat about the meaning of Veteran's Day and to salute those who are in service for our country. The students were interested in the different branches of the military. They made connections in their own lives about people they knew in the military. Ms. Gullo shared her special connection--her wonderful nephew and niece in the Air Force. Then it was all about our new cross curricular theme BEARS/ADAPTATIONS. The students completed and inquiry about what they knew about bears. They gathered information from books and the internet about characteristics all bears share. The students were excited to learn that humans share something in common with bears--they are both mammals. Students found out that the black bear is the most common bear in North America. They read about where they are found, their habitats, characteristics and food. Our nature table has a black bear skull and jaw bone, black bear fur and claw and other interesting artifacts courtesy of the Field Museum. The students noticed that black bears have smaller claws and paws than brown/grizzly bears. They noted similar habitats and foods. Students learned the terms-omnivore (eating plants and meat) carnivore (meat eating) and herbivore (planting eating) BrainPop Jr. provided students with some cool movies and video feed on bears and hibernation. Next week--more study on grizzly and polar bears and prep for our trip. On a vegetable note: Jackson brought back a big carrot with huge green stems and leaves. (check out the photo!) He described his adventure pulling out the carrot from the ground. Cool! Station day activities this week included adding an action word sentence to our sponge painted bears, color by code shape review, writing around the room-50 words and roll, add and color with 2 dice.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They used the text "Simon and Molly Plus Hester"to work on key details in the story and what a character says that is important. The text was also used to explore the idea of a problem and a solution in a story. Who are the characters? How are they alike? Different? What do you think the author's message is? This text was used for a Blueprint Workmat summative assessment on key details and why they are important to the story. The student put their finishing touches on their dioramas. They are learning to work cooperatively to create a detailed project. Great job! The students reviewed all their sight words presented thus far and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." They also wrote their words and partnered up to use them in oral sentences. Students reviewed target sounds Pp, Tt, Ss, and short Aa. They participated in an activity where they had to tell if they heard a target sound at the beginning, middle or end of a word. We began a conversation on words naming people, places, things being called nouns and looked for them in the stories they read in small group workstations. Students began work on using elkonin boxes and blocks to segment and blend phonemes to create CVC words. The students read the pre decodable story,"We Like Sam." They made predictions about story content, elbow chatted with a partner about characters, setting and recalled an event from the story. The students listened to the thinking tale, "The Little Red Hen." They listened to fluent reading and reoccurring phrases and once again thought about the problem and solution in the tale and sequencing events. Workstations included leveled reading with emphasis on fluency and story elements, word search for short a and short e words, word family sort with word families ad, ap, at words, creating a speech bubble around what 2 friends might say to each other and creating CVC words.
Math: The students worked on rote counting and writing numbers to 50 and played the game "Race to 50." They continue to work on reinforcing recognition and writing of teen numbers, adding quantities to 5 with manipulatives and using their ten frames to build teen numbers. They also reviewed positional concepts, counting by 10's to 100, number rhymes, counting quantities to 30 and greater than/less than activities.
Writing: The students continue to work on Starting Corner Capital letter formation. This week the letters V, W, X were introduced, They worked on letters via their mini boards and chalk, using the wooden pieces and applied what they had learned in their orange practice books. The students are beginning to explore the use of top and bottom lines and a broken middle line for upper and lowercase letters. They will begin using their new Yellow journals with lines soon. The students continue to work on more consistency in using a capital letter at the beginning, spacing between words and having an ending mark. Using inventive or phonetic spelling is very acceptable. They also continue to work on reading their own writing.
Technology: In reading, student whole and small groups are using the apps Magnetic Letters HD to compose sentences using sight words, Sound Sort, Montessori Crosswords for initial sound recognition and segmenting and blending sounds to create words and Reading Magic 2 to reinforce onset and rime word families. In math whole and small groups, students used the apps Top It for greater/less/compare, Monster Squeeze for number sequencing, Number Rack for ways to say 5 and Subitize Tree for number quantity/visualizing number.
Literature: "Amazing Bears," "Bears," "Black Bear Cub," "Sleep Big Bear, Sleep," "Time to Sleep," "Day in the Life of Baby Bear," "Bears in the Forest," "Bears of the World."
Sunday, November 8, 2015
UPDATES for 11/2-11/6 2015
**It was a wonderful warm week to get out and explore the growing signs of autumn, have an extra recess or two and harvest the rest of our class garden bed. All hands were on deck for our leaf sort project. Each student added their leaves to our giant sort. Students also participated in labeling the different groups. Check out our photo!
**Keep those gloves and mittens coming!! Students are beginning to bring in their donations. Students Council reps Quinn and Jackson are spreading the word. Glove and mitten donations will go to the Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
**Our 50th Day of school is coming!!! It is Wednesday, November 11th. We will be half way to 100! The students will spend some time learning about the decade of the 50's. We will mark part of our day by dressing up like the 50's, having a sock hop at 9:45 and working on math workstations surrounding the number 50 in the afternoon. On Wednesday, November 11th, the students can dress up if they choose. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and blue jeans--slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you have a poodle skirt--WOW!
**Our Dioramas turned out very cool and creative! Each of the 4 groups chose an event from the story, "Peter's Chair" to recreate. Thanks to all of you who sent in cool stuff. We spent some time brainstorming on how to be a contributing member of the group, share ideas and work cooperatively. No small fete!! There are still 2 groups who would like to add more details. I will photograph the finished products next week.
**In your child's homework folder is the permission slip and information for our FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO. The trip is Tuesday, November 24th from 9-2pm. The students and teachers will travel by school bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will provide money for the parking fee. All volunteers have free admission to the zoo. I have U. Allgood and M. Daniel volunteering so far. I would love to have 2-3 more to make the student groups smaller and easy to manage. I am not able to have younger siblings on this trip. Students need to have a BAG LUNCH with NAME on it. No glass or thermos bottles please. We will be outside the much of the day so students should be dressed for the weather. If the weather is too chilly for a picnic, there are indoor places for us to have our lunch. We will have a special tour of the the Great Bear Wilderness and we will meet at the Great Bear Wilderness Center for a special classroom experience.
**The Grade 3-5 Annual Turkey Trot will take place on Thursday, November 19th at 2:00 pm. We will be making posters and signs to cheer our Book Buddies on.
**Meet Children's author, Paul Orchoski ("The Ant and Pancake" and "The Mouse in My House) on Tuesday, December 1st from 6-7 pm. He will be talking to parents and students about coming up with story ideas, writing tips, understanding craft and structure and poetry inspiration. Information on sign up is in your child's homework folder.
**SAVE THE DATE!! Our WINTER CONCERT featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 17th. Due to the size of our auditorium it will be performed twice--once at 8:15 am and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. The student have already begun work on songs and movement activities!
**CALLING ALL COOKS!! As part of our Traditions and Celebrations cross curricular theme for the month of December----I am looking for volunteers to help with Room 110's Annual Gingerbread Cookie Baking, beginning at 1:15 until dismissal. No experience necessary! Roll out, create, decorate, bake and share. Email me if interested. I will provide the dough, sprinkles and aprons.......you provide the baking sheets, rolling pins, man/woman power and the love! I will provide the recipe for your viewing. It is a no egg/no dairy/no nut recipe.
**The end of Trimester 1 is November 24th. Report cards go out on Friday, December 11th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey presented more ways to be a good Social Detective and do the expected when working on positive interactions. She told the students about the Behavior Hero, "Super Flex"---a flexible hero who adapts to situations using his social tools-ears for listening, brain for thinking, eyes for looking/observing and whole body. She also explained about "Rock Brain," who has trouble being flexible, only focuses on himself and does not use his social tools. Which do you want to be?? Remember--the Cool thing about Behavior---is you can CHANGE IT!!! Students watched a video on different behavioral scenes and discussed what Super Flex would do and what Rock Brain would do. Powerful!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, students worked on a thinking project using the text "Curious George's ABC's." Each letter became part of a larger picture. Thinking outside the box again! Students incorporated the letter they got into a picture. The students shared their pictures with the group. They were quite interesting!!
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week, students completed their counting projects using the app Educreations. I will post them soon.
This week:
The students went to our class garden bed to dig up the last of the sweet potatoes and put our garden to sleep for the winter. They observed root systems and lots of different size sweet potatoes. Very cool! Because there were not enough sweet potatoes for everyone to have one, we donated our potatoes to the Friday Potato Tasting sponsored by the Garden Club. Around our school, many leaves are falling. With our Tree Book, we looked up the names of some of the trees and what their leaves look like. The weather was excellent and it was great to get outside for some extra recess and movement activities. The students worked on their dioramas. They are learning what it means to work cooperatively to create and finish a project. The students completed a summative writing assessment using the text, "Peter's Chair." You can see their progress and willingness to try to respond in writing. The students listened to the story, "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. We discussed the rich vocabulary that went with the story and we made a group list of all the animals and shapes the students observed in the story. The students made predictions on where the "Leaf Man" will go next and thought about the authors meaning in the repeated sentence,"Where a Leaf Man will land only the wind knows." Station Day activities this week included creating a leaf man or animal using leaves from their collection, sponge paint bears, completing Seasonal Sam and where will he stand? and taking a Subitize Challenge with friends.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue working in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about how friends around the world share different activities and who can be a friend. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Friends All Around Us." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where friends lived. We looked up these countries on our world map. Student reviewed the isolated sounds of M, S, A, P. Our Robust Vocabulary included WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST, HONEST. The students worked on identifying the MAIN TOPIC on the story. They elbow chatted about how they knew it and told their partners 3 details about the story. Our puppet friends assisted the students in practice on blending letter sounds to create 3 letter words. (CVC) Students reviewed all sight vocabulary presented thus far and student small groups used the pictures, ending marks and words to create simple sentences. Each group shared the sentences they created. Students continue to work with the Haggerty Blue Exercises--isolating beginning and ending sounds, segmenting and blending CVC words and substituting the beginning sound in a word to create a new word. Next week, the students will begin working with elkonin boxes and visual segmenting and blending skills to provide another modality to enhance these skills. Workstations this week included leveled readers story elements/comprehension/ main idea and fluency, draw and write about something you can do with a friend for fun, beginning and ending sound word work, writing uppercase ABC's, syllable count, word builder with ed family words and sentence builder--subject/action.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 50 as our 50th day approaches. We have some new features to our November Calendar books. Along with keeping track of days in school (with ten frames and number writing)and weather, students are working on more complex shape patterns, recording 3 numbers that come next in a sequence, working on teen numbers, rolling the dice and adding the dots, choosing a domino and remembering and recording its dot pattern and estimating the temperature on a thermometer. The students are very excited about it! The students are working on teen numbers. What do we need to make 13? (1 group of 10 or 1 complete ten frame and 3 left over/3 ones on a new ten frame) Math workstations this week included writing numbers to 45, Subitsize Challenge with a partner, pattern block build, count and record, ways to make 5 activities and counting on from a random number 0-50.
Writing: The students worked on Starting Corner Capitals-H, L, U, K. They also continue to strengthen their tripod grasp when holding a pencil, marker or crayon. Students wrote about a time when they did something kind for someone at home for their summative writing assessment. They also began to reflect in writing a sequence of events in a series of pictures. What happens first--next--then--last. Part of their work on their diorama was to create a written list of the supplies they would need to do the project after chatting with group members.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups, the students use the apps Montessori Crosswords for sound blending and recording and Oz Phonics to work on word order in sentence making and strengthen recognition of short vowel sounds. In math whole and small groups, it was all about taking a Subitize Challenge to strengthen recognition of visual number. The students explored counting using teen numbers on the app Doodle Buddy. Students conpleted their counting projects with Mr. Degman using Educreations.
Literature: "Friends All Around Us," "Friends Follow Rules," "Leaf Man," "Fall Leaves Change Color," "Leaves, Leaves, Leaves," "Animals in Fall," "Why Do Leaves Change Color?"
**Keep those gloves and mittens coming!! Students are beginning to bring in their donations. Students Council reps Quinn and Jackson are spreading the word. Glove and mitten donations will go to the Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
**Our 50th Day of school is coming!!! It is Wednesday, November 11th. We will be half way to 100! The students will spend some time learning about the decade of the 50's. We will mark part of our day by dressing up like the 50's, having a sock hop at 9:45 and working on math workstations surrounding the number 50 in the afternoon. On Wednesday, November 11th, the students can dress up if they choose. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and blue jeans--slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you have a poodle skirt--WOW!
**Our Dioramas turned out very cool and creative! Each of the 4 groups chose an event from the story, "Peter's Chair" to recreate. Thanks to all of you who sent in cool stuff. We spent some time brainstorming on how to be a contributing member of the group, share ideas and work cooperatively. No small fete!! There are still 2 groups who would like to add more details. I will photograph the finished products next week.
**In your child's homework folder is the permission slip and information for our FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO. The trip is Tuesday, November 24th from 9-2pm. The students and teachers will travel by school bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will provide money for the parking fee. All volunteers have free admission to the zoo. I have U. Allgood and M. Daniel volunteering so far. I would love to have 2-3 more to make the student groups smaller and easy to manage. I am not able to have younger siblings on this trip. Students need to have a BAG LUNCH with NAME on it. No glass or thermos bottles please. We will be outside the much of the day so students should be dressed for the weather. If the weather is too chilly for a picnic, there are indoor places for us to have our lunch. We will have a special tour of the the Great Bear Wilderness and we will meet at the Great Bear Wilderness Center for a special classroom experience.
**The Grade 3-5 Annual Turkey Trot will take place on Thursday, November 19th at 2:00 pm. We will be making posters and signs to cheer our Book Buddies on.
**Meet Children's author, Paul Orchoski ("The Ant and Pancake" and "The Mouse in My House) on Tuesday, December 1st from 6-7 pm. He will be talking to parents and students about coming up with story ideas, writing tips, understanding craft and structure and poetry inspiration. Information on sign up is in your child's homework folder.
**SAVE THE DATE!! Our WINTER CONCERT featuring Kindergarten and First Grade is Thursday, December 17th. Due to the size of our auditorium it will be performed twice--once at 8:15 am and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. The student have already begun work on songs and movement activities!
**CALLING ALL COOKS!! As part of our Traditions and Celebrations cross curricular theme for the month of December----I am looking for volunteers to help with Room 110's Annual Gingerbread Cookie Baking, beginning at 1:15 until dismissal. No experience necessary! Roll out, create, decorate, bake and share. Email me if interested. I will provide the dough, sprinkles and aprons.......you provide the baking sheets, rolling pins, man/woman power and the love! I will provide the recipe for your viewing. It is a no egg/no dairy/no nut recipe.
**The end of Trimester 1 is November 24th. Report cards go out on Friday, December 11th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey presented more ways to be a good Social Detective and do the expected when working on positive interactions. She told the students about the Behavior Hero, "Super Flex"---a flexible hero who adapts to situations using his social tools-ears for listening, brain for thinking, eyes for looking/observing and whole body. She also explained about "Rock Brain," who has trouble being flexible, only focuses on himself and does not use his social tools. Which do you want to be?? Remember--the Cool thing about Behavior---is you can CHANGE IT!!! Students watched a video on different behavioral scenes and discussed what Super Flex would do and what Rock Brain would do. Powerful!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, students worked on a thinking project using the text "Curious George's ABC's." Each letter became part of a larger picture. Thinking outside the box again! Students incorporated the letter they got into a picture. The students shared their pictures with the group. They were quite interesting!!
**In Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week, students completed their counting projects using the app Educreations. I will post them soon.
This week:
The students went to our class garden bed to dig up the last of the sweet potatoes and put our garden to sleep for the winter. They observed root systems and lots of different size sweet potatoes. Very cool! Because there were not enough sweet potatoes for everyone to have one, we donated our potatoes to the Friday Potato Tasting sponsored by the Garden Club. Around our school, many leaves are falling. With our Tree Book, we looked up the names of some of the trees and what their leaves look like. The weather was excellent and it was great to get outside for some extra recess and movement activities. The students worked on their dioramas. They are learning what it means to work cooperatively to create and finish a project. The students completed a summative writing assessment using the text, "Peter's Chair." You can see their progress and willingness to try to respond in writing. The students listened to the story, "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert. We discussed the rich vocabulary that went with the story and we made a group list of all the animals and shapes the students observed in the story. The students made predictions on where the "Leaf Man" will go next and thought about the authors meaning in the repeated sentence,"Where a Leaf Man will land only the wind knows." Station Day activities this week included creating a leaf man or animal using leaves from their collection, sponge paint bears, completing Seasonal Sam and where will he stand? and taking a Subitize Challenge with friends.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue working in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about how friends around the world share different activities and who can be a friend. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Friends All Around Us." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where friends lived. We looked up these countries on our world map. Student reviewed the isolated sounds of M, S, A, P. Our Robust Vocabulary included WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST, HONEST. The students worked on identifying the MAIN TOPIC on the story. They elbow chatted about how they knew it and told their partners 3 details about the story. Our puppet friends assisted the students in practice on blending letter sounds to create 3 letter words. (CVC) Students reviewed all sight vocabulary presented thus far and student small groups used the pictures, ending marks and words to create simple sentences. Each group shared the sentences they created. Students continue to work with the Haggerty Blue Exercises--isolating beginning and ending sounds, segmenting and blending CVC words and substituting the beginning sound in a word to create a new word. Next week, the students will begin working with elkonin boxes and visual segmenting and blending skills to provide another modality to enhance these skills. Workstations this week included leveled readers story elements/comprehension/ main idea and fluency, draw and write about something you can do with a friend for fun, beginning and ending sound word work, writing uppercase ABC's, syllable count, word builder with ed family words and sentence builder--subject/action.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 50 as our 50th day approaches. We have some new features to our November Calendar books. Along with keeping track of days in school (with ten frames and number writing)and weather, students are working on more complex shape patterns, recording 3 numbers that come next in a sequence, working on teen numbers, rolling the dice and adding the dots, choosing a domino and remembering and recording its dot pattern and estimating the temperature on a thermometer. The students are very excited about it! The students are working on teen numbers. What do we need to make 13? (1 group of 10 or 1 complete ten frame and 3 left over/3 ones on a new ten frame) Math workstations this week included writing numbers to 45, Subitsize Challenge with a partner, pattern block build, count and record, ways to make 5 activities and counting on from a random number 0-50.
Writing: The students worked on Starting Corner Capitals-H, L, U, K. They also continue to strengthen their tripod grasp when holding a pencil, marker or crayon. Students wrote about a time when they did something kind for someone at home for their summative writing assessment. They also began to reflect in writing a sequence of events in a series of pictures. What happens first--next--then--last. Part of their work on their diorama was to create a written list of the supplies they would need to do the project after chatting with group members.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups, the students use the apps Montessori Crosswords for sound blending and recording and Oz Phonics to work on word order in sentence making and strengthen recognition of short vowel sounds. In math whole and small groups, it was all about taking a Subitize Challenge to strengthen recognition of visual number. The students explored counting using teen numbers on the app Doodle Buddy. Students conpleted their counting projects with Mr. Degman using Educreations.
Literature: "Friends All Around Us," "Friends Follow Rules," "Leaf Man," "Fall Leaves Change Color," "Leaves, Leaves, Leaves," "Animals in Fall," "Why Do Leaves Change Color?"
Sunday, November 1, 2015
UPDATES for 10/26-10/30 2015
**We had a lovely fall afternoon for our Halloween Parade around the school grounds! Darth Vaders, princesses, super heroes, dinosaurs, a friendly police officer and some spooky creatures were some of the many cool costumes worn by students. Room parents provided healthy treats and we made origami bats. A BIG THANKS to Julie Wulff for great story reading and movement and to all of of you who came out to enjoy the afternoon with us.
**Slightly Spooky Family Story Time was a huge success and lots of fun. Ms. Noonan, myself, Ms. Durham and Mr. Sak had a great time reading our stories. Thanks to all who came out to hear us. I want to say a special thanks to those of you who purchased books for our classroom.
**Our Student Council Reps, Quinn and Jackson are extending a shout out to everyone to donate a pair of new mittens or gloves to the Student Council sponsored Mitten Drive. See information on the Mitten Drive in your child's homework folder. Donate the whole month of November. The Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society will be receiving the bulk of the donation.
**PICTURE RETAKES will be done on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd in the morning. Please send back the the package or form.
**Our 50th Day of School is Wednesday, November 11th. We will be half way to 100!! The students will spend some time learning about the decade of the 50's. We will mark part of our day by dressing up like the 50's, having a sock hop and working on math workstations surrounding the number 50. On Wednesday, November 11th, the student can dress up. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and blue jeans--slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you should have a poodle skirt--WOW!
**Last call to sign up for TRIVIA NIGHT--a grown up fundraiser for Irving School. It is Thursday, November 5th from 7-10 pm at The Wire in Berwyn.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on Monday, November 2nd. You will receive notification of the skill group your child will be participating in at that time. You should have received notification of previous skill mastery. Email me if you did not.
**If you have some time on Tuesday, November 3rd beginning at 1:45 pm, the students will be going to our kindergarten garden bed to see what else there is left to harvest. Come check it out with us. Students will take home what we find.
**In culmination of our text study on "Peter's Chair," the students will be working in small groups to create a diorama to illustrate Peter's reaction to one of the events in the story. I am providing the boxes but students can bring in ribbon, cloth or material, or any cool stuff. We will announce the groups on Monday and dioramas will be designed and worked on Thursday and Friday.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms.Bell Bey worked on asking questions and good questioning techniques. She played a game with the students where she had a certain animal picture that students couldn't see. She call on students to ask a question about it to see if they could guess what it was by the answer to the question. Does is have stripes? What color is it?
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students shared their pictures using the black dot as part of the picture. Very creative!!!
**In Mr. Degman Tech/Math this week, the students finished their counting projects on the iPad using the Educreations. I will post these.
**Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 23rd from 9-2 pm. Look for information and permission slips this coming Friday.
This week:
It was all about bats and spiders and skeletons. We took the fright out of these creatures. The students listened to informational texts as well as fictional stories. BrainPop Jr. had a great bat fact video and quiz. They viewed bat skeletons in diagram form and learned about bat habitats, bat physiology and bat diets. Ask your child what a mammal is? The students learned that humans and bats have something in common---they are both mammals!! What are baby bats called? The students learned that spiders are not so spooky and they are really helpful to our earth. They are arachnids. They have eight legs and eight eyes. The students looked up information through internet sources and also read books with spider facts. The students read about and viewed a human skeleton. Who has more bones--a baby or a 5-6year old? Students delighted in feeling where certain bones were located on their body and reading stories about the function of our bone structure.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. They listened to the song "The More We Get Together." Many students remembered this song from their preschool days. The students listened to the Big Book story,"What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about activities they do with friends. The students found the title page and discussed the main characters and setting of the story. They learned how to compare and find differences and commonalities by using a Venn Diagram. They compared a boy and a girl in the story --What they both liked and the types of things each liked separately. The students reviewed all their sight words thus far and worked on the sound of Ss at the beginning and ending of words. Robust Vocabulary for the week included FAVORITE, FRIENDS, PARTNER, HOBBY, COMPLETE. The students read their read aloud story, "I Like," and worked on tracking and fluency. They learned what a speech bubble or balloon was. The students read with a partner and elbow chatted with their partner and discussed the characters and setting and one event in the story. In our continued text study of "Peter's Chair," the students completed a Blueprint workmat on using a quote from the story to illustrate and explain what the character was thinking and why it was important to the story. Workstations for this week included letter/picture/sound sort using the letters M, S, A, P, sound blending 3 phonemes using the app Reading Magic 1--tap the box--record the sound you hear--tap the picture box--did you make the word? word work using the word WE, leveled readers read aloud with discussions on key events, writing and illustrating about a time when you were happy and sad and prep work on sequencing events in a story and what is a diorama.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 50 as our 50th day approaches! The students have completed their calendar books for October. The month of November will bring a new and more challenging calendar book. We will begin to work on sequencing numbers before and after a target number, tally marks, adding plus 1, domino and dice number patterns, ten frames and place value, teen numbers and number bonds to 5. Fun! Fun! The students spent time counting spiders. pumpkins, bats, skeletons and recording their number. Reckenrek exercises are assisting in students looking for ways to say 5. (3 and 2, 4 and 1etc.) and the idea of visual counting and visualizing number. Math workstations this week included count and record, build/count and record, playing the Skeleton Dice game, what number comes next activity and writing numbers to 30.
Writing: We started to chat about our Starting Corner Capitals. Where do they begin--right next to Mr. Smiley! Students continue to work on sentence structure----NAME and TELL (subject/action), beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words and some kind of ending mark. Topics this week included writing about a friend, halloween, your costume, bats and spiders.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups the students used the apps Educreations for drawing and labeling setting of the story, Magic Reading 1 and Montessori Crosswords for sound blending and recording and Oz Phonics for words order and beginning and ending sounds. In math whole group, students used the apps Subitze Tree for visualizing number (subitizing) Easy Match for looking at dice and domino number patterns and Brainy Bugs for counting/cardinality, matching and mazes. Mr. Degman used the app Educreations for his project with students. BrainPOP Jr and UTube video helped us explore the world of bats and dioramas.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Bats," "Bats-Strange and Wonderful," "Your Skeleton," "Your Amazing Bones," "Bones," "Spiders,""Spiders and Spiderlings," "Bats Big Game," "The Runaway Pumpkin," "The Little Old Woman Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything,""Inside a House that is Haunted."
**Slightly Spooky Family Story Time was a huge success and lots of fun. Ms. Noonan, myself, Ms. Durham and Mr. Sak had a great time reading our stories. Thanks to all who came out to hear us. I want to say a special thanks to those of you who purchased books for our classroom.
**Our Student Council Reps, Quinn and Jackson are extending a shout out to everyone to donate a pair of new mittens or gloves to the Student Council sponsored Mitten Drive. See information on the Mitten Drive in your child's homework folder. Donate the whole month of November. The Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society will be receiving the bulk of the donation.
**PICTURE RETAKES will be done on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd in the morning. Please send back the the package or form.
**Our 50th Day of School is Wednesday, November 11th. We will be half way to 100!! The students will spend some time learning about the decade of the 50's. We will mark part of our day by dressing up like the 50's, having a sock hop and working on math workstations surrounding the number 50. On Wednesday, November 11th, the student can dress up. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and blue jeans--slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you should have a poodle skirt--WOW!
**Last call to sign up for TRIVIA NIGHT--a grown up fundraiser for Irving School. It is Thursday, November 5th from 7-10 pm at The Wire in Berwyn.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on Monday, November 2nd. You will receive notification of the skill group your child will be participating in at that time. You should have received notification of previous skill mastery. Email me if you did not.
**If you have some time on Tuesday, November 3rd beginning at 1:45 pm, the students will be going to our kindergarten garden bed to see what else there is left to harvest. Come check it out with us. Students will take home what we find.
**In culmination of our text study on "Peter's Chair," the students will be working in small groups to create a diorama to illustrate Peter's reaction to one of the events in the story. I am providing the boxes but students can bring in ribbon, cloth or material, or any cool stuff. We will announce the groups on Monday and dioramas will be designed and worked on Thursday and Friday.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms.Bell Bey worked on asking questions and good questioning techniques. She played a game with the students where she had a certain animal picture that students couldn't see. She call on students to ask a question about it to see if they could guess what it was by the answer to the question. Does is have stripes? What color is it?
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students shared their pictures using the black dot as part of the picture. Very creative!!!
**In Mr. Degman Tech/Math this week, the students finished their counting projects on the iPad using the Educreations. I will post these.
**Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 23rd from 9-2 pm. Look for information and permission slips this coming Friday.
This week:
It was all about bats and spiders and skeletons. We took the fright out of these creatures. The students listened to informational texts as well as fictional stories. BrainPop Jr. had a great bat fact video and quiz. They viewed bat skeletons in diagram form and learned about bat habitats, bat physiology and bat diets. Ask your child what a mammal is? The students learned that humans and bats have something in common---they are both mammals!! What are baby bats called? The students learned that spiders are not so spooky and they are really helpful to our earth. They are arachnids. They have eight legs and eight eyes. The students looked up information through internet sources and also read books with spider facts. The students read about and viewed a human skeleton. Who has more bones--a baby or a 5-6year old? Students delighted in feeling where certain bones were located on their body and reading stories about the function of our bone structure.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. They listened to the song "The More We Get Together." Many students remembered this song from their preschool days. The students listened to the Big Book story,"What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about activities they do with friends. The students found the title page and discussed the main characters and setting of the story. They learned how to compare and find differences and commonalities by using a Venn Diagram. They compared a boy and a girl in the story --What they both liked and the types of things each liked separately. The students reviewed all their sight words thus far and worked on the sound of Ss at the beginning and ending of words. Robust Vocabulary for the week included FAVORITE, FRIENDS, PARTNER, HOBBY, COMPLETE. The students read their read aloud story, "I Like," and worked on tracking and fluency. They learned what a speech bubble or balloon was. The students read with a partner and elbow chatted with their partner and discussed the characters and setting and one event in the story. In our continued text study of "Peter's Chair," the students completed a Blueprint workmat on using a quote from the story to illustrate and explain what the character was thinking and why it was important to the story. Workstations for this week included letter/picture/sound sort using the letters M, S, A, P, sound blending 3 phonemes using the app Reading Magic 1--tap the box--record the sound you hear--tap the picture box--did you make the word? word work using the word WE, leveled readers read aloud with discussions on key events, writing and illustrating about a time when you were happy and sad and prep work on sequencing events in a story and what is a diorama.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 50 as our 50th day approaches! The students have completed their calendar books for October. The month of November will bring a new and more challenging calendar book. We will begin to work on sequencing numbers before and after a target number, tally marks, adding plus 1, domino and dice number patterns, ten frames and place value, teen numbers and number bonds to 5. Fun! Fun! The students spent time counting spiders. pumpkins, bats, skeletons and recording their number. Reckenrek exercises are assisting in students looking for ways to say 5. (3 and 2, 4 and 1etc.) and the idea of visual counting and visualizing number. Math workstations this week included count and record, build/count and record, playing the Skeleton Dice game, what number comes next activity and writing numbers to 30.
Writing: We started to chat about our Starting Corner Capitals. Where do they begin--right next to Mr. Smiley! Students continue to work on sentence structure----NAME and TELL (subject/action), beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words and some kind of ending mark. Topics this week included writing about a friend, halloween, your costume, bats and spiders.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups the students used the apps Educreations for drawing and labeling setting of the story, Magic Reading 1 and Montessori Crosswords for sound blending and recording and Oz Phonics for words order and beginning and ending sounds. In math whole group, students used the apps Subitze Tree for visualizing number (subitizing) Easy Match for looking at dice and domino number patterns and Brainy Bugs for counting/cardinality, matching and mazes. Mr. Degman used the app Educreations for his project with students. BrainPOP Jr and UTube video helped us explore the world of bats and dioramas.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Bats," "Bats-Strange and Wonderful," "Your Skeleton," "Your Amazing Bones," "Bones," "Spiders,""Spiders and Spiderlings," "Bats Big Game," "The Runaway Pumpkin," "The Little Old Woman Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything,""Inside a House that is Haunted."
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