**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."
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