**We are up and running again......the world of modern technology!!!! It has its advantages and its stresses!!
**The students had a blast with the visiting students from Japan. We had map skills, stories, origami and writing your name in Japanese. Great fun and learning.
** Please read the information on our BUSY READER CLUB! It is in your child's homework folder. The students are really excited to practice their sound blending skills and beginning reading fluency by reading to you each night a book that they have selected. The students will record the number of books they read on a special sticker chart. In about 3 weeks time, I will send you a feedback sheet to get your reactions/thoughts. Happy listening!!
**You also received information on a reading program called RAZ-KIDS. This program provides ebooks, comprehension checks and incentives for students to work on their reading fluency and reading for meaning. Sign up and try it! Email me with any questions.
**100 item hearts are due February 4th. The ones that have come in are awesome! They will be displayed in our hallway and in the front of the school by the office. Don't forget to bring a picture of a 100 day old person and a 100 year old person to add to our board. We also need students to bring their Valentine cards for our combined celebration. We have 18 students. (11 girls/17 boys) Students can also bring a treat (nut/dairy free) or a treasure that will be put into a treat bag to take home.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We now have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell, Amir's Grandma, J. Wulff helping out! The more the merrier!! Email if you would like to volunteer!
**If you haven't already, please confirm your day and time for Parent/Teacher Conference.
Mid Year Conferences are Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that school is in session in the MORNING ONLY on Thursday and Friday, February 11th and 12th. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House, District school bus will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 5th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Annual Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Who will get the PIE in the FACE this year??? What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??? (silent auction items--I will be taking 4 lucky winners to lunch at Junction Diner. I will also be reading a bed time story to 2 lucky winners in their home.) Bid! Bid! Sign up to make a contribution to our class basket. You can send your contribution with your child if you like.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued lessons on getting to calm.
**In Mr. Packer continued his project on looking for details and retelling.
**No Mr. Degman this week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. Keep everything at home until after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Japan. Students from Japan and students studying Japanese at OPRF were so great with our kinders! The students had so much fun creating origami and learning how to spell their name in Japanese. We looked up the country of Japan on our world map. Students learned what an island is. The students listened as the teens spoke Japanese. "It does not sound at all like how we talk!" they all exclaimed. ABC's versus character writing. Very cool! Station Day activities included building with animal with cubes, graph, record compare animals in winter, playing Snowman Bump, It's Geometric color by code and exploring slanted and sloped surfaces using Marble Works, Magnetos and Contraption.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they knew about. They listened to the text, "Mole and Baby Bird." The particular focus of the story was how it was organized with a beginning, middle and end. The students looked to identify story structure and identify main events in the story. After listening, students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students reviewed all consonant and vowel sounds. They also reviewed all sight words presented thus far. I read a selection from our vocabulary cards called, "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that you cannot see. The students listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." We had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on spelling CVC, CCVC and CVCC words using their dry erase boards. They also completed a summative assessment on a Blueprint Workmat relating to what the author might be thinking and why and how the author words and pictures are connected. Workstation activities for this week included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, vowel review, substituting sounds sheet, noun/verb sort, blend find, writing and illustrating about and animal habitat.
Math: The students continue work on rote counting to 100 by ones and tens. They also worked on the process of subtraction. Workstations this week included number bond activities using numbers 1-10, 10 frame activities, greater than and less than game, work on subtraction using objects, drawings and mental images and writing numbers to 100. They are really enjoying their story problem journal where they read a story problem, illustrate on ten frames and write their number sentence.
Writing: The students worked on lowercase formation of letters a, d, and g. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We will be getting our new green journals next week and will build our writing stamina by working on writing 2-4 sentences about a given topic.
Science: The students made some great discoveries about water this week. They experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that water takes the shape of the container it is in.
It has no shape of its own. In Experiment 5, the students worked with their tablemates taking turns--first making a guess (what they think might happen) and then dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened--SINK/FLOAT? I used some really big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass) Why did one item sink and the other item float? Lots of discussion! In our next experiment, we added a little engineering to the mix. The students each constructed a boat out of tin foil. All students had the same size piece. They could construct their boat any way they chose. While they made their boat, they thought about these questions--How many marbles do you think it would take to sink your boat? How would you build it to hold the greatest number of marbles? It was really interesting to observe how each child approached construction. Some modeled after a boat they saw, sides up, back up, front pitched like a triangle, shaped into a circle. The students sketched their boat and then wrote down a guess of how many marble it would take to sink it. Then the fun began!!! Each student took a turn placing their boat in the water and filling it up with marbles. Such fun! Some were very surprised at the outcome. Who's boat took on the most marbles? Ask your child about the experiment! Next week--What is a bubble?
Technology: In reading small groups, the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, iWrite Words and Magic Reading 3 were used to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice and beginning fluency. In math small groups, the apps Number Find, Butterfly Math, 100's Board and Subitize Tree were used to enhance place value, adding, number order, and visual memory.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Floating and Sinking," "All About Water," "I am Snow," "Punctuation."
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