Friday, February 19, 2016

UPDATES for 2/8-2/12 and 2/16-2/19 2016

**Thanks so much for your patience at this busy time.  I really appreciate it.  It was great to chat with all of you and to share your child's progress.  Thanks for your continued support. The students surely do shine!!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was a smash!  100 fruit loop necklaces, 100 spots on a dog, 100 food grid. writing 100 words, making 100 Day crowns, and sharing Valentine's with friends were just some of the many activities that filled our morning.  A HEART felt THANKS to all of our volunteers--K.Meier, Hattie's Grandma, Lauren's Grandma, Amir's Grandma, K. Harris, G. Lowell, N. Daniel, H. Alvarez, J. Wulff and A. Pillacela.  FANTASTIC!!!
**The FUN FAIR IS SATURDAY!!!!!  Come one, Come all to the Annual Irving Fun Fair, February 20th from 11-3 pm all over the school.  On line bidding for some of the auction items is in process. Students can still bring in their coins to vote for who will get the PIE in the FACE the day of the fair.   There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, photo booth and other attractions plus the silent auction (bid! bid!  bedtime story, lunch at Junction Diner)  There are some really cool things to be had.  There are 4 teacher teams vying for the Pie in the Face. Teacher Team performances and pie in the face will begin at 2:30 pm.  YOU don't want to miss it!  All proceeds from the day will go to Irving School.  COME PLAY A GAME WITH ME in the gym!!!
**I hear our CHEF'S CLASS BASKET is awesome!  Many thanks to those who sent in donations.  
**Congratulations to HATTIE and LAUREN our new Student Council Members.  They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, February 23rd.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 29th, a little later then originally planned.
**In Friendship Club last week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on screening distractions that might impede out learning.  This week, the students created tee shirt designs writing about what matters to them most in their lives.  Cool!  We will hang them on the "I Care" Tree.
**No Mr. Packer or Mr. Degman both weeks.
**Lynn Allen, director of the Multicultural Center, will speak to our kindergarten students on February, 25th from 9-9:45 about contributions to African American History.
**Opera for the Young is coming!!!  On Friday, March 4th at 9:00 am, students will see a production of the opera, "The Magic Flute."  It is an interactive opera where the students can sing certain parts. Ms. Hiolski is working with the students on this.  It will be great fun!!
**Children's author, Jonah Winter will visit Irving on Friday, March 11th from 1-1:45 pm.  Mr. Winter is the author of children's picture book biographies.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 14th.
**Teacher's Institute Day is Tuesday, March 15th.  No school for students.
**SUPER TUBER DAY is Thursday, March 17th.  We will examine and study the potato.  I will need 3 volunteers from 10:30-11:30 am.  Email if you are interested.
**Future Field Trip (walking)  Maze Library--Thursday, April 28th.
**Future Field Trip --Adler Planetarium--May 3rd from 9:00-1:30 pm.
**Keep saving GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL.  You can bring it in after spring break.
The past two week:
It was all about our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration, working on our writing stamina in our green journals, continuing our author study of Mo Willems and observing and experimenting with water as ice in science.  We took a look at the contributions of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington thru stories and videos and pondered what makes a good president.
Reading/Language Arts:      The students worked on and completed Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series.  They accessed prior knowledge about places in and around their neighborhood and who you can find there.  We had a great discussion about types of community workers.  The students listened to the Big Book story, " Bus Stops."  They made predictions about story content and listened for what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story.  They also made connections about places in the story and how they relate to their own community.  The students reviewed target words for, you, are and target sounds Hh, Dd and Rr.   Students worked in small groups to create sentences using words and pictures.  They also used their elkonin boxes in an activity that worked on sound blending 4-5 sound words.  Robust Vocabulary for the past two weeks included ADMIRE, DELIVER, CELEBRATION, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY, ALERT, JOB,  PRECISE, REPAIR.   Our author study on the work of Mo Willems is lots of fun!  The students verbally recalled the problem and solution is the stories, "That is Not a Good Idea" and "My Friend is Sad."  They then set to write in their own words about the problem and the solution.  When listening to the story, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," and "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," the students took a look at repetitive phrases and thought about why the illustrations can be important to the story.  We did some formative assessing using our Blueprint Workmats.  We will continue next week with more selections from Mo.  The students have enjoyed taking a look at the Mo Willems website too.  Check it out if you like!  Workstations for the past two weeks included leveled readers with comprehension check and fluency building, writing about what job we would like to do and why, box it up CVC activity, playing "STING" busy bee blends, cut and paste blends, written retelling of the story "We Work for You," building CCVC and CVCC words, making new short i words, word family activity and read and color.
Math:     The students continue to work on counting in sequence using numbers 1-120.  We continue work on addition story problems--reading the story, setting up the part/whole on ten frames and writing their number sentence.  The students are beginning to think about the process of subtraction, counting down, one fewer, 2 fewer etc.  They also continue to work on counting on from a random number.  Math workstations for the past two weeks have included make 10 Bingo, writing 2 digit numbers, what's my number?? color by code addition problems, geometric solid review, working with incline planes and ramps and creating 3 dimensional structures.
Writing:     The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation.  The letters u, i and l were taught this week.  They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange books.  Our green journals continue to be a source of joy as the students build their writing stamina and work to strengthen their sentence writing.  Writing topics for the past two weeks have included snow, friends, animals, myself, the 100th Day, water.
Science:     The students reviewed their investigation of water thus far.  What do they know now? What was surprising to them?  The next experiment pondered the question--What is ice?  The students worked in their groups to chat about what ice was....how it is formed...... how does it turn back into water?    We discussed the freezing point (32 degree and lower) and that it is  cold.  Ice is really hard water that has become very cold or frozen.  A liquid turned into a solid as one student put it.  We discussed the idea of temperature for something to freeze and also to melt.  In our experiment, each group of 4 students had a baggie with ice cubes in it.  The challenge was to work with your group to melt the ice in the baggie the fastest way you can think of.  All groups chatted and came up with a strategy.  Interesting thinkers!!  I started the timer and each group tried out their strategy.  So fun to watch!!  The strategies were--sit on it, pound it and squeeze it, shake it and rub it, put it in hot water.  The results were--at 8 minutes--the group who put their baggie in hot water from the sink had a baggie full of water.  (shortest time)  At 23 minutes--sitting on it produced water. (longest time)  At 17 and 19 minutes shaking and rubbing and pounding and squeezing produced a baggie full of water. In reflections, the students chatted about what strategy worked the best, what strategy did not work as well, why did some strategies take a long time.  In our final week of water investigation, we will look at water as a gas. (steam)
Technology:     Student whole group used BrainPop to seek out information on Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, the Presidency, the Water Cycle and we worked with Mo Willems website.  In reading small group, the apps OZ Phonics, Spelling Bug and Montessori Crosswords enhanced sound spelling, word order, CVC words and blends/digraphs.  In math small groups, the apps Doodle Buddy, Educreations and Math Bug enhanced addition and subtraction practice using story problems, creating their own story problem, illustrating part/whole and writing the number sentence and how many more are needed to complete the ten frame.
Literature:     "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," "My Friend is Sad," "That is Not a Good Idea," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "Abe Lincoln's Hat," "Love, Splat," "The Story of George Washington," "If You Lived in the Time of Abraham Lincoln," "Will You Be My Valentine," "Celebrate the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten,"



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