**Warmer weather and rain! Spring is near!!! We are ending the last 10 minutes of our day outside and the students are really enjoying it. They love being on the playground equipment when a small number of other students are on the playground.
**Author Jonah Winter was delightful! The author of biographies for children spoke to students about where he gets his ideas from. He read passages from a biography about the members of his family during the Depression and also read from his newest book--a biography about Hillary Clinton. He told the students he was very interested in the life of the woman who was running for president in a field of all men. He had great illustrations and photos in his books.
**Please keep sending in money and permission slip for our field trip to the Field Museum. We will travel by bus on Thursday, March 24th from 9:30-1:l30 pm. The cost is $5.00. ALL students need to bring a BAG LUNCH with name it. Thanks to our volunteers! We have N. Bell, E. Hagedorn, M. Daniel, J. Wulff, H. Alvarez and M. Davis joining us. We will be working on a research and shared writing project that will be connected with this trip. Volunteers will help us out with some picture taking. This can be done on your phone and forwarded to my email.
Students will ride the bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will need probably 2 drivers. Be thinking about this, volunteers. I will give you directions and cash for parking.
**It's PACK WEEK (3/14-3/18) Let's pack more colorful fruits and veggies into our diets! Pack a fruit or veggie based on the color of the day. See the flyer in your child's homework folder. Monday-pack purple/blue, Wednesday-pack red, Thursday-pack yellow/orange and Friday-pack green.) You can pack it in a snack or a lunch. The school lunches will also include items.
**Pi Day is March 14th! We will be doing a little something from our on line resources and Quinn will be sharing a treat with the class! (apple PIe)
**SPRING PICTURES will be taken on Monday, March 14th in the morning. This year you must prepay if you want the photo taken. You can do this on line or with the envelope that was in your child's homework folder. Please indicate if you want a photo with Irving sibling.
**Please bring a POTATO (not cooked) on Thursday, March 17th. We will have SUPER TUBER DAY from 10:30-11:30 am. It will be our salute to St. Patrick's Day. It can be any kind.
We will learn a little history about the potato and Ireland, do some potato science--examine and count the "eyes," measure its length, sketch it, and take a look at some different varieties. We will even try to grow potatoes from the tuber! I have E. Meier and G. Lowell to help out. Another pair of hands would be helpful. Email me if you are interested.
**In a salute to all things Irish, bagpiper, Patrick Lynch will come to Irving on Wednesday, March 16th from 12:45-2:15 pm. He will give a presentation to the kindergarten classes on the instrument and then play some tunes for all on the blacktop at dismissal. Come on out to hear him!
**Kindergarten classrooms will be piloting Keyboarding Without Tears after spring break. Teachers will receive training at our Institute Day on Tuesday. Please the read the flyer in your child's homework folder.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her Character Education lessons stating "Character grows as you grow." She talked about citizenship, self respect and self control meaning keeping our words and actions under control.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued the "thinking in shapes" theme but now the shapes were already on 2 squares and the students had to listen to the directive and make the drawing. "Find the drawings that would make a king." Very cool visual discrimination strengthener. Can you see the shapes needed on the square?
**Trimester Two has ended. Report cards go home on Thursday, March 24th.
**NO SCHOOL-Tuesday, March 15th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**NO SCHOOL--3/25-4/3--Spring Break. Classes resume on Monday, April 4th. Let me know if your child is traveling and I will send a travel journal.
**Future Field Trip--(walking)--Maze Branch Library--April 28th
**Future Field Trip--Adler Planetarium--Tuesday--May 3rd.
**Future Event--Annual Irving Spelling Bee in April--Date and time TBA. K-2 will be participating.
**We are getting really close!! Giant boxes and cool stuff for our space station projects.
This week:
The students continue to gather information about the weather. They have observed clouds types and have examined weather maps and radar on line. Lots of questions--What keeps the earth warm? How can people stay cool in hot weather? What makes storms on earth? How can people prepare for storms? We read about blizzards, hot weather, storms, thunder and lightening, hurricanes and tornadoes and took a look at the seasons and weather. How does water affect weather patterns? What is a front? Totally fascinating!! Students looked up information on their iPads and watch rainbows being formed, thunder storms and blizzards and even a tornado. Students looked up weather words and weather instruments.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work in Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. This week, the students built background knowledge around the idea of the seasons or certain times of the year and different activities and ways people and animals relate to them. The students listened to the Big Book story, "In the Yard." They made predictions about story content by reading the title and looking at the book cover illustrations. After listening to the story, the students discussed what the main idea was. They made connections in the story about activities they do in their back yards at different times of the year. They noted certain details in the story. All sight words introduced thus far were reviewed. Target sounds Bb and Ll were reviewed. They did an activity where they told me if they heard the target sound at the beginning, middle or end of the word. Other word work centered around adding, deleting or substituting sounds to form new words on their dry erase boards. Students worked on actions of a character and sequencing those actions in the story using the text, "Sheila the Brave." Students worked on story vocabulary, sequencing order of events in the story and the story elements of character, setting and key details. In preparation for our summative blueprint, the students elbowed chatted about the character's actions and acted out different scenes depicting Sheila's actions in the story. The students were thrilled that Mr. Hodge sat in and observed their "we do" session. While students came up to write and draw about the actions of Sheila on the projection board, the other students did their own illustration on their white boards. Audrey had a great idea---when the students finished their drawings--let's put them in order across the front of the classroom. Cool!!! The first ten minutes of class each morning is now devoted to students sharing a page or sharing a story using their Busy Reader. They can share with a partner or share with a small group. They are certainly becoming more confident readers!! Workstations this week included leveled readers comprehension and fluency check, vocabulary development, writing and illustrating-what is your favorite season and what can you do? review short e, i, o, a, u word work, word family cut and paste ock and op, create retelling cards, write and illustrate-what you like to play, working with beginning and ending sounds activity, short E word search and writing sentences using the words this and do.
Math: The students continue the exploration of the study of geometric solids and 3D shapes. They learned that 3D shapes are solid like cones, cubes, cylinders and 2D shapes are flat like squares, triangles and circles. Students created 2D shapes by using straws and pipe cleaners and went on to think about and experiment with creating a 3D shape. It was interesting for me to observe the different ways the students approached the task. Students continue to work on number bonding to 10, counting on from a random number, exploring vertical and horizontal addition and subtraction problem writing, revisiting the terms--addend, sum. equal, plus, minus, greater than/less than. Math workstations this week included writing number sequences, magic number facts, exploring and experimenting with 2D and 3D shape building and reading and illustrating addition and subtraction story problems.
Writing: Wow! We are writing 4 sentences in our topic journals! Lots of writing going on here! Inventive spelling (phonetic spelling) remains a big acceptable part of their own word building. Students can now refer to their own "Fix It Up Checklist" when composing and writing in their journals and in their daily writing work. (Thanks Ms. Grogan!) A copy for home use is in your child's homework folder. In lowercase letter formation, the letters y, j, and p were worked on using their mini boards. They applied what they had learned in their orange practice books. The students completed a writing piece on writing about a personal experience that experience being things they do/have/seen in the spring. Check them out in our hallway!
Science: The students continue to be curious and study about all things weather. The students observed the water tornado bottle to check out its funnel shape and looked at thermometers that measure temperature. What kinds of clouds cause precipitation? How do we measure it? How do we measure humidity? Lots of weather instruments. Next week--what is a shadow?
Technology: In reading, student small groups and with partners the apps Montessori Crosswords, Magic Reading 2 and iTalk were used to enhance sound blending skills, review use of consonant blends and digraphs and emphasize word families. The app Oz Phonics was used with whole group to work on sequencing of words in a sentence. Students listened to their own reading via iTalk and critiqued themselves using the Reader's Checklist. In math whole and small group, the apps Top-It Addition, Butterfly Math, Math, Animal Math, Number Line and Number Find were used enhance addition and subtraction to 10, place value, missing addend, number bond and number order. Weatherunderground, Storm and BranPop Jr. were source material on weather and science.
Literature: "Sheila the Brave," "Rain," "Bringing Science Alive-Unit 3-Weather," "Weather," "Thunder Storms," "Lightening," "Snow," "Blizzards," "Hurricanes," "Weather Instruments," "Weather Words," "Weather Watching," "Danger-Earthquakes," ""Volcanoes."
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