**It has been an exciting week in our classroom! The students have been hard at work on their space station projects. Each group has 6 team members. They elected a project manager. The students are using their social, behavioral, analytical, scientific, creative and beginning engineering skills that they have embraced throughout the school year. The students are using their prior knowledge and new ideas about space and space station design. We have looked at our NASA app to view photos and live shots of the International Space Station. Cool! With their team, they have discussed and sketched out drawings or "prototypes" of what they think their space station might look like. They chatted about "communication" and "compromise" and created a set of rules to guide them thru the process. The role of the project manager is to keep the workers on task, gently remind them of their rules and stress the "compromise" piece.
**Our walking field trip to the MAZE BRANCH LIBRARY is Thursday, April 28th. We will be walking beginning at 1:00 pm and return by 2:45 pm. Aidan's grandpa has volunteered to walk with us. I could use another volunteer. Please email if interested. Also.....I have quite a few students who have not handed in permission slips. Please send in slips ASAP! Thanks!
**Please keep sending in permission slips and money for our field trip to the ADLER PLANETARIUM. I need everything in by Friday!! Students need to dress for the weather and bring a BAG LUNCH. We are hoping to picnic by the lake. I have M. Daniel, Amir's Grandma, K. Harris volunteering so far. I could really use 1 more volunteer. Please email me if interested. We will leave school at 9:20 am and return by 1:30 pm. Students ride the bus. Volunteers will carpool. I will have money for parking.
**Keep working with your child to PRACTICE their POEM for the Traveling Poets Project. Our class begins "traveling" on May 9th!
**Irving Book Fair is April 25th-29th. We will be visiting the book fair as a class but encourage families to visit too!
**Come on out for the FAR-OUT FAMILY READ-IN on Wednesday, April 27th from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Come hear our "very groovy" readers, Ms. Durham, Ms. Gullo, Ms. Noonan and Mr. Sak share a story. Come browse and buy!
**"Dress Like the 60's" on Wednesday, April 27th. Wear your tie-dye, bell bottoms, head bands bring your peace and love signs.
**"SPACE DAY" FRIDAY, APRIL 29th. Yes....once our space stations are completed, we will blast off into space. We will make jet packs and helmets....but......if you have your own space suit......wear it! The students will sample some space food and participate in some space learning centers.
**The Student Council sponsored DANCE-A-THON is Saturday, April 30th from 10-11:30 am. Come dance and support the Special Olympics! It is $2.00 to get in.
**The last rotation of Route to Reading will begin on Monday, May 2nd.
**Irving Art Fest 2016 is Thursday, May 12th from 6-8 pm all around the school. Art will be displayed from each student. Spanish games, a play, traveling poets and a special performance by the Irving Chorus are just some of the happenings. The POETRY SLAM is the same night under the direction of Mr. Williams. Sign up to say your poem, write a new poem, rap, sing, recite with friends or family, a partner. Share your creativity! We hope to have some "little slammers!" Don't forget to fill out the slip. It is in your child's homework folder.
**District 97's Annual FUN RUN is Saturday, May 7th at Lindberg Park. K-2 race begins at 8:00 am. Come RUN with me!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey presented a lesson on the Eagle Essential --Be Safe.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued preparation for an upcoming project by reading the story, "The Most in the World," by Lilly Barrett.
This week:
It was all about space station construction and working as a team. Part of our mornings and many of our afternoons were spent working. The students began detail work during the latter part of their station day. Thanks to Nic Bell, Audrey's dad who was on hot glue patrol!! The students also did some research via the internet and texts about Earth Day themes. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle is our mantra! Our entire project is created out of recycled materials!! Station day activities included making star gazers and creating and naming their own constellations.
Reading/Language Arts: The students have nearly completed Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. We will tie up any loose ends next week. This week, the students read and talked about what grows in a garden. They thought aloud and accessed prior knowledge about their backyard, school and community gardens. They listened to the trade book, "The Sunflower House." They paid special attention to the sequencing at the beginning, middle and ending parts of the story. The students worked in small groups to retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary this week included ARRANGE, TEND, BASIC, SENSES, GARDEN. We continue to work on our formative assessments for comparing texts and word choice. Workstations this week included, leveled readers discussion about word choice and meaning, comparing texts and characters actions, fluency checks, elbow chatting about the main idea, drawing your idea of a garden and writing about what you would grow, writing about how plants get bugs and giving examples, using the app Magnetic Letters HD composing and writing 2-3 sentences about a person who might have a job related to plants, writing about what plants need to grow, word work with short vowels and long vowels with silent e and writing about a seed and what can grow from it.
Math: The students reviewed terms and parts of 2D and 3D shapes and continued to work on story problems and sums and differences using numbers 1-10. The students also worked on using a number line in solving addition and subtraction equations. Partners and small groups got a chance to work on games reinforcing geometry, addition and subtraction, counting to 100, subitizing and place value.
Writing: Students worked on a writing piece after listening to stories and chatting about what they could do to help save the Earth. The students continue to work on their Shadow paragraphs entitled, "My Shadow." They are currently working on their draft.
Science: The students continue their study of the stars How does a star form? What happens when it dies? What do we know about red stars and blue stars? The students were especially interested in constellations and how they got their names. Space station construction, painting and detailing dominated our science time this week. We continue to document everything on iMovie. Next week--the moon and planets and space travel.
Technology: In reading--the app Magnetic Letters HD was used to compose and record sentences. Montessori Crosswords was used to work on short u, ck, and silent e words. Oz Phonics was used to work on word order in a sentence. In math--the apps Geometry, Animal Math, Build and Play and Butterfly Math were used to enhance shape recognition, addition and subtraction facts, 3D building. In science the apps BrainPop Jr. and NASA assisted the students in their study of natural resources, recycling, the stars and constellations, the International Space Station and Earth Day.
Literature: "Don't Be A Litterbug," "What is Happening to the Rain Forest?" "What is Global Warming?" "Magic School Bus Gets Recycled," "Let's Be Water Wise," "Let's Recycle," "Stars," "Watching the Stars," "Seeing Stars," "Zoo in the Sky," "Stars," "The Starry Sky," "Once Upon a Starry Night," "Shooting Stars," "Comets."
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
UPDATES for 4/11-4/15 2016
**We will begin our Space Station projects on Monday. We have formed our working groups, selected a project manager and chatted about our ground rules in order to complete the project. The students have had some conversations about the art of compromise. They will work with their group to sketch some prototype drawings of what they think their project might look like. We will be using iMovie to document from start to finish. We are all really excited! Please do not send your child in their finest clothing. We will be using tempera paint and will be wearing extra long paint shirts.......but.......it can still get messy. The paint is washable. The projects will take about a week. Please note that we may deviate from our normal subject areas and workstation time.
**A BIG SHOUT OUT to our Spelling Bee reps, Lauren and Zadie! They received a really cool ribbon. They did a great job! I was so proud of their perseverance! Our class made special posters to cheer them on.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, April 20th. At that time, you will receive information on your child's skill mastery.
**Please check your child's homework folder. There are 2 permission slips enclosed. We have a walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library on Thursday, April 28th from 1:30-2:45 pm. If your child would like a library card, please fill out the application and return it with the permission slip. We also have a field trip to the Adler Planetarium on Tuesday, May 3rd from 9:30-1:30 pm. We will be riding the school bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will pay for parking. All students will need to bring a BAG LUNCH.
**Join the Irving Garden Club and celebrate Earth Day on Friday, April 22nd after school. Meet in the garden and prepare the garden beds. Pull weeds, haul dirt and discover worms and create an herb garden.
**Classroom Coin Challenge! Bring your loose change to class April 18th-22nd. All money collected will help benefit the Irving Library. Ms. Noonan will have the class with the most coins help her pick out new books for the library.
**The Irving Book Fair is April 25th-April 28th. We will be visiting the Fair as a class, but encourage all families to come to browse and buy! The Book Fair will have a set of "groovy" guest readers at our "Read In" on Wednesday, April 27th. Come hear some of the latest new stories read by the "coolest" readers from 6:30-7:30 pm.
**Student Council reps, Lauren and Hattie invite you to the Irving Dance-a-thon to support the Special Olympics on Saturday, April 30th from 10-11:30 am in the Irving gym. It's $2.00. Request a song, give a shout out, have some food.
**All the students have picked out their poem for the TRAVELING POETS PROJECT, under the direction of Ms. Noonan. It is part of your child's homework to practice their poem. They will "travel" to other classrooms to recite their poem during the weeks of May 9th and May 16th.
**The 9th Annual Irving Art Fest and Poetry Slam will be held Thursday, May 12th beginning at 6:00 pm. Sign up to say your poem, write a new poem, rap, sing, recite with family, a partner, a group of friends. Share your creativity! Look at art from all students, play Spanish games, see a play performance and hear a special performance by the Irving Chorus along with the slam. Fun! Fun!
**Information and sign up for the Irving Sleepover is on line this year on the Irving Webpage or the Irving Facebook Page.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey conducted a lesson on smart guesses in social situations.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued his preparation on a project about numbers by reading more number stories.
This week:
The students continued work on shadows and the sun. Omar became our "object" as the students tracked shadows changing places throughout the day. The students began learning about what a paragraph is. They are beginning to think about what to write using their shadow poses as the topic. Station day activities this week included creating 2D rockets from pattern blocks, constructing a name rocket and creating an equation using the vowels and consonant in their name, creating a mixed media sun, constructing an analog clock complete with a fun poem to tell the time.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They talked and read about seeds and the plants that grow from them. They accessed prior knowledge from our earlier fall unit on apples. The students revisited our apple seed tray. The students also discussed what they knew about types of seeds--blowing dandelion seeds everywhere, helping their family with planting seeds in their backyards and naming seeds. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Seed Secrets." The story talked about ways that seeds travel. The students observed the pictures and tracked the print as I read. They were able to verbally ask and answer questions about the story. The students also examined an unknown word-sprout. How do you know what it means? Where can you look to get help with the meaning? Can the illustrations help you? Can other words in the sentence help you find out the meaning? Our target words for this week were here and was. The students worked with partners to build sentences using all their sight words. They also revisited short u, consonant blends and digraphs in words. We also began some work on the use of silent e and vowel teams. Our new Blueprint focuses on comparing two texts on the same topic. We used the Venn Diagram format to compare two of our science texts,"Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow" and "I Have a Friend." Questions discussed--How are theses stories alike? (similarities) How are these stories different? Robust vocabulary this week included GRADUALLY, SEEDS, OBSERVE. The students read their decodable story, "The Bud Is Up." They made predictions about story content and discussed what the unknown word-bud might mean. They then reread their story to a partner for fluency building. Workstations this week included leveled reader, fluency checks, discussion of characters in texts and comparing the actions of the characters looking for similarities and differences, main idea elbow chats, word building-defining an unknown word from their story, writing and illustrating "What food would you like to grow in your garden?" short u and long u word work, playing the vowel game, "Bug Jar," writing and drawing about your favorite vegetable--describing it and telling why you like it, building CCVC and CVCC words, playing the sight word game "Popcorn," and retelling a story verbally and then creating retelling cards in writing and work sound substitution with vowels.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting beyond 100, counting by 2's, 5's, 10's and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They continue to work on 2D and 3D shape recognition and pertinent vocabulary related to geometric solids. They continue to explore and build lots of different types of structures using various types of materials. Our "Structure Museum" looks awesome. Check it out on our Lego table! Students are working in their math journal reading story problems and illustrating the process and writing an equation. They are reviewing composing and decomposing numbers from 11-19 by using objects, drawings or equations. The idea being that for example 11 is --one group of 10 and 1 one. Math workstations for this week included the activity--"How many sides?" How many vertices?" What's my number? activity, building structures using a variety of materials and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students worked on writing about a specific topic (The Sun.) We continued our discussion on how to write a paragraph. The students are working on their drafts for their shadow poses.
Science: The students continued their study of shadows, sun and stars. In our shadow changing places experiment, Omar became our object that blocked the sunlight. He stood in the same place at 8:30 am, 11:45 am and again at 2:40 pm. We traced his shadow each time. Students noted that Omar's shadow was long and skinny in the morning and by late afternoon it became short and wide. They recorded their findings in their science journal. Next week--stars and the moon!
Technology: Students are learning about iMovie in preparation for our space station project. Students also saw some cool videos on the sun, moon and stars on BrainPop Jr. We will be accessing our NASA app next week. In reading, small groups and individuals using the apps Oz Phonics, Montessori Crosswords for skill building on CCVC, CVCC, short u, silent e and ck words. The app Magnetic ABC was used to compose sentences relating to a text read. In Math small groups and individual, the apps Butterfly Math, Geoboard, Build a Pic and Animal Math were used for skill building in addition and subtraction, 3D building and base 10 number work.
Literature: "Sing to the Sun" (poetry) "What Makes Day and Night," "Sun, Moon and Stars,""The Sun," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "Sun and Moon," "The Sun," "The Solar System," "The Milky Way," "Domino Addition," "The Cheerios Counting Book," "Monster Math," "Nothing Sticks like a Shadow," "I Have a Friend."
**A BIG SHOUT OUT to our Spelling Bee reps, Lauren and Zadie! They received a really cool ribbon. They did a great job! I was so proud of their perseverance! Our class made special posters to cheer them on.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, April 20th. At that time, you will receive information on your child's skill mastery.
**Please check your child's homework folder. There are 2 permission slips enclosed. We have a walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library on Thursday, April 28th from 1:30-2:45 pm. If your child would like a library card, please fill out the application and return it with the permission slip. We also have a field trip to the Adler Planetarium on Tuesday, May 3rd from 9:30-1:30 pm. We will be riding the school bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will pay for parking. All students will need to bring a BAG LUNCH.
**Join the Irving Garden Club and celebrate Earth Day on Friday, April 22nd after school. Meet in the garden and prepare the garden beds. Pull weeds, haul dirt and discover worms and create an herb garden.
**Classroom Coin Challenge! Bring your loose change to class April 18th-22nd. All money collected will help benefit the Irving Library. Ms. Noonan will have the class with the most coins help her pick out new books for the library.
**The Irving Book Fair is April 25th-April 28th. We will be visiting the Fair as a class, but encourage all families to come to browse and buy! The Book Fair will have a set of "groovy" guest readers at our "Read In" on Wednesday, April 27th. Come hear some of the latest new stories read by the "coolest" readers from 6:30-7:30 pm.
**Student Council reps, Lauren and Hattie invite you to the Irving Dance-a-thon to support the Special Olympics on Saturday, April 30th from 10-11:30 am in the Irving gym. It's $2.00. Request a song, give a shout out, have some food.
**All the students have picked out their poem for the TRAVELING POETS PROJECT, under the direction of Ms. Noonan. It is part of your child's homework to practice their poem. They will "travel" to other classrooms to recite their poem during the weeks of May 9th and May 16th.
**The 9th Annual Irving Art Fest and Poetry Slam will be held Thursday, May 12th beginning at 6:00 pm. Sign up to say your poem, write a new poem, rap, sing, recite with family, a partner, a group of friends. Share your creativity! Look at art from all students, play Spanish games, see a play performance and hear a special performance by the Irving Chorus along with the slam. Fun! Fun!
**Information and sign up for the Irving Sleepover is on line this year on the Irving Webpage or the Irving Facebook Page.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey conducted a lesson on smart guesses in social situations.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued his preparation on a project about numbers by reading more number stories.
This week:
The students continued work on shadows and the sun. Omar became our "object" as the students tracked shadows changing places throughout the day. The students began learning about what a paragraph is. They are beginning to think about what to write using their shadow poses as the topic. Station day activities this week included creating 2D rockets from pattern blocks, constructing a name rocket and creating an equation using the vowels and consonant in their name, creating a mixed media sun, constructing an analog clock complete with a fun poem to tell the time.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They talked and read about seeds and the plants that grow from them. They accessed prior knowledge from our earlier fall unit on apples. The students revisited our apple seed tray. The students also discussed what they knew about types of seeds--blowing dandelion seeds everywhere, helping their family with planting seeds in their backyards and naming seeds. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Seed Secrets." The story talked about ways that seeds travel. The students observed the pictures and tracked the print as I read. They were able to verbally ask and answer questions about the story. The students also examined an unknown word-sprout. How do you know what it means? Where can you look to get help with the meaning? Can the illustrations help you? Can other words in the sentence help you find out the meaning? Our target words for this week were here and was. The students worked with partners to build sentences using all their sight words. They also revisited short u, consonant blends and digraphs in words. We also began some work on the use of silent e and vowel teams. Our new Blueprint focuses on comparing two texts on the same topic. We used the Venn Diagram format to compare two of our science texts,"Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow" and "I Have a Friend." Questions discussed--How are theses stories alike? (similarities) How are these stories different? Robust vocabulary this week included GRADUALLY, SEEDS, OBSERVE. The students read their decodable story, "The Bud Is Up." They made predictions about story content and discussed what the unknown word-bud might mean. They then reread their story to a partner for fluency building. Workstations this week included leveled reader, fluency checks, discussion of characters in texts and comparing the actions of the characters looking for similarities and differences, main idea elbow chats, word building-defining an unknown word from their story, writing and illustrating "What food would you like to grow in your garden?" short u and long u word work, playing the vowel game, "Bug Jar," writing and drawing about your favorite vegetable--describing it and telling why you like it, building CCVC and CVCC words, playing the sight word game "Popcorn," and retelling a story verbally and then creating retelling cards in writing and work sound substitution with vowels.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting beyond 100, counting by 2's, 5's, 10's and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They continue to work on 2D and 3D shape recognition and pertinent vocabulary related to geometric solids. They continue to explore and build lots of different types of structures using various types of materials. Our "Structure Museum" looks awesome. Check it out on our Lego table! Students are working in their math journal reading story problems and illustrating the process and writing an equation. They are reviewing composing and decomposing numbers from 11-19 by using objects, drawings or equations. The idea being that for example 11 is --one group of 10 and 1 one. Math workstations for this week included the activity--"How many sides?" How many vertices?" What's my number? activity, building structures using a variety of materials and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students worked on writing about a specific topic (The Sun.) We continued our discussion on how to write a paragraph. The students are working on their drafts for their shadow poses.
Science: The students continued their study of shadows, sun and stars. In our shadow changing places experiment, Omar became our object that blocked the sunlight. He stood in the same place at 8:30 am, 11:45 am and again at 2:40 pm. We traced his shadow each time. Students noted that Omar's shadow was long and skinny in the morning and by late afternoon it became short and wide. They recorded their findings in their science journal. Next week--stars and the moon!
Technology: Students are learning about iMovie in preparation for our space station project. Students also saw some cool videos on the sun, moon and stars on BrainPop Jr. We will be accessing our NASA app next week. In reading, small groups and individuals using the apps Oz Phonics, Montessori Crosswords for skill building on CCVC, CVCC, short u, silent e and ck words. The app Magnetic ABC was used to compose sentences relating to a text read. In Math small groups and individual, the apps Butterfly Math, Geoboard, Build a Pic and Animal Math were used for skill building in addition and subtraction, 3D building and base 10 number work.
Literature: "Sing to the Sun" (poetry) "What Makes Day and Night," "Sun, Moon and Stars,""The Sun," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "Sun and Moon," "The Sun," "The Solar System," "The Milky Way," "Domino Addition," "The Cheerios Counting Book," "Monster Math," "Nothing Sticks like a Shadow," "I Have a Friend."
Sunday, April 10, 2016
UPDATES for 4/4-4/8 2016
**The students returned from their spring break with lots of stories about their travels and time with family. Whether they remained in the area or traveled to another state or country, they had much to tell. We had travel journals shared from the Chicago area, Florida, Wisconsin Dells, Indiana, Mexico, The Dominican Republic, The Upper Peninsula and New Mexico to name a few. The students loved locating places on our state and world maps.
**Keep sending in BOXES of all kinds including GIANT ONES and other cool things for our space station projects. Empty toilet paper tubes and paper towel tubes are needed too. We could still use a couple of GIANT BOXES that you can climb in. We hope to collect everything this week. The design, construction and detailing will take place the week of April 18th-22nd. We will need some hot glue volunteers during our detailing stage. Stay tuned!
**Our Spelling Bee reps, LAUREN and ZADIE and our alternate, JULIET are excited to participate in the K-2 Spelling Bee which will be held on Wednesday, April 13th beginning at 11:00 am. We will be cheering them on. Feel free to come and join us in the auditorium.
**The students have begun using a new app on their iPad called Keyboarding Without Tears. It is the companion to our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. We will also be using the program on the computers in the lab. The lessons are very short--no more then 10 minutes. Pre-keyboarding skills--including hand position, posture and finger use, key identification (home row and bottom row) and number keys will be featured in the lessons. We had our first 2 lessons this past week. We will have another 2 this week and then I will send home the information for home practice.
**Don't forget to send back your Report Card Envelopes. Just the envelopes! We have one more report card in June.
**Our Student Council Reps, Hattie and Lauren were excited to tell the class about their latest fundraiser---All School DANCE-A-THON that will be held on Saturday, April 30th. More info is coming!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on what it means to be RESPECTFUL. Stories, acting and picture examples sparked much discussion and suggestion.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer posed the question, "What is the most important number in the world?" Some very interesting answers!!!!! He read a story called, "100 Angry Ants." Next week more stories in preparation for a projects about numbers.
This week:
It was all about our shadow poses! Each student posed with their shadow. We will use this photos for our beginning paragraph writing project next week. The students also discovered our potatoes were showing signs of sprouting!!! The students conducted another experiment on types of shadows and we began an inquiry about the sun. We also saw all the cool pictures taken by the volunteers on our field trip to the museum. Way cool!! The students chose one of the pics and wrote and illustrated about it. Station day activities included creating 3D structures using marshmallows and toothpicks, constructing 2D rockets, solving addition problems in rocket math and playing the addition and subtraction game "4 in a row."
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They began building background knowledge about how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. We used our Tree Finder book to look at Oak and other types of trees in our area. Students recognized leaves of the Oak, Ginko and Maple trees. The students understood that the tree is a plant that begins with a seed and takes many years to grow. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted the book was nonfiction or informational. The students responded that they had seen acorns and some students even collected them. Sight words for this week are little and said. Our target sounds are short u and ck. We took a look at the use of quotation marks to tell us who is talking in the story. Students retold the Big Book story in their own words to a partner thinking about the sequence or order. Students reviewed the question words who, what, where, when, why and how. They then took turns verbally asking a question about the story and having their partner answer the question. Students practiced reading aloud the story "A Little Acorn." They worked on fluency with support from their partner. Robust vocabulary this week included GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. We began work on common core standards of word choice, describing a characters experience and comparing 2 characters from two different texts. Workstation activities included leveled reader, fluency checks, discussion on characters in the texts and comparing the actions of the characters looking for similarities, writing an informational piece of what you know about trees, word family spin and color, activities on ck words, sentence building, working on word choice in a text, roll and read, writing an opinion piece on why we need trees, cvc, ccvc word work and short and long vowel review.
Math: The students continued work on counting beyond 100, by 5's and 2's. We continue to work on 3D shapes (solid and fat--they have depth) cone, cube, sphere, pyramid and rectangular prism. The students also continued to work on pertinent vocabulary associated with geometric solids-- edges, solid, faces, corners/vertices. Lots of exploration and creativity using a variety of materials. The students are now working in a new math journal. They are looking at the pictures to create addition sentences. The journal has a combination of word problems that can be solved using either addition or subtraction processes. Our April Calendar Book is a delight to all. There is an additional page of number hunt numbers (25-100) and a 2 digit what comes before.
Writing: The students continue to work on beginning with a capital letter, using spaces between words and using punctuation marks. Where do we place lowercase?? They had lots of writing opportunities this week. They are reading their writing to someone at their table. That friend may offer a suggestion to the writing. Peers helping each other! We began a discussion about what a paragraph is--multiple sentences about one topic that flows together and has an introduction, middle and ending. The students will begin work on their draft next week.
Science: The students continued their study of shadows. They reviewed what makes a shadow and created a shadow pose that they will use in beginning paragraph writing. They observed their classmates shadow pose. Some students observed that a bigger shadow will hide a smaller one.
Back in the classroom, we did an experiment where I created shadows using different objects. The students observed and then chatted with their table mates. Lots of chatter about "light" shadows and "very dark" shadows. The students learned that different types of shadows are made depending on how much light is passing thru the object. Light can pass thru some objects and not others. The students made predictions about what kind of shadow a certain object might produce. We worked on some vocabulary--opaque shadow--no light passing thru (book), translucent shadow--some light passing thru (wax paper), transparent shadow--no shadow at all--all the light passes thru (mirror). The students had a chance to use their own items and test them out on the overhead. They recorded their reflections in their science journals.
Technology: In reading, whole group centered apps included Oz Phonics and Read on Sight for skill building in sentence word order, vocabulary building, consonant blends and word scramble. In small group work, the apps Montessori Crossword and CVC Sorts 2 were used to reinforce short u and ck words. In math, whole group centered apps included Shapes, TapTap Blocks and Geoboard for work on 2D and 3D shapes. Individual work began on Keyboarding Without Tears, BrainPop Jr. had some great videos on space, solar system and the sun.
Literature: "What Makes Day and Night?" "How Night Came to Be," "The Big Book of Space," "Big Bang," "Shadows," "Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow," "I Love My Shadow," "I have a Friend."
**Keep sending in BOXES of all kinds including GIANT ONES and other cool things for our space station projects. Empty toilet paper tubes and paper towel tubes are needed too. We could still use a couple of GIANT BOXES that you can climb in. We hope to collect everything this week. The design, construction and detailing will take place the week of April 18th-22nd. We will need some hot glue volunteers during our detailing stage. Stay tuned!
**Our Spelling Bee reps, LAUREN and ZADIE and our alternate, JULIET are excited to participate in the K-2 Spelling Bee which will be held on Wednesday, April 13th beginning at 11:00 am. We will be cheering them on. Feel free to come and join us in the auditorium.
**The students have begun using a new app on their iPad called Keyboarding Without Tears. It is the companion to our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum. We will also be using the program on the computers in the lab. The lessons are very short--no more then 10 minutes. Pre-keyboarding skills--including hand position, posture and finger use, key identification (home row and bottom row) and number keys will be featured in the lessons. We had our first 2 lessons this past week. We will have another 2 this week and then I will send home the information for home practice.
**Don't forget to send back your Report Card Envelopes. Just the envelopes! We have one more report card in June.
**Our Student Council Reps, Hattie and Lauren were excited to tell the class about their latest fundraiser---All School DANCE-A-THON that will be held on Saturday, April 30th. More info is coming!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on what it means to be RESPECTFUL. Stories, acting and picture examples sparked much discussion and suggestion.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer posed the question, "What is the most important number in the world?" Some very interesting answers!!!!! He read a story called, "100 Angry Ants." Next week more stories in preparation for a projects about numbers.
This week:
It was all about our shadow poses! Each student posed with their shadow. We will use this photos for our beginning paragraph writing project next week. The students also discovered our potatoes were showing signs of sprouting!!! The students conducted another experiment on types of shadows and we began an inquiry about the sun. We also saw all the cool pictures taken by the volunteers on our field trip to the museum. Way cool!! The students chose one of the pics and wrote and illustrated about it. Station day activities included creating 3D structures using marshmallows and toothpicks, constructing 2D rockets, solving addition problems in rocket math and playing the addition and subtraction game "4 in a row."
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They began building background knowledge about how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. We used our Tree Finder book to look at Oak and other types of trees in our area. Students recognized leaves of the Oak, Ginko and Maple trees. The students understood that the tree is a plant that begins with a seed and takes many years to grow. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted the book was nonfiction or informational. The students responded that they had seen acorns and some students even collected them. Sight words for this week are little and said. Our target sounds are short u and ck. We took a look at the use of quotation marks to tell us who is talking in the story. Students retold the Big Book story in their own words to a partner thinking about the sequence or order. Students reviewed the question words who, what, where, when, why and how. They then took turns verbally asking a question about the story and having their partner answer the question. Students practiced reading aloud the story "A Little Acorn." They worked on fluency with support from their partner. Robust vocabulary this week included GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. We began work on common core standards of word choice, describing a characters experience and comparing 2 characters from two different texts. Workstation activities included leveled reader, fluency checks, discussion on characters in the texts and comparing the actions of the characters looking for similarities, writing an informational piece of what you know about trees, word family spin and color, activities on ck words, sentence building, working on word choice in a text, roll and read, writing an opinion piece on why we need trees, cvc, ccvc word work and short and long vowel review.
Math: The students continued work on counting beyond 100, by 5's and 2's. We continue to work on 3D shapes (solid and fat--they have depth) cone, cube, sphere, pyramid and rectangular prism. The students also continued to work on pertinent vocabulary associated with geometric solids-- edges, solid, faces, corners/vertices. Lots of exploration and creativity using a variety of materials. The students are now working in a new math journal. They are looking at the pictures to create addition sentences. The journal has a combination of word problems that can be solved using either addition or subtraction processes. Our April Calendar Book is a delight to all. There is an additional page of number hunt numbers (25-100) and a 2 digit what comes before.
Writing: The students continue to work on beginning with a capital letter, using spaces between words and using punctuation marks. Where do we place lowercase?? They had lots of writing opportunities this week. They are reading their writing to someone at their table. That friend may offer a suggestion to the writing. Peers helping each other! We began a discussion about what a paragraph is--multiple sentences about one topic that flows together and has an introduction, middle and ending. The students will begin work on their draft next week.
Science: The students continued their study of shadows. They reviewed what makes a shadow and created a shadow pose that they will use in beginning paragraph writing. They observed their classmates shadow pose. Some students observed that a bigger shadow will hide a smaller one.
Back in the classroom, we did an experiment where I created shadows using different objects. The students observed and then chatted with their table mates. Lots of chatter about "light" shadows and "very dark" shadows. The students learned that different types of shadows are made depending on how much light is passing thru the object. Light can pass thru some objects and not others. The students made predictions about what kind of shadow a certain object might produce. We worked on some vocabulary--opaque shadow--no light passing thru (book), translucent shadow--some light passing thru (wax paper), transparent shadow--no shadow at all--all the light passes thru (mirror). The students had a chance to use their own items and test them out on the overhead. They recorded their reflections in their science journals.
Technology: In reading, whole group centered apps included Oz Phonics and Read on Sight for skill building in sentence word order, vocabulary building, consonant blends and word scramble. In small group work, the apps Montessori Crossword and CVC Sorts 2 were used to reinforce short u and ck words. In math, whole group centered apps included Shapes, TapTap Blocks and Geoboard for work on 2D and 3D shapes. Individual work began on Keyboarding Without Tears, BrainPop Jr. had some great videos on space, solar system and the sun.
Literature: "What Makes Day and Night?" "How Night Came to Be," "The Big Book of Space," "Big Bang," "Shadows," "Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow," "I Love My Shadow," "I have a Friend."
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