**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."
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