**We are one week closer to becoming First Graders! Everyone is feeling the change in the air--students as well as teachers. The students are beginning to help put away some classroom items. Our ABC Countdown continues this next week with T-T Ball Day, U-Unicorn Day, V-Vegetable Day and W-Watermelon Day.
**Highlights from last week--King's Decree--Kings will be line leaders, more literacy bag time, iPad time and extra recess. Queen's Decree--more Scribles pops, GoNoodle, more iPad time and more time in space stations.
**OLYMPIC DAY was the bomb! The students showed great teamwork and sportsmanship during all the activities. A big Shout Out to NAYANA, who beat Mr. Degman in the 50 Yard Dash! She was FAST!!
**The students were all eyes for Ms. Henry's presentation on worm composting. The little creatures are in our room now until the end of school. Students got a first hand look at the famous red wiggler composting worm. Students observed the front and back parts and inching movement and the muscle parts of their bodies. We took some time to look up additional info on worms and read some cool books. Thanks so much, Ms. Henry!
**Chicken Coup Walking Field Trip to the Gurgas /Chien backyard is Tuesday, May31st. We will walk at 11:30 am. Please note that the owners will be handling the chickens. We will observing them and their house and find out info on the eggs that they produce. H. Alvarez will be walking with us.
**Our PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Picnic is WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1ST at Rehm Park. Please send in money and permission slip. Thanks! Please read the info in your child's homework folder about the dropping off of items by Ms. Grogan's door. Come out and join us from 9:30-noon.
**Our Walking Field Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory is Tuesday, June 7th. We will begin walking at 9:40 am. We have a classroom experience beginning at 10:00 am and then a tour of all the plant rooms. If time permits, we will sketch in the desert room. N. Daniel, M. Nelson, K. Bell and Mr. Metz will walk with us and assist.
**Ms. Noonan will handing out record keeping forms for the Oak Park Library's Summer Reading Program this week. Come on out and participate
**ALL LIBRARY BOOKS DUE on FRIDAY, JUNE 3rd per Ms. Noonan.
**ALL BUSY READERS DUE on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1st per Ms. Gullo.
**Please keep sending your child's backpack. Next week--Trimester 3 portfolios, all writing journals and calendar books and math journals go home.
**Last Pacers Running/Walking Club for the year is Thursday! Their necklaces will be in their summer packet folders.
**Mr. Packer will finish up the last thinking skills project with the students on Friday.
**The last day of school is WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8th. We will have a regular morning session. In the afternoon, beginning at 1:00 pm, please join us for autograph signing, light refreshments, report cards and summer packets......and maybe something special on the black top!
This week:
It was all about worms and plants! The very "green" Ms. Henry gave an informative talk on worms and worm composting. She brought us some starter compost with lots of red wiggler worms. She showed the students the different stages of the worms life cycle including worm eggs and egg shells, baby, teenage and adult worms. The students used the magnifier to see up close. The students continue to monitor our class box garden. Lots to see! Our bean plant is huge!!! We will plant everything on Monday, June 6th.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue their review of the skills taught this school year. This week, the student groups chose their own reading material from an approved list and came up with their own activities they wanted to do to connect their reading and writing. They also chose an iPad activity that best enhanced what they were studying in their workstation. I really loved hearing group, partner and individual reading as I made my way from small group to small group. The great discussions and elbow chats the students were having with one another were great! There was also time set up for literacy bag independent reading. The students reviewed all Kindergarten sight words and lots of First Grade words! They worked together with partners to create sentences using words and pictures. Another focus was on punctuation marks used at the end of their sentences. Workstations this week included leveled reader group discussions and collaboration on story elements, completing a group story elements butterfly, discussing and writing about fantasy vs. reality in a particular text, working on blends and digraphs, discussion about the author's purpose in writing a particular story, creating CVC words, activities and strategies to find out what a word means and iPad work.
Math: The students continue to work on on solving (using numbers 0-9) subtraction problems using the story problem format. Illustrating their thinking is super important. The students are showing their work using drawings, tally marks and number lines. They are also working on finding the number that belongs when they already know the answer. (7-__=2) Students are working "First Grade" style completing mini math journals each morning like they saw the First Graders do. Cool!
Writing: Students continue to work on writing to our Grandma volunteers. Next week, they will write to a person they think has made a difference in their lives this year. We will also do our final paragraph on the topic of worms. The students continue to work on beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence, punctuation, placement of letters on a given line, naming and telling in a sentence, adding details and reading it over. We have begun discussing our end of the year movie and the students are working on writing their script. Students have been part of district pilot of the Keyboarding Without Tears Program on the iPad and computer. They will have home access before school ends so they can continue working this summer.
Science: The students worked on a project on the life cycle of a plant. Some students worked individually and some with partners. They decided the format--posters, acting out, singing, using the iPad for drawing or shooting a video. Great work and student effort! I will be sending the videos your way for those that did them. We were lucky to have "Traveling Seeds Experience Box" courtesy of the Oak Park Conservatory. The students experimented with how seeds travel. Moving by wind, sticking to animals and people, popping or exploding or floating in the lakes, rivers and seas, the students got to experience it. Our seed bags are going crazy with growth! The students are wrapping up their science unit on seeds and plants. We will plant in our garden bed on Monday, June 6th.
Technology: The students are doing an iMovie on the best part of kindergarten. They continue to discuss their own script and what to do for an introduction. We will begin filming next week.
Literature: "Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life," "Wonderful Worms," "Yucky Worms," "Counting in the Garden," "Oh Say Can You Seed," "I Can't Said the Ant," "It's An Ant's Life," "From Seed to Plant," "Here in the Garden."
Monday, May 30, 2016
Sunday, May 22, 2016
UPDATES for 5/16-5/20 2016
**Time is flying by in Kindergarten! The students enjoyed their visit into First Grade. They met the teachers, toured the classrooms and listened to first graders speak about the daily activities and special projects. Some of my students had questions and they were answered by a first grader.
**The ABC COUNTDOWN continues this week-- highlights--Lemonade Day/King Day on Monday, Monkey Day/Note Day on Tuesday, Obstacle Course/Pajama Day on Wednesday, Queen Day/Rainbow Day on Thursday and Surprise Day on Friday.
**Permission slip for PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Family Picnic is in your child's homework folder. Please send back with $3.00. Instead of the online sign up---I am asking parents to send blankets and ground covers, cut up fruit or veggies and paper plates and napkins. We will have 2 large thermos containers of water and fruit punch. If your child does not want pizza, just send a bag lunch. We will also need some parent help to set up at Rehm Park. I will be emailing our Room Parents for assistance in getting this all together. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, June 1st from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park.
**Permission slip for our Walking Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory is also in your child's homework folder. Let me know if you are interested in waling with us. That event is Tuesday, June 7th from 9:30-11:30 am.
**One last WALKING TRIP planned is to visit the CHICKEN COUP at the Gurgas/Chien backyard on Tuesday, May 31st from 11:30-12:10. I will send out that permission slip on Monday.
**The presentation of the Summer Reading Program-Read to Win begins on June 1st. This year, students can sign up in school thru Ms. Noonan. Details are forthcoming.
**ALL LIBRARY BOOKS ARE DUE on FRIDAY, JUNE 3rd per Ms. Noonan.
**ALL BUSY READERS ARE DUE BACK TO MS. GULLO on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1st.
**Route to Reading has ended for this year.
**The students said goodbye to our workstation Grandma, Ms. Cummings. We will miss her. She and the students had so much fun as she worked with various groups during our reading workstations.
**Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th from 8:30-11:00 am. Come on out and see Team Gullo in all of our Olympic events throughout the school.
**The students have chosen an outside time for their last Friendship Club of the year!
**Mr. Packer will finish up his project with the students on the following Friday, June 3rd.
**Work portfolios will come home this week.
**The last day of school is Wednesday, June 8th. We will have a regular morning session. In the afternoon, beginning at 1:00 pm, please join us for autograph signing, light refreshments, report cards and summer packets and maybe something special on the black top!
This week:
The students are having lots of fun with the ABC Countdown. They are also monitoring our Class Box Garden. We have beans, watermelon, cantalope and radishes growing along with assorted flowers. The students began weeding our outside garden bed and preparing it for planting. We will discuss and choose plants to grow in our outside garden next week.
Reading/Language Arts: Students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures Units 9 and 10. Sight words for this week are with and my. Target sounds are Jj and Qu along with long vowels. Students continue to review all skills on the Phonemic Awareness Continuum as per our Route to Reading format. They used their dry erase boards to practice blending and segmenting 3-4-5 and even 6 sound words. All students are working in the first half of the First Grade word list. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Fish Faces." They were so interested in the world of fish and sea creatures. They elbow chatted about what their favorite fish was in the book and why it was their favorite. The students worked on a summative blueprint about comparing illustrations in a text and a writing summative narrative about what kind of garden they would grow. Robust Vocabulary this week included CONFUSED, DESCRIBE, INSIST, TEXTURE, UNDERSTAND. Workstation for this week included leveled reader self read, partner read and elbow chatting about story elements, comparing and contrasting stories, vocabulary and word choice, drawing a picture of your favorite sea creature and telling why you like it, answering yes/no questions, writing about a comparison--which sea creatures are bigger then you--smaller then you, sort fish pictures into groups and writing about how you sorted them and working with unknown words.
Math: The students have completed their Story Problem Math Journals. Next week, their new journals will touch on all areas of math that we have learned this year and some first grade math. Workstations this week were all about the game. Students learned to play "Pop for Numbers," "Number Bond Matching Game," "Addition and Subtraction Sort," and "Story Problem Solve."
Writing: The students continue to reflect in writing on various topics in all their subject areas. They continue to work on writing a "meaty" sentence containing adjectives and other details. Next week, we will write a thank you note to Ms. Cummings, our workstation Grandma.
Science: The students continue to observe plants growing in our class garden. In Experiment 4, we removed a baby sunflower, nasturtium, morning glory and marigold from the soil to take a closer look at the root system. The students noted similarities and differences in the stems, leaves and roots. Thicker roots, skinny roots, straight roots, curvy roots, lots of roots, stringy roots were some of their observations. The students also looked at the leaf structure of each plant and made a sketch of the leaves. How do the roots and stem help each plant? Students reflected in their science journal. What is the job of the leaves? In Experiment 5 the students pondered the question......do seeds need soil in order to germinate? Each table placed 5 seeds in a bag with a paper towel and some water. They taped it to a sunny window. They made a check each day and on day 5--what ----roots were growing and some little shoots. Cool! We will try seeds on sponges next week. The students weeded the outside garden bed and found lots of rolly polly bugs, worms and other creepy crawly things. They will decide next week what to plant. Next week--How seeds travel and WORM study!
Technology: Reviewing all apps. Next week, the students will do a project about life cycles of plants that may involve some apps. Also.....they will begin work on a script for their final project about kindergarten.
Literature: "The Seed Song," "How and Why Seeds Travel," "Flip, Float, Fly," "A Seed is a Promise," "A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds," "Growing a Garden," "Garden Tools," "The Atlas of Plants," "Amazing Bugs," "Tropical Fish."
**The ABC COUNTDOWN continues this week-- highlights--Lemonade Day/King Day on Monday, Monkey Day/Note Day on Tuesday, Obstacle Course/Pajama Day on Wednesday, Queen Day/Rainbow Day on Thursday and Surprise Day on Friday.
**Permission slip for PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Family Picnic is in your child's homework folder. Please send back with $3.00. Instead of the online sign up---I am asking parents to send blankets and ground covers, cut up fruit or veggies and paper plates and napkins. We will have 2 large thermos containers of water and fruit punch. If your child does not want pizza, just send a bag lunch. We will also need some parent help to set up at Rehm Park. I will be emailing our Room Parents for assistance in getting this all together. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, June 1st from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park.
**Permission slip for our Walking Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory is also in your child's homework folder. Let me know if you are interested in waling with us. That event is Tuesday, June 7th from 9:30-11:30 am.
**One last WALKING TRIP planned is to visit the CHICKEN COUP at the Gurgas/Chien backyard on Tuesday, May 31st from 11:30-12:10. I will send out that permission slip on Monday.
**The presentation of the Summer Reading Program-Read to Win begins on June 1st. This year, students can sign up in school thru Ms. Noonan. Details are forthcoming.
**ALL LIBRARY BOOKS ARE DUE on FRIDAY, JUNE 3rd per Ms. Noonan.
**ALL BUSY READERS ARE DUE BACK TO MS. GULLO on WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1st.
**Route to Reading has ended for this year.
**The students said goodbye to our workstation Grandma, Ms. Cummings. We will miss her. She and the students had so much fun as she worked with various groups during our reading workstations.
**Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th from 8:30-11:00 am. Come on out and see Team Gullo in all of our Olympic events throughout the school.
**The students have chosen an outside time for their last Friendship Club of the year!
**Mr. Packer will finish up his project with the students on the following Friday, June 3rd.
**Work portfolios will come home this week.
**The last day of school is Wednesday, June 8th. We will have a regular morning session. In the afternoon, beginning at 1:00 pm, please join us for autograph signing, light refreshments, report cards and summer packets and maybe something special on the black top!
This week:
The students are having lots of fun with the ABC Countdown. They are also monitoring our Class Box Garden. We have beans, watermelon, cantalope and radishes growing along with assorted flowers. The students began weeding our outside garden bed and preparing it for planting. We will discuss and choose plants to grow in our outside garden next week.
Reading/Language Arts: Students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures Units 9 and 10. Sight words for this week are with and my. Target sounds are Jj and Qu along with long vowels. Students continue to review all skills on the Phonemic Awareness Continuum as per our Route to Reading format. They used their dry erase boards to practice blending and segmenting 3-4-5 and even 6 sound words. All students are working in the first half of the First Grade word list. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Fish Faces." They were so interested in the world of fish and sea creatures. They elbow chatted about what their favorite fish was in the book and why it was their favorite. The students worked on a summative blueprint about comparing illustrations in a text and a writing summative narrative about what kind of garden they would grow. Robust Vocabulary this week included CONFUSED, DESCRIBE, INSIST, TEXTURE, UNDERSTAND. Workstation for this week included leveled reader self read, partner read and elbow chatting about story elements, comparing and contrasting stories, vocabulary and word choice, drawing a picture of your favorite sea creature and telling why you like it, answering yes/no questions, writing about a comparison--which sea creatures are bigger then you--smaller then you, sort fish pictures into groups and writing about how you sorted them and working with unknown words.
Math: The students have completed their Story Problem Math Journals. Next week, their new journals will touch on all areas of math that we have learned this year and some first grade math. Workstations this week were all about the game. Students learned to play "Pop for Numbers," "Number Bond Matching Game," "Addition and Subtraction Sort," and "Story Problem Solve."
Writing: The students continue to reflect in writing on various topics in all their subject areas. They continue to work on writing a "meaty" sentence containing adjectives and other details. Next week, we will write a thank you note to Ms. Cummings, our workstation Grandma.
Science: The students continue to observe plants growing in our class garden. In Experiment 4, we removed a baby sunflower, nasturtium, morning glory and marigold from the soil to take a closer look at the root system. The students noted similarities and differences in the stems, leaves and roots. Thicker roots, skinny roots, straight roots, curvy roots, lots of roots, stringy roots were some of their observations. The students also looked at the leaf structure of each plant and made a sketch of the leaves. How do the roots and stem help each plant? Students reflected in their science journal. What is the job of the leaves? In Experiment 5 the students pondered the question......do seeds need soil in order to germinate? Each table placed 5 seeds in a bag with a paper towel and some water. They taped it to a sunny window. They made a check each day and on day 5--what ----roots were growing and some little shoots. Cool! We will try seeds on sponges next week. The students weeded the outside garden bed and found lots of rolly polly bugs, worms and other creepy crawly things. They will decide next week what to plant. Next week--How seeds travel and WORM study!
Technology: Reviewing all apps. Next week, the students will do a project about life cycles of plants that may involve some apps. Also.....they will begin work on a script for their final project about kindergarten.
Literature: "The Seed Song," "How and Why Seeds Travel," "Flip, Float, Fly," "A Seed is a Promise," "A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds," "Growing a Garden," "Garden Tools," "The Atlas of Plants," "Amazing Bugs," "Tropical Fish."
Saturday, May 14, 2016
UPDATES for 5/9-5/13 2016
**The month of May is really flying by! Our Space Station 2016 iMovie is ready. Just scroll down to the end of this post!! It is very cute and really captures the students ability to collaborate and work together toward a common goal. I do apologize for the typo that I spotted after I published. They are having a great time using their space stations for a quiet reading space.
**My class is a little behind the game but......we will begin our very own ABC COUNTDOWN on Monday, May 16th. We will do 2 letters a day for a while. The students have decided what we will do. The full calendar of ideas is in your child's homework folder. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**Public Service Announcement---With the weather warming up, many of my students will want to wear sandals. Sandals will be okay in the classroom, but I would like all students to wear gym shoes and socks as we venture out on the playground more. Closed toe shoes would be okay too. Let's protect our feet!
**The Traveling Poets Project is going well! Our class got to travel to the office, 1st grade, 3rd grade, the music room and another kindergarten room to recite their poems. Next week is the last week of Traveling Poets. We have enjoyed students from 4th grade, 5th grade and 2nd grade traveling to our room.
**The Irving Art Slam and Poetry Fest was spectacular!! A huge SHOUT OUT to our "Little Slammers" Audrey and Quinn and Audrey's babysitter, Yola for their participation. The art work was beautiful and chorus was lovely. Many people were interested in Senorita's Spanish games too and the poetry breaks were great. Come and visit the hallways to view them all.
**Look for permission slip and information on PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Picnic next week. We are going to do a Sign Up Genius for items needed for the picnic. That will also be sent out next week. Pizza and Play is June 1st from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park. We need lots of help!
**A presentation on the SUMMER READING at MAZE LIBRARY will take place on Wednesday, May 18th at 8:45 am. It is a super fun program for our soon to be First Graders!
**Pacer's Running/Walking club will continue a few more weeks. The students are receiving lots of feet for their necklaces!
**Olympic Day is scheduled for Friday, May 27th beginning at 8:30 am. A schedule of events will be in your child's homework folder next week.
** Look for portfolios and writing journals from Trimesters 1 and 2 to come home next week.
**The final rotation of Route to Reading will be next week. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her review of all of this years topics in a game show format. Her final session with students is May 26th.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with small groups of students in placing dots according to the direction given.
**Future field trips--Pizza and Play-Wednesday, June 1st at Rehm Park from 9:30-noon.....Walking trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am.......Walking trip to Gurgas/Chen Chicken Coup--TBA and in room guest speaker, Ms. Henry to speak about worm composting--TBA.
**June 8th (full day)--Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Half Hour, summer packets, autograph books and final report cards will be sent home.
This week:
Change is in the air! The students are sensing that the end of the kindergarten is near. They are thinking about new teachers, new classrooms, new friendships and new expectations. They are also thinking about students who might be moving away.or going to other schools in Oak Park. Turning into a First Grader is BIG! We will be visiting First Grade next week. I encourage you to chat with your child about moving on. Parent or child can write a question down that they would like the First Graders to answer. There is definitely excitement in the air and perhaps.....a little anxiety. We will be working through it in our classroom too! Station Day activities this week included ways to say a number flower, seed sequence and creating an addition story problem, illustrating it and writing the equation.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures 9 Amazing Creatures and 10 We know A Lot. Students took a look at the world of bugs. What is an insect? Can you name the similarities and differences between an insect and a spider? Sight words for this week were has and look. Target sounds for this week were Jj and Yy. Students spent time with partners using their word cards, pictures and punctuation creating sentences. Students continue to work on using and recognizing nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives. Each day this week, the students worked on group substitution activities to strengthen sound recognition and automatic recording of sounds to create words. They also worked on formative and summative blueprints
on word choice and how the illustrations are important in the text. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ENORMOUS, GULP, FANTASY, INCREDIBLE, REALITY. Workstations this week included leveled reader self read, partner read and elbow chat on story elements, comparing and contrasting stories and vocabulary and word choice, What bug do you like? and why do you like it? opinion writing, writing about how insects are alike and how they are different, discussing and writing 4 facts about insects, short e word work, word scramble, silent e word work, writing sentences using your sight words, choosing an illustration from the text and telling in writing what information the picture gives you and why it is important, creating a word web for the letter sound Ww and working with word families ut, et. un and en.
Math: The students keep working on reading simple story problems, illustrating the process, showing it on a number line and writing the equation. The students continue to review rote counting skills, basic shape and geometric solids, comparing and contrasting 2D and 3D shapes, teen numbers and addition and subtraction processes including number bonds and number families.
Writing: The students are working on writing pieces in both reading and science. They wrote thank you letters to Reading Grandma Mary. They are writing about a certain subject, stating and opinion, comparing and contrasting and writing about illustrations.
Science: The students continue their study of seeds. This week, they observed the inside of a seed. We soaked pinto beans and white beans in warm water overnight. The next day, the students observed that the seeds got bigger. They made a comparison. Yes!!......the water climbed up into the spaces of the seed. The students split their seeds in half with their fingers. They observed the outer covering (coat) and in the inside corner was the baby plant (embryo) The rest of the inside is the seed food where the see gets its nourishment. The students made a diagram in their journal, labeling parts and discussing and writing about pertinent vocabulary. The students also watched their own seed germinate and grow into a baby plant. They kept track of the growth by making drawings every few days. Students also looked at root systems and created a diagram of their plants root system. Leaf structure and stem structure rounded out their inquiries and observations. OUR PLANTS ARE READY TO GO HOME! This will happen on Monday, May 16th. I will also send home an information sheet. Next week--preparing our garden bed and soil vs no soil experiments.
Technology: The students saw the iMovie we made. The overall reaction was great. They were so proud. The did note that in some parts of the footage, they needed to speak up to be on the soundtrack. It was a great experience. They want to do another........stay tuned!!!!!
Literature: "The Tiny Seed," "The Bug Patrol," "3D Bugs," "Giant Book of Bugs," "Eating the Alphabet," "Leaves," "Roots," "Stems," "Plants," "My Tree Named Steve," "The Sunflower House."
**My class is a little behind the game but......we will begin our very own ABC COUNTDOWN on Monday, May 16th. We will do 2 letters a day for a while. The students have decided what we will do. The full calendar of ideas is in your child's homework folder. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**Public Service Announcement---With the weather warming up, many of my students will want to wear sandals. Sandals will be okay in the classroom, but I would like all students to wear gym shoes and socks as we venture out on the playground more. Closed toe shoes would be okay too. Let's protect our feet!
**The Traveling Poets Project is going well! Our class got to travel to the office, 1st grade, 3rd grade, the music room and another kindergarten room to recite their poems. Next week is the last week of Traveling Poets. We have enjoyed students from 4th grade, 5th grade and 2nd grade traveling to our room.
**The Irving Art Slam and Poetry Fest was spectacular!! A huge SHOUT OUT to our "Little Slammers" Audrey and Quinn and Audrey's babysitter, Yola for their participation. The art work was beautiful and chorus was lovely. Many people were interested in Senorita's Spanish games too and the poetry breaks were great. Come and visit the hallways to view them all.
**Look for permission slip and information on PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Picnic next week. We are going to do a Sign Up Genius for items needed for the picnic. That will also be sent out next week. Pizza and Play is June 1st from 9:30-noon at Rehm Park. We need lots of help!
**A presentation on the SUMMER READING at MAZE LIBRARY will take place on Wednesday, May 18th at 8:45 am. It is a super fun program for our soon to be First Graders!
**Pacer's Running/Walking club will continue a few more weeks. The students are receiving lots of feet for their necklaces!
**Olympic Day is scheduled for Friday, May 27th beginning at 8:30 am. A schedule of events will be in your child's homework folder next week.
** Look for portfolios and writing journals from Trimesters 1 and 2 to come home next week.
**The final rotation of Route to Reading will be next week. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her review of all of this years topics in a game show format. Her final session with students is May 26th.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with small groups of students in placing dots according to the direction given.
**Future field trips--Pizza and Play-Wednesday, June 1st at Rehm Park from 9:30-noon.....Walking trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am.......Walking trip to Gurgas/Chen Chicken Coup--TBA and in room guest speaker, Ms. Henry to speak about worm composting--TBA.
**June 8th (full day)--Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Half Hour, summer packets, autograph books and final report cards will be sent home.
This week:
Change is in the air! The students are sensing that the end of the kindergarten is near. They are thinking about new teachers, new classrooms, new friendships and new expectations. They are also thinking about students who might be moving away.or going to other schools in Oak Park. Turning into a First Grader is BIG! We will be visiting First Grade next week. I encourage you to chat with your child about moving on. Parent or child can write a question down that they would like the First Graders to answer. There is definitely excitement in the air and perhaps.....a little anxiety. We will be working through it in our classroom too! Station Day activities this week included ways to say a number flower, seed sequence and creating an addition story problem, illustrating it and writing the equation.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on skills and literature from Treasures 9 Amazing Creatures and 10 We know A Lot. Students took a look at the world of bugs. What is an insect? Can you name the similarities and differences between an insect and a spider? Sight words for this week were has and look. Target sounds for this week were Jj and Yy. Students spent time with partners using their word cards, pictures and punctuation creating sentences. Students continue to work on using and recognizing nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives. Each day this week, the students worked on group substitution activities to strengthen sound recognition and automatic recording of sounds to create words. They also worked on formative and summative blueprints
on word choice and how the illustrations are important in the text. Robust Vocabulary for this week included ENORMOUS, GULP, FANTASY, INCREDIBLE, REALITY. Workstations this week included leveled reader self read, partner read and elbow chat on story elements, comparing and contrasting stories and vocabulary and word choice, What bug do you like? and why do you like it? opinion writing, writing about how insects are alike and how they are different, discussing and writing 4 facts about insects, short e word work, word scramble, silent e word work, writing sentences using your sight words, choosing an illustration from the text and telling in writing what information the picture gives you and why it is important, creating a word web for the letter sound Ww and working with word families ut, et. un and en.
Math: The students keep working on reading simple story problems, illustrating the process, showing it on a number line and writing the equation. The students continue to review rote counting skills, basic shape and geometric solids, comparing and contrasting 2D and 3D shapes, teen numbers and addition and subtraction processes including number bonds and number families.
Writing: The students are working on writing pieces in both reading and science. They wrote thank you letters to Reading Grandma Mary. They are writing about a certain subject, stating and opinion, comparing and contrasting and writing about illustrations.
Science: The students continue their study of seeds. This week, they observed the inside of a seed. We soaked pinto beans and white beans in warm water overnight. The next day, the students observed that the seeds got bigger. They made a comparison. Yes!!......the water climbed up into the spaces of the seed. The students split their seeds in half with their fingers. They observed the outer covering (coat) and in the inside corner was the baby plant (embryo) The rest of the inside is the seed food where the see gets its nourishment. The students made a diagram in their journal, labeling parts and discussing and writing about pertinent vocabulary. The students also watched their own seed germinate and grow into a baby plant. They kept track of the growth by making drawings every few days. Students also looked at root systems and created a diagram of their plants root system. Leaf structure and stem structure rounded out their inquiries and observations. OUR PLANTS ARE READY TO GO HOME! This will happen on Monday, May 16th. I will also send home an information sheet. Next week--preparing our garden bed and soil vs no soil experiments.
Technology: The students saw the iMovie we made. The overall reaction was great. They were so proud. The did note that in some parts of the footage, they needed to speak up to be on the soundtrack. It was a great experience. They want to do another........stay tuned!!!!!
Literature: "The Tiny Seed," "The Bug Patrol," "3D Bugs," "Giant Book of Bugs," "Eating the Alphabet," "Leaves," "Roots," "Stems," "Plants," "My Tree Named Steve," "The Sunflower House."
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Sunday, May 8, 2016
UPDATES for 5/2-5/6 2016
**Another busy week in kindergarten! We are transitioning into our last cross curricular theme of the year--Seeds to Plants! The students are sensing change in the air! We are beginning to talk about first grade. We will be visiting all First Grade classrooms in the coming weeks. We are practicing our POEMS for the Traveling Poets Project. We continue to edit our iMovie on our Space Stations. We have lots of footage!!!
**Our field trip to the Adler Planetarium was awesome! The students saw the movie, "One World, One Sky." They visited exhibits about the moon, the planets. space travel and telescopes. They thoroughly enjoyed the interactive visit to Planet Explorers trying on jet packs, blasting off, walking in space, seeing a space toilet, and sleeping in a space bed. The students also built using pvc pipes, crawled around under space tunnels and drove a lunar rover collecting space rocks. We had a lovely picnic on a hill overlooking the lake. A great day! A HUGE THANKS to our volunteers--M. Daniel, B. Kates, K. Harris, J. Metz and Katherine's Tio for helping us on our special day.
**The sky was a bit threatening but........District 97's Annual Fun Run went on! A special SHOUT OUT to KATHERINE and OMAR for their participation. What fast runners!!!!!
**It was Reading Grandma Mary's final Thursday with students. She was so impressed with all the progress the students have made. We will miss her! Her message to the students----KEEP READING and CHATTING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ!
**The Traveling Poets Project begins MONDAY. Our students will be traveling to recite their poems in selected rooms all over the school. Listen to your child recite his/her poem at home! We will be traveling on May 9th and May 16th.
**The IRVING POETRY SLAM and ART FEST is THURSDAY, MAY 12th from 6-8 pm all over the school. Come on out to see art on the walls from each Irving student, hear the chorus and poetry, see a play and play Spanish games with Senorita. Of course, there is also food involved! Our class has 3 "little slammers" ready to recite poetry in the auditorium along with many others. Mr. Williams will be the "MC." There is still time to get involved!!!! Share your creativity.
**National Sports and Fitness Week was a hit! Sports caps, soccer playing, jump roping and yoga and movement were the ticket.
**I will be speaking to the students on counting down the days until the end of the year. We will create our own ABC Countdown. Look for a calendar of events and activities in your child's homework folder next week.
**I will begin final assessments for the last report card next week. Assessments for phonemic awareness, math, sight words, independent and instructional reading levels and social/emotional growth reflection will be done.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued to review the years topics in a game show format. So fun! Her final session with the students is May 20th.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began work on a final project involving using the activities in the text, "Logic Links." Students will work on listening to a set of directions and using their knowledge of positional words to move a set of dots into the correct order.
**Future Field Trips--Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on June 1st 9:30-noon. Walking Field Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am. Walking Field Trip to the Gurgas/Chen Chicken Coup-TBA and in room guest speaker Ms. Henry to speak about worm composting -TBA.
**June 8th (full day) --Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Hour and final report cards sent home.
This week:
It was all about dramatic play in space stations and reflecting on their field trip. The students are using their space stations for leisure reading complete with flashlights too! The team invited other teams to explore their space stations. The students began their final science unit on seeds and plants. Station day activities included ladybug addition, seed sequence, estimate and measure and having an extra recess outside!
Reading/Language Arts: I am combining vocabulary, phonemic skills, comprehension and literature of our final Treasures Reading series Unit 9-Amazing Creatures and Unit 10-We Know A Lot. Woven into the units will be poetry to close out the year. This week, the students read stories about different types of bugs. Target words were he and she. Target sounds were Gg, Ww and a review of all short and long vowel sounds. We also continue to work on final formative and summative blueprints on comparing and contrasting two texts, narrative writing, word choice and defining an unknown word and a review of all story elements. Students small groups created sentences using all their sight words and pictures. They also began incorporating some First Grade words into their sentences. A whole group lesson focused on the definition and use of pronouns--I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The students worked in small groups with leveled readers, reading for meaning and fluency, discussing story elements, cause and effect, making connections, drawing conclusions and making inferences. Word work centered on using context clues to figure out the meaning on an unknown word. They also continued to review recognizing and using nouns, verbs and adjectives. The true quest of reading for meaning is becoming more apparent to our kindergarten readers. Robust Vocabulary for this week included AMAZING, DEEP, INVITE, OCEAN, REASON, ANNOY, INSECT. The students continue to review sound blending strategies, adding and deleting sounds in words as well as recognizing consonant blends and digraphs and the use of silent e. Workstations this week included writing questions and answers pertaining to a particular text, word families ut and un, writing a sentence about a bug you have seen, writing an opinion piece about which bug you like the best and why, picking two bugs and writing about how they are alike and how they are different, observing details and writing about what you see in a picture and what information that picture gives you about the story, elbow chatting about story elements and word work with silent e and digraphs.
Math: The students are working in their new calendar books. Some new features include number puzzles, writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, dice subtraction, number find 1-200 and nonstandard measurement using unifix cubes. Students also have their new Math Journal. They are reading the story problem and deciding whether to add or subtract, illustrating their problem, showing it on a number line, and writing the equation. Math workstations this week included writing numbers 1-100 or beyond, illustrating and solving subtraction story problems, counting before and after a random number, and building new shapes using existing pattern block shapes.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters and expanding sentence length. We are almost finished with our orange practice books. Look for those to come home next week. Our "Fix It Up Checklist" has really helped students with checking all aspects of their writing. We wrote to our moms, about our favorite field trip experiences and to Ms. Sarah from the Library. Next week, we will write to Reading Grandma!
Science: The students began the inquiry--What is a seed? In our first first experiment, the students took their magnifiers and examined a variety of objects on a tray. Some were seeds......some were not. Each table conducted sorting activities and tried to decide which were seeds and which were not. They looked at color, size, shape and texture. Each table presented their findings. Students were fascinated by seeds that appeared to be mini sticks or oval and ones that were hard and bumpy. We took a look at several types of real seeds. Students took a look at their new science journals. In our next experiment, the students selected their seed for planting and nurturing. They observed the different shapes of the seeds--Nasturtium, Morning Glory, Marigold and Sunflower. All had very different shapes, colors, sizes and textures. Students accessed information on growth patterns--horizontal vs vertical, stems, root structure--tiny, side, large. They also looked at leaf shape--wagon wheel, butterfly wings, oval, skinny ovals. Key vocabulary--germinate, sprout, shoot, root were discussed. Each student planted a seed of their choice. They became responsible for checking to see if it needed water and placing it in a sunny window. Each student knew from prior knowledge that seeds needs sun, air, soil and water to grow. Cant' wait until Monday to see what has happened over the weekend. Next week--seed dissection.
Technology: No new apps this week. We are looking at a lot of footage from our space station filming. Stay tuned!
Literature: "How Do Seeds Grow?" "Beetles," "Beautiful Bugs," "Insects," "From Seed to Plant Part 1," "The Tiny Seed," "Plants" "Seeds," "Roots," "Leaves," "What Mom's Can't Do," "Spring Changes."
**Our field trip to the Adler Planetarium was awesome! The students saw the movie, "One World, One Sky." They visited exhibits about the moon, the planets. space travel and telescopes. They thoroughly enjoyed the interactive visit to Planet Explorers trying on jet packs, blasting off, walking in space, seeing a space toilet, and sleeping in a space bed. The students also built using pvc pipes, crawled around under space tunnels and drove a lunar rover collecting space rocks. We had a lovely picnic on a hill overlooking the lake. A great day! A HUGE THANKS to our volunteers--M. Daniel, B. Kates, K. Harris, J. Metz and Katherine's Tio for helping us on our special day.
**The sky was a bit threatening but........District 97's Annual Fun Run went on! A special SHOUT OUT to KATHERINE and OMAR for their participation. What fast runners!!!!!
**It was Reading Grandma Mary's final Thursday with students. She was so impressed with all the progress the students have made. We will miss her! Her message to the students----KEEP READING and CHATTING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ!
**The Traveling Poets Project begins MONDAY. Our students will be traveling to recite their poems in selected rooms all over the school. Listen to your child recite his/her poem at home! We will be traveling on May 9th and May 16th.
**The IRVING POETRY SLAM and ART FEST is THURSDAY, MAY 12th from 6-8 pm all over the school. Come on out to see art on the walls from each Irving student, hear the chorus and poetry, see a play and play Spanish games with Senorita. Of course, there is also food involved! Our class has 3 "little slammers" ready to recite poetry in the auditorium along with many others. Mr. Williams will be the "MC." There is still time to get involved!!!! Share your creativity.
**National Sports and Fitness Week was a hit! Sports caps, soccer playing, jump roping and yoga and movement were the ticket.
**I will be speaking to the students on counting down the days until the end of the year. We will create our own ABC Countdown. Look for a calendar of events and activities in your child's homework folder next week.
**I will begin final assessments for the last report card next week. Assessments for phonemic awareness, math, sight words, independent and instructional reading levels and social/emotional growth reflection will be done.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued to review the years topics in a game show format. So fun! Her final session with the students is May 20th.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began work on a final project involving using the activities in the text, "Logic Links." Students will work on listening to a set of directions and using their knowledge of positional words to move a set of dots into the correct order.
**Future Field Trips--Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on June 1st 9:30-noon. Walking Field Trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am. Walking Field Trip to the Gurgas/Chen Chicken Coup-TBA and in room guest speaker Ms. Henry to speak about worm composting -TBA.
**June 8th (full day) --Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Hour and final report cards sent home.
This week:
It was all about dramatic play in space stations and reflecting on their field trip. The students are using their space stations for leisure reading complete with flashlights too! The team invited other teams to explore their space stations. The students began their final science unit on seeds and plants. Station day activities included ladybug addition, seed sequence, estimate and measure and having an extra recess outside!
Reading/Language Arts: I am combining vocabulary, phonemic skills, comprehension and literature of our final Treasures Reading series Unit 9-Amazing Creatures and Unit 10-We Know A Lot. Woven into the units will be poetry to close out the year. This week, the students read stories about different types of bugs. Target words were he and she. Target sounds were Gg, Ww and a review of all short and long vowel sounds. We also continue to work on final formative and summative blueprints on comparing and contrasting two texts, narrative writing, word choice and defining an unknown word and a review of all story elements. Students small groups created sentences using all their sight words and pictures. They also began incorporating some First Grade words into their sentences. A whole group lesson focused on the definition and use of pronouns--I, you, he, she, it, we, they. The students worked in small groups with leveled readers, reading for meaning and fluency, discussing story elements, cause and effect, making connections, drawing conclusions and making inferences. Word work centered on using context clues to figure out the meaning on an unknown word. They also continued to review recognizing and using nouns, verbs and adjectives. The true quest of reading for meaning is becoming more apparent to our kindergarten readers. Robust Vocabulary for this week included AMAZING, DEEP, INVITE, OCEAN, REASON, ANNOY, INSECT. The students continue to review sound blending strategies, adding and deleting sounds in words as well as recognizing consonant blends and digraphs and the use of silent e. Workstations this week included writing questions and answers pertaining to a particular text, word families ut and un, writing a sentence about a bug you have seen, writing an opinion piece about which bug you like the best and why, picking two bugs and writing about how they are alike and how they are different, observing details and writing about what you see in a picture and what information that picture gives you about the story, elbow chatting about story elements and word work with silent e and digraphs.
Math: The students are working in their new calendar books. Some new features include number puzzles, writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, dice subtraction, number find 1-200 and nonstandard measurement using unifix cubes. Students also have their new Math Journal. They are reading the story problem and deciding whether to add or subtract, illustrating their problem, showing it on a number line, and writing the equation. Math workstations this week included writing numbers 1-100 or beyond, illustrating and solving subtraction story problems, counting before and after a random number, and building new shapes using existing pattern block shapes.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining upper and lowercase letters and expanding sentence length. We are almost finished with our orange practice books. Look for those to come home next week. Our "Fix It Up Checklist" has really helped students with checking all aspects of their writing. We wrote to our moms, about our favorite field trip experiences and to Ms. Sarah from the Library. Next week, we will write to Reading Grandma!
Science: The students began the inquiry--What is a seed? In our first first experiment, the students took their magnifiers and examined a variety of objects on a tray. Some were seeds......some were not. Each table conducted sorting activities and tried to decide which were seeds and which were not. They looked at color, size, shape and texture. Each table presented their findings. Students were fascinated by seeds that appeared to be mini sticks or oval and ones that were hard and bumpy. We took a look at several types of real seeds. Students took a look at their new science journals. In our next experiment, the students selected their seed for planting and nurturing. They observed the different shapes of the seeds--Nasturtium, Morning Glory, Marigold and Sunflower. All had very different shapes, colors, sizes and textures. Students accessed information on growth patterns--horizontal vs vertical, stems, root structure--tiny, side, large. They also looked at leaf shape--wagon wheel, butterfly wings, oval, skinny ovals. Key vocabulary--germinate, sprout, shoot, root were discussed. Each student planted a seed of their choice. They became responsible for checking to see if it needed water and placing it in a sunny window. Each student knew from prior knowledge that seeds needs sun, air, soil and water to grow. Cant' wait until Monday to see what has happened over the weekend. Next week--seed dissection.
Technology: No new apps this week. We are looking at a lot of footage from our space station filming. Stay tuned!
Literature: "How Do Seeds Grow?" "Beetles," "Beautiful Bugs," "Insects," "From Seed to Plant Part 1," "The Tiny Seed," "Plants" "Seeds," "Roots," "Leaves," "What Mom's Can't Do," "Spring Changes."
Sunday, May 1, 2016
UPDATES for 4/25-4/29 2016
**The Space Station projects are certainly OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! Come check them out before or after school. They will be in our classroom until the end of the school year. Our Space Day blast off was so much fun. The students wore their jet packs and helmets. They blasted off and spent their station day time exploring their space stations and engaging in dramatic play.
**Though it was cloudy and dreary, our walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library was loads of fun and very informative once we got inside. Maze librarian, Ms. Sarah got the students ready for listening by using some great movement techniques, read us a very engaging story about a tree house and showed us where all the different types of books are located along with videos, movies and special back packs of fun. The students got to look at some books of their choosing and some students even got their library cards. Ms. Sarah says, "Visit the library with your family and check out some books!" A special thanks to Nurse Jamie's daughter, Ava for helping us on our trip.
**Last call for permission slips and money for our field trip to the Adler Planetarium!! Our trip is Tuesday, May 3rd. We will depart at 9:20 and return by 1:30 pm. I need to turn in the money for our bus ride by Monday. We have M. Daniel, Amir's Granny, K. Harris, J. Metz and Mr. Pillacela helping us out on the trip. ALL STUDENTS NEED TO BRING A BAG LUNCH with name on it. NO glass bottles, lunch boxes or thermos bottles please. Please dress your child for the weather. We are keeping out fingers crossed for a picnic by the lake.
**KEEP PRACTICING YOUR POEM for the Traveling Poets Project. Ms. Noonan will hear the poems during our library time on Monday. The students will "travel" to different classrooms to recite their poems beginning on May 9th.
**It was all groovy at the Family Read In. Thanks to those who braved the elements to come out and hear Ms. Noonan, Mrs. Durham, Ms. Hartman and myself share cool stories.
**Lot's of rain outside but.....the the dancing went on inside at the Student Council sponsored "Dance-a-thon" to raise money for Special Olympics. Mr. DiPaolo was spinning popular tunes, the smoke machine was on and students were dancing the morning away. Ella, Lauren, Zadie and Audrey were in top form!
**The last rotation of Route to Reading will begin on Monday, May 2nd.
**The Irving Art Fest along with the Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 12th from 6-8 pm all over the school. A piece of art from every student in the school will be displayed along with Spanish games, food, traveling poets, a play, a performance by the chorus and of course......the POETRY SLAM! So far we have 3 "little slammers" representing our class but how about some more!!!!!! You can say a poem, rap, sing, write your own poem, work with a friend, sibling, group or family. Share your creativity! Don't forget to fill out the slip to be included in the program guide.
**NATIONAL SPORTS and FITNESS WEEK begins MONDAY!! Monday is Ball and Jump Rope Day.....Tuesday is Healthy Heart Day--wear red and bring a healthy snack.....Wednesday is ACES (all children exercising simultaneously)......Thursday is Sports Hat Day.....Friday is School Spirit Day--wear Irving wear or red/white/black. On Saturday--District 97 Fun Run at Lindberg Park beginning with the K-2 race at 8:00 am. Come--RUN WITH ME!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey began winding down the year by hosting a "game show" where the students came up to answer a clue about something she taught during the year.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, the students completed a page for the book making project entitled "The Most in the World."
**Future field trips--Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on June1st-9:30-noon. Walking field trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am.
**June 8th (full day)--Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Hour and final report cards sent home.
This week:
The students continued their final study of space travel, the moon and the planets. Our NASA app has given us great up to the minute info on new planets, the international space station, space travel and the moon. The students explored their completed space stations with their team. Next week the students will begin using the space stations to chill in, read stories in and continue dramatic play as they explore the other groups projects. Station Day was devoted to our blast off and exploration.
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series and that unit became the introduction to our final science unit. The students accessed prior knowledge about what plants need to grow. They completed an initial inquiry on what a seed was. We will begin our seed experiments next week. The students used the rest of the week in small groupings and with partners working on leveled readers receiving feedback about fluency from their group and their partners, elbow chatting about characters, setting and main events, asking and answering questions about a given text both oral and in writing, using context clues to find out a meaning of an unknown word and working to compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in common texts. We continued to work with our Blueprint format comparing the texts "Mooncake" and "Where the Wild Things Are."
Math: The students enjoyed some "gamey" activities with small groups and partners to review all skills presented thus far. Activities included "Don't Spill the Beans" (building sums to 10) "Blast Off" (number comparison) "Addition and Subtraction Pails (adding and decomposing numbers to 10) "What's My Shape?" (2D/3D shape recognition) Partners took the "Subitize Callenge" on their iPads and looked at number families with the app Butterfly Math. They will begin their May Calendar Books and Math Process Journals on Monday.
Writing: Lots of writing going on here!!! The students are writing during all subject areas. They took the time to write thank you notes to Ms. Sarah from Maze Library, reflect in their science journals, answer in writing questions about what they have read and continued work on their beginning paragraphs using their shadow poses. Their "fix it up" checklist has been so helpful. Inventive or phonetic spelling continues to be very appropriate.
Science: The students studied the moon. We discussed the different parts of the moon we see at night. (phases) We are really seeing different amounts of light being reflected on the moon since the moon has no light of its own. How much light we see depends on the position of the Earth,, sun and moon. The students explored the moons surface area and noted that it has lots of holes or craters. It also has flat areas called planes or seas. How did the holes get there?? The students did an experiment where they created a moon using flour and cocoa powder on top in a pie pan. They then dropped magnetized marbles onto their moon like asteroids crashing into the moon to create the craters. Cool! Using a giant magnet, the groups took turns removing the marbles with the magnets to reveal the holes or craters. They sketched their findings and reflected the process in their science journal. The students also began preparation for their final science unit "From Seed to Plant" with an initial inquiry of what they knew and what they wanted to find out.
Technology: No new apps this week. The students have watched footage of what is to become their "movie" of their Space Station work. We will begin the editing process next week using iMovie.
Literature: "The Moon," "Phases of the Moon," "If You Decide To Go To The Moon," "Watching the Moon," "Planet Kindergarten," "Moonshot," "What Is The Moon?" "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Off to the Moon," "I Want to be an Astronaut," "There's No Place Like Space," "Space Vehicles," "The Planets," "Pop Up Facts About Space."
**Though it was cloudy and dreary, our walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library was loads of fun and very informative once we got inside. Maze librarian, Ms. Sarah got the students ready for listening by using some great movement techniques, read us a very engaging story about a tree house and showed us where all the different types of books are located along with videos, movies and special back packs of fun. The students got to look at some books of their choosing and some students even got their library cards. Ms. Sarah says, "Visit the library with your family and check out some books!" A special thanks to Nurse Jamie's daughter, Ava for helping us on our trip.
**Last call for permission slips and money for our field trip to the Adler Planetarium!! Our trip is Tuesday, May 3rd. We will depart at 9:20 and return by 1:30 pm. I need to turn in the money for our bus ride by Monday. We have M. Daniel, Amir's Granny, K. Harris, J. Metz and Mr. Pillacela helping us out on the trip. ALL STUDENTS NEED TO BRING A BAG LUNCH with name on it. NO glass bottles, lunch boxes or thermos bottles please. Please dress your child for the weather. We are keeping out fingers crossed for a picnic by the lake.
**KEEP PRACTICING YOUR POEM for the Traveling Poets Project. Ms. Noonan will hear the poems during our library time on Monday. The students will "travel" to different classrooms to recite their poems beginning on May 9th.
**It was all groovy at the Family Read In. Thanks to those who braved the elements to come out and hear Ms. Noonan, Mrs. Durham, Ms. Hartman and myself share cool stories.
**Lot's of rain outside but.....the the dancing went on inside at the Student Council sponsored "Dance-a-thon" to raise money for Special Olympics. Mr. DiPaolo was spinning popular tunes, the smoke machine was on and students were dancing the morning away. Ella, Lauren, Zadie and Audrey were in top form!
**The last rotation of Route to Reading will begin on Monday, May 2nd.
**The Irving Art Fest along with the Poetry Slam is Thursday, May 12th from 6-8 pm all over the school. A piece of art from every student in the school will be displayed along with Spanish games, food, traveling poets, a play, a performance by the chorus and of course......the POETRY SLAM! So far we have 3 "little slammers" representing our class but how about some more!!!!!! You can say a poem, rap, sing, write your own poem, work with a friend, sibling, group or family. Share your creativity! Don't forget to fill out the slip to be included in the program guide.
**NATIONAL SPORTS and FITNESS WEEK begins MONDAY!! Monday is Ball and Jump Rope Day.....Tuesday is Healthy Heart Day--wear red and bring a healthy snack.....Wednesday is ACES (all children exercising simultaneously)......Thursday is Sports Hat Day.....Friday is School Spirit Day--wear Irving wear or red/white/black. On Saturday--District 97 Fun Run at Lindberg Park beginning with the K-2 race at 8:00 am. Come--RUN WITH ME!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey began winding down the year by hosting a "game show" where the students came up to answer a clue about something she taught during the year.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking and Problem Solving this week, the students completed a page for the book making project entitled "The Most in the World."
**Future field trips--Pizza and Play End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park on June1st-9:30-noon. Walking field trip to the Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 7th at 10:00 am.
**June 8th (full day)--Last day of school (tear drop!) Family Hour and final report cards sent home.
This week:
The students continued their final study of space travel, the moon and the planets. Our NASA app has given us great up to the minute info on new planets, the international space station, space travel and the moon. The students explored their completed space stations with their team. Next week the students will begin using the space stations to chill in, read stories in and continue dramatic play as they explore the other groups projects. Station Day was devoted to our blast off and exploration.
Reading/Language Arts: The students finished Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series and that unit became the introduction to our final science unit. The students accessed prior knowledge about what plants need to grow. They completed an initial inquiry on what a seed was. We will begin our seed experiments next week. The students used the rest of the week in small groupings and with partners working on leveled readers receiving feedback about fluency from their group and their partners, elbow chatting about characters, setting and main events, asking and answering questions about a given text both oral and in writing, using context clues to find out a meaning of an unknown word and working to compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in common texts. We continued to work with our Blueprint format comparing the texts "Mooncake" and "Where the Wild Things Are."
Math: The students enjoyed some "gamey" activities with small groups and partners to review all skills presented thus far. Activities included "Don't Spill the Beans" (building sums to 10) "Blast Off" (number comparison) "Addition and Subtraction Pails (adding and decomposing numbers to 10) "What's My Shape?" (2D/3D shape recognition) Partners took the "Subitize Callenge" on their iPads and looked at number families with the app Butterfly Math. They will begin their May Calendar Books and Math Process Journals on Monday.
Writing: Lots of writing going on here!!! The students are writing during all subject areas. They took the time to write thank you notes to Ms. Sarah from Maze Library, reflect in their science journals, answer in writing questions about what they have read and continued work on their beginning paragraphs using their shadow poses. Their "fix it up" checklist has been so helpful. Inventive or phonetic spelling continues to be very appropriate.
Science: The students studied the moon. We discussed the different parts of the moon we see at night. (phases) We are really seeing different amounts of light being reflected on the moon since the moon has no light of its own. How much light we see depends on the position of the Earth,, sun and moon. The students explored the moons surface area and noted that it has lots of holes or craters. It also has flat areas called planes or seas. How did the holes get there?? The students did an experiment where they created a moon using flour and cocoa powder on top in a pie pan. They then dropped magnetized marbles onto their moon like asteroids crashing into the moon to create the craters. Cool! Using a giant magnet, the groups took turns removing the marbles with the magnets to reveal the holes or craters. They sketched their findings and reflected the process in their science journal. The students also began preparation for their final science unit "From Seed to Plant" with an initial inquiry of what they knew and what they wanted to find out.
Technology: No new apps this week. The students have watched footage of what is to become their "movie" of their Space Station work. We will begin the editing process next week using iMovie.
Literature: "The Moon," "Phases of the Moon," "If You Decide To Go To The Moon," "Watching the Moon," "Planet Kindergarten," "Moonshot," "What Is The Moon?" "Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, Off to the Moon," "I Want to be an Astronaut," "There's No Place Like Space," "Space Vehicles," "The Planets," "Pop Up Facts About Space."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)