**We had a super fabulous field trip to the Morton Arboretum! Our docent, Ms. Judy was very knowledgeable about all the trees on our hike. Lots of hands on activities for our kinders during our hike. The weather was cloudy and crisp, but the students did very well. Our bus became very quiet on the way home!! Some tired travelers!! A HUGE SHOUT OUT to our volunteers--S. Raphael, B. Ahring, RD Danley and E. LaFranco for their help and guidance.
**Slightly Spooky Family Story time was lots of fun. Ms. Noonan, Dr. Bell Bey, Ms. Grogan and myself has a great time reading stories to the crowd. Thanks to all who came to hear us. I also want to say a special thanks for those of you who purchased books for our classroom.
**Our Halloween Celebration and Parade is Monday, October 31st. We will have a regular morning of learning and go to our Gym Class from 12:15-12:45. Students who would like to wear a costume, please bring them in a bag to school in the morning. At 12:45 pm, students will change into their costume. Our Room Moms have sent a sign up sheet for help with costumes, food and activities when we return from the parade. We will have a special story before the parade. Student will line for the parade and it will begin at 1:30 pm. The students will parade outside the school and onto the playground. After the parade, we will have refreshments and an craft activity surrounding our study o bats. Families are welcome to attend parade, help with costume changing and assisting during the activity. Please respect our nonviolent classroom setting. Any treats and trinkets sent will be put into treat bags to be sent home. Please--NO NUTS/NUT PRODUCTS or DAIRY. Thanks!
**Next week we will begin a study of the election process reading fiction and non fiction books. In the Irving Library, Ms Noonan will be having a mock election using the book characters, BAD KITTY and SCAREDY SQUIRREL as the candidates. "They" are currently campaigning until the election and the students are participating in activities. In our classroom, we will taking a look at what makes a good president using fiction and non fiction texts, discussions, writing prompts and students views. Mr. Packer will be holding voting for the real current candidates and take a school wide vote. Students will receive their "voter registration cards" on Monday.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 has begun. Please email me if you have not received notice on the skill your child is working on.
**Picture retakes will be done on Thursday, November 3rd.
**Our PTO sponsored Mexican Dance Assembly is scheduled for Monday, November 7th at 10:00 am in the gym.
**Our 50th Day of school is also Monday, November 7th. We will be half way to our 100th day! The students will spend some time learning about the decade of the 50's. We will mark our day by dressing like the 50's, having a sock hop and working on math stations surrounding the number 50. On Monday, November the students can dress like the 50's. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and blue jeans--slick back hair for the boys and ponytails for the girls. If you should have a poodle skirt around--WOW!
**Fundraiser Trivia Night (adults only) is Thursday, November 10th at 7:00 pm at the Wire.
**In our Second Step lesson this week, the students began to think about and discuss the feelings of surprise, showing interest, afraid/scared.
**No Friendship club this week.
**In Mr. PAcker's Thinking Skills this week, students shared their projects using dots and ABC letters as part of their picture. They will begin a new project next week on counting.
**No School--November 8th-Election Day
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP--Brookfield Zoo--Tuesday, November 22nd from 9:00-1:30 pm. I have S. Raphael and M. Ahring as chaperones. I would like 3 more adults. Email me if interested.
This week:
It was all about bats, spiders and skeletons! We took the fright our of these creatures. The students listened to informational texts as well as fictional stories. We have a brown bat and bat skeleton on loan from the Field Museum. Our nature table was set up to include a human leg bone, bat and spider diagrams, skeleton and skeleton parts of a lizard and mouse. The students learned about bat and spider habitats, types of bats and spiders and why they are so helpful to our earth. They also learned the difference between an insect and arachnid. We felt for some parts of our human skeleton. All humans have them!! The students delighted in feeling where certain bones were on their bodies and reading stories about the function of our bone structure. Station day activities included marble painted spider webs, turning pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, count and match the dots on a bat and color by code batty shapes.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and make connections about the activities they do with friends. The students found the title page and discussed the main characters and setting of the story. They learned how to compare and find differences and commonalities by using a Venn Diagram. They compared the boy and girl in the story--What they both liked and the types of things each liked separately. The students reviewed all their sight words and worked on the sound of Ss at the beginning and end of a word. Robust Vocabulary for the week included FAVORITE, HOBBY, COMPLETE, PARTNER, FRIEND. The students read their read aloud book, "I Like," and worked on tracking and fluency. They reviewed what a speech bubble is. In our final study of the text, "Peter's Chair," the students completed a Blueprint workmat using a quote from the story to illustrate and explain what the character was thinking and why it was important to the story. Workstations for this week included letter/picture/sound sort for letters M, S, A, P, using letter puzzles to create short a words, using the app Magnetic Letters ABC to compose 2 sentences using your sight words, beginning and ending sound create a word page, sentence starter "I like" completion and illustration, letter substitution to create a new word, leveled reader discussion of main idea and characters in the story, shared reading with a partner.
Math: The students continue to practicing their counting to 50 as our 50th day approaches. In our Eureka math lessons, the students began working with the number 6 in vertical and horizontal configurations and matching objects to the number 6. They continue to work on the concept of one more, finding the missing number in the sequence and writing the number to show how many. We took a look at the hidden partners for the number 6. Our math workstations included counting to 50, writing numbers to 30, count/sort record, finding the hidden partner for numbers, 4, 5, 6 and taking a look at the number 7.
Writing: In Writer's Workshop the students continued to work on their "books." We reviewed that every story has a beginning, middle and end to it. Can you read your book to a partner? Being able to read what you write is important. The students also worked on writing a TRUE Story, They thought about something that happened or something they did. They did practiced telling their story to a partner just like a storyteller. When writing and illustrating their story the students were encouraged to use pictures and words to tell and use their question words--who--where--what. Labeling parts and using speech bubbles can also enhance their story. It was cool to be the observer as they told their story to a partner. We will be working on the book/true story format next week adding a title to a chosen book for publishing.
Science: We are working on creating our scrapbook with all that we have collected. The students will work next week to organize how they want the book to look. On our field trip to the Arboretum this week, the students did a great job remembering the parts and function of a tree. Ms. Judy was impressed! The students sorted parts of a tree using materials around them on their hike. Ms. Judy spoke about why leaves change color, how a tree gets its food and the job of the leaves. We will be working on our next investigation-Leaves- next week. If you have not sent in your leaf collection--please do so for our activities next week.
Technology: No new apps this week.
Literature: "Amazing Bats" "Bats," "Bats Strange and Wonderful," "Your Skeleton," "Your Amazing Bones," "Spiders," "Spiders and Spiderlings," "Bats Big Game," "The Runaway Pumpkin."
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Sunday, October 23, 2016
UPDATES for 10/17-10/21 2016
**Thanks so much for attendance at Parent/Teacher Conferences. It was great to chat with you and share your child's progress. The students are certainly working very hard!
**Come join ME, Ms. Grogan, Ms. Durham, Ms. Noonan and Dr. Bell Bey for an evening of "Slightly Spooky Family Stories," on Wednesday, October 26th from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Come browse the Book Fair too and enjoy a sweet treat.
**The Irving Book Fair will be held October 24th-27th in the Irving Auditorium after school and in the evening. We will be visiting the book fair as a class on Monday.
**Don't forget to send in a baby picture of your child for our Seasonal Babies Project. We hope to do the project on October 24th.
**Leaf Collections are due Thursday, October 27th. We will be studying leaves as part of the next phase of our Science Trees and Weather unit.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Morton Arboretum is THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27th. If you have not done so already. please send in your child's permission slip and money. Thanks! We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and will return at 1:45 pm. Please send a BAG LUNCH with your child's name on it. (no glass bottles or lunch boxes please) Dress for the weather. Gym shoes and socks. Thanks!
**Halloween Info--This is the most current info. (Parade time has changed) We will have a regular morning of learning on Monday, October 31st. Students who would like to wear a costume--please bring them in a bag. After lunch, students will attend their gym class. At 12:45--students will change into their costumes--we will have a special story. We will line up and the All School Parade will begin at 1:30 around the outside of the school. After the parade, students will have refreshments and a craft activity surrounding our study of bats. Our wonderful room parents will be contacting you for assistance. Families are most welcome to attend parade, help students get ready and assist during the activity. Once again, in keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere--please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a candy treat or trinket for treat bags that will be sent home. Please--NO NUTS/NUT PRODUCTS or DAIRY.
**WOW! The Egg Drop and Academic Fair were awesome! Zoey, Alec, Lilah, Camille, Lily, Jeanette and Declan designed cool vehicles. Check out their pics. Alec, Lily and Jeanette worked hard on their projects and did a great job speaking about them to all that stopped by. A HUGE SHOUT OUT to all of our participants!!
**Student Council reps, Alec and Julianna attended their first Student Council meeting. They reported back to class about the workings of the Student Council and a discussion of past projects and suggestions on new projects for this school year.
**The Irving Library under the direction of Ms. Noonan, is having a mock election! She is using the storybook characters--Bad Kitty and Scaredy Squirrel! They will be "campaigning" for next few weeks and the students will be participating in activities. In our classroom--we will be taking a look at what makes a good president using fiction and non fiction texts, discussions and student views. We will have our own student voting for the real candidates too!
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 has concluded. You should have received notification from the teacher of your child's skill mastery. Email me if you did not. Route to Reading Rotation 2 begins on Monday, October 24th. You will receive notification of the skill your child is working on.
**Consider signing up on the Sign Up Genius to be a Friday Station Day volunteer.
**Trivia Night-adults only fundraiser for Irving School sign up is on the Irving website.
**Our Second Step lesson focused on feelings of being happy and sad.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey chatted with students on what it means to be a Social Detective and doing what is expected in our daily lives. She shared the tools for being a social detective--Eyes--Ears--Brain. She presented several situations where the students used their tools to figure out the most appropriate behavior. Dr. Bell Bey also read examples from the book, "You are a Social Detective," by Michelle Winner and Pamela Cooke. Lots of great discussion!
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills, the students worked on a project where they incorporated alphabet letters and dots into their overall picture. Very cool!
**Future Field Trip--Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 22nd--4 chaperones needed.
This week:
It was all about the culmination of Apple mania! The students did a taste test of 5 different types of apples. We recorded their reactions --lots of descriptive words and used tally marks to mark their favorite. The overall winner was Red Delicious with Golden Delicious and Honey Crisp in a tie for second. The students discussed the sequence of making applesauce. Key vocabulary included recipe, ingredient, peel, core, slice, cook. What do we do first? next? last? They observed and assisted in using the apple peeling machine. The skin came off in a ribbon. The apples were then cut, cored and sliced into chunks and placed in the pot. Super great helpers. We discussed the cooking process and made predictions about what would happen during the cooking process. We also talked about the function of a crockpot and slow cooking. Apples and a little water were all that were needed. What--"no sugar" said one of the students. The apples have their own natural sugar! The students observed the different stages of cooking. The smell of cooking apples permeated the air! As a final step,I used an immersion blender to make it all very smooth. YUM! In apple science, the students offered their predictions on whether 3 apples would sink or float. They illustrated their predictions. We did the experiment and the students checked their predictions against the result. Lots of guesses about why an apple would sink or float. Does color matter? Size? How much juice is in it? Shape?
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. This week we took a break from our regular series to dive into our next summative work again using the text Peter's Chair. We talked about a key detail as being something important that happens in the story that effects the character or characters. In our reading of the text. the students listened again to the story of Peter, a boy who experiences a change in his family and himself on a few different levels. We worked on story structure--the way in which events occur in the story. The students are learning that every story has a beginning, middle and end. After reading, the students elbow chatted with a partner about events that happened in the story. We chatted again about events that impact the character. The students thought about what Peter did, something he said or how he felt. We made a group list of these important events. The students took turns acting out these events. As a group, we discussed how Peter changed and why. Next week, we will continue this lesson with a we do and you do Blueprint. Workstations this week included leveled readers with discussion about story elements, word work on syllables, 2 and 3 sound word--blending sounds, working on short a and word families an, am, at, sentence building using our new sight words like and have and reviewing consonant sounds Mm, Ss, Tt, Pp, Nn in the initial and final positions in words.
Math: This week the students took their Mid Module Math Assessment. Each student worked individually with me. Within each assessment, there was a set of problems relating to each topic covered so far. It is in a narrative form so I could see how they executed a problem and hear their thinking behind it. The standards addressed were counting quantities, understanding addition as putting together and subtraction as taking apart or taking from, classifying objects, writing numbers and understanding the concept of zero. While I assessed, students worked in rotating workstations with activities that involved counting quantities, sequencing numbers, finding the hidden number and
writing number forms. Next week, the students begin working with numbers 6-8 in different configurations.
Writing: The students began work on Starting Corner Capitals. They practiced letters H, K and L on their mini boards. In Writer's Workshop this week, students continued work on their "book " making. The students were reminded about making sure all their pages go together (have one topic,) having their pictures and words match up, using the help in your writing folder, stretching their words out to record the sounds, beginning with a capital letter and having an ending mark and spacing between each word. Think about your questions words when drawing and writing. Share your writing with your partner. Can you read what you wrote? Can your partner offer any suggestions? Can you add any more to your wiring? I am continuing to conference with small groups of students providing guidance and support!
Science: The students began collecting items for our group scrapbook. Twigs, leaves, soils, branches, bark and even bug parts! Our next investigation had the students outside observing the shapes of different trees in our school neighborhood. Back in class, we made a list of some tree shapes we noticed--skinny, very wide, shaped like a triangle or rounded, The students then used tree silhouette cards---which trees had similar shapes? Students partnered up to play a memory match game with the tree shape cards. They worked in their science notebook sorting their tree cards and explaining their sort to their partner.
Technology No new apps were explored this week. Students continue to work on Lexia Core 5 in the lab and on the iPad. Next week, the students will work on a counting project using the app Doodle Buddy.
Literature: "Ten Apples Up On Top," "The Bad Apple," "The Apple Pie Tree," "How Do You Know It's Fall?" "Apples and Pumpkins."
**Come join ME, Ms. Grogan, Ms. Durham, Ms. Noonan and Dr. Bell Bey for an evening of "Slightly Spooky Family Stories," on Wednesday, October 26th from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Come browse the Book Fair too and enjoy a sweet treat.
**The Irving Book Fair will be held October 24th-27th in the Irving Auditorium after school and in the evening. We will be visiting the book fair as a class on Monday.
**Don't forget to send in a baby picture of your child for our Seasonal Babies Project. We hope to do the project on October 24th.
**Leaf Collections are due Thursday, October 27th. We will be studying leaves as part of the next phase of our Science Trees and Weather unit.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Morton Arboretum is THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27th. If you have not done so already. please send in your child's permission slip and money. Thanks! We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and will return at 1:45 pm. Please send a BAG LUNCH with your child's name on it. (no glass bottles or lunch boxes please) Dress for the weather. Gym shoes and socks. Thanks!
**Halloween Info--This is the most current info. (Parade time has changed) We will have a regular morning of learning on Monday, October 31st. Students who would like to wear a costume--please bring them in a bag. After lunch, students will attend their gym class. At 12:45--students will change into their costumes--we will have a special story. We will line up and the All School Parade will begin at 1:30 around the outside of the school. After the parade, students will have refreshments and a craft activity surrounding our study of bats. Our wonderful room parents will be contacting you for assistance. Families are most welcome to attend parade, help students get ready and assist during the activity. Once again, in keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere--please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a candy treat or trinket for treat bags that will be sent home. Please--NO NUTS/NUT PRODUCTS or DAIRY.
**WOW! The Egg Drop and Academic Fair were awesome! Zoey, Alec, Lilah, Camille, Lily, Jeanette and Declan designed cool vehicles. Check out their pics. Alec, Lily and Jeanette worked hard on their projects and did a great job speaking about them to all that stopped by. A HUGE SHOUT OUT to all of our participants!!
**Student Council reps, Alec and Julianna attended their first Student Council meeting. They reported back to class about the workings of the Student Council and a discussion of past projects and suggestions on new projects for this school year.
**The Irving Library under the direction of Ms. Noonan, is having a mock election! She is using the storybook characters--Bad Kitty and Scaredy Squirrel! They will be "campaigning" for next few weeks and the students will be participating in activities. In our classroom--we will be taking a look at what makes a good president using fiction and non fiction texts, discussions and student views. We will have our own student voting for the real candidates too!
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 has concluded. You should have received notification from the teacher of your child's skill mastery. Email me if you did not. Route to Reading Rotation 2 begins on Monday, October 24th. You will receive notification of the skill your child is working on.
**Consider signing up on the Sign Up Genius to be a Friday Station Day volunteer.
**Trivia Night-adults only fundraiser for Irving School sign up is on the Irving website.
**Our Second Step lesson focused on feelings of being happy and sad.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey chatted with students on what it means to be a Social Detective and doing what is expected in our daily lives. She shared the tools for being a social detective--Eyes--Ears--Brain. She presented several situations where the students used their tools to figure out the most appropriate behavior. Dr. Bell Bey also read examples from the book, "You are a Social Detective," by Michelle Winner and Pamela Cooke. Lots of great discussion!
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills, the students worked on a project where they incorporated alphabet letters and dots into their overall picture. Very cool!
**Future Field Trip--Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 22nd--4 chaperones needed.
This week:
It was all about the culmination of Apple mania! The students did a taste test of 5 different types of apples. We recorded their reactions --lots of descriptive words and used tally marks to mark their favorite. The overall winner was Red Delicious with Golden Delicious and Honey Crisp in a tie for second. The students discussed the sequence of making applesauce. Key vocabulary included recipe, ingredient, peel, core, slice, cook. What do we do first? next? last? They observed and assisted in using the apple peeling machine. The skin came off in a ribbon. The apples were then cut, cored and sliced into chunks and placed in the pot. Super great helpers. We discussed the cooking process and made predictions about what would happen during the cooking process. We also talked about the function of a crockpot and slow cooking. Apples and a little water were all that were needed. What--"no sugar" said one of the students. The apples have their own natural sugar! The students observed the different stages of cooking. The smell of cooking apples permeated the air! As a final step,I used an immersion blender to make it all very smooth. YUM! In apple science, the students offered their predictions on whether 3 apples would sink or float. They illustrated their predictions. We did the experiment and the students checked their predictions against the result. Lots of guesses about why an apple would sink or float. Does color matter? Size? How much juice is in it? Shape?
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. This week we took a break from our regular series to dive into our next summative work again using the text Peter's Chair. We talked about a key detail as being something important that happens in the story that effects the character or characters. In our reading of the text. the students listened again to the story of Peter, a boy who experiences a change in his family and himself on a few different levels. We worked on story structure--the way in which events occur in the story. The students are learning that every story has a beginning, middle and end. After reading, the students elbow chatted with a partner about events that happened in the story. We chatted again about events that impact the character. The students thought about what Peter did, something he said or how he felt. We made a group list of these important events. The students took turns acting out these events. As a group, we discussed how Peter changed and why. Next week, we will continue this lesson with a we do and you do Blueprint. Workstations this week included leveled readers with discussion about story elements, word work on syllables, 2 and 3 sound word--blending sounds, working on short a and word families an, am, at, sentence building using our new sight words like and have and reviewing consonant sounds Mm, Ss, Tt, Pp, Nn in the initial and final positions in words.
Math: This week the students took their Mid Module Math Assessment. Each student worked individually with me. Within each assessment, there was a set of problems relating to each topic covered so far. It is in a narrative form so I could see how they executed a problem and hear their thinking behind it. The standards addressed were counting quantities, understanding addition as putting together and subtraction as taking apart or taking from, classifying objects, writing numbers and understanding the concept of zero. While I assessed, students worked in rotating workstations with activities that involved counting quantities, sequencing numbers, finding the hidden number and
writing number forms. Next week, the students begin working with numbers 6-8 in different configurations.
Writing: The students began work on Starting Corner Capitals. They practiced letters H, K and L on their mini boards. In Writer's Workshop this week, students continued work on their "book " making. The students were reminded about making sure all their pages go together (have one topic,) having their pictures and words match up, using the help in your writing folder, stretching their words out to record the sounds, beginning with a capital letter and having an ending mark and spacing between each word. Think about your questions words when drawing and writing. Share your writing with your partner. Can you read what you wrote? Can your partner offer any suggestions? Can you add any more to your wiring? I am continuing to conference with small groups of students providing guidance and support!
Science: The students began collecting items for our group scrapbook. Twigs, leaves, soils, branches, bark and even bug parts! Our next investigation had the students outside observing the shapes of different trees in our school neighborhood. Back in class, we made a list of some tree shapes we noticed--skinny, very wide, shaped like a triangle or rounded, The students then used tree silhouette cards---which trees had similar shapes? Students partnered up to play a memory match game with the tree shape cards. They worked in their science notebook sorting their tree cards and explaining their sort to their partner.
Technology No new apps were explored this week. Students continue to work on Lexia Core 5 in the lab and on the iPad. Next week, the students will work on a counting project using the app Doodle Buddy.
Literature: "Ten Apples Up On Top," "The Bad Apple," "The Apple Pie Tree," "How Do You Know It's Fall?" "Apples and Pumpkins."
Sunday, October 16, 2016
UPDATES for 10/11-10/14 2016
**REMINDER--Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, October 17th, Tuesday, October 18th and Wednesday, October 19th. The schedule is as follows: MONDAY--3:00 and 3:30 Zort....4:00 Reed....5:00 Flannery....5:30 Dantzler/Smith....6:30 Dantzler/Dixon....7:00 Ahring.
TUESDAY--3:00 Moroney....3:30 James....4:00 Regan....6:00 Novak....6:30 Maldonado....WEDNESDAY--2:00 Pierson/Kissoon....4:00 Magniere....5:00 Rogers/Grant....5:30 Grace....6:00 Horwitz....7:30 Danley....8:00 Martin. I am looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you! No need to get a baby sitter--you child can come with if you like.
**REMINDER--School is in session in the MORNING ONLY on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Magical Minds, RFCC, Toon Town will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Send in a baby picture of your child for our Seasonal Babies Project. I have mine and Mr. Hodge and Dr. Bell Bey!! I even have Mr. Saks!! Send in by October 24th.
**Picture Day well! The students had both class and individual photos taken outside on a lovely morning. Thanks to M. Ahring and S. Raphael for their help.
**Go Team Gullo! The students had a fabulous run on our Fun Run Day. Thanks so much for your support. Our class raised $540. They run hard and had a great time!
**Congratulations to ALEC and JULIANNA. They are our Student Council reps thru December. Their job is to attend the meetings and report back to our class. Their first meeting is Tuesday. Thanks to all students who expressed an interest. The next round of reps will be chosen in January.
**We have all of our chaperones for our trip to Morton Arboretum on October 27th. Thanks to S. Raphael, B. Ahring, RD Danley, J. Flannery and E. LaFranco for volunteering. You be receiving more info later this week. Don't forget-- bag lunch with name on it (no glass bottles or lunch boxes,) dress for the weather!
**The students enjoyed author, Lori Degman and her reading of her latest book, "Cockadoodle--Oops!" Lori spoke to the students about how she got her ideas, the role of the illustrator and how she made her story rhyme. Very cool!
**The EGG DROP/ACADEMIC FAIR is Wednesday, October 19th. All students participating in the Egg Drop--please bring your vehicles to school on Wednesday morning. The contest begins at 12:30 on the blacktop. Come on out and join us. Students participating in the Academic Fair--bring your projects to school on Wednesday morning. There will be a spot on the tables set up in the gym with your name on it. Set up there. We will be viewing the projects as a class. In the evening, beginning at 6:00 pm, you can come back and stand with your project and share it with the public. There is still time to to do either project. See the Irving website for sign up info.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on October 19th. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery status. Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on October 24th.
**Information on Daisy Girl Scout sign up was shared with you by our Room Parents. Lots of fun for the girls---cool projects. I believe the first meeting is Monday.
**Consider signing up on the Sign Up Genius for Friday Station Day Volunteers. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**Trivia Night-adults only night out and fundraiser sign up is on the Irving website.
**Please join Ms. Gullo, Ms. Grogan, Ms. Durham, Ms. Noonan and Dr. Bell Bey on Monday, October 24th for Spooky Story Family Night beginning at 6:30 pm in the auditorium. This event will kick off the Irving Book Fair. Probably less spooky.....more funny!
**On the subject of spooky---The topic of Halloween has been brought up in class. The schedule is as follows--Monday, October 31st will be a regular morning of learning. If your child chooses to, they may bring their costumes/makeup/props to school in a bag. After lunch--students will change into their costumes. An all school parade around the block will follow. Back in our classroom--we will have healthy refreshments and a craft that will culminate our study of bats, spiders and nocturnal animals. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere--please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students can bring a candy treat if they wish. It will go into a treat bag and be sent home. Please--NO NUTS/NUT PRODUCTS or DAIRY. I will be chatting with room parents about refreshments and help with costume changing. Families--please come join us for the afternoon.
**Our Second Step lesson focused on being assertive and asking for help.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued work on the Zones of Regulation with students and used the apps Calm Counter and Breathe, Think, Do in her lesson on ways to self regulate.
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students created their picture around an alphabet letter.
**Future Field Trip--Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 22nd--5 chaperones needed.
This week:
APPLEMANIA and tree investigations were the highlight of the week. The students used their magnifiers check out apple parts. They worked together to build and label the parts of the felt apple tree. We took a piece of the skin and flesh and placed it under the microscope. Cool! Our apple taste test, apple experiment and making applesauce is on for next week. More in the science section on our continuing tree investigation. The students also enjoyed the addition of Lily and Jeanette's mom and Nyah's mom as our station day helpers. Station day activities included apple print trees, mixed media apples, color by code autumn leaves, "pinky" painting how many seeds on the apple. The students experimented with tree puzzles.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue work on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed how families can change. Family members move away or move in. Children grow older. Family sizes can increase. The student elbow chatted with a partner about an activity they did when they were a baby and an activity they do now as a 5/6 year old. We made a list of activities we did when we were babies--cry, be carried, crawl drink, a bottle or from our mom..... and a list of activities we can do now--ride a bike, run, dress ourselves, walk....This preparation will assist the students next week when they begin their new summative activity using the trade book. "Peter's Chair." This week the students did their "you do" Blueprint using "Peter's Chair" and focused on characters, setting and main event. Students are beginning to write down more information along with their pictures. Exciting! In the next 2 weeks, the students will be looking more closely at the key details that support the story. The story has a beginning, middle and end. They also worked on thinking about what the big or main idea of the story. What is this story about? How do you know? Can you find evidence for your thinking in the story? Can the pictures help you? Our summative work will center around the idea of key details.
The students reviewed their sight words and walked their words for reinforcement. Robust Vocabulary for this week included CHANGE, RELATIVE, EAGER, OCCASION, CELEBRATE. In our phonemic awareness activities this week, the students continued work on onset/rime patterns, 2-4 syllable words and beginning sound blending of 2 sound words. During our read aloud time, students read "Can We?" Students caught on to the story structure--question--answer. Tracking skills are becoming more consistent. Pointing to each word and picture and keeping your place while another student is reading aloud is very important.
Our Haggerty Blue Book exercises continue to reinforce onset/rime patterns, syllables, sound blending, beginning and ending sounds, counting words in a sentence and adding, deleting and substituting word parts. Workstations this week included leveled readers, elbow chatting about characters, setting and events in the story, walking your words, drawing your family and writing about an activity you do with them, writing and illustrating a picture of you (before) as a baby and (after) as a 5/6 year old--how did you look? What can you do?, working with word families and game activities including pop for sight words, initial sounds and ending sound bump. We will continue these workstation activities next week as we have more instruction on the topic of key details and relating the beginning, middle and ending of a story.
Math: Students continue to practice their number formation rhymes 0-9 focusing on directionality and beginning at the top. Our whole group and small group workstation math lessons this week included review of decomposing a number into its hidden partners using numbers to 5, sorting into groups and explaining your thinking, counting and writing the number to show how many, finding the missing number and writing a number sentence. Math talk vocabulary included sort, plus, equal, equation, counting path. The students will take a Mid Module assessment next week.
Writing: The students finished their Frog Jump Capitals. The students worked on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their Orange Practice books. Up next--Starting Corner Capitals. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students worked on the idea that when writers want to teach more, they add more pages. Their stories have a beginning, middle and end. I read the story, "A Squiggly Story" to the class. It is the story about a boy who wants to write a story like his big sister. Some of his sister's words of wisdom were: "Every story starts with a word, every word starts with a letter, " "You are the BOSS of your own story. " "Use your question words." "Visualize/plan in your head what your topic and what happens." The students became very motivated to write their own story. We made a blank "book" with 3 pages for a beginning, middle and end. The students will be working on a book or books for the next few weeks. I will be individually conferencing with them providing guidance and support. They have their word wall words, sound/symbol cards, the ABC of names sheet to assist too. Sharing our writing with a partner is important too. So exciting!!
Science: The students continued their investigation into trees. The students went back outside with magnifiers and looked more closely at our White Oak Tree. Students noted bumps in the bark, veins in the leaves, smooth twigs, different color browns in the roots that stuck out. Back in the classroom, students matched tree part cards with words and glued them into their notebook. Students then worked with a partner experimenting with the tree puzzles. The word of the day was compare.
The students are noticing shape and pattern. They are also beginning the conversation about how certain trees have similar shapes and that sometimes you can identify a tree just by looking at the shape of the whole tree. We will continue this investigation next week---creating a scrapbook of samples from our tree and perhaps a tree that is not similar.
Technology: In whole group, the apps ABC Magic and Photo Touch ABC were used to reinforce sound/lowercase symbol, letter recognition. Students also used the app Word Wizard to reinforce blending sounds to create words. Lexia Core 5 is now part of daily workstations. In Math whole group, the apps Easy Match, Number Rack, Touch and Learn Number were used to reinforce number recognition, counting and cardinality and the concept more/less, equal to.
Literature: "How do Apples Grow," "Me and My Family Tree," "Amazing Apples," "The Big Apple Mystery," "Grow Tree Grow," "Trees," "A Squiggly Story," "Picture Day Perfection," "When the Wind Stops."
TUESDAY--3:00 Moroney....3:30 James....4:00 Regan....6:00 Novak....6:30 Maldonado....WEDNESDAY--2:00 Pierson/Kissoon....4:00 Magniere....5:00 Rogers/Grant....5:30 Grace....6:00 Horwitz....7:30 Danley....8:00 Martin. I am looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you! No need to get a baby sitter--you child can come with if you like.
**REMINDER--School is in session in the MORNING ONLY on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Magical Minds, RFCC, Toon Town will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Send in a baby picture of your child for our Seasonal Babies Project. I have mine and Mr. Hodge and Dr. Bell Bey!! I even have Mr. Saks!! Send in by October 24th.
**Picture Day well! The students had both class and individual photos taken outside on a lovely morning. Thanks to M. Ahring and S. Raphael for their help.
**Go Team Gullo! The students had a fabulous run on our Fun Run Day. Thanks so much for your support. Our class raised $540. They run hard and had a great time!
**Congratulations to ALEC and JULIANNA. They are our Student Council reps thru December. Their job is to attend the meetings and report back to our class. Their first meeting is Tuesday. Thanks to all students who expressed an interest. The next round of reps will be chosen in January.
**We have all of our chaperones for our trip to Morton Arboretum on October 27th. Thanks to S. Raphael, B. Ahring, RD Danley, J. Flannery and E. LaFranco for volunteering. You be receiving more info later this week. Don't forget-- bag lunch with name on it (no glass bottles or lunch boxes,) dress for the weather!
**The students enjoyed author, Lori Degman and her reading of her latest book, "Cockadoodle--Oops!" Lori spoke to the students about how she got her ideas, the role of the illustrator and how she made her story rhyme. Very cool!
**The EGG DROP/ACADEMIC FAIR is Wednesday, October 19th. All students participating in the Egg Drop--please bring your vehicles to school on Wednesday morning. The contest begins at 12:30 on the blacktop. Come on out and join us. Students participating in the Academic Fair--bring your projects to school on Wednesday morning. There will be a spot on the tables set up in the gym with your name on it. Set up there. We will be viewing the projects as a class. In the evening, beginning at 6:00 pm, you can come back and stand with your project and share it with the public. There is still time to to do either project. See the Irving website for sign up info.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on October 19th. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery status. Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on October 24th.
**Information on Daisy Girl Scout sign up was shared with you by our Room Parents. Lots of fun for the girls---cool projects. I believe the first meeting is Monday.
**Consider signing up on the Sign Up Genius for Friday Station Day Volunteers. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**Trivia Night-adults only night out and fundraiser sign up is on the Irving website.
**Please join Ms. Gullo, Ms. Grogan, Ms. Durham, Ms. Noonan and Dr. Bell Bey on Monday, October 24th for Spooky Story Family Night beginning at 6:30 pm in the auditorium. This event will kick off the Irving Book Fair. Probably less spooky.....more funny!
**On the subject of spooky---The topic of Halloween has been brought up in class. The schedule is as follows--Monday, October 31st will be a regular morning of learning. If your child chooses to, they may bring their costumes/makeup/props to school in a bag. After lunch--students will change into their costumes. An all school parade around the block will follow. Back in our classroom--we will have healthy refreshments and a craft that will culminate our study of bats, spiders and nocturnal animals. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere--please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students can bring a candy treat if they wish. It will go into a treat bag and be sent home. Please--NO NUTS/NUT PRODUCTS or DAIRY. I will be chatting with room parents about refreshments and help with costume changing. Families--please come join us for the afternoon.
**Our Second Step lesson focused on being assertive and asking for help.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued work on the Zones of Regulation with students and used the apps Calm Counter and Breathe, Think, Do in her lesson on ways to self regulate.
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students created their picture around an alphabet letter.
**Future Field Trip--Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday, November 22nd--5 chaperones needed.
This week:
APPLEMANIA and tree investigations were the highlight of the week. The students used their magnifiers check out apple parts. They worked together to build and label the parts of the felt apple tree. We took a piece of the skin and flesh and placed it under the microscope. Cool! Our apple taste test, apple experiment and making applesauce is on for next week. More in the science section on our continuing tree investigation. The students also enjoyed the addition of Lily and Jeanette's mom and Nyah's mom as our station day helpers. Station day activities included apple print trees, mixed media apples, color by code autumn leaves, "pinky" painting how many seeds on the apple. The students experimented with tree puzzles.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue work on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed how families can change. Family members move away or move in. Children grow older. Family sizes can increase. The student elbow chatted with a partner about an activity they did when they were a baby and an activity they do now as a 5/6 year old. We made a list of activities we did when we were babies--cry, be carried, crawl drink, a bottle or from our mom..... and a list of activities we can do now--ride a bike, run, dress ourselves, walk....This preparation will assist the students next week when they begin their new summative activity using the trade book. "Peter's Chair." This week the students did their "you do" Blueprint using "Peter's Chair" and focused on characters, setting and main event. Students are beginning to write down more information along with their pictures. Exciting! In the next 2 weeks, the students will be looking more closely at the key details that support the story. The story has a beginning, middle and end. They also worked on thinking about what the big or main idea of the story. What is this story about? How do you know? Can you find evidence for your thinking in the story? Can the pictures help you? Our summative work will center around the idea of key details.
The students reviewed their sight words and walked their words for reinforcement. Robust Vocabulary for this week included CHANGE, RELATIVE, EAGER, OCCASION, CELEBRATE. In our phonemic awareness activities this week, the students continued work on onset/rime patterns, 2-4 syllable words and beginning sound blending of 2 sound words. During our read aloud time, students read "Can We?" Students caught on to the story structure--question--answer. Tracking skills are becoming more consistent. Pointing to each word and picture and keeping your place while another student is reading aloud is very important.
Our Haggerty Blue Book exercises continue to reinforce onset/rime patterns, syllables, sound blending, beginning and ending sounds, counting words in a sentence and adding, deleting and substituting word parts. Workstations this week included leveled readers, elbow chatting about characters, setting and events in the story, walking your words, drawing your family and writing about an activity you do with them, writing and illustrating a picture of you (before) as a baby and (after) as a 5/6 year old--how did you look? What can you do?, working with word families and game activities including pop for sight words, initial sounds and ending sound bump. We will continue these workstation activities next week as we have more instruction on the topic of key details and relating the beginning, middle and ending of a story.
Math: Students continue to practice their number formation rhymes 0-9 focusing on directionality and beginning at the top. Our whole group and small group workstation math lessons this week included review of decomposing a number into its hidden partners using numbers to 5, sorting into groups and explaining your thinking, counting and writing the number to show how many, finding the missing number and writing a number sentence. Math talk vocabulary included sort, plus, equal, equation, counting path. The students will take a Mid Module assessment next week.
Writing: The students finished their Frog Jump Capitals. The students worked on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their Orange Practice books. Up next--Starting Corner Capitals. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students worked on the idea that when writers want to teach more, they add more pages. Their stories have a beginning, middle and end. I read the story, "A Squiggly Story" to the class. It is the story about a boy who wants to write a story like his big sister. Some of his sister's words of wisdom were: "Every story starts with a word, every word starts with a letter, " "You are the BOSS of your own story. " "Use your question words." "Visualize/plan in your head what your topic and what happens." The students became very motivated to write their own story. We made a blank "book" with 3 pages for a beginning, middle and end. The students will be working on a book or books for the next few weeks. I will be individually conferencing with them providing guidance and support. They have their word wall words, sound/symbol cards, the ABC of names sheet to assist too. Sharing our writing with a partner is important too. So exciting!!
Science: The students continued their investigation into trees. The students went back outside with magnifiers and looked more closely at our White Oak Tree. Students noted bumps in the bark, veins in the leaves, smooth twigs, different color browns in the roots that stuck out. Back in the classroom, students matched tree part cards with words and glued them into their notebook. Students then worked with a partner experimenting with the tree puzzles. The word of the day was compare.
The students are noticing shape and pattern. They are also beginning the conversation about how certain trees have similar shapes and that sometimes you can identify a tree just by looking at the shape of the whole tree. We will continue this investigation next week---creating a scrapbook of samples from our tree and perhaps a tree that is not similar.
Technology: In whole group, the apps ABC Magic and Photo Touch ABC were used to reinforce sound/lowercase symbol, letter recognition. Students also used the app Word Wizard to reinforce blending sounds to create words. Lexia Core 5 is now part of daily workstations. In Math whole group, the apps Easy Match, Number Rack, Touch and Learn Number were used to reinforce number recognition, counting and cardinality and the concept more/less, equal to.
Literature: "How do Apples Grow," "Me and My Family Tree," "Amazing Apples," "The Big Apple Mystery," "Grow Tree Grow," "Trees," "A Squiggly Story," "Picture Day Perfection," "When the Wind Stops."
Saturday, October 8, 2016
UPDATES for 10/3-10/7 2016
**Walk to School Day was a success! Over half of our class walked to school in the morning. The rest of the class walked with Mr. Hancock at lunchtime. Each student colored their gym shoe and received a hand stamp. Mr. Hancock will put up all the shoes on the gym walls. Cool!
**PICTURE DAY is TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11th. We will be having our pictures taken outside in front of the school at 9:05 am. Come dressed in your best. Volunteers M. Ahring and S. Raphael will lend a helping hand.
**Let's Run! The Annual Fun Run Fundraiser is Friday, October14th. Kindergarten students will run beginning at 8:15 am. Don't forget to sign up and pledge your support online. Come on out and cheer us on!! Make a poster, cheer, take some photos!
**Interested in being a STUDENT COUNCIL REP? I will be selecting 2 reps to attend meetings during their lunch recess twice a month. Read the flyer and sign your name if interested. I will choose 2 names on Friday. The first meeting is October 18th.
**Parent/Teacher Conference response letters are in your child's homework folder. If you haven't signed up yet....email me to select a date and time. Parent Conferences will be held Monday, 10/17, Tuesday, 10/18 and Wednesday. 10/19. Please note: School is NOT in session the AFTERNOON of Thursday and Friday (10/20 and 10/21.) Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, RFCC, Toon Town and Magical Minds will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Information on our upcoming Field Trip to the Morton Arboretum is in your child's homework folder. We have S. Raphael and B. Ahring volunteering to help. We need 3 more volunteers. Email if interested. Thanks!
**All students took their placement assessment for Lexia Core 5 this week. We spent two- 40 minute periods in the lab with our Tech advisor, Mr. Karol, learning to type username and password. Set up info and username and password are in your child's homework folder. Please note: Usernames are NOT case sensitive. I hand printed username in caps and password below on a index card for each student for class use. You may do the same for home use. We will use one compute lab time a week and time during our small group literacy workstations on iPads for Lexia Core 5.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 specific skills groupings have begun. You should have received information on the skill your child is working on and the teacher teaching that skill. Email me if you haven't. The students were excited to meet new friends and teachers.
**Excitement is building for participation in Irving School's Annual Egg Drop/Academic Fair. I brought in some examples of Academic Fair projects and showed the class what a presentation board looks like. For our kinders---really anything goes in terms of what they put on their board if they sign up to do a project. Pictures, their writing, drawings are awesome. For the Egg Drop contest---several students have expressed an interest. For both of these events---you must register on line. Info on how to do that is on the Irving website. The Egg Drop/ Academic Fair is Wednesday, October 19th. Join us for the Egg Drop Contest on the blacktop beginning at 12:30 pm. Students will present their projects for the Academic Fair to the class the morning of October 19th. The participants have a chance to come back from 6:00-8:00 pm to present to families and friends.
**Author Lori Degman, will visit Irving School on Wednesday, October 12th at 12:45 in our media center.
**The Mexican Dance Assembly has been rescheduled for November 7th at 10:00 am.
**Information on Trivia Night is in your child's homework folder. Take a peek. It's an adults only get together to raise money for our school.
**Our Room Parents have created a SIGN UP GENIUS for FRIDAY STATION DAY VOLUNTEERS. Awesome! Our first one is Friday, October 14th!
**Our Second Step lesson this week was a review of what we have learned thus far.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued her lessons on the Zones of Regulation focusing on the YELLOW and RED zones and ways to manage our feelings.
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students shared their dot pictures with one another and Mr. Packer began a new thinking adventure reading "Curious George's ABC's." Each letter was part of a larger illustration. Can you guess our next class assignment????
**NO SCHOOL Monday, October 10th in observance of Columbus Day.
This week:
The students were all a chatter about Route to Reading, being in the computer lab, beginning iPad bootcamp, beginning their literacy workstations and their first unit in science. They also began an inquiry into our next cross curriculum theme--Apples/Autumn. The students participated in an inquiry about what they knew about an apple. Jeanette and Lilly kicked off our week with a apple treat for the class. The students had a ball using their magnifiers and microscope to examine the blossom (flower,) seeds, flesh, core, stem and skin. They learned that the blossom was the beginning of the apple. I cut an apple on its side to reveal the star! We read information books (nonfiction) on the subject and used the internet search to find apple names. The students learned how to create a diagram and label apple parts. Part 2 of apple mania is next week. Station day activities included writing and illustrating what you like to do in the fall, stamping your sight words, diagraming and labeling the parts of an apple and playing Heads or Tails Tally.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonemic awareness portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students brainstormed a list of animal names. We discussed words that name people, animals and things have a common name--NOUN. The students continue to work on listening comprehension, and identifying story elements--character, setting, main events and why those events are important to the story. In our Big Book story, "Picnic at Apple Park." the students also looked for language patterns as I read. (question/answer format) The students responded and retold events in the story sequence. They had an "elbow "chat with a partner to discuss WHO was in the story, WHERE the story happened and WHAT was happening. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. Robust vocabulary for this week included COOPERATIVE, EXCITING, CAPTIVATED, STARTLED, GATHER, EXHAUSTED. The students practiced their tracking skills in our read aloud story, "The Baseball." Part of the exercise is to see if students can track the words while another student is reading aloud. Also, are they reading just what is in the sentence? For now, our stories have both words and pictures (rebus sentences) As they expand their sight word base, the stories will include both sight words and words that students will decode or sound out.
Students continue to work on Haggerty Blue Book exercises that focus on initial and final sound recognition, short and long vowels, syllables, adding and deleting sounds to create words and substituting word parts to create new words. Students are also working on the idea of onset (beginning sound) and rime (ending part of the word.) For example--separating the word man as first sound (onset) mmmmm and rime an.
Our literacy workstations are in full swing! The table managers are getting the hang of positive management skills and the groups are working more cooperatively to complete assignments. It is lovely to hear the sounds of beginning and very eager readers! Workstations this week included leveled readers read to self and read to partner, elbow chatting about story elements, walking your sight words, word work with onset/rime, rainbow writing words, sentence building with words and pictures, connecting letter sound to picture symbol, matching upper and lowercase letters, readers response sheet with labeling and working on a story elements butterfly.
Math: Students continue to practice their number formation rhymes. 0-9 focusing on directionality and beginning at the top. Our math whole group less this week continued to focused on the idea of decomposing a number into its hidden partners. An example would be the number 3---as 2 and 1 or 1 and 2. Students also participated in a variety of activities to strengthen the ability to count a group of objects and associate a particular number. Students worked to understand the meaning of zero and write and order numbers from 0-5.
Students are working in their new October calendar books. The activities include recording tally marks, sequencing numbers and number writing, plus 1 number sentences, showing a number using a ten frame. dot patterns on a domino and dice and recording daily weather and temperature and looking at weather patterns.
Writing: Students continue to work on their Frog Jump Capitals practicing on their mini boards and in their Orange Practice books. In Writer's Workshop this week, our young writers worked on labeling parts of their drawings. They are also sharing their writing with each other. They continue to work on feeling comfortable about recording sounds they hear in the words they use to describe their pictures. They are thinking about beginning with an uppercase letter and spacing between their words and also using an ending mark. We are gearing up for our next lessons which are about making books or the idea of writing all we can about a topic may take more than one page. The students will learn to stretch their topic using their question words--Who, Where What, When and even Why. Stay tuned!
Science: The students began their first investigation as part of our unit on Trees and Weather. The students thought about what an investigation is. We also thought about the what it is to observe something. We are going to take much closer look at trees. The students began by drawing a picture of a tree in their science notebook. We then took blanket, camera, our notebooks, magnifiers and equipment boxes outside. The students walked along OBSERVING the trees on our school street. We came upon a particular tree that all the students thought was really cool. This became our class tree! It will be the tree that we will observe throughout the seasons in kindergarten. Using our tree finder reference, the students learned that our particular tree was a White Oak Tree. Some students knew it was an Oak Tree. The student explored the tree--looking up into it and around it. What did they observe? Trunk, leaves, branches, twigs, bark and some students mentioned veins in the leaves. Wait---a nest and a birdhouse and maybe even some roots!!! Wow! We talked about the parts of the tree. We discussed the season we are currently in. The students sat under "their" tree and drew a picture of how they saw it. Some students added words or sentences. Some students added labels to parts. We began also to chat about different types of trees. Students observed a tree that looked like a Christmas tree across the street. Lots of conversation about evergreen, fir, pine and that those trees mainly stay green even though the seasons change. Some of our White Oak Trees leaves are changing color. I talked about the word conifer and how it relates to evergreen trees. We took everything back inside and set up an investigation station where students can bring in items from the outdoor to observe with magnifiers and microscopes. Next week--What are the shapes of trees? Which trees have similar shapes?
Please read the Science News brief that will give further explanation of our unit. The students have a collection project that is due October 27th.
Technology: The Lexia Core 5 program began for students. Really good activities that promote phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension. In reading whole group, students worked on the apps Montessori Crosswords to enhance sounding blending VC/CVC words and Oz Phonics to work on sentence order and initial and final sound recognition. In math whole group, student worked on the app Easy Match to match counting with cardinality. The students viewed and discussed a short movie on the explorer Christopher Columbus on the app BrainPop Jr.
Literature: "How to Apples Grow," "Apples, Apples, Apples," "The Wonders of Apples," "Where in the Wild," "Trees and Weather," "Picnic at Apple Park."
**PICTURE DAY is TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11th. We will be having our pictures taken outside in front of the school at 9:05 am. Come dressed in your best. Volunteers M. Ahring and S. Raphael will lend a helping hand.
**Let's Run! The Annual Fun Run Fundraiser is Friday, October14th. Kindergarten students will run beginning at 8:15 am. Don't forget to sign up and pledge your support online. Come on out and cheer us on!! Make a poster, cheer, take some photos!
**Interested in being a STUDENT COUNCIL REP? I will be selecting 2 reps to attend meetings during their lunch recess twice a month. Read the flyer and sign your name if interested. I will choose 2 names on Friday. The first meeting is October 18th.
**Parent/Teacher Conference response letters are in your child's homework folder. If you haven't signed up yet....email me to select a date and time. Parent Conferences will be held Monday, 10/17, Tuesday, 10/18 and Wednesday. 10/19. Please note: School is NOT in session the AFTERNOON of Thursday and Friday (10/20 and 10/21.) Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, RFCC, Toon Town and Magical Minds will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Information on our upcoming Field Trip to the Morton Arboretum is in your child's homework folder. We have S. Raphael and B. Ahring volunteering to help. We need 3 more volunteers. Email if interested. Thanks!
**All students took their placement assessment for Lexia Core 5 this week. We spent two- 40 minute periods in the lab with our Tech advisor, Mr. Karol, learning to type username and password. Set up info and username and password are in your child's homework folder. Please note: Usernames are NOT case sensitive. I hand printed username in caps and password below on a index card for each student for class use. You may do the same for home use. We will use one compute lab time a week and time during our small group literacy workstations on iPads for Lexia Core 5.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 specific skills groupings have begun. You should have received information on the skill your child is working on and the teacher teaching that skill. Email me if you haven't. The students were excited to meet new friends and teachers.
**Excitement is building for participation in Irving School's Annual Egg Drop/Academic Fair. I brought in some examples of Academic Fair projects and showed the class what a presentation board looks like. For our kinders---really anything goes in terms of what they put on their board if they sign up to do a project. Pictures, their writing, drawings are awesome. For the Egg Drop contest---several students have expressed an interest. For both of these events---you must register on line. Info on how to do that is on the Irving website. The Egg Drop/ Academic Fair is Wednesday, October 19th. Join us for the Egg Drop Contest on the blacktop beginning at 12:30 pm. Students will present their projects for the Academic Fair to the class the morning of October 19th. The participants have a chance to come back from 6:00-8:00 pm to present to families and friends.
**Author Lori Degman, will visit Irving School on Wednesday, October 12th at 12:45 in our media center.
**The Mexican Dance Assembly has been rescheduled for November 7th at 10:00 am.
**Information on Trivia Night is in your child's homework folder. Take a peek. It's an adults only get together to raise money for our school.
**Our Room Parents have created a SIGN UP GENIUS for FRIDAY STATION DAY VOLUNTEERS. Awesome! Our first one is Friday, October 14th!
**Our Second Step lesson this week was a review of what we have learned thus far.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued her lessons on the Zones of Regulation focusing on the YELLOW and RED zones and ways to manage our feelings.
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students shared their dot pictures with one another and Mr. Packer began a new thinking adventure reading "Curious George's ABC's." Each letter was part of a larger illustration. Can you guess our next class assignment????
**NO SCHOOL Monday, October 10th in observance of Columbus Day.
This week:
The students were all a chatter about Route to Reading, being in the computer lab, beginning iPad bootcamp, beginning their literacy workstations and their first unit in science. They also began an inquiry into our next cross curriculum theme--Apples/Autumn. The students participated in an inquiry about what they knew about an apple. Jeanette and Lilly kicked off our week with a apple treat for the class. The students had a ball using their magnifiers and microscope to examine the blossom (flower,) seeds, flesh, core, stem and skin. They learned that the blossom was the beginning of the apple. I cut an apple on its side to reveal the star! We read information books (nonfiction) on the subject and used the internet search to find apple names. The students learned how to create a diagram and label apple parts. Part 2 of apple mania is next week. Station day activities included writing and illustrating what you like to do in the fall, stamping your sight words, diagraming and labeling the parts of an apple and playing Heads or Tails Tally.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonemic awareness portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students brainstormed a list of animal names. We discussed words that name people, animals and things have a common name--NOUN. The students continue to work on listening comprehension, and identifying story elements--character, setting, main events and why those events are important to the story. In our Big Book story, "Picnic at Apple Park." the students also looked for language patterns as I read. (question/answer format) The students responded and retold events in the story sequence. They had an "elbow "chat with a partner to discuss WHO was in the story, WHERE the story happened and WHAT was happening. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. Robust vocabulary for this week included COOPERATIVE, EXCITING, CAPTIVATED, STARTLED, GATHER, EXHAUSTED. The students practiced their tracking skills in our read aloud story, "The Baseball." Part of the exercise is to see if students can track the words while another student is reading aloud. Also, are they reading just what is in the sentence? For now, our stories have both words and pictures (rebus sentences) As they expand their sight word base, the stories will include both sight words and words that students will decode or sound out.
Students continue to work on Haggerty Blue Book exercises that focus on initial and final sound recognition, short and long vowels, syllables, adding and deleting sounds to create words and substituting word parts to create new words. Students are also working on the idea of onset (beginning sound) and rime (ending part of the word.) For example--separating the word man as first sound (onset) mmmmm and rime an.
Our literacy workstations are in full swing! The table managers are getting the hang of positive management skills and the groups are working more cooperatively to complete assignments. It is lovely to hear the sounds of beginning and very eager readers! Workstations this week included leveled readers read to self and read to partner, elbow chatting about story elements, walking your sight words, word work with onset/rime, rainbow writing words, sentence building with words and pictures, connecting letter sound to picture symbol, matching upper and lowercase letters, readers response sheet with labeling and working on a story elements butterfly.
Math: Students continue to practice their number formation rhymes. 0-9 focusing on directionality and beginning at the top. Our math whole group less this week continued to focused on the idea of decomposing a number into its hidden partners. An example would be the number 3---as 2 and 1 or 1 and 2. Students also participated in a variety of activities to strengthen the ability to count a group of objects and associate a particular number. Students worked to understand the meaning of zero and write and order numbers from 0-5.
Students are working in their new October calendar books. The activities include recording tally marks, sequencing numbers and number writing, plus 1 number sentences, showing a number using a ten frame. dot patterns on a domino and dice and recording daily weather and temperature and looking at weather patterns.
Writing: Students continue to work on their Frog Jump Capitals practicing on their mini boards and in their Orange Practice books. In Writer's Workshop this week, our young writers worked on labeling parts of their drawings. They are also sharing their writing with each other. They continue to work on feeling comfortable about recording sounds they hear in the words they use to describe their pictures. They are thinking about beginning with an uppercase letter and spacing between their words and also using an ending mark. We are gearing up for our next lessons which are about making books or the idea of writing all we can about a topic may take more than one page. The students will learn to stretch their topic using their question words--Who, Where What, When and even Why. Stay tuned!
Science: The students began their first investigation as part of our unit on Trees and Weather. The students thought about what an investigation is. We also thought about the what it is to observe something. We are going to take much closer look at trees. The students began by drawing a picture of a tree in their science notebook. We then took blanket, camera, our notebooks, magnifiers and equipment boxes outside. The students walked along OBSERVING the trees on our school street. We came upon a particular tree that all the students thought was really cool. This became our class tree! It will be the tree that we will observe throughout the seasons in kindergarten. Using our tree finder reference, the students learned that our particular tree was a White Oak Tree. Some students knew it was an Oak Tree. The student explored the tree--looking up into it and around it. What did they observe? Trunk, leaves, branches, twigs, bark and some students mentioned veins in the leaves. Wait---a nest and a birdhouse and maybe even some roots!!! Wow! We talked about the parts of the tree. We discussed the season we are currently in. The students sat under "their" tree and drew a picture of how they saw it. Some students added words or sentences. Some students added labels to parts. We began also to chat about different types of trees. Students observed a tree that looked like a Christmas tree across the street. Lots of conversation about evergreen, fir, pine and that those trees mainly stay green even though the seasons change. Some of our White Oak Trees leaves are changing color. I talked about the word conifer and how it relates to evergreen trees. We took everything back inside and set up an investigation station where students can bring in items from the outdoor to observe with magnifiers and microscopes. Next week--What are the shapes of trees? Which trees have similar shapes?
Please read the Science News brief that will give further explanation of our unit. The students have a collection project that is due October 27th.
Technology: The Lexia Core 5 program began for students. Really good activities that promote phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension. In reading whole group, students worked on the apps Montessori Crosswords to enhance sounding blending VC/CVC words and Oz Phonics to work on sentence order and initial and final sound recognition. In math whole group, student worked on the app Easy Match to match counting with cardinality. The students viewed and discussed a short movie on the explorer Christopher Columbus on the app BrainPop Jr.
Literature: "How to Apples Grow," "Apples, Apples, Apples," "The Wonders of Apples," "Where in the Wild," "Trees and Weather," "Picnic at Apple Park."
Sunday, October 2, 2016
UPDATES for 9/26-9/30 2016
**It is hard to believe that September has come to an end! The students are beginning to observe signs of the Fall season. As we move on to October.......lots of cool things happening at our school and in our classroom. So exciting!!
**We had our first BOOK BUDDY meeting with the students of Ms. Balick's 5th grade. Each kindergarten student was paired with a 5th grade buddy. The pair interviewed each other and completed a little keepsake book. They then picked a story to share. We will be meeting with our buddies once a month. It was awesome!!!
**Eagle Extra classes have begun! The students are enjoying the classes.
**Route to Reading will begin on Monday, October 3rd. Our specific skills groupings will be every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 1:50-2:20 pm. You will receive notification on the skill your child will be working on and the teacher teaching that skill. The students are looking forward to meeting new friends and teachers in their groups.
**Our Tech advisor, Mr. Karol will be on hand Tuesday, to assist our students as we begin Lexia Core 5 in the computer lab. I have secured usernames and passwords for the students. I will be sending them to you next Friday along with instructions for setting up a home program. This program is super beneficial to our students and a great companion piece to our literacy program. Students will need assistance in typing in their username and password until they get the hang of it. We will be in the lab once a week and also on iPads once a week as part of our workstations. Students will take a placement test and will work at their own pace at a level appropriate for them.
**You received information in your child's homework folder on WALK to SCHOOL DAY (October 5) PICTURE DAY (October 11th) and the FUN RUN FUNDRAISER (October 14th.) Any questions---please email me. Also included is information and sign up for the EGG DROP/ACADEMIC FAIR that will be held on Wednesday, October 19th. The students are really excited about both! We had a great discussion on constructing vehicles that will hold a egg secure when dropped out of a 3rd floor school window!!! We supply the eggs---you create the vehicle! We also chatted about the Academic Fair and how it all can start with a question about something you want to know more about. Ms. Creehan was not able to show us some examples last week, but she will be coming this week. Please consider signing your child up if they are interested. Ms. Noonan and I can assist with resources.
**There are 2 wonderful activities happening on Wednesday, October 12th---Author Lori Degman will visit Irving School at 12:45 pm. At 10:00 am, The PTO is sponsoring a Mexican Dance Assembly to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
**The Irving School Book Fair is the week of October 24th-27th. We will be visiting the fair as a class. It will be open after school and in the evening.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, October 17th, Tuesday, October 18th and Wednesday, October 19th. Many of you have already signed up. I will be sending you a confirmation letter on Friday. PLEASE NOTE--School is NOT in session the AFTERNOON of Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District School Bus, River Forest Community Center, Toon Town and Magical Minds will pick up at 11:00 am.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued her discussion/activities on the Zones of Regulation. The BLUE ZONE and the GREEN ZONE were discussed this week. It is all about taking responsibility for your own behavior!!!!
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students created their own picture which included a black dot. Some interesting "thinking outside of the box" going on.!!!!
**In our Second Step lesson this week, the students focused on using self-talk for staying on task.
This week:
We are now in the season of fall/autumn. The students are beginning to observe changes taking place outside and in their home. Some students are noticing leaves falling from the trees and whole trees beginning to change color. In the morning, more students are coming to school with jackets and sweatshirts. The are noticing less bugs outside. Our nature table and microscope area is beginning to fill up with items to examine from outdoors. The changing season has been perfect for our prep for our first science unit--Trees and Weather. We will begin that next week. We welcomed our Book Buddies at our station day time. The students got to know one another, created an interview book with illustrations and writing and shared a story of their choice. Check out our poster!
Reading/Language Arts: We have begun Unit 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading series. Students shared background knowledge about types of families they know about. They discussed human families and animal families. We also shared experiences about our families and how many family members we have. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Whose Baby Is It?" They reviewed the parts of the books--front and back cover, spine and title page. They also located where to find the page number. Students noted the question and answer pattern of the book. The sight words we and the were introduced. We used our "feet" to play "Walk Your Words." Our target sound
this week is Mm. We used our sound toys and cards to tell if the sound was heard at the beginning or end of a target word. The students worked on additional vocabulary when listening to the thinking fable, "The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary will be referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Our words this week were PROTECT, RESEMBLE, TOGETHER, ANIMAL. We defined the words and gave sentence examples. It is a great way to boost vocabulary understanding. The students used the retelling cards to retell the Big Book story with a partner. We read aloud our predecodable story, "We Can." The students continue to use their famous pointing finger to track each word and picture when they read. In our round robin reading, all students got a chance to read aloud to the group and also read to a partner.
Our summative text this week was "How Rocket Learned to Read." The students used the same Blueprint Workmat format. They listened as I read the story. We discussed as a group sequencing events in the story. They elbow chatted with a partner about characters, setting and events. They volunteered to act out events in the story. During our second reading of the story, students were already volunteering to help me write or draw a picture on the projected workmat. (We do) The students tried some of their own writing. Their summative Blueprints (you do) are beginning to show more details in their pictures and more students taking a try at writing about characters, setting and event. I make my way around to each student during the process and record their thoughts if they are not writing.
The students continue work doing the Haggerty Blue Book exercises working on syllable counting, listening for the target sound at the beginning or end of a word, adding, deleting and substituting sounds to create new words and counting how many words there are in a sentence. This week, we began the prep for our literacy workstations. While I work with small groups with leveled readers, the students are working in small rotating groups. Each group has a story to read to themselves, read again to a partner in their group containing the sight words we are studying that week and then working on activities emphasizing our unit and phonemic awareness (word work.) Each week, the groups are assigned a "table manager". Their jobs are to set out the materials needed, control the noise level and give gentle reminders to keep the group on task. We spent time this week role playing various scenes to a workstation. We will begin our formal workstations next week. Exciting!
Math: The students continue to practice their number formation rhymes 0-9. They continue to work on directionality of the number and beginning at the top when making the number. Our math whole group lesson this week focused understanding the relationship between numbers and quantities and connecting counting to cardinality. (counting to answer "how many?") The students are beginning to recognize that numbers can be represented in different ways. A very fun activity called, "hidden partners" had students "finding the 2 small numbers that are "hiding" in the big number. For example--I found a 4 and 1 hiding inside my 5 cubes. A way to say 5 can be 1 and 4. The students also experimented in vertical and horizontal row counting and matching the objects to the number. Math workstations this week included pattern block shape review, roll, grab and color, number writing, counting to 25 and beyond and recording how many dots? We ended the week with a Subitize Challenge!
Writing: In this weeks Writer's Workshop, I reviewed with students about creating a picture in their mind on a topic before they write and draw about it. Sometimes writers close their eyes, picture the topic first and then put all the details into the pictures and words. Starting with a capital letter, spacing between words in sentence, stretching your words out and writing what you hear (can you hear the first sound--last sound--anything in the middle?) and using an ending mark were also reviewed. The students also went into their Writer's Journal to review items that can assist them--their ABC sound/symbol sheet, the ABC's of names, a word list in their writing. The students also reviewed looking at their work and saying "I am going to look back on my writing to see if I can add more to it." I conference individually with students as they work providing support, encouragement and using modeling as well as projected student work to assist.
Students continue to work on their Frog Jump letters F, E, D, P, B, R. Where do you start all letters---AT THE TOP! The students learned a song to help them to remember. Also--the appearance of Mr. Smiley (smiley face) at the top left hand corner of their mini board is also an assist. The students began work in their Orange Practice books. They are also learning that good posture helps in good writing form. Sitting in their chair, feet on the ground, one hand holding their pencil (tripod grasp!) the other holding down their paper or page is good practice for all writers!!!
Technology: The students will take their auto place test for Lexia Core 5 this week. In reading whole group, the app Montessori Crosswords was used to enhance the knowledge of putting together sounds to form a word. This is a paid app but a very good one! We concentrated on simple consonant -vowel-consonant word patterns. We also used the app Magnetic Letters Hd, another paid app, for reinforcing sight word writing/recognition and sentence building. In math whole group, the apps Subitize Tree, and Easy Match were used to enhance visual counting and looking for number patterns and ways to say a number and matching a number to quantity.
Literature: "How Rocket Learned to Read," "Animal Babies," "Hop on Pop," "I'm Sorry," "1,2,3, Peas," "The Cheerios Counting Book."
**We had our first BOOK BUDDY meeting with the students of Ms. Balick's 5th grade. Each kindergarten student was paired with a 5th grade buddy. The pair interviewed each other and completed a little keepsake book. They then picked a story to share. We will be meeting with our buddies once a month. It was awesome!!!
**Eagle Extra classes have begun! The students are enjoying the classes.
**Route to Reading will begin on Monday, October 3rd. Our specific skills groupings will be every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 1:50-2:20 pm. You will receive notification on the skill your child will be working on and the teacher teaching that skill. The students are looking forward to meeting new friends and teachers in their groups.
**Our Tech advisor, Mr. Karol will be on hand Tuesday, to assist our students as we begin Lexia Core 5 in the computer lab. I have secured usernames and passwords for the students. I will be sending them to you next Friday along with instructions for setting up a home program. This program is super beneficial to our students and a great companion piece to our literacy program. Students will need assistance in typing in their username and password until they get the hang of it. We will be in the lab once a week and also on iPads once a week as part of our workstations. Students will take a placement test and will work at their own pace at a level appropriate for them.
**You received information in your child's homework folder on WALK to SCHOOL DAY (October 5) PICTURE DAY (October 11th) and the FUN RUN FUNDRAISER (October 14th.) Any questions---please email me. Also included is information and sign up for the EGG DROP/ACADEMIC FAIR that will be held on Wednesday, October 19th. The students are really excited about both! We had a great discussion on constructing vehicles that will hold a egg secure when dropped out of a 3rd floor school window!!! We supply the eggs---you create the vehicle! We also chatted about the Academic Fair and how it all can start with a question about something you want to know more about. Ms. Creehan was not able to show us some examples last week, but she will be coming this week. Please consider signing your child up if they are interested. Ms. Noonan and I can assist with resources.
**There are 2 wonderful activities happening on Wednesday, October 12th---Author Lori Degman will visit Irving School at 12:45 pm. At 10:00 am, The PTO is sponsoring a Mexican Dance Assembly to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month.
**The Irving School Book Fair is the week of October 24th-27th. We will be visiting the fair as a class. It will be open after school and in the evening.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, October 17th, Tuesday, October 18th and Wednesday, October 19th. Many of you have already signed up. I will be sending you a confirmation letter on Friday. PLEASE NOTE--School is NOT in session the AFTERNOON of Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District School Bus, River Forest Community Center, Toon Town and Magical Minds will pick up at 11:00 am.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey continued her discussion/activities on the Zones of Regulation. The BLUE ZONE and the GREEN ZONE were discussed this week. It is all about taking responsibility for your own behavior!!!!
**In Mr. Packer's Thinking Skills this week, the students created their own picture which included a black dot. Some interesting "thinking outside of the box" going on.!!!!
**In our Second Step lesson this week, the students focused on using self-talk for staying on task.
This week:
We are now in the season of fall/autumn. The students are beginning to observe changes taking place outside and in their home. Some students are noticing leaves falling from the trees and whole trees beginning to change color. In the morning, more students are coming to school with jackets and sweatshirts. The are noticing less bugs outside. Our nature table and microscope area is beginning to fill up with items to examine from outdoors. The changing season has been perfect for our prep for our first science unit--Trees and Weather. We will begin that next week. We welcomed our Book Buddies at our station day time. The students got to know one another, created an interview book with illustrations and writing and shared a story of their choice. Check out our poster!
Reading/Language Arts: We have begun Unit 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading series. Students shared background knowledge about types of families they know about. They discussed human families and animal families. We also shared experiences about our families and how many family members we have. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Whose Baby Is It?" They reviewed the parts of the books--front and back cover, spine and title page. They also located where to find the page number. Students noted the question and answer pattern of the book. The sight words we and the were introduced. We used our "feet" to play "Walk Your Words." Our target sound
this week is Mm. We used our sound toys and cards to tell if the sound was heard at the beginning or end of a target word. The students worked on additional vocabulary when listening to the thinking fable, "The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary will be referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Our words this week were PROTECT, RESEMBLE, TOGETHER, ANIMAL. We defined the words and gave sentence examples. It is a great way to boost vocabulary understanding. The students used the retelling cards to retell the Big Book story with a partner. We read aloud our predecodable story, "We Can." The students continue to use their famous pointing finger to track each word and picture when they read. In our round robin reading, all students got a chance to read aloud to the group and also read to a partner.
Our summative text this week was "How Rocket Learned to Read." The students used the same Blueprint Workmat format. They listened as I read the story. We discussed as a group sequencing events in the story. They elbow chatted with a partner about characters, setting and events. They volunteered to act out events in the story. During our second reading of the story, students were already volunteering to help me write or draw a picture on the projected workmat. (We do) The students tried some of their own writing. Their summative Blueprints (you do) are beginning to show more details in their pictures and more students taking a try at writing about characters, setting and event. I make my way around to each student during the process and record their thoughts if they are not writing.
The students continue work doing the Haggerty Blue Book exercises working on syllable counting, listening for the target sound at the beginning or end of a word, adding, deleting and substituting sounds to create new words and counting how many words there are in a sentence. This week, we began the prep for our literacy workstations. While I work with small groups with leveled readers, the students are working in small rotating groups. Each group has a story to read to themselves, read again to a partner in their group containing the sight words we are studying that week and then working on activities emphasizing our unit and phonemic awareness (word work.) Each week, the groups are assigned a "table manager". Their jobs are to set out the materials needed, control the noise level and give gentle reminders to keep the group on task. We spent time this week role playing various scenes to a workstation. We will begin our formal workstations next week. Exciting!
Math: The students continue to practice their number formation rhymes 0-9. They continue to work on directionality of the number and beginning at the top when making the number. Our math whole group lesson this week focused understanding the relationship between numbers and quantities and connecting counting to cardinality. (counting to answer "how many?") The students are beginning to recognize that numbers can be represented in different ways. A very fun activity called, "hidden partners" had students "finding the 2 small numbers that are "hiding" in the big number. For example--I found a 4 and 1 hiding inside my 5 cubes. A way to say 5 can be 1 and 4. The students also experimented in vertical and horizontal row counting and matching the objects to the number. Math workstations this week included pattern block shape review, roll, grab and color, number writing, counting to 25 and beyond and recording how many dots? We ended the week with a Subitize Challenge!
Writing: In this weeks Writer's Workshop, I reviewed with students about creating a picture in their mind on a topic before they write and draw about it. Sometimes writers close their eyes, picture the topic first and then put all the details into the pictures and words. Starting with a capital letter, spacing between words in sentence, stretching your words out and writing what you hear (can you hear the first sound--last sound--anything in the middle?) and using an ending mark were also reviewed. The students also went into their Writer's Journal to review items that can assist them--their ABC sound/symbol sheet, the ABC's of names, a word list in their writing. The students also reviewed looking at their work and saying "I am going to look back on my writing to see if I can add more to it." I conference individually with students as they work providing support, encouragement and using modeling as well as projected student work to assist.
Students continue to work on their Frog Jump letters F, E, D, P, B, R. Where do you start all letters---AT THE TOP! The students learned a song to help them to remember. Also--the appearance of Mr. Smiley (smiley face) at the top left hand corner of their mini board is also an assist. The students began work in their Orange Practice books. They are also learning that good posture helps in good writing form. Sitting in their chair, feet on the ground, one hand holding their pencil (tripod grasp!) the other holding down their paper or page is good practice for all writers!!!
Technology: The students will take their auto place test for Lexia Core 5 this week. In reading whole group, the app Montessori Crosswords was used to enhance the knowledge of putting together sounds to form a word. This is a paid app but a very good one! We concentrated on simple consonant -vowel-consonant word patterns. We also used the app Magnetic Letters Hd, another paid app, for reinforcing sight word writing/recognition and sentence building. In math whole group, the apps Subitize Tree, and Easy Match were used to enhance visual counting and looking for number patterns and ways to say a number and matching a number to quantity.
Literature: "How Rocket Learned to Read," "Animal Babies," "Hop on Pop," "I'm Sorry," "1,2,3, Peas," "The Cheerios Counting Book."
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