**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."
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