**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."
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