**The students enjoyed the Bagpipe presentation by Patrick Lynch. They had some great questions about where the sound comes from on a bagpipe and Mr. Lynch's traditional dress. It was very chilly and wet so our outside bagpipe concert was short to protect the instrument.
**Super Tuber Day was spectacular! Check out Alice's potato!!! The students learned some facts about Ireland and where it is on the map. They also learned about how potatoes came to Ireland and used their magnifiers to find the "eyes," used cubes to measure the length and sketched their potato. They had a blast weighing their potato using a scale and teddy bears counters. Alice had to estimate how many because even after 69 teddy bears, the scale did not budge! The students spent the rest of their station day choosing a variety of activities using thinking, writing, math, coloring. Thanks to S. Raphael for her help!
**Thanks to all who PACKed the rainbow of fruits, veggies and grains into their child's lunch for PACK Week. It really brought a greater awareness to eating healthier.
**Don't forget to stop by the Oak Park Village Hall to view the work of our Kindergarten student artists! Ms. Gullo's class is exhibiting their "Symmetry Butterflies" under the direction of guest artist, Jonathan Franklin. They will be on display until the end of April.
**We will have our classroom "spelling bee" on Monday. All the students will participate! Upon conclusion of the bee, we will have our 2 students and 1 alternate who will represent our room in the Irving Annual Spelling on Wednesday, April 12 during the lunch hour.
**NEXT WEEK IS SPIRIT WEEK!!! Student Council has decreed the following: Monday--Pajama and Stuffed Animal Day.....Tuesday--Twin Day (you can call a friend and dress alike or dress like a teacher)....Wednesday--Decade Day (dress like the 50's, 60's, 70's 80's etc.).....Thursday--Each grade level will dress in a different color! Kindergarten wears PURPLE......Friday--Show your Irving School Spirit by wearing red, black, white or any Irving wear.
**PTO Cultural Event--"Justin and Liam" is Thursday, March 23rd at 9:15 am.
**We will use the photos taken on our flied trip to the Field Museum in a writing project next week. I have most of them. If you were a chaperone and haven't sent them, please do. Thanks!
**We will also visit our Book Buddies next Friday for a project in their classroom.. The students are excited to see what it is like on the 3rd floor!
**After spring break---Send in all the giant boxes and cool stuff you have been saving for our engineering project! It will be exciting! Our engineering project is schedule for the week of April 17-21. Please send everything in by April 14th.
**Spring Break is 3/27-3/31. School resumes on Monday, April 3rd. Some of you have let me know but if your child is traveling email me so I can send along a travel journal.
**NO SCHOOL--April 4th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**No Friendship Club or Mr. Packer Thinking Skills this week due to their involvement in PARCC testing.
**In our Second Step lesson this week, we reviewed and revisited managing feelings and saw a Brain Pop video on Anger.
This week:
It was all about bagpipes, potatoes, weather. Science abounds in our classroom! Our unit on Weather in reading also included math and writing activities. Great fun! Very motivating! The students observed wind speeds, read and saw pictures of weather instruments and how meteorologists use data to make predictions about what kind of weather we will have in our area. Yes...it's true.....they do not get it right all the time! The United States has many different kinds of weather during each season depending upon where you live. Our tubers are in water and we will be watching them. Awesome fun investigating potatoes! Bagpiper, Patrick Lynch put together his bagpipes and played some cool tunes. Wow! It was loud! Station Day activities included Super tubers and activities containing reading, writing, math, following directions, what makes the colors of the rainbow and coloring by code.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. The students built background knowledge about how weather affects animal and people. Students came to board to write what they experience in snowy, rainy and cold weather. They also discussed how animals react to those conditions. The students reviewed all sight vocabulary learned thus far and reviewed target sounds Bb, Ll, short Ee and words that describe--adjectives!
The students continued to work on segmenting, sound blending 4-5 sound words on their white boards along with addition, deletion and substitution activities. Robust vocabulary this week included CLEAR, EXPERIENCE, HIBERNATE, RETREAT. The students worked on a blueprint about how the actions of a character affect the story (author's words and message) and sequencing those actions using the text "Sheila Rae, the Brave." Students worked on story vocabulary, sequencing the order of events and the story elements of character, setting and locating key details. In preparation for our blueprint, students elbow chatted about the events and characters and acted out key events that showed the characters actions. Workstations this week included leveled readers with fluency building and comprehension check/discussion, vocabulary development, writing and illustrating about your favorite season and what activities you can do, read and rhyme cut and paste word families, roll, say and read blend and digraph words, read and spell cvc words, writing about a favorite picture in the text and telling what information the picture gives you, playing words games "Chomp,"(substituting sounds) "Humpty Dumpty (short vowels) "Word Construction," (word families) and "Build a Word."
Math: The students continue work on Module 4 in our Eureka Math series. Lessons are shifting focus now to work on finding how many are left in a story problem. (subtraction/decomposing numbers) Students are illustrating their thinking by beginning with a picture of a group of objects--listening to the story--and crossing out what is going away. The students are taking a look at the horizontal presentation of the subtraction number sentence using the minus sign. Students used a variety of objects when practicing with partners and telling a take away story.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. They worked on lowercase j and p. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange books. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students began a new unit on persuasive writing. The unit includes opinion writing, persuasive writing and writing to create change. We began with chatting about a problem that occurs in school (the topic) and thinking of a way to fix the problem. The students had many ideas including--running in the hall, not finishing their food at lunch, not following the Eagle Essential....... Starting very simply, the students--see a problem--think--write what they might do to fix it. Stay tuned!!!
Science: The weather was not very conducive for our next investigation, so we kept it inside of our classroom. Students created slopes of all magnitudes! They used many items from our classroom. They also used objects from the classroom they thought would hold off a collision or make a big collision. A variety of ball types were used--soccer, whiffle, tennis, mini super. It was collision mania!!! So much fun! Lots of great conversation about slope, speed, direction, size of the ball, size of the barrier. Wow--when objects collide they push one another which can change the motion. The students sketched and wrote their reflections in their science notebook. Next week will be our final investigation for our study on Materials and Motion---using air to propel a balloon rocket. How can we manage how far a balloon rocket will travel? We will be making one!!! Stay tuned!!
Technology: The students used the same apps as last week to continue to enhance the skills of segmenting/blending, adding/deleting sounds, cvc, ccvc, cvcc words, sentence word order, addition and subtraction problems to 10, finding the missing addends.
Literature: "Sheila Rae, the Brave," "It's St. Patrick's Day," "Snow Dude," "The Leprechaun who Lost His Rainbow," "The Enormous Potato," "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato," "Weather Instruments," "What Makes the Wind?" "The Cloud Book," "Clifford's Story Day Rescue."
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Monday, March 13, 2017
UPDATES for 3/6-3/10 2017
**Just when we are really thinking of Spring.......snow is on the radar! Please see that your child is dressed for the weather. Depending upon the amount...boots and snow pants. Thanks!
** Our Field Trip to the Field Museum was awesome! Students worked with their parent volunteers and discussed the exhibits they wanted to see. Sue, Ancient Egypt, Mummies, Animals, lots of Bones and Fossils were the top choices. Our photos are beginning to come in. Our writing project will be the week before spring break. A HUGE THANKS to L. Dantzler, D. Regan, T. Dixon and L. Danley for their help.
**In salute to all things Irish, bagpiper Patrick Lynch will be coming to Irving on Thursday, March 16th at 2:30 pm. He will present the history behind bagpipe music and show the students how he puts it all together. He will also be wearing a traditional Irish kilt. At dismissal, Mr. Lynch will give a concert on the black top for the school. Come join us!
**In keeping with the Irish theme, we will have SUPER TUBER DAY on Friday, March 17th during our station day time. PLEASE SEND A POTATO (any kind-not cooked) on Friday. We will learn a little history aboutIreland and the potato, examine its surface, count the "eyes," measure its length and take a look at different varieties. I have S. Raphael signed up to help but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Please email if you can help.
**It's PACK Week! Let's put the rainbow into our lunch! Pack a fruit or vegetable on the color of the day. Monday--pack PURPLE/BLUE, Tuesday--pack WHITE/TAN, Wednesday--pack RED, Thursday--packYELLOW/ORANGE, Friday--pack GREEN. All school lunches will have an appropriate color fruit or vegetable.
**The Irving Online Auction begins on March 12th and runs through March 16th. Log on to see what is being auctioned. Some really cool stuff and great parties.
**WE ARE ARTISTS!! The Oak Park Education Foundation and the Oak Park Area Arts Council are exhibiting the work of District 97 students. Our Symmetry Butterflies will be on display along with art projects from other schools at the Oak Park Village Hall from now through the end of April. Stop by and see them!!
**The Annual Irving School K-2 Spelling Bee will be held Wednesday, April 12th during the lunch hour. Our class will have a "classroom bee" to determine the 2 participants and 1 alternate that will represent our classroom. We will be having our "bee" next Monday. I will be speaking to the class about this event this week.
**PTO Cultural Event-"Justin and Liam," is Thursday, March 23rd at 9:15 am.
**Report cards go home on Friday, March 24th.
**Spring Break is 3/27-2/31. School resumes on Monday, April 3rd. Please let me know if your child is traveling and I will send a travel journal.
**NO SCHOOL--April 4th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**Bring in those giant boxes and other cool stuff for our engineering project after spring break. More information will follow soon.
**No Friendship Club or Mr. Packer Thinking Skills due to their involvement in PARCC Testing.
**Our Second Step lesson this week continued to focus on managing feelings.
This week:
The students prepared for their field trip to the Field Museum. They looked at reading material and videos on Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs, mummies, extinct and endangered animals and mammals. Pictures taken during our trip will become part of a writing research project. The students continue to investigate ramps, slopes and inclines. This week they constructed a double ramp and experimented with increasing the slope. More in the science section. They thoroughly enjoyed their Pajamas and Publishing culmination to our unit on "how to" writing. Station day activities included addition kites, writing about spring, pattern block building houses and finding the missing addends.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began with a question--"What's the weather like today?" Students accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather not only in their own area but all across the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea might be. They made connections about rain in their daily lives. Sight words this, what were reviewed. The target sounds for the week were short and long e. They continue to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. In the second reading of the Big Book story, the students visualized what it looks like after it rains. They also learned some facts about rain. The students examined 2 more parts of a book--the glossary and index and what they are used for. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 sound words. Students read their paper stories to a partner and elbow chatted about the sequence of events and main idea. Our Robust Vocabulary included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUDY, WEATHER. The students listened to poems about the weather and did some comparing across weather related texts. The students used their white boards to work on a sound substitution activity. Workstations this week included leveled readers comprehension and fluency building, word work on beginning and ending sounds, short and long vowel sort, roll, say and color ccvc words, writing about the weather, rhyming word families activity and using words and pictures to create 3 sentences.
Math: The students continue work in Module 4 of our Eureka Math series. Lessons continue to focus on part/whole reasoning behind addition and that a number sentence can be presented with the sum first and then its parts or addends. Students worked on creating number bonds for sums 6,7,8,9. Our math races or sprints are becoming more challenging! Workstations this week included writing numbers 1-122, finding the missing addend, even and odd sort, telling time by the hour activity using digital and analog clocks, solving addition story problems using ten frames to show part and whole.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. They had a review of the letters learned thus far. In Writer's Workshop this week, students completed their "how to" stories on school. They used their checklist to critique their own writing and then shared their writing with their partner. Our Friday Pajamas and Publishing was very cool! Students wore their pajamas, brought special stuffed animals or bedtime items. They went through their stories and shared them with others. They also acted out their books. They then chose a story they wanted to "publish." Our next unit is on persuasive or opinion writing and we will begin prep for it next week.
Science: Our investigations this week centered around what happens when objects collide? Each table built a ramp and experimented with putting objects at the end of it and discussed what happened when they rolled a ball down the ramp and had a collision. Super fun to watch the students faces! They also increased the slope by adding books to their base. Did it affect the collision? The students recorded their thoughts and drawings in their science notebook. Next each table build a double ramp testing to see if the ball rolled all the way across. Did the white small ball move faster or slower? Did the larger red ball move differently? Once again the students built up their ramps to increase the slope. They observed--bigger the slope....faster the ball traveled. Smaller the slope.....slower the ball traveled. They drew and reflected in their science journal. Next week (weather permitting) we taking our investigations outside.
Technology: Whole group work in reading centered around the apps Consonant Blend Sort and Montessori Crossword to reinforce recognition and sound blending. In whole group work in math, the apps Subitize Tree, Number Rack and Let's Do Math were used to reinforce visual counting, part/whole and number bonds to 10. The students viewed a Brain Pop video on nouns, verbs and sentence structure.
Literature: "Rain," "Weather," "Thunder Storms," "Weather Watching," "Green Eggs and Ham," "Snow," "The Things I am Scared Of," "Weather Words," "I Do Not Want To Get Up Today."
** Our Field Trip to the Field Museum was awesome! Students worked with their parent volunteers and discussed the exhibits they wanted to see. Sue, Ancient Egypt, Mummies, Animals, lots of Bones and Fossils were the top choices. Our photos are beginning to come in. Our writing project will be the week before spring break. A HUGE THANKS to L. Dantzler, D. Regan, T. Dixon and L. Danley for their help.
**In salute to all things Irish, bagpiper Patrick Lynch will be coming to Irving on Thursday, March 16th at 2:30 pm. He will present the history behind bagpipe music and show the students how he puts it all together. He will also be wearing a traditional Irish kilt. At dismissal, Mr. Lynch will give a concert on the black top for the school. Come join us!
**In keeping with the Irish theme, we will have SUPER TUBER DAY on Friday, March 17th during our station day time. PLEASE SEND A POTATO (any kind-not cooked) on Friday. We will learn a little history aboutIreland and the potato, examine its surface, count the "eyes," measure its length and take a look at different varieties. I have S. Raphael signed up to help but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Please email if you can help.
**It's PACK Week! Let's put the rainbow into our lunch! Pack a fruit or vegetable on the color of the day. Monday--pack PURPLE/BLUE, Tuesday--pack WHITE/TAN, Wednesday--pack RED, Thursday--packYELLOW/ORANGE, Friday--pack GREEN. All school lunches will have an appropriate color fruit or vegetable.
**The Irving Online Auction begins on March 12th and runs through March 16th. Log on to see what is being auctioned. Some really cool stuff and great parties.
**WE ARE ARTISTS!! The Oak Park Education Foundation and the Oak Park Area Arts Council are exhibiting the work of District 97 students. Our Symmetry Butterflies will be on display along with art projects from other schools at the Oak Park Village Hall from now through the end of April. Stop by and see them!!
**The Annual Irving School K-2 Spelling Bee will be held Wednesday, April 12th during the lunch hour. Our class will have a "classroom bee" to determine the 2 participants and 1 alternate that will represent our classroom. We will be having our "bee" next Monday. I will be speaking to the class about this event this week.
**PTO Cultural Event-"Justin and Liam," is Thursday, March 23rd at 9:15 am.
**Report cards go home on Friday, March 24th.
**Spring Break is 3/27-2/31. School resumes on Monday, April 3rd. Please let me know if your child is traveling and I will send a travel journal.
**NO SCHOOL--April 4th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**Bring in those giant boxes and other cool stuff for our engineering project after spring break. More information will follow soon.
**No Friendship Club or Mr. Packer Thinking Skills due to their involvement in PARCC Testing.
**Our Second Step lesson this week continued to focus on managing feelings.
This week:
The students prepared for their field trip to the Field Museum. They looked at reading material and videos on Ancient Egypt, dinosaurs, mummies, extinct and endangered animals and mammals. Pictures taken during our trip will become part of a writing research project. The students continue to investigate ramps, slopes and inclines. This week they constructed a double ramp and experimented with increasing the slope. More in the science section. They thoroughly enjoyed their Pajamas and Publishing culmination to our unit on "how to" writing. Station day activities included addition kites, writing about spring, pattern block building houses and finding the missing addends.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began with a question--"What's the weather like today?" Students accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather not only in their own area but all across the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea might be. They made connections about rain in their daily lives. Sight words this, what were reviewed. The target sounds for the week were short and long e. They continue to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. In the second reading of the Big Book story, the students visualized what it looks like after it rains. They also learned some facts about rain. The students examined 2 more parts of a book--the glossary and index and what they are used for. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 sound words. Students read their paper stories to a partner and elbow chatted about the sequence of events and main idea. Our Robust Vocabulary included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUDY, WEATHER. The students listened to poems about the weather and did some comparing across weather related texts. The students used their white boards to work on a sound substitution activity. Workstations this week included leveled readers comprehension and fluency building, word work on beginning and ending sounds, short and long vowel sort, roll, say and color ccvc words, writing about the weather, rhyming word families activity and using words and pictures to create 3 sentences.
Math: The students continue work in Module 4 of our Eureka Math series. Lessons continue to focus on part/whole reasoning behind addition and that a number sentence can be presented with the sum first and then its parts or addends. Students worked on creating number bonds for sums 6,7,8,9. Our math races or sprints are becoming more challenging! Workstations this week included writing numbers 1-122, finding the missing addend, even and odd sort, telling time by the hour activity using digital and analog clocks, solving addition story problems using ten frames to show part and whole.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. They had a review of the letters learned thus far. In Writer's Workshop this week, students completed their "how to" stories on school. They used their checklist to critique their own writing and then shared their writing with their partner. Our Friday Pajamas and Publishing was very cool! Students wore their pajamas, brought special stuffed animals or bedtime items. They went through their stories and shared them with others. They also acted out their books. They then chose a story they wanted to "publish." Our next unit is on persuasive or opinion writing and we will begin prep for it next week.
Science: Our investigations this week centered around what happens when objects collide? Each table built a ramp and experimented with putting objects at the end of it and discussed what happened when they rolled a ball down the ramp and had a collision. Super fun to watch the students faces! They also increased the slope by adding books to their base. Did it affect the collision? The students recorded their thoughts and drawings in their science notebook. Next each table build a double ramp testing to see if the ball rolled all the way across. Did the white small ball move faster or slower? Did the larger red ball move differently? Once again the students built up their ramps to increase the slope. They observed--bigger the slope....faster the ball traveled. Smaller the slope.....slower the ball traveled. They drew and reflected in their science journal. Next week (weather permitting) we taking our investigations outside.
Technology: Whole group work in reading centered around the apps Consonant Blend Sort and Montessori Crossword to reinforce recognition and sound blending. In whole group work in math, the apps Subitize Tree, Number Rack and Let's Do Math were used to reinforce visual counting, part/whole and number bonds to 10. The students viewed a Brain Pop video on nouns, verbs and sentence structure.
Literature: "Rain," "Weather," "Thunder Storms," "Weather Watching," "Green Eggs and Ham," "Snow," "The Things I am Scared Of," "Weather Words," "I Do Not Want To Get Up Today."
Sunday, March 5, 2017
UPDATES for 2/27-3/3 2017
**Our Field Trip to the Field Museum is TUESDAY, MARCH 7th from 9:30-1:30 pm. I still need permission slips and money from some of you. If your child is not going on the field trip, please email me so I can make arrangements and assignments for their day at Irving while we are gone. PLEASE SEND A BAG LUNCH WITH NAME ON IT. The lunch must be NUT FREE. No glass bottles or lunch boxes please. Chaperones will be taking pictures of their groups favorite exhibits. We will be turning the photos into a writing project.
**In salute to all things Irish, bagpiper Patrick Lynch will be coming to Irving on Thursday, March 16th in the afternoon. He will present history behind bagpipe music and show the kids how he puts it all together. At dismissal, Mr. Lynch will give a concert on the black top for the school. Come join us!
**In keeping with the Irish theme, we will have SUPER TUBER DAY on Friday, March 17th during our station day time. PLEASE SEND A POTATO (any kind, not cooked) We will learn a little history about Ireland and the potato, examine its surface, count the "eyes," measure its length and take a look a different varieties. I have S. Raphael signed up to help but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Please email me if you can help.
**Future Event--The PTO Cultural Enrichment Committee has scheduled an assembly on March 23rd at 9:15 am called "Justin and Liam." It teachers character education through music and song writing.
**Please let me know if your child is traveling for Spring Break. I will send a TRAVEL JOURNAL.
**Trimester 2 ends on March 10th.
**Report cards go home on March 24th.
**Spring Break is 3/27-3/31. School resumes on Monday, April 3rd.
**NO SCHOOL--April 4th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey lesson focused on being bossy. She read a story and the students reflected their thoughts in writing and drawing.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking Skills this week, Mr. Packer continued his small group work on positional concepts and following directions.
**Our Second Step lesson this week focused on how to manage when we are disappointed.
This week:
It was all about Pushes, Pulls and Ramps! More about that in the science section. The students concluded their author study on Mo Willems and celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with a mini author study and Brain Pop Jr. video on his life and work. We had a whole station day planned of Dr. Seuss activities relating to math, writing and phonics but.......the students were so very involved in ramp building and experimenting that we extended our science time. We will have our Dr. Seuss activities on Monday.
Reading/Language Arts: The students used this week to work on a variety of formative and summative assessments using texts from our author study of Mo Willems. The students responded verbally, thru illustration and thru writing. They worked to answer a variety of questions. Who are the characters in the story? How are they alike? Different? What is the problem in the story? What does the character do to solve the problem? What effect does a repeating phrase have on a text? How does the illustration help you to understand the setting? What important job does the author or illustrator have in telling the story? Can you identify the key details in the story? The students did some marvelous work on problem/solution using the text, "That is Not A Good Idea." Using the text, "Knuffle Bunny," the students worked with partners to sequence events in the story and worked on how the author's words and illustrations helped students to understand the story. Lots of great drawings were done during our "we do" of author's words in the text, "Knuffle Bunny." In the text, "Edwina, the Dinosaur That Didn't Know She Was Extinct," students participated in a word study to best describe the main character. Workstations this week included leveled readers comprehension check and fluency, word family sort, digraph work, rhyming cvc words, read and draw simple sentences, digraph game, Pot of Gold CVC game, substituting sounds activity.
Math: The students continue to work in Module 4 in our Eureka Math series. Lessons continue to focus on creating a number bond for a given illustration for numbers 6,7,8,9. The students continue to use pictures, cube sticks and other drawings as well as number sentences to show their work. They continue to work on math races or sprints to strengthen sequencing, subitizing and number order. Workstations this week included writing numbers from 1-120, even and odd number sort, reading and solving addition and subtraction story problems using ten frames and writing the equation and counting on from a given number.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters k and y were introduced this week. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students were busy writing their "how to" stories on the topic of School. We will be completing our unit on "how to" writing next week with a publishing party.
Science: Our investigations this week centered on what causes objects to move? The students experimented with rolling balls at different speeds and determining the strength of the push require to achieve a certain speed. Pushes can move objects. Declan was our investigator for the use of pulls to move objects. He demonstrated using a string tied around a chair so he could pull it to a different spot. Pulls can move objects. People push. Wind can push. People pull. Gravity can pull! The pull of gravity can push and pull a person on swing. Key vocabulary this week---push, pull, gravity, direction, speed, motion, rolling, slope, collide. The students built a variety of ramps and rolled balls and cars down them to observe the pull of gravity. They had a complete blast working with their table mates on ramp construction. Question--What could we do to change the speed of the object rolling down a slope? Students experimented with raising the slope using book stacks. They found that the higher the slope, the faster the object moved. The activity Contraption and Marble Works and Legos were introduced as Choice time activities to continue experimentation. Students worked in their science notebooks to draw sketches of their ramps and record their thoughts and reflections. Next week--more on colliding objects.
Technology: Whole group in reading worked on the apps Learn Consonant Blends and Oz Phonics for cvc, ccvc, cvcc and short vowel recognition as well as consonant blends and word order. In whole group math, students worked on the apps Let's Do Math and Subitize Tree for providing the missing addend, number bonds to 10 and visual number recognition and number patterns.
Literature: "Knuffle Bunny," "Edwina the Dinosaur That Didn't Know She Was Extinct," "Leonardo," "That Big Guy Took My Ball," "Hop On Pop," "The Cat In The Hat," "Let's Find Out--Dr Seuss," "Telling Time," "Clocks and Calendars," "Roll, Slope and Slide," "Force and Motion," "Pushes and Pulls."
**In salute to all things Irish, bagpiper Patrick Lynch will be coming to Irving on Thursday, March 16th in the afternoon. He will present history behind bagpipe music and show the kids how he puts it all together. At dismissal, Mr. Lynch will give a concert on the black top for the school. Come join us!
**In keeping with the Irish theme, we will have SUPER TUBER DAY on Friday, March 17th during our station day time. PLEASE SEND A POTATO (any kind, not cooked) We will learn a little history about Ireland and the potato, examine its surface, count the "eyes," measure its length and take a look a different varieties. I have S. Raphael signed up to help but could use 1 or 2 more volunteers. Please email me if you can help.
**Future Event--The PTO Cultural Enrichment Committee has scheduled an assembly on March 23rd at 9:15 am called "Justin and Liam." It teachers character education through music and song writing.
**Please let me know if your child is traveling for Spring Break. I will send a TRAVEL JOURNAL.
**Trimester 2 ends on March 10th.
**Report cards go home on March 24th.
**Spring Break is 3/27-3/31. School resumes on Monday, April 3rd.
**NO SCHOOL--April 4th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey lesson focused on being bossy. She read a story and the students reflected their thoughts in writing and drawing.
**In Mr. Packer Thinking Skills this week, Mr. Packer continued his small group work on positional concepts and following directions.
**Our Second Step lesson this week focused on how to manage when we are disappointed.
This week:
It was all about Pushes, Pulls and Ramps! More about that in the science section. The students concluded their author study on Mo Willems and celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with a mini author study and Brain Pop Jr. video on his life and work. We had a whole station day planned of Dr. Seuss activities relating to math, writing and phonics but.......the students were so very involved in ramp building and experimenting that we extended our science time. We will have our Dr. Seuss activities on Monday.
Reading/Language Arts: The students used this week to work on a variety of formative and summative assessments using texts from our author study of Mo Willems. The students responded verbally, thru illustration and thru writing. They worked to answer a variety of questions. Who are the characters in the story? How are they alike? Different? What is the problem in the story? What does the character do to solve the problem? What effect does a repeating phrase have on a text? How does the illustration help you to understand the setting? What important job does the author or illustrator have in telling the story? Can you identify the key details in the story? The students did some marvelous work on problem/solution using the text, "That is Not A Good Idea." Using the text, "Knuffle Bunny," the students worked with partners to sequence events in the story and worked on how the author's words and illustrations helped students to understand the story. Lots of great drawings were done during our "we do" of author's words in the text, "Knuffle Bunny." In the text, "Edwina, the Dinosaur That Didn't Know She Was Extinct," students participated in a word study to best describe the main character. Workstations this week included leveled readers comprehension check and fluency, word family sort, digraph work, rhyming cvc words, read and draw simple sentences, digraph game, Pot of Gold CVC game, substituting sounds activity.
Math: The students continue to work in Module 4 in our Eureka Math series. Lessons continue to focus on creating a number bond for a given illustration for numbers 6,7,8,9. The students continue to use pictures, cube sticks and other drawings as well as number sentences to show their work. They continue to work on math races or sprints to strengthen sequencing, subitizing and number order. Workstations this week included writing numbers from 1-120, even and odd number sort, reading and solving addition and subtraction story problems using ten frames and writing the equation and counting on from a given number.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters k and y were introduced this week. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students were busy writing their "how to" stories on the topic of School. We will be completing our unit on "how to" writing next week with a publishing party.
Science: Our investigations this week centered on what causes objects to move? The students experimented with rolling balls at different speeds and determining the strength of the push require to achieve a certain speed. Pushes can move objects. Declan was our investigator for the use of pulls to move objects. He demonstrated using a string tied around a chair so he could pull it to a different spot. Pulls can move objects. People push. Wind can push. People pull. Gravity can pull! The pull of gravity can push and pull a person on swing. Key vocabulary this week---push, pull, gravity, direction, speed, motion, rolling, slope, collide. The students built a variety of ramps and rolled balls and cars down them to observe the pull of gravity. They had a complete blast working with their table mates on ramp construction. Question--What could we do to change the speed of the object rolling down a slope? Students experimented with raising the slope using book stacks. They found that the higher the slope, the faster the object moved. The activity Contraption and Marble Works and Legos were introduced as Choice time activities to continue experimentation. Students worked in their science notebooks to draw sketches of their ramps and record their thoughts and reflections. Next week--more on colliding objects.
Technology: Whole group in reading worked on the apps Learn Consonant Blends and Oz Phonics for cvc, ccvc, cvcc and short vowel recognition as well as consonant blends and word order. In whole group math, students worked on the apps Let's Do Math and Subitize Tree for providing the missing addend, number bonds to 10 and visual number recognition and number patterns.
Literature: "Knuffle Bunny," "Edwina the Dinosaur That Didn't Know She Was Extinct," "Leonardo," "That Big Guy Took My Ball," "Hop On Pop," "The Cat In The Hat," "Let's Find Out--Dr Seuss," "Telling Time," "Clocks and Calendars," "Roll, Slope and Slide," "Force and Motion," "Pushes and Pulls."
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