Monday, April 10, 2017

UPDATES for 4/3-4/7 2017

**The students returned from their spring break with lots of stories about their travels and time spent with family.  Whether they remained in the area or traveled to another town or state, they had much to tell!  We spent some time locating all the states and cities visited on our state map.
**Keep sending in those GIANT BOXES and other boxes and cool stuff for our engineering project. The students will be designing, constructing and detailing a cozy habitat for reading and  dramatic play in our classroom.  I would like to have everything in by Friday.  We could still use boxes the kids can climb into.   We will work on the project the week of April 17th -21st.   We will need some hot glue volunteers during our detailing stage.  Stay tuned!
**Our SPELLING BEE REPS, JACKSON and LILY and our alternate, LILAH are really excited to participate in the Irving K-2 Spelling Bee on Wednesday, April 12th during our lunch hour beginning at 11:15 am.  We will be cheering them on.  Feel free to come and join us in the Irving auditorium.
**Thanks for sending in your report card envelopes.  If you haven't done so....please do.  Thanks! Our last report card will go home in June.
**Our Student Council reps, Declan and Naomi D. spoke to the students about the Food Drive that Student Council is sponsoring.  Please read the yellow info sheet in your child's homework folder for food ideas.  They are also accepting money too!
**EAGLE EXTRA classes begin on Monday, April 10th.  I will be getting a list of participants with days and times.  The students will be picked up  from the classroom by an adult supervisor. 
**Representatives from the Special Olympics Young Athletes spoke to the students on their theme for this year which is "Respect is my super power."  Students spoke about ways to encourage respect for all.  Some great conversations between the students on ways to be helpful.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on  Tuesday, April 18th in the morning.
**Irving Book Fair is the week of April 24th-28th.  Please join us on Wednesday, April 26th from 6:30-7:30 pm for Family Reading Night featuring "camping" stories read by myself, Ms. Durham, Ms. Noonan and Ms. Grogan.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, April 14th.
**Kindergarten New Student Open House is Wednesday, May3rd from 2:30-4:30 pm in the kindergarten rooms.
**No Second Step lesson this week.
**No Mr. Packer Thinking Skills this week.
** In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey's lesson focused on a new unthinkable called "Worry Wall."  Worry Wall makes people feel nervous or worry in social situations.  The students had a heart to heart conversation about things that worry them.  Dr. Bell Bey read the story, "Wemberly Worried."
This week:
It was all about signs of spring, sharing stories about spring break and beginning our new science unit.  The students were super excited to begin a unit on worms in our Animals Two by Two unit. There was also lots of discussion about our upcoming engineering project.  Stay tuned.  Station day activities included creating a worm (cut and paste,) making a clock clown, creating a number sentence after reading a story problem and putting the words of a sentence in the correct order
Reading/Language Arts:      The students began Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They began building background knowledge about how a tree grows.  It was great to observe how much the students remembered from their science unit on trees.  The students chatted about Oak Park and the types of trees in the area.  We used our Tree Finder book to find information on Oak, Maple and Gingko trees.  Trees are plants that take a long time to grow!  Students listened to the Big Book story, " Oak Trees."  They noted that the story was nonfiction containing information.  The students responded that they had seen acorns, some students collected them.   They discussed how an acorn seed sprouts and grows.  Sight words for this week are said and little.  Our target sounds are short u and ck.  We took a look at quotation marks to tell us who is talking in the story.  Students retold the big book story and sequenced the events in their own words.  Students reviewed the question words who, what, where, when, why and how.  They took turns verbally asking a question about the story and having their partner answer the question.  They practiced reading the story, "The Little Acorn" aloud to a partner to  practice fluency building and getting feedback from their partner.  Robust Vocabulary this week included GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING.  We have begun work on core standards of word choice, describing a characters experience and comparing characters from two different texts.  Students continue to work on word work--cvc, ccvc and cvcc spellings and short and long vowels.  Workstations this week included leveled reader fluency checks, discussion on characters in the texts and comparing the actions of the characters looking for similarities and differences, writing an information piece on what you know about trees, word family spin and color, activities on ck words, sentence building and writing, writing an opinion piece on why we need trees, short and long vowel work and works with digraphs and blends and playing "Web of Words."
Math:     The students continue to work on Module 4 in our Eureka Math series.  The focus of the lessons this week was decomposing  the number 10 using fingers, sets, cubes and number bonds. Students also worked on solving story problems involving numbers 9 and 10 and finding  the missing addend in a number bond.  Workstations this week included writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, telling time by the hour both analogue and digitally, solving simple story problems and describing teen numbers as a group of 10 and what is left over.
Writing:     The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation.  The letters h, n and f were introduced,  The students practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange books.   In Writer's Workshop this week, the student continue to work on opinion writing.  The teaching point for students--writers state how they feel and say why.  They write at least two reasons to support what they thought.  They use the words because in their sentences.  They also continue to illustrate and label and begin to think about adding an ending sentence.   The students wrote on a variety of topics and shared their writing with their partner and the entire class. Next week--how to write a letter to someone.
Science:     The students began their next science unit Animals Two by Two.  This unit investigates the living animals--worms and fish.  The students began prepping for the unit by looking for information in books and on the internet on worms.  They helped create our worm habitat that now houses red wiggler compost worms.  What are worms?  What are the parts of a red worm?  What do red worms need in order to live.  The students observed a clear plastic structure with holes in the lid. They observed dirt with some bits of oatmeal and newspaper.  Projected on the screen---I took some of the dirt out and put it on a tray.  Many oohs and aahs as the students began to see movement in the dirt.  We put the tray under the magnifier.  Red worms began to inch along!  The students observed their color, size and the spiral lines or segments in their body structure.  Many commented on the front and back looking kind of the same.  Stay tuned for more next week!!!!
Technology:     The students viewed a few videos on compost worms.  In our phonics work, students used the apps Montessori Crosswords to study ck ending words and short u words and Consonant Blend Sort to work on beginning and ending blends.  In our math work this week, the students used the apps Animal Math and Butterfly Math to work on missing addends, addition and subtraction problems to 10 and the app Let's Do Math to work on number bonds to 10.
Literature:     "Sorting Thru Spring," "Diary of a Worm," "Worms," "Clocks and Calendars," "What's in the Garden?" "The Ant Bully," "Yucky Worms." "Wonderful Worms."

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