**The students are having a great time with the ABC Countdown! The students enjoyed their visit to First Grade. They met the teachers and toured the classrooms. In Ms. Solomon's First Grade, the students asked thoughtful questions about types of classwork, snack, homework, choice time and Eagle Essentials expectations. First Grade students happily answered their questions. First Grade is becoming very real!!!
**The students will start bringing home their work portfolios from Trimesters 1 and 2 next week. They will have a chance to look back and see how far they have come!
**Public Service Announcement---With the warm weather approaching, many students will want to wear sandals. I am asking that all students wear gym shoes or closed toe shoes. Sandals are okay for the classroom but when we are outside on the playground......let's protect our feet!!!!
**The ABC COUNTDOWN continues!! Next week: Monday-Joke Day-bring in your favorite joke to share, Tuesday-King Day-boys rule and will set the tone of the day. Wednesday-Lunch Outside Day-instead of the lunchroom, we will eat outside on our picnic blankets, Thursday-Music Day-students can bring in CD's with appropriate music to listen to while they work. Students suggested Kidz Bop, Italian music, opera and music from a movie. Friday-Name Day-Write your name in bubble letters and decorate it. There is a hard copy in your child's homework folder.
**The students will do their last "traveling" for the Traveling Poets project on Wednesday, May 17th. They have done such a great job! We are also enjoying the students who travel to our classroom.
**Next week will be the last LAST LIBRARY BOOK CHECK OUT. All student books will be due on Friday, May 26th.
**The ART FEST/POETRY SLAM is this THURSDAY, May 18th from 6-8 pm all around the school. COME ON OUT to see student art work, a play, the Irving chorus, play Spanish games and hear and see the POETRY SLAM. We now have 6 "little slammers!" Our own Mr. Williams will be the "MC." There is still time to sign up. It is great fun!
**DANCE PARTY sponsored by the 5th Grade is Friday, May 18th from 5-7 pm in the gym. The cost is $1.00. The money raised will help fund their send off and future outdoor ed scholarships.
**I am continuing with final assessments for the last report card. They will be completed in the next few weeks.
**Keep sending in FIELD TRIP slips and LIBRARY CARD APPLICATIONS for our Maze Library Walking Field Trip on Thursday, May 25th leaving at 12:40 and returning to school at 2:15. I need to turn in all applications to the library by Thursday, May 18th so they can be processed. We have lots of volunteers! Let's hope for great weather!
**OLYMPIC DAY is Friday, May 26th from 8:30-11:00 am. Come on out and see Team Gullo demonstrate strength, endurance and teamwork. This year, we will be joined by two former Irving students who are now 8th graders. They will be helping out as part of their service project.
**Look for information and permission slip for PIZZA and PLAY End of the Year Family Picnic at Rehm Park next week. I will be sending you a link to a Sign Up Genius for supplies, fruits and veggies.
**Future Field Trip-Oak Park Conservatory on Tuesday, June 6th-9:30-10:30 am.
**No School-May 29th-Memorial Day Observance.
**Our Reading Grandma Mary and Ms. D will finish out their year with us next week. What valuable volunteers they have been! We love our grandmas!!
**In our Second Step lesson this week, the focus continued to be on ways to play fair and problem solving.
**In Friendship Club this week, Dr. Bell Bey began wrap up for the year reviewing the behavior "Thinkables" and "Unthinkables."
**In Mr. Packer's thinking Skills this week, Mr. Packer continued work on looking for details and visualization.
This week:
The students finished helping me edit their iMovie of the Design Challenge. Hope you enjoy it! The students are sensing that the end of kindergarten is near. There is excitement in the air and perhaps for some.... a little anxiety. We will be working through it in our classroom chats. Students are asking questions about new teachers, new friendships and expectations. They are also thinking about friends who may be moving away or going to another school next year. Turning into a First Grader is BIG!! Station day activities this week included creating a pattern block fish, sight word search, simple sentence--read it and draw it, seed sequence and ladybug addition/equation writing.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue work on skills and literature from Treasures Unit 9 Amazing Creatures and Unit 10 We Know A Lot. Students took a look a the world of bugs and continued work on What is an insect? Can you name the similarities and difference between an insect and a spider? Sight words for this week were has and look. Target sounds were Jj and Yy. Students spent time with a partner using their word cards, pictures and punctuation creating sentences. Students continued to work on using and recognizing nouns, verbs, pronouns and adjectives. Each day this week, the students worked on group substitution activities to strengthen sound recognition and automatic recording of sounds to create words. We are on the last few exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book. Students are also continuing to work on formative and summative blueprints on word choice and how illustrations are important to the text. Robust Vocabulary for this week included GULP, FANTASY, INCREDIBLE, REALITY. Workstations for this week included leveled reader self read, partner read and elbow chat about story elements, comparing and contrasting stories, working with vocabulary and word choice, responding in writing to what insect do you like and why do you like it?--opinion writing, writing 4 facts about insects, word work on short and long e, writing sentences using your sight words, choosing an illustration from the text and telling in writing what information the picture gives you and why it is important and working with word families ut, et, and en.
Math: The students continue to study teen numbers in Module 5 of the their Eureka Math series. Lessons this week focused on counting on from a random teen number and showing, counting and writing the answer to a "how many" question in linear and array configurations. Students are working with counting different configurations of teen numbers and pulling them forward to group them by tens and some more. The students are also working on lessons that focus on counting up and down by tens to 100 with Say and Find Groups of ten. Workstations this week included finding the number that comes next, before or after the targeted number, playing make 5 Bingo, writing numbers 1-150, reading and solving a story problem by illustrating, writing the equation and number bond and building new shapes using existing pattern blocks.
Writing: The students do continue to review upper and lowercase letter number formation. You should receive a letter in the mail sometime this week with your students persuasive writing. In Writer's Workshop this week, the students wrote about topics that mean a lot to them---keeping the Earth clean, helping others, following the Eagle Essentials, being a good friend, preparing for First grade were some of the topics. The students are really working on using their writer's checklist to proof read, use punctuation and capital letter at the beginning and have their sentences have meaning and details.
Science: No goldfish or guppies in sight. Ms. Gullo will be going to the Pet Store this weekend to get some goldfish and guppies!! In the meantime, we began our prep on what is a fish? On the plant front----our baby plants are ready to go home! Happy Mother's Day! Please read the information sheet in your child's homework folder. We took a look at the root systems of our flower seedlings. The students also planted milkweed and zucchini seeds in our classroom garden. We will put these in our Irving Garden bed. Alice's giant sweet potato has MANY roots and big leaves!! The potatoes will also go into the Irving Garden. Stay tuned!!!
Technology: Our iMovie has been edited and is ready to be viewed! The students are really excited and proud to show you all the work that went into their Design Challenge! They want to do another movie!!!
Literature: "The Tiny Seed," "Eating the Alphabet," "Planting a Rainbow," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "What is a Fish?" "Swimmy," "A Fish is a Fish," "Under the Water," "Sea Life," "Oceans," "Fishes."
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