**The wild weather continues! The students made the best of their indoor lunch time recess with storybook tales and sharing choice time with Ms. Weigel's class. How timely for us that we began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. Looking ahead this week----please keep sending snow pants and boots for lunchtime recess. Our entire class joined Mr. Hodge last Wednesday to say the pledge and the Eagle Essentials over the loud speaker. Our special volunteer readers, Philippe, Ally and Reid read information on Ruby Bridges celebrating African American History. Our whole class chimed in for the final sentence. They sounded great! Hope to get an online version of it for you soon.
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular!! I hope you all had as much fun as I did. There were great games and prizes. Many students danced for desserts. Our class BAKING basket was superb! The silent auction items were the best yet. Thanks to all of you who could attend. Towards the end of the fair came the STAFF talent portion. In the running this year was Hodgepodge, The New Beats and Boy's Rule, Girl's Drool. Very cute and original pieces. Boy's Rule dominated the scene (in more ways than one) and raised the most money to win the PIE in the FACE! If you were the winning bidder for my auction items, I will contact you in the next few weeks. This event truly represents our Irving community at its best! I am so proud to be a part of it!
**The students had their first ART START experience courtesy of Chef Ashley from Constructive Chaos. Chef Ashley spoke about her background as a chef and also talked about her business. She then shared with the students poetry about pizza and read Jack Prelutsky's poem, "The Pizza the Size of the Sun." Chef Ashley had the students use their senses to feel, smell, touch the ingredients in dough. All the ingredients were prepared ahead of time to form a dough. The students got to work with the dough--working the dough into a ball and then creating a bed for their pizza toppings. A personal pizza was created and packaged so the students could take it home to bake. The dough was sticky and the more the students worked with it the stronger it became. It was hilarious to see the students pulling the dough and dough sticking to their hands. The students compared this dough to the gluten free dough I made in the morning. The students had a great time. Can't wait to see what is next on our literature and cooking circuit. We will find out this Wednesday!
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps. I have sent home the information for you to look over. Have your child signed their name and return it on Monday. All papers go into a giant bag and I stick my hand in and pick 2. The first meeting is Tuesday, March 4th at 11:25 am.
**On Thursday, March 6th, GREEN TEAM will give a short presentation about their groups focus this year. Our rep, Gina will be there. Come out and show your support. Their presentation is at 7:00 pm.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 began this week. You should have received notification of your child's current skill level.
**For our salute to St.Patrick's Day----Join us on Friday, March 14th for a presentation by Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch from 1:30-2:30 in the Irving Auditorium. A bit of history, instrument parts and lively music. All kindergarten classes will be in attendance. The students will follow it up with SUPER TUBER DAY on Monday, March 17th from 10-11 am. All students need to bring a potato of their choice (not cooked.) We will learn its history, examine its surface, measure its length, look for the "eyes", take a look at the different varieties and learn of the potato and its connection to Ireland. I will need some volunteers for this. Email me if you are interested.
**Taste of Irving will be held Friday, March 14th at 6:00pm.
**The end of Trimester 2 is March 5th. Report cards will go home on Friday, March 21st.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 17th probably in the morning. This is posed individual picture with a backdrop.
**Future Field Trip----Adler Planetarium on Thursday, April 10th. More info will follow.
**Future Events----I have begun speaking to the students about some cool opportunities that they can participate in--more info will follow soon----Wednesday, April 9th K-2 SPELLING BEE and Wednesday, April 23rd ACADEMIC FAIR and EGG DROP CONTEST. Do you have something that you are really interested in? Can you make a project out of it? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped out of a third flour window? Think about it!
**We are getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool things for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. Mr. DiPaolo has donated 2 great boxes for our project. You can bring them in after spring break.
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK-March 22-30. Classes resume on Monday, March 31st.
This week:
It was all about the weather. We began tracking the weather in the United States via the site Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our current unit in reading. We do have a fascination with the weather here in Room 110. It has been one for the records! Students are observing weather "fronts" moving in and direction that weather patterns move. The students love watching the color changes on the animated radar. They are becoming experts at locating areas of rain, snow, ice, wind speed. The students have also have become interested in the chance or percentage of a storm occurring. Perhaps we have some budding meteorologists!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began by pondering the question, "What is the weather like today?" They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but in other parts of the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea could be. They made connections about rain in their own daily lives. Sight words this and do were introduced. The target sound for this week is short e. The students used pictures as well as words to make a group Short e web. The students continued to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. They reread the story and created a picture in their minds (visualize) about what it would look like after the rain. The students reviewed the water cycle (go science!) and facts about rain. They examined 2 parts of a book--the glossary and the index and what they are used for. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words. The students read their paper stories aloud to to a partner for fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUD and WEATHER. The students listened to the Native American tale, "How Thunder and Lightening Came to Be." They also had the chance to listen and reflect on 4 poems related to weather. In the another folktale from the Pueblo Nation, the students listened to the "Frog and the Locust." We discussed the idea of a rain dance or song to bring rain to a dry area. We located on the map where the Pueblo people lived and looked at a surface map to see how the land looked. What did the frog do to get rain? (sang) Why didn't his plan work? (It wasn't loud enough) What happened at the end of the story? (The frog and locust worked together to sing a loud song) What do you think the story tellers message was? See if your child can recall. The students did some comparing of information across weather related texts. Workstations included leveled readers fluency read aloud using the readers checklist, word building on several levels--short a and e cvc focus, beginning and ending blends, digraphs, favorite story picture--writing a question and an answer, compare and contrast a drawing of your house in summer and in winter and word sort--short e word families.
Math: The students are working more in depth on activities using the rekenreck--an abacus like board with 5 red and 5 white beads in rows of ten---with ten groups of ten. Students played What's My Number? How far is it from 10? from 5? Show Me.......making a random number and ways to say a random number. I also showed the students a random number on the rekenreck and then covered it quickly. Could they remember what the number was? The students continue to work on number writing--2 and 3 digits, creating number bonds to 10 and listening for information in a story problem and showing their work in figuring out the answer.
Writing: The students continue to work on formation of lowercase letters and refining their writing. The students are encouraged to reread their sentences before coming to the journal conference with me--proofing, if you will. The students continue to write using the journal prompts from our reading series.
Science: The students made their final reflections on the subject of water. We traced the path of water and the stages it goes through before it comes into our homes via the faucet. We reviewed the path of the water cycle and saw a video via BrainPop on the water cycle.
Technology: In reading, students worked individually and with partners using the apps Magic Reading 2 to segment and blend, Montessori Crossword word building short a and e words, beginning and ending blends and digraphs. They also used Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller for reinforcement of skills. In the area of math, whole group instruction centered around the apps Number Rack and Number Line. Individual and partners worked on the apps Top it Addition, Number Find, Geo Board, Monster Squeeze and Addition Bug. In Science, whole group instruction centered around the apps Weatherunderground and BrainPop and Sonic Pics for story board and recording of our Ruby Bridges project.
Literature: "Ruby Bridges," "Bake, Mice, Bake," "Turn on the Faucet," "It takes a Village," "Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur," "Hooray for Teeth," "Red Light, Green Light, Momma and Me," "Water Cycle," "The Story of Rosa Parks," "A Walk in the Rain with a Brain," "Jared's Cool-Out Space," "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Sticker Book," "Pete the Cat--the Wheels on the Bus, " "The Story of Wilma Rudolph."
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
UPDATES for 2/3-2/7 2014
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was spectacular!!!! The students made a necklace with 100 Fruit Loops with spacers to denote the groups of 10's, stamped 100 hearts with their handmade stampers, turned a "regular" dog into a Dalmation creating 100 spots, created a really cool food grid containing 10 groups of 10 foods, painted a rainbow with 100 hand prints, wrote their numbers from 1-100, began recording 100 words on their papers and passed out Valentines, treats and treasures to their classmates. A HEART felt thanks to our volunteers--B. Ahring, the Flannery family, Reid's Grandma, G. Shelton, T. Smyth, H. Lim, L. Wojcik, L. Nino, L. Pierre and our wonderful assistants, Ms. Jack and Ms. Miller. Our day was really special.
**An awesome teachable moment courtesy of Ben and his Nana---Ben brought in a book called "Recess at 20 Below" about what it was like to go to school is a very cold place and have recess. sound familiar??? No this was not Oak Park....it was in Alaska! Students located Alaska on a map and globe. Many remarked that it was near the North Pole. The story talked about how you prepare yourself to go out and that students do actually go out when it is that cold. The story also described cool things the kids did while outside--sledding on their playground being the coolest. Our students made lots of connections in their own life about snow pants, boots, layers of clothes, red noses, breathing out smoke and feeling like an icicle. We checked Weatherunderground on the computer and compared the temperature in Alaska and Oak Park. Guess what......Oak Park-4 degrees.....Anchorage, Alaska.......25 degrees. What???!! The students were amazed!! What a crazy winter! The students want to ask Mr. Hodge if they could bring sleds to school!
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening on Friday morning.
**Please continue sending your child with boots and snow pants. We may have another opportunity to be outside later on this coming week and want to be prepared.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and the students discussed and shared their feelings on the topic--"What do you care about?" From our families, to our pets and more globally--our school and our earth, our class cares about many things. The students wrote about and decorated an "I Care" tee shirt depicting what they care most about. We turned our "Mitten Tree" into an "I Care" tree and students hung their tee shirts on the tree. Stop by and see them!
**In Mr. Packer, Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer read the students 2 books on ways to say the number 100. By ones, or two's , or five's or ten's.......what about by 20's, or 25's or 50's.....the list goes on. The students enjoyed thinking and talking about it.
**Keep reading those BUSY READERS and recording them on your reading log. The first 10 minutes of our class time will know be spent reading our books to others or independently. Oh, the sound of beginning readers!!!!!!
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!!! The FUN FAIR is coming!!! Coming play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. I also have some special items to bid on at the silent auction! There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts and.......a VERY special attraction--3 groups of Irving employees with 3 different performances. This week the coin containers will be set out with pictures of the participants on them. Students can bring in money (any kind) and place it in the container of the group they would like to see get the PIE IN THE FACE!!!! The containers will be out this week, next week and during the FUN FAIR. The performances will be during the last part of the FUN FAIR culminating with the PIE IN THE FACE for the group who collected the most money. Who will it be???? I hear our beloved Ms. Noonan is in one of the groups......I think I heard Mr. Di Paolo, our custodian is in a group.....Stay tuned!!!!! Students can start bringing in money beginning on Monday. There is still time to donate to our Class Basket--"Cooking and Baking Fun." You can send it in to me or give it to M. Ahring. The class will be decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult apron on Monday. Come on...join in the fun!!!!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day and Monday, February 17th-President's Day.
**Our class will be participating in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**Exciting News--Our class will participate in the Oak Park Education Foundation's Art Start program beginning at the end of this month and for 5 consecutive Wednesdays afternoons. Our program is called "Cooking History," presented by Kris and Ashley Nelson of Constructive Chaos Culinary Arts. All foods used will be nut free, gluten free and free of any other allergens that students in my class may have. We are in the planning stages. I will send all the details when planning is completed.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other COOL STUFF for our space station construction in April. You can send them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, counting to 100, grouping objects in groups of 10 up to 100, writing numbers to 100 and sharing ways we care about others.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listened to the Big Book story, " Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as non fiction. They were reminded to think about the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The target word this week is are. The students added this word to our growing list of sight words. The target sound is Hh. They reviewed all the consonant and vowel sounds covered thus far. Students worked in pairs to create sentences using sight words and pictures. In the second reading of the story, the students talked about what the main idea of the story was and recalled what Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards to summarize events in the story. They used their elkonin boxes to segment 4-5 sound words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats/" They made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read a sentence from the story aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Where you able to blend sounds to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to reread the story to. The partners discussed and critique each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion focusing on asking and answering questions about a text, word family fun where you choose a word family--an, at, in, it, ot and add a single consonant, consonant blend or digraph to create a word and record it on paper creating 10 words and using 2 in a sentence, using the app Montessori Crossword for sound blending words with focus on short i, short e and ch, creating a page for a book about neighborhood places with the sentence starter.....I go to a....with an illustration and sentence completion page using CVC words.
Math: Students worked with a partner to group the objects of their choice into ten groups of ten to get to 100. They then labeled each group with the appropriate number. We had 100 cubes, 100 pennies, 100 dinosaurs, 100 straws, 100 sticks, 100 blocks, 100 shells and 100 links. The students continue to work on counting on from a random number, telling what comes before or after a random number, counting quantities, even and odd numbers, number bonding or ways to say a number using numbers 1-6 and using illustrations to tell a number story. They have begun work in their February calendar books.
Writing: The students worked on formal formation of "Magic C" lowercase letters c, o, a, d and slant lowercase letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Our stylus tools are in and the students will begin work next week on writing form practice using the iPad. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the first, next , then and last format. Many students are making the transition from mixed upper and lowercase to lowercase letters in their writing. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Science: The students talked about the experiments they have done thus far. They noted also that the water bottles that once held ice and then water were now lower in water. Students used the word evaporation. The students know that water can be liquid and a solid. Another property of water is as a gas. We discussed freezing (32 degrees) and boiling (212 degrees) points and created steam. The students observed the "smoke" or steam coming out of the glass container of boiling water. We marked the water line with a marker. The students also took note of a piece of plastic wrap I put over the glass container of boiling water. Question: What did you observe? Students reported seeing water drops forming on the inside of the plastic wrap and on the side of the glass. Condensation!! The students reflected both in written and drawing form about their thoughts on the experiments. They will continue to keep watch on the glass container and the water line. Let's see if there are any changes when come back on Monday!
Technology: The students main app this week continues to be Tan Zen Lite. The students are enjoying working on identifying shapes from the tans and placing them in the correct place to make the picture. Some very challenging work that develops spacial relationships, visual perception and dexterity. Cool! The other math apps used this week by students were Number Find, Math Bug, Top-It Addition and Geoboard. In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword, Sight Words, Reading Magic 3, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used with student small groups. The students continue to locate information on the properties of water thru Brain Pop.
Literature: "The 100th Day of School," "100 Shoes," "Why Does It Snow," "Recess at 20 Below," "Water's Journey," "Water Can Change," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Winter Nap," "One Hundred Angry Ants," "A Drop of Water-Chapter 4-Steam," "Evaporation/Condensation," "Counting Your Way to the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten."
**An awesome teachable moment courtesy of Ben and his Nana---Ben brought in a book called "Recess at 20 Below" about what it was like to go to school is a very cold place and have recess. sound familiar??? No this was not Oak Park....it was in Alaska! Students located Alaska on a map and globe. Many remarked that it was near the North Pole. The story talked about how you prepare yourself to go out and that students do actually go out when it is that cold. The story also described cool things the kids did while outside--sledding on their playground being the coolest. Our students made lots of connections in their own life about snow pants, boots, layers of clothes, red noses, breathing out smoke and feeling like an icicle. We checked Weatherunderground on the computer and compared the temperature in Alaska and Oak Park. Guess what......Oak Park-4 degrees.....Anchorage, Alaska.......25 degrees. What???!! The students were amazed!! What a crazy winter! The students want to ask Mr. Hodge if they could bring sleds to school!
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening on Friday morning.
**Please continue sending your child with boots and snow pants. We may have another opportunity to be outside later on this coming week and want to be prepared.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and the students discussed and shared their feelings on the topic--"What do you care about?" From our families, to our pets and more globally--our school and our earth, our class cares about many things. The students wrote about and decorated an "I Care" tee shirt depicting what they care most about. We turned our "Mitten Tree" into an "I Care" tree and students hung their tee shirts on the tree. Stop by and see them!
**In Mr. Packer, Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer read the students 2 books on ways to say the number 100. By ones, or two's , or five's or ten's.......what about by 20's, or 25's or 50's.....the list goes on. The students enjoyed thinking and talking about it.
**Keep reading those BUSY READERS and recording them on your reading log. The first 10 minutes of our class time will know be spent reading our books to others or independently. Oh, the sound of beginning readers!!!!!!
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!!! The FUN FAIR is coming!!! Coming play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. I also have some special items to bid on at the silent auction! There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts and.......a VERY special attraction--3 groups of Irving employees with 3 different performances. This week the coin containers will be set out with pictures of the participants on them. Students can bring in money (any kind) and place it in the container of the group they would like to see get the PIE IN THE FACE!!!! The containers will be out this week, next week and during the FUN FAIR. The performances will be during the last part of the FUN FAIR culminating with the PIE IN THE FACE for the group who collected the most money. Who will it be???? I hear our beloved Ms. Noonan is in one of the groups......I think I heard Mr. Di Paolo, our custodian is in a group.....Stay tuned!!!!! Students can start bringing in money beginning on Monday. There is still time to donate to our Class Basket--"Cooking and Baking Fun." You can send it in to me or give it to M. Ahring. The class will be decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult apron on Monday. Come on...join in the fun!!!!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day and Monday, February 17th-President's Day.
**Our class will be participating in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**Exciting News--Our class will participate in the Oak Park Education Foundation's Art Start program beginning at the end of this month and for 5 consecutive Wednesdays afternoons. Our program is called "Cooking History," presented by Kris and Ashley Nelson of Constructive Chaos Culinary Arts. All foods used will be nut free, gluten free and free of any other allergens that students in my class may have. We are in the planning stages. I will send all the details when planning is completed.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other COOL STUFF for our space station construction in April. You can send them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, counting to 100, grouping objects in groups of 10 up to 100, writing numbers to 100 and sharing ways we care about others.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listened to the Big Book story, " Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as non fiction. They were reminded to think about the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The target word this week is are. The students added this word to our growing list of sight words. The target sound is Hh. They reviewed all the consonant and vowel sounds covered thus far. Students worked in pairs to create sentences using sight words and pictures. In the second reading of the story, the students talked about what the main idea of the story was and recalled what Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards to summarize events in the story. They used their elkonin boxes to segment 4-5 sound words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats/" They made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read a sentence from the story aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Where you able to blend sounds to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to reread the story to. The partners discussed and critique each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion focusing on asking and answering questions about a text, word family fun where you choose a word family--an, at, in, it, ot and add a single consonant, consonant blend or digraph to create a word and record it on paper creating 10 words and using 2 in a sentence, using the app Montessori Crossword for sound blending words with focus on short i, short e and ch, creating a page for a book about neighborhood places with the sentence starter.....I go to a....with an illustration and sentence completion page using CVC words.
Math: Students worked with a partner to group the objects of their choice into ten groups of ten to get to 100. They then labeled each group with the appropriate number. We had 100 cubes, 100 pennies, 100 dinosaurs, 100 straws, 100 sticks, 100 blocks, 100 shells and 100 links. The students continue to work on counting on from a random number, telling what comes before or after a random number, counting quantities, even and odd numbers, number bonding or ways to say a number using numbers 1-6 and using illustrations to tell a number story. They have begun work in their February calendar books.
Writing: The students worked on formal formation of "Magic C" lowercase letters c, o, a, d and slant lowercase letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Our stylus tools are in and the students will begin work next week on writing form practice using the iPad. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the first, next , then and last format. Many students are making the transition from mixed upper and lowercase to lowercase letters in their writing. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Science: The students talked about the experiments they have done thus far. They noted also that the water bottles that once held ice and then water were now lower in water. Students used the word evaporation. The students know that water can be liquid and a solid. Another property of water is as a gas. We discussed freezing (32 degrees) and boiling (212 degrees) points and created steam. The students observed the "smoke" or steam coming out of the glass container of boiling water. We marked the water line with a marker. The students also took note of a piece of plastic wrap I put over the glass container of boiling water. Question: What did you observe? Students reported seeing water drops forming on the inside of the plastic wrap and on the side of the glass. Condensation!! The students reflected both in written and drawing form about their thoughts on the experiments. They will continue to keep watch on the glass container and the water line. Let's see if there are any changes when come back on Monday!
Technology: The students main app this week continues to be Tan Zen Lite. The students are enjoying working on identifying shapes from the tans and placing them in the correct place to make the picture. Some very challenging work that develops spacial relationships, visual perception and dexterity. Cool! The other math apps used this week by students were Number Find, Math Bug, Top-It Addition and Geoboard. In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword, Sight Words, Reading Magic 3, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used with student small groups. The students continue to locate information on the properties of water thru Brain Pop.
Literature: "The 100th Day of School," "100 Shoes," "Why Does It Snow," "Recess at 20 Below," "Water's Journey," "Water Can Change," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Winter Nap," "One Hundred Angry Ants," "A Drop of Water-Chapter 4-Steam," "Evaporation/Condensation," "Counting Your Way to the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten."
Friday, January 31, 2014
UPDATES for 1/20-1/24 and 1/28-1/31 2014
**Greetings everyone! January has been one crazy month!! We have had snow, cold, more snow, more cold, cancelled classes and being stuck inside of our classrooms because it is again--too cold to go outside. The students have been real troopers!! We have watched some great stories courtesy of Scholastic Books during our lunch hour and used our choice time wisely experimenting at the water table, creating with marble works, reading, writing drawing and challenging our brains the with app TenZen Lite! It has been a busy two weeks for me and my energetic class. I so enjoyed my "home visit" conferences during the frigid weather. Thanks for your participation at Parent Teacher Conferences. It was great to chat with all of you and share your child's progress. If you did not have a chance to reschedule your conference, I will email you this weekend to set a date and time.
**I will back track a little to cover the past 2 weeks of events. We did go on our field trip to see "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day." The students had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. Singing, dancing and acting!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Thanks to B. Ahring, B. Barnett, Ms. Cummings (Reid's Grandma) G. Shelton, L. Wojcik, H. Lim, T. Smyth and Ms. Jack who have volunteered to help us out on this special day. Anyone else????!! We would love to have you. Just email me. Our special day is Friday, February 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm. 100th Day Heart projects are due on Tuesday, February 4th. Don't forget.....we are also having an early Valentine's Day that day. Students need to bring a valentine for each child in the class---we have 18 students! Students may bring a treasure or treat for the class that will be placed in their treat bags. All food items we will be using for our food grid and necklaces will be nut free and gluten free. Oh yes.......don't forget your picture of a 100 year old person and 100 day old baby for our presentation board.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. You should have received notification of your child's mastery level. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Tuesday, February 4th. At that time you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**The good news---I explained how the BUSY READER CLUB works to the students. The bad news---We ran out of time today to choose books. So........we will start book check out on Monday!! All the information on the program is in your child's homework folder.
**Our kindergarten class will participate in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING!!!!!The FUN FAIR IS COMING!!! Play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. at Irving School. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, silent auction and a "special" presentation. It is a great way to spend the day and help raise money for our school!! Each class will donate a gift basket. Our class basket theme is cooking and baking. Donations and items can be dropped off at school or given directly to J. Flannery. (Colin's mom) The students are decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult chef apron. Come on....join in the fun!!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her unit on the Zones of Regulation. Check out the copy in your child's homework folder. Great discussions by all.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer finished his activity on attributes with small groups. Ms. Gullo introduced TanZen Lite app to small groups.
**NO SCHOOL--February 14th-Teacher's Institute Day and February 17th-President's Day.
**Keep saving those GIANT boxes and COOL STUFF for our space station projects that the students will construct in April. You can send the stuff in after spring break.
This week:
Where do I begin......It was about so many things.......Water, Sink/Float, Bubbles, Ice, counting to 100, counting by 10's, Chinese New Year (hail...year of the horse,) Punxsutawney Phil....Will he see his shadow?????? The students created a sign in chart. The majority think YES, he will see his shadow......Listen on February 2nd for the results!!! Can we take 6 more weeks of winter???!!!Station day activities included word search and word writing, color the code snowflake, blizzard bubble paintings, snowman sequencing, graphing and analyzing winter clothing and water table activities.
Reading/Social Studies: The students worked to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal homes they knew of. The students listened to the story,"The Mole and the Baby Bird." They looked at the cover and made predictions about story content. The students discussed the characters and the plot of the story. They made connections in their own lives of having a pet and the care involved. The students reviewed the sight words is and play. We played Sight Word Bingo and students partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and pictures. The students reviewed the target sounds of Ff and Oo. We took the time to do a quick review of all of our consonant and vowel sounds as well as consonant blends and digraphs. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. The story was reread and the students took turns using the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. Students practiced segmenting 3-4 phoneme words using their elkonin boxes. Students read the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap." They used a graphic organizer to talk about and record the setting, (where) characters (who) time (when) the plot (what happened) Students came up to the board to record in writing. I read a selection on the oral vocabulary cards called "Hidden Homes." The students discussed the what kind of animals might live in habitats they might not see. Are some homes beneath the ground? The students also listened the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." We had a an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students also worked on sound spelling CVC words on their dry erase boards. Workstation activities for the past 2 weeks included working in their activity books, leveled reading about animal homes--drawing pictures and writing about a habitat, buddy reading and discussion about a story and writing and answering questions, using the sentence starter We can and They can to create and illustrate what humans and animals can do and reader's checklist where students read to each other--teacher records their reading and the group listens to the playback to critique.
Math: The students are counting to 100 together. They worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect a certain number. How many ten frames do we meed for the number 45? The students work with number bonding for ways to say the number 5. They showed their work using cubes, blocks, markers, pencils, bears. We took pictures of their work using the iPad. Math workstations for these 2 weeks included number writing 0-20, pattern block match, count and record, numbers that come before a random number, number bingo and experimenting with the app TenZen Lite--shape formations, visual perception, thinking skills.
Writing: The students continue to work in their journals with sentence formation. I wrote a sentence on the board from one the journals and the students commented and made suggestions about it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? Does it have spaces between each word? Does it have an ending mark? Students made suggestions and corrections. We begun work on the "Magic C" lowercase letters.
Science: The students made some great discoveries the past 2 weeks about Water. In their sink or float experiment, the students made their guess and then took turns dropping the particular item into the water. They then recorded what actually happened. I used some big words--displacement (pushing away) and density (measure of mass.) Some groups had different pencils--erasers or no eraser.....Why did one sink and the other float? Why did the cork keep floating even after someone pushed it down? Why did the washer go straight to the bottom. Lots of discussion. Their science reflection journals had lots of sketches and thoughts. The students explored BUBBLES. What makes a bubble? The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by air (gas.) The outside layer is like a skin. The students examined various bubble wands. Some were circular, square, heart shaped and oval. The question posed to them was, "What shape will the bubbles be when blown out each wand? With our wands and soapy water, we ventured outside. It was bubbles mania!!! The students used the wands and blew bubbles. They noticed that all the bubbles were round no matter what the shape of the wand. While it was cold, the bubbles did not freeze but were slowed down. They kind of "hung " in the air. I turned the bubble machine on and the students had fun chasing the slow bubbles. Back in the classroom, the students recorded their adventure. What made the bubbles pop???? Philippe said, "The water around the bubble evaporates!" WOW! Pop! Lastly, the student created ice by each table setting out a bottle of water with a foil lid. Today--we had ice and a little dome of water on the top of the bottle. "The water got out of the bottle," said Julia. We talked about the word-- expand. Cool!
Technology: In reading small groups the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, I Write Words, Magic Reading 3 and Montessori Crossword were use to enhance segmenting/blending and word practice and beginning fluency. In math small group and individual work the apps Number Find, 100's Board, Math Bug were used to enhance place value, adding, number order. The students are loving their exploration of TanZen Lite using tangrams to work on critical thinking skills, problem solving and visual/spatial relationships as well as shape recognition. There is great site on Ground Hog Day that we looked at. The students enjoyed looking at measurements of precipitation (water) that is on the ground now courtesy of Weatherunderground.
Literature: "A Drop of Water--Bubbles," "Have you Filled Your Bucket Today," "Go to Sleep Ground Hog," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Celebrating the Chinese New Year," "Bringing in the New Year," "Some Things Float," "Why Does It Sink?" "The Reason for Seasons," "Curious George's Snowy Day."
**I will back track a little to cover the past 2 weeks of events. We did go on our field trip to see "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day." The students had a great time and really enjoyed themselves. Singing, dancing and acting!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Thanks to B. Ahring, B. Barnett, Ms. Cummings (Reid's Grandma) G. Shelton, L. Wojcik, H. Lim, T. Smyth and Ms. Jack who have volunteered to help us out on this special day. Anyone else????!! We would love to have you. Just email me. Our special day is Friday, February 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm. 100th Day Heart projects are due on Tuesday, February 4th. Don't forget.....we are also having an early Valentine's Day that day. Students need to bring a valentine for each child in the class---we have 18 students! Students may bring a treasure or treat for the class that will be placed in their treat bags. All food items we will be using for our food grid and necklaces will be nut free and gluten free. Oh yes.......don't forget your picture of a 100 year old person and 100 day old baby for our presentation board.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. You should have received notification of your child's mastery level. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Tuesday, February 4th. At that time you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**The good news---I explained how the BUSY READER CLUB works to the students. The bad news---We ran out of time today to choose books. So........we will start book check out on Monday!! All the information on the program is in your child's homework folder.
**Our kindergarten class will participate in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING!!!!!The FUN FAIR IS COMING!!! Play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. at Irving School. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, silent auction and a "special" presentation. It is a great way to spend the day and help raise money for our school!! Each class will donate a gift basket. Our class basket theme is cooking and baking. Donations and items can be dropped off at school or given directly to J. Flannery. (Colin's mom) The students are decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult chef apron. Come on....join in the fun!!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her unit on the Zones of Regulation. Check out the copy in your child's homework folder. Great discussions by all.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer finished his activity on attributes with small groups. Ms. Gullo introduced TanZen Lite app to small groups.
**NO SCHOOL--February 14th-Teacher's Institute Day and February 17th-President's Day.
**Keep saving those GIANT boxes and COOL STUFF for our space station projects that the students will construct in April. You can send the stuff in after spring break.
This week:
Where do I begin......It was about so many things.......Water, Sink/Float, Bubbles, Ice, counting to 100, counting by 10's, Chinese New Year (hail...year of the horse,) Punxsutawney Phil....Will he see his shadow?????? The students created a sign in chart. The majority think YES, he will see his shadow......Listen on February 2nd for the results!!! Can we take 6 more weeks of winter???!!!Station day activities included word search and word writing, color the code snowflake, blizzard bubble paintings, snowman sequencing, graphing and analyzing winter clothing and water table activities.
Reading/Social Studies: The students worked to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal homes they knew of. The students listened to the story,"The Mole and the Baby Bird." They looked at the cover and made predictions about story content. The students discussed the characters and the plot of the story. They made connections in their own lives of having a pet and the care involved. The students reviewed the sight words is and play. We played Sight Word Bingo and students partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and pictures. The students reviewed the target sounds of Ff and Oo. We took the time to do a quick review of all of our consonant and vowel sounds as well as consonant blends and digraphs. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. The story was reread and the students took turns using the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. Students practiced segmenting 3-4 phoneme words using their elkonin boxes. Students read the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap." They used a graphic organizer to talk about and record the setting, (where) characters (who) time (when) the plot (what happened) Students came up to the board to record in writing. I read a selection on the oral vocabulary cards called "Hidden Homes." The students discussed the what kind of animals might live in habitats they might not see. Are some homes beneath the ground? The students also listened the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." We had a an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students also worked on sound spelling CVC words on their dry erase boards. Workstation activities for the past 2 weeks included working in their activity books, leveled reading about animal homes--drawing pictures and writing about a habitat, buddy reading and discussion about a story and writing and answering questions, using the sentence starter We can and They can to create and illustrate what humans and animals can do and reader's checklist where students read to each other--teacher records their reading and the group listens to the playback to critique.
Math: The students are counting to 100 together. They worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect a certain number. How many ten frames do we meed for the number 45? The students work with number bonding for ways to say the number 5. They showed their work using cubes, blocks, markers, pencils, bears. We took pictures of their work using the iPad. Math workstations for these 2 weeks included number writing 0-20, pattern block match, count and record, numbers that come before a random number, number bingo and experimenting with the app TenZen Lite--shape formations, visual perception, thinking skills.
Writing: The students continue to work in their journals with sentence formation. I wrote a sentence on the board from one the journals and the students commented and made suggestions about it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? Does it have spaces between each word? Does it have an ending mark? Students made suggestions and corrections. We begun work on the "Magic C" lowercase letters.
Science: The students made some great discoveries the past 2 weeks about Water. In their sink or float experiment, the students made their guess and then took turns dropping the particular item into the water. They then recorded what actually happened. I used some big words--displacement (pushing away) and density (measure of mass.) Some groups had different pencils--erasers or no eraser.....Why did one sink and the other float? Why did the cork keep floating even after someone pushed it down? Why did the washer go straight to the bottom. Lots of discussion. Their science reflection journals had lots of sketches and thoughts. The students explored BUBBLES. What makes a bubble? The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by air (gas.) The outside layer is like a skin. The students examined various bubble wands. Some were circular, square, heart shaped and oval. The question posed to them was, "What shape will the bubbles be when blown out each wand? With our wands and soapy water, we ventured outside. It was bubbles mania!!! The students used the wands and blew bubbles. They noticed that all the bubbles were round no matter what the shape of the wand. While it was cold, the bubbles did not freeze but were slowed down. They kind of "hung " in the air. I turned the bubble machine on and the students had fun chasing the slow bubbles. Back in the classroom, the students recorded their adventure. What made the bubbles pop???? Philippe said, "The water around the bubble evaporates!" WOW! Pop! Lastly, the student created ice by each table setting out a bottle of water with a foil lid. Today--we had ice and a little dome of water on the top of the bottle. "The water got out of the bottle," said Julia. We talked about the word-- expand. Cool!
Technology: In reading small groups the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, I Write Words, Magic Reading 3 and Montessori Crossword were use to enhance segmenting/blending and word practice and beginning fluency. In math small group and individual work the apps Number Find, 100's Board, Math Bug were used to enhance place value, adding, number order. The students are loving their exploration of TanZen Lite using tangrams to work on critical thinking skills, problem solving and visual/spatial relationships as well as shape recognition. There is great site on Ground Hog Day that we looked at. The students enjoyed looking at measurements of precipitation (water) that is on the ground now courtesy of Weatherunderground.
Literature: "A Drop of Water--Bubbles," "Have you Filled Your Bucket Today," "Go to Sleep Ground Hog," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Celebrating the Chinese New Year," "Bringing in the New Year," "Some Things Float," "Why Does It Sink?" "The Reason for Seasons," "Curious George's Snowy Day."
Monday, January 20, 2014
UPDATES for 1/13-1/17 2014
**The students are getting back into the swing of things! We played a bit of catch up on skill review, reading and science and are working on midyear assessments. The students prepared for their upcoming field trip to see the production of "Alexander and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." We read the story aloud and sequenced the parts of the story verbally. The students reflected on a time when they had a bad day and what happened to them. The students reflected in writing in their journal about their experiences.
**The temperatures will be dipping again this week. I am asking that you send snow pants and boots along with hats and mittens with your child each day. Students will be able to enter the classroom instead of waiting outside. Please do not come any earlier than 7:50 am. Thanks!
**I still need a couple of permission slips and money for our Field Trip. Please get those to me on Tuesday. FIELD TRIP REMINDER: Students need to bring a bag lunch to school on Thursday, January 23rd for our field trip. We will be eating lunch back at school but are not sure if we will be back in time for school lunch services. We will be taking one parent volunteer with us (thanks to Samantha's mom!) Please send your child at the regular school time (8:00 am.) The bus will leave promptly at 9:00 am. We will return to school around noon. We will have a regular afternoon session.
**Please send in your confirmation for Mid year Parent/Teacher Conferences. Conferences will be held on Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. At that time, I will be sharing with you midyear assessments and behavior, DIBELS and DARRELL MORRIS scores and other student work.
**Please note that THURSDAY and FRIDAY, January 30th and 31st, school will be in session ONLY in the MORNING. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and District School Bus pick up will be a t 11:00 am.
**In your child's home work folder are directions for set up for at home XTRMATH and BRAINPOP activities. These activities, like the other online activities listed on the blog are optional. I am still experimenting myself with all the activities on BRAINPOP. XTRAMATH is a drill and practice math addition and subtraction program. Try them if you like!
**Friendship Club resumes this Friday.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer did a hands on activity about attributes using pattern blocks.
** Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm.
We need LOTS of volunteers! We have 4 so far, but could use 5 more. Parent volunteers will help facilitate learning stations surrounding the number 100, counting by 10's to 100, grouping by 10's, rote counting and writing numbers to 100 and art activities illustrating the numbers 100. Email me if you can help.
**The students have a 100th Day-100 Item project that will be sent home on Friday, January 24th. It will be due on February 4th. Instructions on what to do and more information on our special day will be included.
**Reading Grandma Mary began hearing young readers last week! She will be here every Monday from 9-11:15 am. We are so happy to have her!
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, food, silent auction, dancing for deserts and more. Each classroom is donating a special basket of their choice. Our class is donating a basket of "baking items." Look for an email from our room parents with the details. You can send in your donation with your child to me at school or directly to the room parents. Donations have already started coming. Come on......join in the fun!!!!
**No School--February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**Hearing Screening for all students is Tuesday, February 25th.
This week:
It was all about doing something nice for others, Martin Luther King and water. The students turned our "Complimen-tree" into a mitten tree after reading and discussing the inspirational story, "The Mitten Tree, " by Candace Christiansen. The students began inquiries into the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so interesting! We read several stories on Martin Luther King Jr. and used our map skills to trace the path of the March on Washington. The students were so thankful of his accomplishments and his use of non violence to promote change. There were some very reflective moments during our discussions where students could not believe that there was a time when they would not have had the opportunity to go to school together. We love our classmates! Station Day activities included, creating "climbing water" snowflakes, creating conversations in a speech balloon to go with our painted snowman, working with number quantities 1-20 (cut and paste) and working with sight word vocabulary--word search and word shapes. Students are exploring pattern block created designs and using the "Marble Works" to experiment with hills and inclines during choice time.
Reading/ Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading Series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing in the zoo. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions the cat or kitten might perform. Those students who had cats as pets shared information about the kinds of actions their pets perform and compared it to the story. Our sight words for this week are is and in. We added them to our current list. Our target sound is short and long Oo. The students worked on associating the sound using picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme, "The
Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the short Oo words. They continued their study of action words (verbs) by creating a list of action words that kittens can do. Our Robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, GENTLE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCES. The students worked with sequencing story events in the Big Book story. They worked with their elkonin boxes to blend sounds using short Oo to make words. The students worked on asking and answering questions about a text after listening to the folk tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato." They also used the Venn Diagram model to record similarities and differences between mice and cats. They also worked on retelling key events in the folk tale using the format--first---next--then--last. In our work on sound foundation, the students did an exercise there they placed a marker where they heard the target sound--beginning ---middle ---end. Our workstations this week included word maker---where the students choose a picture and find the letters to spell it (3-4 phonemes,) sight word spell and sentence practice using the app Magnetic Letters, " I can," "they can" people and animals sentences and illustrations and leveled reading and comprehension activities and fluency practice.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond with 70 being the approaching proficiency benchmark. Small group workstations included writing numbers to 0-20, using pattern blocks to sort by common attributes, using ten frames to illustrate teen numbers, writing 2 digit numbers and using digits 1-4 to record ways to say the number 5. Students continue to work on recognizing even and odd numbers and representing the idea of addition with objects, drawings, fingers and images.
Writing: The students continued work on their Snowman writing projects. Ms. Chinn has completed our Writer's Workshop lessons and we will take it from here. She ended her activities with "Stars" and "Wishes" student to student critique of each others writing. We will be continuing the format of journaling via labeling, sentences, diagramming stressing sentence structure....naming and telling....expanding sentence length...using punctuation and sharing our writing with our peers as well as the teacher during the individual journal conference. Lowercase letter formation will begin next week.
Science: The students began with a discussion/dictation on what they know about water. They were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student was given an experiment book as well as a science reflection journal to record their experiments as well as their own thoughts, questions, comments and drawings and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools--spoon, straws, sticks, cups. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, the students discovered water droplets have their own shape and have the ability to "stick" to one another. Using a pipet, the students practiced sucking up water into it and releasing the water back into their cup. It was fun to watch the students carefully trying to capture one droplet of water and placing it on their wax paper. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet. We talked about the scientific word--cohesion-- to describe the sticking together process. The students could not separate the droplets back into two. In Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towels, paper, sponges and kleenex in wiping up water. What makes paper towels and sponges best at doing this? The students talked with their tablemates about the answer. Some tables said the water is sucked up into the paper towel and sponges....but how? As the students used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, some notice holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. The students then suspended a paper towel on a dowel rod into a cup and I pour in red water. What happened???? The water climbed up into the spaces or holes in the towel and made its way up the towel. Cool! The next day, the students observed the red water in their cup was gone. What have we leaned so far about water? Ask your child! Friday, the students did the same experiment using celery instead of paper towel. They made some predictions. Philippe mentioned a root system....Colin mentioned veins in the stem......Stay tuned for the result on Tuesday!
Technology: In reading, student small groups and individual used the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling sight words and creating sentences, the apps Rocket Speller, Montessori Crossword and Reading Magic 3 were used for reinforcing segmenting and blending sounds and creating words. The app iTalk was used by leveled reading groups to record and play back reading for fluency. In math, student small groups and individuals used the apps Number Find, 100's Board and Monster Squeeze for enrichment.
Literature: "Water," "A Drop of Water," "Investigating Water--Chapter 1," "Water is Everywhere," "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin's BIG Words," "Martin's Dreams," "Dreams"--Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King.
**The temperatures will be dipping again this week. I am asking that you send snow pants and boots along with hats and mittens with your child each day. Students will be able to enter the classroom instead of waiting outside. Please do not come any earlier than 7:50 am. Thanks!
**I still need a couple of permission slips and money for our Field Trip. Please get those to me on Tuesday. FIELD TRIP REMINDER: Students need to bring a bag lunch to school on Thursday, January 23rd for our field trip. We will be eating lunch back at school but are not sure if we will be back in time for school lunch services. We will be taking one parent volunteer with us (thanks to Samantha's mom!) Please send your child at the regular school time (8:00 am.) The bus will leave promptly at 9:00 am. We will return to school around noon. We will have a regular afternoon session.
**Please send in your confirmation for Mid year Parent/Teacher Conferences. Conferences will be held on Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. At that time, I will be sharing with you midyear assessments and behavior, DIBELS and DARRELL MORRIS scores and other student work.
**Please note that THURSDAY and FRIDAY, January 30th and 31st, school will be in session ONLY in the MORNING. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and District School Bus pick up will be a t 11:00 am.
**In your child's home work folder are directions for set up for at home XTRMATH and BRAINPOP activities. These activities, like the other online activities listed on the blog are optional. I am still experimenting myself with all the activities on BRAINPOP. XTRAMATH is a drill and practice math addition and subtraction program. Try them if you like!
**Friendship Club resumes this Friday.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer did a hands on activity about attributes using pattern blocks.
** Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm.
We need LOTS of volunteers! We have 4 so far, but could use 5 more. Parent volunteers will help facilitate learning stations surrounding the number 100, counting by 10's to 100, grouping by 10's, rote counting and writing numbers to 100 and art activities illustrating the numbers 100. Email me if you can help.
**The students have a 100th Day-100 Item project that will be sent home on Friday, January 24th. It will be due on February 4th. Instructions on what to do and more information on our special day will be included.
**Reading Grandma Mary began hearing young readers last week! She will be here every Monday from 9-11:15 am. We are so happy to have her!
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, food, silent auction, dancing for deserts and more. Each classroom is donating a special basket of their choice. Our class is donating a basket of "baking items." Look for an email from our room parents with the details. You can send in your donation with your child to me at school or directly to the room parents. Donations have already started coming. Come on......join in the fun!!!!
**No School--February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**Hearing Screening for all students is Tuesday, February 25th.
This week:
It was all about doing something nice for others, Martin Luther King and water. The students turned our "Complimen-tree" into a mitten tree after reading and discussing the inspirational story, "The Mitten Tree, " by Candace Christiansen. The students began inquiries into the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so interesting! We read several stories on Martin Luther King Jr. and used our map skills to trace the path of the March on Washington. The students were so thankful of his accomplishments and his use of non violence to promote change. There were some very reflective moments during our discussions where students could not believe that there was a time when they would not have had the opportunity to go to school together. We love our classmates! Station Day activities included, creating "climbing water" snowflakes, creating conversations in a speech balloon to go with our painted snowman, working with number quantities 1-20 (cut and paste) and working with sight word vocabulary--word search and word shapes. Students are exploring pattern block created designs and using the "Marble Works" to experiment with hills and inclines during choice time.
Reading/ Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading Series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing in the zoo. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions the cat or kitten might perform. Those students who had cats as pets shared information about the kinds of actions their pets perform and compared it to the story. Our sight words for this week are is and in. We added them to our current list. Our target sound is short and long Oo. The students worked on associating the sound using picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme, "The
Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the short Oo words. They continued their study of action words (verbs) by creating a list of action words that kittens can do. Our Robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, GENTLE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCES. The students worked with sequencing story events in the Big Book story. They worked with their elkonin boxes to blend sounds using short Oo to make words. The students worked on asking and answering questions about a text after listening to the folk tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato." They also used the Venn Diagram model to record similarities and differences between mice and cats. They also worked on retelling key events in the folk tale using the format--first---next--then--last. In our work on sound foundation, the students did an exercise there they placed a marker where they heard the target sound--beginning ---middle ---end. Our workstations this week included word maker---where the students choose a picture and find the letters to spell it (3-4 phonemes,) sight word spell and sentence practice using the app Magnetic Letters, " I can," "they can" people and animals sentences and illustrations and leveled reading and comprehension activities and fluency practice.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond with 70 being the approaching proficiency benchmark. Small group workstations included writing numbers to 0-20, using pattern blocks to sort by common attributes, using ten frames to illustrate teen numbers, writing 2 digit numbers and using digits 1-4 to record ways to say the number 5. Students continue to work on recognizing even and odd numbers and representing the idea of addition with objects, drawings, fingers and images.
Writing: The students continued work on their Snowman writing projects. Ms. Chinn has completed our Writer's Workshop lessons and we will take it from here. She ended her activities with "Stars" and "Wishes" student to student critique of each others writing. We will be continuing the format of journaling via labeling, sentences, diagramming stressing sentence structure....naming and telling....expanding sentence length...using punctuation and sharing our writing with our peers as well as the teacher during the individual journal conference. Lowercase letter formation will begin next week.
Science: The students began with a discussion/dictation on what they know about water. They were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student was given an experiment book as well as a science reflection journal to record their experiments as well as their own thoughts, questions, comments and drawings and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools--spoon, straws, sticks, cups. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, the students discovered water droplets have their own shape and have the ability to "stick" to one another. Using a pipet, the students practiced sucking up water into it and releasing the water back into their cup. It was fun to watch the students carefully trying to capture one droplet of water and placing it on their wax paper. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet. We talked about the scientific word--cohesion-- to describe the sticking together process. The students could not separate the droplets back into two. In Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towels, paper, sponges and kleenex in wiping up water. What makes paper towels and sponges best at doing this? The students talked with their tablemates about the answer. Some tables said the water is sucked up into the paper towel and sponges....but how? As the students used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, some notice holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. The students then suspended a paper towel on a dowel rod into a cup and I pour in red water. What happened???? The water climbed up into the spaces or holes in the towel and made its way up the towel. Cool! The next day, the students observed the red water in their cup was gone. What have we leaned so far about water? Ask your child! Friday, the students did the same experiment using celery instead of paper towel. They made some predictions. Philippe mentioned a root system....Colin mentioned veins in the stem......Stay tuned for the result on Tuesday!
Technology: In reading, student small groups and individual used the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling sight words and creating sentences, the apps Rocket Speller, Montessori Crossword and Reading Magic 3 were used for reinforcing segmenting and blending sounds and creating words. The app iTalk was used by leveled reading groups to record and play back reading for fluency. In math, student small groups and individuals used the apps Number Find, 100's Board and Monster Squeeze for enrichment.
Literature: "Water," "A Drop of Water," "Investigating Water--Chapter 1," "Water is Everywhere," "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin's BIG Words," "Martin's Dreams," "Dreams"--Quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King.
Monday, January 13, 2014
UPDATES for 1/8-1/10 2014
**Happy New Year and welcome back! I hope you all had a restful break. The cold and snow led to a delay in beginning our new school year but the students returned excited and rested. Please welcome a new addition to our class, Samantha Shelton! Even thought the temperatures will rise next week, please continue to send snow pants and boots. It is going to be quite messy and wet and we want the students to remain as dry as possible. Thanks!
**Eagle Extras classes begin on Monday, January 13th. I have a listing for each day. The students will be picked up from our classroom at dismissal.
**Keep sending in permission slips and money for our Field Trip to see the play "Alexander and the No Good Horrible, Very Bad Day" at the Museum of Science and Industry. All slips and money need to be in by Wednesday, January 15th for our January 23rd trip.
**You will receive a notice on Tuesday about Midyear Parent/Teacher Conferences that will be held on Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. Please note that Thursday and Friday, January 30th and 31st school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and bus pick up is at 11:00 am.
**I am beginning mid year assessments with students this week. DIBELS, DARRELL MORRIS, as well as midyear assessments in math, reading and writing will be shared with you at conference time.
**Students participated in a VISION SCREENING on Friday, January 10th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began on Thursday, January 9th. All students received notification of the skill they will be working on.
**NO SCHOOL on MONDAY, JANUARY 20th in observance of ML King Day.
**There was no Friendship Club this week. It will resume next Friday.
** In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer completed his activity on yesterday and today.
**Our Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 8th year of listening to young readers. She will be here every Monday morning from 9-11:30 am. She is thrilled to be back and we are so happy to have her!
** Please note a new date for our 100th Day/ Valentine's Day Celebration. It is now FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm. We need LOTS of volunteers to help with activities that focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's. Let me know if you can help.
This week: It was all about the snow and cold. There was much discussion about the temperature and and how you do not want to get frostbite! Most students came very prepared to battle the temps and mountains of snow on our playground. The students began work on a snowman project project which included drawing, writing, math and reading. It will be completed next week. The students began their inquiry into what they know about WATER. Our experiments begin next week. Station Day activities included creating a windsock snowman, counting and recoding the number of snowballs on a shovel, completing their number rhyme practice books and counting on with snowmen to solve addition problems.
Reading/Social Studies: The students used this short week as a review for all skills related to reading. They reviewed current sight vocabulary by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down," and practiced writing their words. The students used their words and pictures to create sentences with a partner. Students worked on leveled readers and comprehension strategies as well as asking and answering questions about what they had read. The students practiced reading to a partner and sharing comments with one another on fluency. Students worked on letter/sound foundation, segmenting and sound blending skills. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to record the order in which they hear sounds in a 3 and 4 letter word. Students reviewed the job of an author and illustrator, discussed what made a story fiction or nonfiction. The students used games to reinforce concepts of letter/sound correspondence, word families, and spelling.
Math: The students continue to on rote counting to 70 and beyond and writing single and double digit numbers. They began their new math calendar books for January. The skills worked on included writing numbers coming before or after a targeted number, recording ways to say a targeted number thru number bonds, strategies for recognizing even and odd numbers, patterns continuation, using ten frames to illustrate a given numbers and adding numbers using dominoes and dice.
Writing: The students reviewed letter formation strategies for all upper case letters and practiced in their orange books. We will begin letter formation practice for lowercase letters next week. Ms. Chinn continued her writer's workshop activities with a discussion of VOICE when writing. The students continued to work in their writing journals on letter formation, beginning sentences with a capital letter, spacing of words in a sentence, having some kind of ending mark, placement of words on a given line, rereading their sentences to see if they NAME and TELL. They continue to work on their snowman writing project.
Science: The students began their inquiry and discussion on WATER. Their experiments will begin next week.
Technology: No new apps were presented this week.
Literature: "The Biggest Best Snowman," "The Snowman," "It's Winter," "Thomas' Snowsuit," "Snowman Magic," "Snow Day for Mouse," " There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow."
**Eagle Extras classes begin on Monday, January 13th. I have a listing for each day. The students will be picked up from our classroom at dismissal.
**Keep sending in permission slips and money for our Field Trip to see the play "Alexander and the No Good Horrible, Very Bad Day" at the Museum of Science and Industry. All slips and money need to be in by Wednesday, January 15th for our January 23rd trip.
**You will receive a notice on Tuesday about Midyear Parent/Teacher Conferences that will be held on Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. Please note that Thursday and Friday, January 30th and 31st school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and bus pick up is at 11:00 am.
**I am beginning mid year assessments with students this week. DIBELS, DARRELL MORRIS, as well as midyear assessments in math, reading and writing will be shared with you at conference time.
**Students participated in a VISION SCREENING on Friday, January 10th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began on Thursday, January 9th. All students received notification of the skill they will be working on.
**NO SCHOOL on MONDAY, JANUARY 20th in observance of ML King Day.
**There was no Friendship Club this week. It will resume next Friday.
** In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer completed his activity on yesterday and today.
**Our Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 8th year of listening to young readers. She will be here every Monday morning from 9-11:30 am. She is thrilled to be back and we are so happy to have her!
** Please note a new date for our 100th Day/ Valentine's Day Celebration. It is now FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7th from 1:00-2:55 pm. We need LOTS of volunteers to help with activities that focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's. Let me know if you can help.
This week: It was all about the snow and cold. There was much discussion about the temperature and and how you do not want to get frostbite! Most students came very prepared to battle the temps and mountains of snow on our playground. The students began work on a snowman project project which included drawing, writing, math and reading. It will be completed next week. The students began their inquiry into what they know about WATER. Our experiments begin next week. Station Day activities included creating a windsock snowman, counting and recoding the number of snowballs on a shovel, completing their number rhyme practice books and counting on with snowmen to solve addition problems.
Reading/Social Studies: The students used this short week as a review for all skills related to reading. They reviewed current sight vocabulary by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down," and practiced writing their words. The students used their words and pictures to create sentences with a partner. Students worked on leveled readers and comprehension strategies as well as asking and answering questions about what they had read. The students practiced reading to a partner and sharing comments with one another on fluency. Students worked on letter/sound foundation, segmenting and sound blending skills. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to record the order in which they hear sounds in a 3 and 4 letter word. Students reviewed the job of an author and illustrator, discussed what made a story fiction or nonfiction. The students used games to reinforce concepts of letter/sound correspondence, word families, and spelling.
Math: The students continue to on rote counting to 70 and beyond and writing single and double digit numbers. They began their new math calendar books for January. The skills worked on included writing numbers coming before or after a targeted number, recording ways to say a targeted number thru number bonds, strategies for recognizing even and odd numbers, patterns continuation, using ten frames to illustrate a given numbers and adding numbers using dominoes and dice.
Writing: The students reviewed letter formation strategies for all upper case letters and practiced in their orange books. We will begin letter formation practice for lowercase letters next week. Ms. Chinn continued her writer's workshop activities with a discussion of VOICE when writing. The students continued to work in their writing journals on letter formation, beginning sentences with a capital letter, spacing of words in a sentence, having some kind of ending mark, placement of words on a given line, rereading their sentences to see if they NAME and TELL. They continue to work on their snowman writing project.
Science: The students began their inquiry and discussion on WATER. Their experiments will begin next week.
Technology: No new apps were presented this week.
Literature: "The Biggest Best Snowman," "The Snowman," "It's Winter," "Thomas' Snowsuit," "Snowman Magic," "Snow Day for Mouse," " There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow."
Monday, December 23, 2013
UPDATES for 12/16-12/20 2013
**The week was filled with compliment cards, friendship chains and song. Our Winter Concert was fabulous! Thanks to Ms. Hiolski and Ms. Freisen for their guidance. Our after the concerts get togethers were chock full of great treats and crafts. A huge thanks to our room parents--L. Wojcik, J. Flannery, E. Rodriguez-Collier and B. Barnett for all their organization and set up. The students were very delighted to see parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters at the concert.
**Our BOOK BUDDY get together was awesome! I read 2 stories about Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and used it as a spring board to discussion about taking pride in your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. Sometimes, it just takes one person or one event to help us see our own worth. After our stories and discussion, our book buddies help us make a Rudolph out of construction paper. We had treats and raised our juice cups to salute our achievements of 2013 and welcome in 2014! A big thanks to Ms. Balicki's room parent, Ms. Koch for her help.
**Senorita Zaragoza talked to the students about the festival of Las Posadas. She shared a story and music about the procession in the streets re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn and the stable that became their room. I presented the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. Students pointed out the use of the special candle holder called a kinara. Lots of discussion centered around stars and babies. I shared some traditional stories--"The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," and "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
**Please take a look a the information about BRAIN POP that is in your child's folder.t I am in the process of learning about it myself. The funding for it was provided by PTO. Feel free to experiment with it. I will have more info on its use in kindergarten after break.
**A special shout out to Ms. D. our Tuesday helper!
**Reading Grandma Mary will return for her 7th year of hearing budding readers. She will begin coming in January. We can't wait to see her!
**Mid Year DIBELS testing will take place the first 2 weeks of January and Route to Reading Rotation 4 will resume January 7th.
**Vision Screening for students will take place on Tuesday, January 14th.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. You will receive notification of your specific day and time when we return from break.
**Classes resume on Monday, January 6th.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD in 2014---We will begin our next cross curricular theme--WINTER and finish up Unit 4 FOOD in our Treasures Reading series. We will also begin out first Science Unit--Investigating the Properties of Water. In reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting/adding/deleting phonemes in 4-5- and even 6 phoneme words. We will also work on oral and written comprehension, asking and answering questions about a text, comparing texts, reading fluency, vocabulary building, identifying story elements and identifying the authors message. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. In the area of writing, the students will finish uppercase letter formation and will begin lowercase formation. They will continue sentence structure, inventive spelling, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentence length to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond by 1's and 10's, write their numbers, demonstrate knowledge of numbers that are greater than and less than, name pattern block and geometric solid shapes, represent addition with objects, fingers and mental images and drawing, solve addition story problems using drawings and work on teen numbers and ways to say a number from 1-5 using 2 numbers added together. Socially, the students will work on becoming more responsible and independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. Technologically, The students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of their curriculum. WOW! We will be really busy!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work on Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you have ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they have helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated fact from fiction--sweet potatoes are real but--they do not get bigger as they roll down the hill and you CAN make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. They orally asked and answered questions about the story. They reviewed the sight word--have and "walked their words" with a partner. We also reviewed all sight words learned thus far by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down." The students reviewed target sounds Cc and Nn. they continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students used the story sequence cards to summarize events and make inferences about what would happen in the Sweet Potato story. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to segment 3-4 phoneme words. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can." They shared their story with a partner during read aloud time.
Math: The students reviewed number formation rhymes for numbers 0-5 and practice writing them in their Number Books. The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting quantities, oral number stories and ways to say a number. We also continue to work on the concepts of greater than and less than, sequencing numbers that come before or after a random number and number bonding or ways to say a number---ways to say 5--2 and 3......4 and 1.....5 and 0 etc. The students used their following direction skills as well as sequencing order in cutting out and putting together Rudolph. They also continued to work on their Gingerbread Pattern project using the Starfall Gingerbread app.
Writing: In Ms. Chinn's Writer's Workshop this week, the students took a look at WORD CHOICE when creating their stories. Students looked at expanding their sentences and adding more detail to their work. The students worked on a Gingerbread Writing project. They created their gingerbread person and used the word bank to write 2-3 descriptive sentences about their person. Sentence structure and spacing were stressed. They also worked on their placement of letters of a given line.
Technology: In reading the apps Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 were used in students small groups to strengthen segmenting and blending skills. They also used the apps Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller and Dolch Words with a partner. In math, the apps Starfall Gingerbread, Monster Squeeze, Number Find, Domino Match and Sam Phibian were used with individuals and small groups. Students are also working with the app iTalk to record their reading and work on developing fluency.
Literature: "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "A Kwanzaa Counting Book," "Kwanzaa," "Las Posadas," "Too Many Tamales," "The Gingerbread Bear," "K is for Kwanzaa," "This is the Star," "A Child is Born," "The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
**Our BOOK BUDDY get together was awesome! I read 2 stories about Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and used it as a spring board to discussion about taking pride in your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. Sometimes, it just takes one person or one event to help us see our own worth. After our stories and discussion, our book buddies help us make a Rudolph out of construction paper. We had treats and raised our juice cups to salute our achievements of 2013 and welcome in 2014! A big thanks to Ms. Balicki's room parent, Ms. Koch for her help.
**Senorita Zaragoza talked to the students about the festival of Las Posadas. She shared a story and music about the procession in the streets re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn and the stable that became their room. I presented the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. Students pointed out the use of the special candle holder called a kinara. Lots of discussion centered around stars and babies. I shared some traditional stories--"The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," and "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
**Please take a look a the information about BRAIN POP that is in your child's folder.t I am in the process of learning about it myself. The funding for it was provided by PTO. Feel free to experiment with it. I will have more info on its use in kindergarten after break.
**A special shout out to Ms. D. our Tuesday helper!
**Reading Grandma Mary will return for her 7th year of hearing budding readers. She will begin coming in January. We can't wait to see her!
**Mid Year DIBELS testing will take place the first 2 weeks of January and Route to Reading Rotation 4 will resume January 7th.
**Vision Screening for students will take place on Tuesday, January 14th.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held Monday, January 27th, Tuesday, January 28th and Wednesday, January 29th. You will receive notification of your specific day and time when we return from break.
**Classes resume on Monday, January 6th.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD in 2014---We will begin our next cross curricular theme--WINTER and finish up Unit 4 FOOD in our Treasures Reading series. We will also begin out first Science Unit--Investigating the Properties of Water. In reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting/adding/deleting phonemes in 4-5- and even 6 phoneme words. We will also work on oral and written comprehension, asking and answering questions about a text, comparing texts, reading fluency, vocabulary building, identifying story elements and identifying the authors message. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. In the area of writing, the students will finish uppercase letter formation and will begin lowercase formation. They will continue sentence structure, inventive spelling, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentence length to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond by 1's and 10's, write their numbers, demonstrate knowledge of numbers that are greater than and less than, name pattern block and geometric solid shapes, represent addition with objects, fingers and mental images and drawing, solve addition story problems using drawings and work on teen numbers and ways to say a number from 1-5 using 2 numbers added together. Socially, the students will work on becoming more responsible and independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. Technologically, The students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of their curriculum. WOW! We will be really busy!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work on Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you have ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they have helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated fact from fiction--sweet potatoes are real but--they do not get bigger as they roll down the hill and you CAN make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. They orally asked and answered questions about the story. They reviewed the sight word--have and "walked their words" with a partner. We also reviewed all sight words learned thus far by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down." The students reviewed target sounds Cc and Nn. they continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students used the story sequence cards to summarize events and make inferences about what would happen in the Sweet Potato story. They continue to use their elkonin boxes to segment 3-4 phoneme words. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can." They shared their story with a partner during read aloud time.
Math: The students reviewed number formation rhymes for numbers 0-5 and practice writing them in their Number Books. The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting quantities, oral number stories and ways to say a number. We also continue to work on the concepts of greater than and less than, sequencing numbers that come before or after a random number and number bonding or ways to say a number---ways to say 5--2 and 3......4 and 1.....5 and 0 etc. The students used their following direction skills as well as sequencing order in cutting out and putting together Rudolph. They also continued to work on their Gingerbread Pattern project using the Starfall Gingerbread app.
Writing: In Ms. Chinn's Writer's Workshop this week, the students took a look at WORD CHOICE when creating their stories. Students looked at expanding their sentences and adding more detail to their work. The students worked on a Gingerbread Writing project. They created their gingerbread person and used the word bank to write 2-3 descriptive sentences about their person. Sentence structure and spacing were stressed. They also worked on their placement of letters of a given line.
Technology: In reading the apps Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 were used in students small groups to strengthen segmenting and blending skills. They also used the apps Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller and Dolch Words with a partner. In math, the apps Starfall Gingerbread, Monster Squeeze, Number Find, Domino Match and Sam Phibian were used with individuals and small groups. Students are also working with the app iTalk to record their reading and work on developing fluency.
Literature: "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "A Kwanzaa Counting Book," "Kwanzaa," "Las Posadas," "Too Many Tamales," "The Gingerbread Bear," "K is for Kwanzaa," "This is the Star," "A Child is Born," "The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
Monday, December 16, 2013
UPDATES for 12/9-12/13 2013
**The students spent a busy week practicing their songs for the Winter Concert and learning about the traditions and celebrations of others. It is really beginning to feel like winter. We were unable to go out to recess at lunchtime due to the cold conditions. For our last week at school before break, I am asking students to bring snow pants and wear boots everyday next week. There are suppose to be rising temperatures next week which will make for a very soggy and slushy playground. Our playground and field do not get plowed and so for the students to remain as dry as possible snow pants and boots are the best. I do have 3 extra pair of snow pants for students to borrow. Also, don't forget to send shoes each day.
**Come One, Come All to the Kindergarten/Grade One Winter Concert on Friday, December 20th in the Irving Auditorium. The concert will be held 2 times--First performance is at 8:15 am----the second performance is at 9:45 am. I would go early to get a good seat especially if you are attending the 8:15 concert. Please come back into the room after each performance for a refreshment reception and crafts to share . It will be great time to get together with other families to share conversation and community. Our wonderful room parents have been working on the arrangements for our reception. Our afternoon will be spent with station day activities with our 5th grade Book Buddies.
**Let me know is your child is traveling for the winter break. I will prepare a travel journal for them.
**School is closed--December 21st-January 5th. School reopens on Monday, January 6, 2014!
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 will conclude next week. You will receive notification on your child's skill development. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin in late January. This will give us time at the beginning of January to do midyear DIBELS assessments.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on asking and answering questions in a cool guessing game.
**In Mr. Packer's Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer continued his lesson on dots and letters--visual imagery and perception.
This week:
It continues to be about gingerbread, celebrations and traditions. The students listened to a number of gingerbread stories. They examined characters, setting and main events in the stories. They compared and contrasted the characters and plot. How did it end? (eaten..not eaten) Who were the characters? (boy, baby, girl, man, cowboy, fox, wolf, coyote) What happened in the story? They had loads of fun. The students read about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah with all its tradition and symbols. They learned to play the dreidel game. The students also read about Advent and the story of Christmas with all of its traditions and symbols. Students are beginning to understanding the unifying theme of the use of lights in celebrations--candles, strands of lights on trees, the light of the North Star. Station day activities included creating a candle with glitter and jewels, color by code a menorah, working in our number formation book with number forms 0-5 and making a "geome-tree" using rectangle and triangles to form a Christmas tree.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in their Treasures Reading series. The unit began with a question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yards in the summer. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." They listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple farmer. Students made connections on their fall theme about apples and types of apples and what you can make with apples. Other students talked about the time they went to a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target words are to and have. We have added these words to our growing list of sight words. Our target letter and sound is Nn. The students also reviewed the use of action words or verbs. They used the retelling cards to retell the Annie story in their own words. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 3 and 4 letter words. The students continued their work on consonant blends and digraphs. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students answered questions about the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students had never made their own but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to the informational text, "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." They reviewed what a diagram was and how to follow a recipe. Workstations this week included creating a pretend meal in house corner, taking a photo of it and then writing about your favorite meal and where it came from, using the sentence starter, "I like.... and writing about a food you like, reader's response--reading and discussing the story with your group and writing about what you liked or did not like about the story, leveled reading working on story elements and comprehension and short vowel word sort and continued recording of reading aloud using iTalk for fluency checks.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 75. This week they worked on number formation rhymes using numbers 0-5. The students are creating a number formation book for practice and counting using their ten frames. Students worked in math centers writing numbers to 50, counting quantities and recording their answer, discussing and recording the numbers that complete their number bond (ways to say a number--10 can be 5 plus 5, 2 plus 8 etc,) reinforcing recognition of pattern block shapes, playing "Make 5 Bingo. The students continue to work on the app Starfall Gingerbread--following and continuing a pattern.
Writing: The students are working on the Starting Center Capitals A, T, J, I. They applied what they had learned in their orange book. Ms. Chinn continues to work with the students in Writer's Workshop. This weeks lesson focused on the "organization" of writing. Ms. Chinn used the example of a train--it has an engine (beginning) box cars (middle) and a caboose (ending). She also used the words FIRST....NEXT......LAST as words to use when organizing sentences. Students worked on a piece of writing and then a few students volunteered to share their writing with the group again with the "stars" and "wishes" peer critiquing. The students are prepping for a writing project on a gingerbread person. Part one of this project was to create the gingerbread person of their choice given a template. Next week the students will write about their creation.
Technology: In the area of reading, small group and individual students used the apps, Montessori Crossword, Spelling Bug and Rocket Speller to listen to and record letter sounds to create words (3-4-5 phonemes.) Another group of students used the app iTalk to record their reading for fluency and clarity. The app Sound Sort continues to assist individual students with sound/symbol connections. In the area of math, small group and individual students used the apps Number Find, Math Bug and Domino Match to reinforce the concepts of counting quantities, adding quantities and finding a number using base ten strategies. Students partnered up to use the app Monster Squeeze using numbers from 1-30. All students continue to work on their patterning project using the app Starfall Gingerbread.
Literature: "The Gingerbread Doll," "The Gingerbread Girl," ""Gingerbread Jimmy," "The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "The Gingerbread Baby," "Gingerbread Fred," "Hanukkah," "Counting the Days to Hanukkah," "The Story of Hanukkah," "The Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Celebrate the Holiday," ""The Story of Christmas."
**Come One, Come All to the Kindergarten/Grade One Winter Concert on Friday, December 20th in the Irving Auditorium. The concert will be held 2 times--First performance is at 8:15 am----the second performance is at 9:45 am. I would go early to get a good seat especially if you are attending the 8:15 concert. Please come back into the room after each performance for a refreshment reception and crafts to share . It will be great time to get together with other families to share conversation and community. Our wonderful room parents have been working on the arrangements for our reception. Our afternoon will be spent with station day activities with our 5th grade Book Buddies.
**Let me know is your child is traveling for the winter break. I will prepare a travel journal for them.
**School is closed--December 21st-January 5th. School reopens on Monday, January 6, 2014!
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 will conclude next week. You will receive notification on your child's skill development. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin in late January. This will give us time at the beginning of January to do midyear DIBELS assessments.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on asking and answering questions in a cool guessing game.
**In Mr. Packer's Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer continued his lesson on dots and letters--visual imagery and perception.
This week:
It continues to be about gingerbread, celebrations and traditions. The students listened to a number of gingerbread stories. They examined characters, setting and main events in the stories. They compared and contrasted the characters and plot. How did it end? (eaten..not eaten) Who were the characters? (boy, baby, girl, man, cowboy, fox, wolf, coyote) What happened in the story? They had loads of fun. The students read about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah with all its tradition and symbols. They learned to play the dreidel game. The students also read about Advent and the story of Christmas with all of its traditions and symbols. Students are beginning to understanding the unifying theme of the use of lights in celebrations--candles, strands of lights on trees, the light of the North Star. Station day activities included creating a candle with glitter and jewels, color by code a menorah, working in our number formation book with number forms 0-5 and making a "geome-tree" using rectangle and triangles to form a Christmas tree.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in their Treasures Reading series. The unit began with a question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yards in the summer. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." They listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple farmer. Students made connections on their fall theme about apples and types of apples and what you can make with apples. Other students talked about the time they went to a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target words are to and have. We have added these words to our growing list of sight words. Our target letter and sound is Nn. The students also reviewed the use of action words or verbs. They used the retelling cards to retell the Annie story in their own words. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 3 and 4 letter words. The students continued their work on consonant blends and digraphs. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students answered questions about the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students had never made their own but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to the informational text, "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." They reviewed what a diagram was and how to follow a recipe. Workstations this week included creating a pretend meal in house corner, taking a photo of it and then writing about your favorite meal and where it came from, using the sentence starter, "I like.... and writing about a food you like, reader's response--reading and discussing the story with your group and writing about what you liked or did not like about the story, leveled reading working on story elements and comprehension and short vowel word sort and continued recording of reading aloud using iTalk for fluency checks.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 75. This week they worked on number formation rhymes using numbers 0-5. The students are creating a number formation book for practice and counting using their ten frames. Students worked in math centers writing numbers to 50, counting quantities and recording their answer, discussing and recording the numbers that complete their number bond (ways to say a number--10 can be 5 plus 5, 2 plus 8 etc,) reinforcing recognition of pattern block shapes, playing "Make 5 Bingo. The students continue to work on the app Starfall Gingerbread--following and continuing a pattern.
Writing: The students are working on the Starting Center Capitals A, T, J, I. They applied what they had learned in their orange book. Ms. Chinn continues to work with the students in Writer's Workshop. This weeks lesson focused on the "organization" of writing. Ms. Chinn used the example of a train--it has an engine (beginning) box cars (middle) and a caboose (ending). She also used the words FIRST....NEXT......LAST as words to use when organizing sentences. Students worked on a piece of writing and then a few students volunteered to share their writing with the group again with the "stars" and "wishes" peer critiquing. The students are prepping for a writing project on a gingerbread person. Part one of this project was to create the gingerbread person of their choice given a template. Next week the students will write about their creation.
Technology: In the area of reading, small group and individual students used the apps, Montessori Crossword, Spelling Bug and Rocket Speller to listen to and record letter sounds to create words (3-4-5 phonemes.) Another group of students used the app iTalk to record their reading for fluency and clarity. The app Sound Sort continues to assist individual students with sound/symbol connections. In the area of math, small group and individual students used the apps Number Find, Math Bug and Domino Match to reinforce the concepts of counting quantities, adding quantities and finding a number using base ten strategies. Students partnered up to use the app Monster Squeeze using numbers from 1-30. All students continue to work on their patterning project using the app Starfall Gingerbread.
Literature: "The Gingerbread Doll," "The Gingerbread Girl," ""Gingerbread Jimmy," "The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "The Gingerbread Baby," "Gingerbread Fred," "Hanukkah," "Counting the Days to Hanukkah," "The Story of Hanukkah," "The Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Celebrate the Holiday," ""The Story of Christmas."
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