**It's been a busy week! The students are working on concert practice, classroom lessons, thinking about their winter break from school (lots of travel journals to make!) and sharing and caring about one another.
Tis the season! We continue to talk about traditions and celebrations and use of lights. Asher's mom came to talk to us about Hanukkah, a celebration in the Frank family. She read a story about the origins of Hanukkah and showed the students Asher's menorah. All students received a Dreidel Game to play at home. The students had great fun spinning the various types of dreidels. We also talked about the celebration in the Nordic countries of St. Lucia. How do those girls wear the candle crowns? The students listened to the story of Christmas. I shared with the students a set of special finger puppets my mom gave me that depict the Nativity Scene. Some students made connections in their own lives about nativity sets they own or special items about the Baby Jesus that they have. We are learning so much from each other! Next week, we will take a look at Kwanzaa, Las Posadas and The Epiphany, as well as the celebration of the New Year.
**Our WINTER CONCERT is THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20th in 2 seatings. The first seating is at 8:15 am and the second seating is at 9:45 am. Be sure to get there early to get a good seat! After each concert, we will have a reception in our classroom with a snack table, juice and water. In between the concerts, we will have family craft time. I am asking all parents to send a snack finger food for our table. It can chips, dip, crackers, fruit, etc. anything that we don't need a fork for. Please send it with your child the day of the concert. Our room parents will provide the juice and water. Hope to see everyone there! All are invited to attend.
**On Friday, December 21st from 1:00-2:15 pm, we will close out the 2012 year with a get together with our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Due to their heavy big kid schedule, this will be our first meeting with them. Each student will be matched up with a 5th grade buddy. They will create a interview book together, share some stories and welcome in the new year! We are excited to host them! Beginning in 2013, we will meet monthly with our book buddies.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. All students received notification of their skill development. There is no Route to Reading from December 17th to January 25th. During that time, we will do the midyear DIBELS assessments. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on January 28th. Any questions-please email me.
**Mr. Packer concluded his unit on letters and shapes with the students making a drawing out of a given letter of the alphabet. We have some very imaginative students!!!
**Ms. Bell Bey was absent of Friday. The students continued the discussion about caring, pride in yourself and your work and sharing and caring about the people around us. The students spent some time making friendship chains together to display around our tree and classroom. They wrote Kindness Counts notes to peers in their classroom and posted them for all to read. These notes are so precious and heart felt. Wait until you read them!
**Student Council raised over $3000.00 in pennies in the "Pennies for Sandy" project to help children and schools in the wake of super storm Sandy. Way to go!! Our class raised over 2,735 pennies for the cause. Student Council reps, Isabella and Angus have concluded their service on Student Council. Thanks for a
job well done!!!! In January, we will choose our next student council reps who will serve for a 3 month period. Look for information on that in January.
This week:
It was all about pride! We used the tale of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer as a spring board to discussion and dictation about taking pride in yourself and your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. In our first tale, Rudolph was made fun of because of his shiny nose. The students made connections in their own lives of similar experiences. Sometimes, it just takes one person or event to help us see our own worth. In the second tale, Rudolph loses the shine to his nose because he feels sorry for himself and runs away. The students again made connections in their own lives when they wanted to give up or not try. In the end, Rudolph's shiny nose returns as he stops thinking about himself and starts thinking about how to help find the lost bunnies. Simple stories with teachable moments! Our station day activities included creating color by code stain glass menorahs, geome-tree projects, pattern block build analyze count and record and sort, graph, analyze and count the pasta trees.
Reading/Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion 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 helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be part of. The students listened to the story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated the fact from the fiction--sweet potatoes are real, they do not get bigger as they roll down a hill, you can make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. They reviewed the sight word have. They "walked their words" and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." The students reviewed the letter Cc and its primary and secondary sounds. The students 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 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 3-4-5 and even 6 phoneme words. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can!" We read aloud together.
The students then took turns reading to a friend. The students continued to work on listening and responding to the vocabulary from the Puerto Rican tale, "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot." The students read the story, "I Have." They located the speech bubble and what character was doing the talking. Small student groups used their leveled readers for comprehension development as well as reading to each other to build fluency. Our workstations included creating a pretend meal in house corner, photographing it and then writing about your favorite meal and where you got it from, writing 2 question sentences using the sentence starter "Can I have a.......", creating a word web around the sentence "I like to have a...." and writing about a specific food from their web and using the app Montessori Crossword to enhance the study of silent e words, blends and 3 phoneme words during a segmenting activity.
Math: The "Pennies for Sandy" activity really helped the students move toward counting groups of ten pennies. The students continue to work on counting quantities, oral number stories and beginning number sentences. They have become more consistent in writing 2 digit numbers. The concept of place value is becoming more understandable. Students are beginning to locate numbers in the tens and one places. The students used their following direction skills as well as sequencing order in cutting out and putting together Rudolph. They continue to review their number rhymes from 0-9 to form their numbers correctly. They continue to work on their Gingerbread Pattern project using the Starfall Gingerbread app.
Writing: The students completed their Gingerbread Writing project. They designed their gingerbread person and used the word bank to write 2-3 descriptive sentences. Sentence structure and spacing of words in a sentence were stressed. The students also worked on their placement of letters on a given line. The projects came out fantastic! They really did a good job! Our projects are on display in our hallway. Letter forms for upper and lowercase letters were practiced. They continue to work on The Magic "C" center starting capitals.
Technology: In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 were used in student small groups to strengthen segmenting and blending skills. The students are working on developing fluency using the app Story Kit. In math, the apps Starfall Gingerbread, Number Find, Monster Squeeze and Number Sequencing were used to assist in development of patterning and shape recognition, sequencing numbers, place value and beginning number sentences. Students worked in small groups, partners and individually with these tools.
Literature: "Mooseltoe," "Moosetache," "Celebrations: St. Lucia," "This is the Star," "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Imogene's Antlers," "A Child is Born," "It's Christmas, David," "Count the Days to Hanukkah," "It's Hanukkah," "The Christmas Reindeer."
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