**These two weeks have flown by so quickly. It's hard to believe that we are in the middle of October. The students continue to learn to work together and independently. They continue to work hard on our daily curriculum. We all are learning a lot from each other. It was great to chat with all of you and share your child's progress at conferences. As we work together during the transition to Common Core Standards and the standards based report card, please know that these standards are indicators of growth. As I have shared with you at conferences, that growth is happening!!!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send in a baby of your child. The picture will be used in a project and will remain on our wall for the remainder of the year. I have mine! We will do our project on October 16th.
** The class has chosen to have a PAJAMA DAY on Wednesday, October 16th as a result of a CLASS EAGLE WING being pulled at our weekly drawing. Students can wear their pajamas, bring fluffy slippers and a favorite blankey or stuffed animal. Our writing prompt that day will be based on a a storybook CD. Don't forget to send regular shoes. We will be going outside for recess.
**Continue to send in permission slips for our WALKING FIELD TRIP TO MAZE LIBRARY. Please note that the correct date in WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23rd from 8:30-10:30 am. The Tuesday, conferences goers received the wrong date! We would like all students to have a library card. Email me if you need an application.
**Irving School students will participate in a FUN RUN FUNDRAISER that will be held on Friday, October 25th. Kindergarten will be running at 8:15. Stop by and show your support! Information on how to submit a pledge amount can be found on the Irving School website.
**The students had picture perfect smiles on Picture Day. We had our class photo taken outside on our lovely new playground equipment!
**All students participated in WALK TO SCHOOL DAY this past Wednesday. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school, walked around the playground with me. All students got their hand stamped and colored a gym shoe. Mr. Hancock and Mr. Wyza will decorate the gym with all the gym shoes.
**GREEN TEAM reps, Reid and Gina participated in their first Green Team Meeting last week.
They got to know other Green Team members from all grade levels and talk about what the focus of the year is going to be with their leaders, Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Packer.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 continues for another week before assessment of the skill begins.
**The students began work in the computer lab on LEXIA CORE 5 a phonics based program that supports all levels of reading and reading readiness. The students will work 2 times a week for 30 minutes. In another 2 weeks or so, I will send an information sheet for access at home for practice.
**The Book Fair this week had many good books and activities for all students. Hope you got a chance to visit it.
**Scholastic Book order for October is due the 16th. You can access it on line by clicking on the book on the left side of the blog.
**STUDENT COUNCIL REPS.....Next week I will talking to the students about the function of Student Council at Irving School. Students Council is starting up and Mr. Gray needs 2 reps form each classroom to attend bi monthly meetings. I will send home an inquiry sheet next week for those who are interested. The first meeting is October 22nd.
**Future Field Trip --Brookfield Zoo--Friday, November 15th--9:00-2:30 pm.
The past two weeks:
It's been APPLE MANIA! It is our first cross curricular theme. The students participated in an inquiry to determine what they knew about apples. They had a fun using their magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. They learned what a blossom was. Some apples were cut on their sides to reveal the star! We read informational (non fiction) books on the subject and used the internet search to find out names the apples have. The students explored some of the many types of apples and observed their similarities and differences. The students learned how to create a diagram and created a diagram of the apple and labeled their parts. They looked at a Red Delicious skin and a seed under the microscope. What is growing out of that seed??? Way cool! The students participated in a taste test and graphed their favorite apple. It was Granny Smith with Honey Crisp not far behind. Station Day activities included apple art mixed media, apple ten frame counting book, unifix cube build, count and record, create a word wheel for target word see and read it, "pinky painting" the given numbers of seeds on the apples, create an apple fact book, count the apples and record (1-10) and writing prompt--describe an apple. Next--simple cooking with apples.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue working on Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading series. The phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and Mm. The students completed their lists of people, places, things, animals and learned that they are called nouns.
They continue to work on listening comprehension using the Big Book stories"Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animal," and "Family Fun." They identified the characters and the setting and made predictions about story content. The students responded and retold events in a story sequence. We discussed how the story structure can provide evidence for our predictions. The students worked on the concepts, same and different. The students began the process of phoneme blending...or putting together sounds to create words. We used AM and AT word families to create new words by adding a consonant to the beginning. Robust Vocabulary for the past 2 weeks included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER, CELEBRATE, CHANGE, EAGER, OCCASION and RELATIVE. Our thinking story was "The Squeaky Old Bed" which reflected the culture of Puerto Rico. The students reviewed all their sight vocabulary paying special attention to our target words the and see. The non fiction story, "Panda Kindergarten," helped the students work on the common core standard of asking and answering questions from a given text. After reading and discussing the story, we took out our question posters and students came up with who, what, where, when and why questions for the story. They went back to their seats and drew pictures of their questions. Workstations included interview a friend about their family and what they like to do--draw your family and write a sentence about what they like to do, ABC upper/lowercase match, leveled reading practice, using word sight words and pictures, create 4 sentences and record them on paper and read them to a friend, draw it and add to it--read a story, talk about it in your group and add another page of what you think might happen,
Math: We are "feeling the numbers" written on our backs, made with clay and touched on sand paper. Students worked with partners and to sequence their apple counting cards to twenty. Other pairs of students created apple puzzles matching the number with amount of seeds on the apple. The students worked on their apple ten frame books--saying the numbers and drawing circles on the frame to match the written number. The students worked on positional concepts before, between, beneath, behind. We worked with physicality by having the students demonstrate the concept. The students began a formal calendar book for October. No only are they reviewing days of the week and calendar numbers, but also counting, patterning, adding, sequencing, reviewing concepts before and after and writing numbers. We will have a new calendar book each month.
Writing: The students continue to work on adding more details to their drawings and having their drawings reflect the words they are using to describe them. Some students are labeling items in their pictures, writing a beginning sound, ending sound, short sentence. All students are learning that a sentence names (subject) and tells (action.) They are working on using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and an ending mark--period, question mark, exclamation mark. The students continue to work on their Frog Jump letters--F, E, D, B, R, P.
Technology: The students continue to work on a counting project using Doodle Buddy.
The iPad continues to be a valuable tool to enhance our learning. In reading and writing, the apps Intro to Letters, Alphatots, Magic Reading-picture to picture match and letter to picture match, ABC touch and Magnetic Board for writing sight vocabulary and in differentiated workstations the app Reading 1 was used for blending and segmenting 3-4 phoneme words. In math, the apps Doodle Buddy, Intro to Numbers, Number Find and Numbers to assist in recognition and patterning.
Literature: "How Do Apples Grow," "I Am Growing," "Night Animals," "Picnic at Apple Park,"
"Apples, Apples, Apples," "The Big Apple Mystery," "What if you Had Animal Teeth?"(Thanks Colin!) "The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Let's Go Apple Picking,""The Four Seasons," "The Apple Countdown."
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