**I hope everyone had a restful Columbus Day weekend. I know the weather was beautiful. I hope everyone got a chance to be outside. I traveled to Florida to visit friends. We had the exact same weather!! I got to ride a horse!
**Picture Day was successful! The students looked great and had wonderful smiles. Thanks to Ms. Walker and Ms. Garcia for lending a helping hand.
**All students participated in Walk to School Day. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school walked at lunchtime with our own, Ms. Hiolski. All students received a hand stamp and colored a shoe. Mr. Hancock will decorate the gym with them.
**Don't forget to send back your Parent Conference response form. I am looking forward to meeting with you to share your child's progress on 10/18-19 and 20.
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the MORNING on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and RFCC students will be pick up as usual.
**Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin Tuesday, October 11th. You have received notification as to what skill group your child will be working in. If you did not receive this information, please contact me.
**Our Parent Helper STATION DAY will begin on Friday, October 14th. Ms. Mikos and Ms. Garcia will be facilitating the table stations this week. Check my blog at the left side and click on station day helpers to see when you are scheduled. I will also send a hard copy.
**CONGRATULATIONS to our Student Council reps for this trimester. They are ALEX and YAYA. Their first meeting is Tuesday, October 18th.
**We have received 93 Eagle Wings!!!!(PBIS behavior incentive) This qualifies our class for a special event. The students have chosen to have a PAJAMA/CD STORY BOOK DISCUSSION on Thursday, October 20th from 10:00-11:00 am. It is well deserved. I will send more info on this next week.
**October Book order is enclosed with the homework packet. Book orders are due either on line or with form and money on October 19th.
**In Friendship Club, Ms Kwiatt continued her discussion on likes and dislikes in the We Are the Same, We are Different Unit and the students worked on a variety of activities.
**I am finishing up all Fall Assessments in preparation for Conferences.
This week:
It continues to be about APPLES. We explored more types of apples and how they are alike and different. The students created apple print trees, made apple patterns with stickers, printed with the core star, did apple math by counting apples and read many stories both fiction and non fiction about apples. Next week, we will create an Apple Book, cook up some apple delight and taste test more types of apples.
Reading: We continue on in Unit 1, Families in our Treasures series. Our phonics portion had the students working on the Letter and sound of Aa in short and long form. The students worked on learning about naming words. We brainstormed a list and learned the formal word NOUN. We discussed nouns that name people, places, animals and things. The students generated lists of each. In our Robust Vocabulary study, the students added ACTIVITY and COOPERATE to their vocabulary list. Ask your child about those words. The students worked on listening comprehension using the big book story, "The Picnic at Apple Park." They identified where the story takes place (setting) and made predictions about the what would happen next. We discussed how the story structure can help provide evidence for our predictions. The students responded and retold events in the story in sequence. We worked on concept words--same and different. We began the process of phoneme blending or orally putting sounds together to form a word. We used A and M. Our dog puppet, Mr. Happy helped us do this. He is way more fun then Ms. Gullo when he sounds things out! We added the Robust Vocabulary words EXCITING, EXHAUSTED and GATHER to our list. Ask your child about these words. The students worked on their sight vocabulary words--I, We, Can, Am, The. We played "Hands Up, Hands Down," and did a word sort. Our listening and thinking story this week was the folktale, "The Squeaky Old Bed." The students retold the story and discussed the words that were recurring. What was their favorite part? They illustrated and wrote about it. Did the story teach you something? What? We finished the week reading all of our pre decodable books as shared reading and partner reads. The students had a great fun during their workstation time. Their stations included creating sentences from their sight words and pictures, reading a story and adding a new page to the end of it (what could happen next?), writing sentences about themselves and reading it to a partner and interviewing a partner and drawing what his or her family likes to do. We received our Activity Books and the students caught up by working on pages they had missed.
Math: We are counting everything in sight! How high can we go? 20? 30? 50? 100? The students worked on place value using straws in groups of ten. They also learned the term DIGIT. Is 32 a 2 digit or 1 digit number? We learned to play "Monster Squeeze," using the concepts greater than and less than to find a mystery number. We reviewed our pattern block shapes and learned to count pennies and use the cents sign and read amounts. We are matching the number with the quantity in our domino game. The students continue to work with their numbers cards 0-15 to recognize, sequence, find the missing and count one more or one less.
Writing: We continue to work on adding more details to our drawings and having our drawings reflect the words we use to describe them. The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. We continue to work on forming a sentence (naming and telling.) We are learning to track and space between words in a sentence and begin with a capital letter. This week, we finished up our Frog Jump letters N and M. We will review all Frog Jump letters.
Literature: "Apple Countdown," "I Am a Leaf." "The Best Class Picture Ever," "The Big Apple Mystery," " A was Once an Apple Pie," "Apples, Apples Everywhere," "Apples and Pumpkins," "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves."
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
UPDATES for 9/26-9/30 2011
**We all had a super busy week. The students continue to respond to our Eagle Essentials Guidelines and are very much a part of shaping their own behavior. We continue to work on fostering greater independence in and outside of our classroom.
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 4th. Get those smiles ready! I am hoping that we can be among the first done in the morning. G. Garcia, M. Chlebek and S. Walker have volunteered to lend a hand or comb!
**WALK to SCHOOL DAY is Wednesday, October 5th. Each child who walks to school will receive a special stamp and shoe to be colored in and displayed in the gym. Don't worry if you ride the bus or drive--Mr. Hancock will walk around the block with students at lunch time and they will receive their stamp and shoe too!
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, October 10th in observance of Columbus Day.
**A letter regarding Parent/Teacher Conference times is in your child's back pack. Please send back to confirm by Friday, October 14th.
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the morning on Thursday, October 20th and Friday October 21st. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah students, bus and RFCC students will will picked up as usual.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Wednesday, October 5th. You will receive notification from the current teacher as to whether your child has mastered the particular skill. Rotation 2 will begin Tuesday, October 11th. At that time, you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**In preparation for our October Conference, I have begun our Fall Assessment, Math Baseline and Social/Emotional Growth Reflection observation. I will share these with you at our conference.
**In Friendship Club this week Ms. Bell-Bey led a discussion on celebrating our differences. The students created a head shot of themselves and we will make a class book.
**It is evident that many students have begun to use the LEXIA program for home practice. Great! Keep up the good work!
**This month, we will have our first meeting with our BOOK BUDDIES in Ms. Balicki's 5th grade class. Stay tuned!!
This week:
It was all about APPLES! Apple mania has hit our classroom! We have begun our Apple cross curricular theme. The students participated in an initial inquiry to determine what they knew about the apple. They had great fun using the magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. We learned what a blossom is. The apples were cut on their sides to reveal the flower or star. We read informational books and gathered more information from our computer search on apple trees, grafting process and products made with apples. Out taste test is on going! We are relating our study of Apples into our math, reading, science, art and writing curriculum. For Homework, the students are keeping an Apple Tree Reading Log. Stay tuned!!!
Reading: We have begun UNIT 1 in our Treasures Reading Series. The students built background knowledge on types of families they knew about. We discussed animal families and human families. We all shared experiences about our families. The students listened to a song about families. The students listened to a Big Book story called "Whose Baby Am I?" The students made predictions about the story content and observed patterns in the text. We reviewed our sight words I and CAN and introduced the word WE. We spelled and wrote them and used them in our journal. Our sound in isolation this week was the letter Mm. We worked on identifying the sound at the beginning and ending of words. The students are working on additional vocabulary referred to as Robust Vocabulary. Ask your child what ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER, IMITATE and RESEMBLE mean. We defined each word and gave an example sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. We also worked on story words,
CUB, JOEY and PUP in the animal baby world. The students created lists of animals and what their baby is called. We read aloud our pre-decodable, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking words and pictures in a sentence using their pointing finger. The students worked on responding and retelling parts of our read aloud thinking story, "The Bundle of Sticks." We read our other pre-decodable. "We Can," and focused on our sight words and comprehension. The students really enjoyed this weeks work stations. While I worked with small groups, the students also worked in rotating small groups on reading a story and retelling it to a partner and drawing a picture/writing--Creating an Mm mural looking for and cutting out pictures and labeling them--Playing an upper and lowercase letter match game--creating a family sizes graph using paper dolls. Our table managers did a great job setting up, controlling the noise and helping resolve conflicts in the table group. We also had several opportunities for movement.
Math: The students continue to work on number recognition 0-20. Each students made their own set of number cards. They put them in order, played a matching game with a partner and played what number is missing game. We continued our work on reinforcing recognizing a penny and its value. We discussed using the cents sign symbol and played a penny power game. The students are beginning to understand the concept of place value. We played the Teen Partner Game where the students recognized that each teen number is 10 plus a single digit. The students learned to play Spin a Number with partners to reinforce reading numbers and counting spaces. We worked on concept words first, middle and last, same and different and greater than and less or fewer than.
Writing: The students continue to work on using their writing prompts from the Treasures book. We continue to reinforce our Frog Jump letters --F,E,D,P,B and R. The students are using their sight words in their journal entries. We continue to work on beginning sentence structure, spacing between words in a sentence and punctuation and the end of a sentence. Students are creating more detailed drawings. We want to begin our sentences on the left side and start them with a capital letter. Many students are using their inventive or phonetic spelling. We are listening for sounds at the beginning , middle and ending of words.
Literature: "How do Apples Grow?" "Yo? Yes!" "ABC Rhymes," "A Helpful Alphabet," "The Apple Tree," "My Family," "Johnny Appleseed story 1 and 2," "Apples, Apples, Apples."
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 4th. Get those smiles ready! I am hoping that we can be among the first done in the morning. G. Garcia, M. Chlebek and S. Walker have volunteered to lend a hand or comb!
**WALK to SCHOOL DAY is Wednesday, October 5th. Each child who walks to school will receive a special stamp and shoe to be colored in and displayed in the gym. Don't worry if you ride the bus or drive--Mr. Hancock will walk around the block with students at lunch time and they will receive their stamp and shoe too!
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, October 10th in observance of Columbus Day.
**A letter regarding Parent/Teacher Conference times is in your child's back pack. Please send back to confirm by Friday, October 14th.
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the morning on Thursday, October 20th and Friday October 21st. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah students, bus and RFCC students will will picked up as usual.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Wednesday, October 5th. You will receive notification from the current teacher as to whether your child has mastered the particular skill. Rotation 2 will begin Tuesday, October 11th. At that time, you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**In preparation for our October Conference, I have begun our Fall Assessment, Math Baseline and Social/Emotional Growth Reflection observation. I will share these with you at our conference.
**In Friendship Club this week Ms. Bell-Bey led a discussion on celebrating our differences. The students created a head shot of themselves and we will make a class book.
**It is evident that many students have begun to use the LEXIA program for home practice. Great! Keep up the good work!
**This month, we will have our first meeting with our BOOK BUDDIES in Ms. Balicki's 5th grade class. Stay tuned!!
This week:
It was all about APPLES! Apple mania has hit our classroom! We have begun our Apple cross curricular theme. The students participated in an initial inquiry to determine what they knew about the apple. They had great fun using the magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. We learned what a blossom is. The apples were cut on their sides to reveal the flower or star. We read informational books and gathered more information from our computer search on apple trees, grafting process and products made with apples. Out taste test is on going! We are relating our study of Apples into our math, reading, science, art and writing curriculum. For Homework, the students are keeping an Apple Tree Reading Log. Stay tuned!!!
Reading: We have begun UNIT 1 in our Treasures Reading Series. The students built background knowledge on types of families they knew about. We discussed animal families and human families. We all shared experiences about our families. The students listened to a song about families. The students listened to a Big Book story called "Whose Baby Am I?" The students made predictions about the story content and observed patterns in the text. We reviewed our sight words I and CAN and introduced the word WE. We spelled and wrote them and used them in our journal. Our sound in isolation this week was the letter Mm. We worked on identifying the sound at the beginning and ending of words. The students are working on additional vocabulary referred to as Robust Vocabulary. Ask your child what ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER, IMITATE and RESEMBLE mean. We defined each word and gave an example sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. We also worked on story words,
CUB, JOEY and PUP in the animal baby world. The students created lists of animals and what their baby is called. We read aloud our pre-decodable, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking words and pictures in a sentence using their pointing finger. The students worked on responding and retelling parts of our read aloud thinking story, "The Bundle of Sticks." We read our other pre-decodable. "We Can," and focused on our sight words and comprehension. The students really enjoyed this weeks work stations. While I worked with small groups, the students also worked in rotating small groups on reading a story and retelling it to a partner and drawing a picture/writing--Creating an Mm mural looking for and cutting out pictures and labeling them--Playing an upper and lowercase letter match game--creating a family sizes graph using paper dolls. Our table managers did a great job setting up, controlling the noise and helping resolve conflicts in the table group. We also had several opportunities for movement.
Math: The students continue to work on number recognition 0-20. Each students made their own set of number cards. They put them in order, played a matching game with a partner and played what number is missing game. We continued our work on reinforcing recognizing a penny and its value. We discussed using the cents sign symbol and played a penny power game. The students are beginning to understand the concept of place value. We played the Teen Partner Game where the students recognized that each teen number is 10 plus a single digit. The students learned to play Spin a Number with partners to reinforce reading numbers and counting spaces. We worked on concept words first, middle and last, same and different and greater than and less or fewer than.
Writing: The students continue to work on using their writing prompts from the Treasures book. We continue to reinforce our Frog Jump letters --F,E,D,P,B and R. The students are using their sight words in their journal entries. We continue to work on beginning sentence structure, spacing between words in a sentence and punctuation and the end of a sentence. Students are creating more detailed drawings. We want to begin our sentences on the left side and start them with a capital letter. Many students are using their inventive or phonetic spelling. We are listening for sounds at the beginning , middle and ending of words.
Literature: "How do Apples Grow?" "Yo? Yes!" "ABC Rhymes," "A Helpful Alphabet," "The Apple Tree," "My Family," "Johnny Appleseed story 1 and 2," "Apples, Apples, Apples."
Friday, September 23, 2011
UPDATES for 9/19-9/23 2011
**Thanks for your attendance at our Kindergarten Curriculum Night. We had a great turn out! If you were unable to attend on Thursday, a packet of curriculum materials will be sent home with your child today. As always, if you have any questions about our program, feel free to contact me.
**In your child's folder this week, you will find many pieces of information. Please review them carefully.
**District 97 Effective Student Behavior Handbook and Parent Handbook are enclosed.
**Your child's KRT (Kindergarten Readiness Test) screening score is enclosed with accompanying information. Please review it. If you have any questions, please contact me. If you would like more information, I will happy to meet with you at your convenience.
**Look for LEXIA home login information. Students are working on rhyming patterns, beginning and ending sounds and segmenting words. Contact me if you have any questions.
**Scholastic Book Orders are due September 28th. This can be done online (Click on the book on my blog) or you can send the flyer and money to school with your child.
**Is your child interested in being a Student Council Rep? We discussed what it takes to be a rep for our room. I will be choosing 2 reps. Read over the information and fill out the sheet if interested.
**Spelling City has been updated. Have fun. Practice your words. Play games!
**Last call for Friday Station Day helpers!!! I will be putting together a rotating list. If you haven't already--send in the flyer or email me.
**Fall Trimester 1 Parent/Teacher Conferences for Ms. Gullo's Class will be held on Tuesday, October 18th, Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Many of you have already signed up. I will send a formal letter to you next week. If you have not signed up, let's chat about a time that is convenient for you.
** Our Green Team Rep, Salome is reporting that the team did some weeding and cleaning around the planting beds. Our bed has many GREEN tomatoes!! We will be receiving spring bulbs to plant in October. I will be looking for some green thumb volunteers to assist. Stay tuned!
**Composting and recycling of lunch items is moving quicker. Our Green Team Rep, Salome reminded us about what is recyclable and what we can compost.
** What--More math homework???!! The students are requesting additional math assignments. Say hello to Challenge Math---Do one, some, all or none....you decide!!! Are you up to the challenge??
**We will begin our next cross curricular theme--"Apples and Autumn" on Monday.
This week:
It was all about our ABC's. We sang about them, matched them up, found their lowercase partner, wrote them, used our mirrors to observe how our mouths looked when we made their sound, spelled our name with them, spelled other words with them, used their sounds to create words, read some books about ABC adventures, put them in order, tried to say them in reverse order, figured out what type of lines we needed in order to make them and used them in many games and activities. We used our mini letter cards. What fun!!!!
Reading: We have completed our Treasures prep unit called Start Smart. The students created a chart to compare and contrast the story selections, "Jazz Baby" and "Made from Clay." What is a fiction story? What is a nonfiction story? What are the elements of each? We continued to use a selection of rhymes and songs to target key letter sounds . The students reviewed their sight words--I and Can. The students took turns creating sentences featuring these words. We read our final unit paper story, "I Can." The students took turns reading the sentences by pointing to each word and picture. We reviewed the position words under, on, over, in. The students spent the rest of the week with a blast of the upper and lowercase alphabet activities. Our mini match cards were so much fun. The students worked in a variety of small group work stations to strengthen their knowledge and recall of upper and lowercase letters. Next week, we will begin Treasures UNIT 1 theme: My Family and Me.
Math: We continued our work on simple and complex patterns. We looked for patterns around our room. The students are discovering there is a relationship between patterns and math!! We made our counting cards from 0-15 and practice putting them in order. The students worked in small groups and played number match, number memory and what number is missing. We continued to take a closer look at coins and played a matching coin game. We used our sense of touch when we felt sand paper numbers. Very scratchy! The students played a simple hopscotch game that reinforced number recognition and motor skills. Can you hop or jump to the next number? We are learning about balance. The students worked on recognizing digital and analog clocks. It was great fun building a crazy clown out of pattern blocks and recording how many hexagons, trapezoids, rhombuses and triangles it took to construct it.
Writing: The students continue to work on the writing prompts from our reading series. Frog Jump letters P, B and R were introduced. The students really enjoy the WET-DRY-TRY routine for practicing their letters. In writing workshop activities, the students are beginning to work on sentence structure and what makes a sentence. A sentence names and tells. (subject /action) Journal drawings are containing more details and are reflecting the words the students use to describe them.
Literature: "A--My Name is Annabelle," "School Day,""Smile if you are Human," "Getting Along," "Alphabatics," "Arthur's Back to School Surprise," "Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully," "Match Up Fun," "ABC I Like Me," "My Alphabet Book."
P.S Our IPAD Doodle Buddy Projects remain on display. Just scroll down!
**In your child's folder this week, you will find many pieces of information. Please review them carefully.
**District 97 Effective Student Behavior Handbook and Parent Handbook are enclosed.
**Your child's KRT (Kindergarten Readiness Test) screening score is enclosed with accompanying information. Please review it. If you have any questions, please contact me. If you would like more information, I will happy to meet with you at your convenience.
**Look for LEXIA home login information. Students are working on rhyming patterns, beginning and ending sounds and segmenting words. Contact me if you have any questions.
**Scholastic Book Orders are due September 28th. This can be done online (Click on the book on my blog) or you can send the flyer and money to school with your child.
**Is your child interested in being a Student Council Rep? We discussed what it takes to be a rep for our room. I will be choosing 2 reps. Read over the information and fill out the sheet if interested.
**Spelling City has been updated. Have fun. Practice your words. Play games!
**Last call for Friday Station Day helpers!!! I will be putting together a rotating list. If you haven't already--send in the flyer or email me.
**Fall Trimester 1 Parent/Teacher Conferences for Ms. Gullo's Class will be held on Tuesday, October 18th, Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Many of you have already signed up. I will send a formal letter to you next week. If you have not signed up, let's chat about a time that is convenient for you.
** Our Green Team Rep, Salome is reporting that the team did some weeding and cleaning around the planting beds. Our bed has many GREEN tomatoes!! We will be receiving spring bulbs to plant in October. I will be looking for some green thumb volunteers to assist. Stay tuned!
**Composting and recycling of lunch items is moving quicker. Our Green Team Rep, Salome reminded us about what is recyclable and what we can compost.
** What--More math homework???!! The students are requesting additional math assignments. Say hello to Challenge Math---Do one, some, all or none....you decide!!! Are you up to the challenge??
**We will begin our next cross curricular theme--"Apples and Autumn" on Monday.
This week:
It was all about our ABC's. We sang about them, matched them up, found their lowercase partner, wrote them, used our mirrors to observe how our mouths looked when we made their sound, spelled our name with them, spelled other words with them, used their sounds to create words, read some books about ABC adventures, put them in order, tried to say them in reverse order, figured out what type of lines we needed in order to make them and used them in many games and activities. We used our mini letter cards. What fun!!!!
Reading: We have completed our Treasures prep unit called Start Smart. The students created a chart to compare and contrast the story selections, "Jazz Baby" and "Made from Clay." What is a fiction story? What is a nonfiction story? What are the elements of each? We continued to use a selection of rhymes and songs to target key letter sounds . The students reviewed their sight words--I and Can. The students took turns creating sentences featuring these words. We read our final unit paper story, "I Can." The students took turns reading the sentences by pointing to each word and picture. We reviewed the position words under, on, over, in. The students spent the rest of the week with a blast of the upper and lowercase alphabet activities. Our mini match cards were so much fun. The students worked in a variety of small group work stations to strengthen their knowledge and recall of upper and lowercase letters. Next week, we will begin Treasures UNIT 1 theme: My Family and Me.
Math: We continued our work on simple and complex patterns. We looked for patterns around our room. The students are discovering there is a relationship between patterns and math!! We made our counting cards from 0-15 and practice putting them in order. The students worked in small groups and played number match, number memory and what number is missing. We continued to take a closer look at coins and played a matching coin game. We used our sense of touch when we felt sand paper numbers. Very scratchy! The students played a simple hopscotch game that reinforced number recognition and motor skills. Can you hop or jump to the next number? We are learning about balance. The students worked on recognizing digital and analog clocks. It was great fun building a crazy clown out of pattern blocks and recording how many hexagons, trapezoids, rhombuses and triangles it took to construct it.
Writing: The students continue to work on the writing prompts from our reading series. Frog Jump letters P, B and R were introduced. The students really enjoy the WET-DRY-TRY routine for practicing their letters. In writing workshop activities, the students are beginning to work on sentence structure and what makes a sentence. A sentence names and tells. (subject /action) Journal drawings are containing more details and are reflecting the words the students use to describe them.
Literature: "A--My Name is Annabelle," "School Day,""Smile if you are Human," "Getting Along," "Alphabatics," "Arthur's Back to School Surprise," "Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully," "Match Up Fun," "ABC I Like Me," "My Alphabet Book."
P.S Our IPAD Doodle Buddy Projects remain on display. Just scroll down!
Friday, September 16, 2011
UPDATES for 9/12-9/16
**WOW! Open House was spectacular! Thanks to all those who came out. It was great chatting with all of you. I was able to see some of my former students. I was particularly humbled by a visit from a former student who is now 14 years old. He shared his interests and future goals with me that included aviation and the Air Force. I was so proud of him!
**If you did not get a chance to sign up for parent conferences, I will be sending home some information on sign up next week.
**OOPS! Families, I realized that I did not include Home Links 5 and 6 in your child's homework packet. So sorry. Look for them to come home on Monday.
**Calling all volunteers!!!! Please fill out our Helpful Parents Wanted sheet. It went home today!
**Thanks to those of you who signed up for the cool class events for the year. I will be adding new opportunities to volunteer as we get further into our new reading series. Our first Station Day is October 14th.
**Route to Reading Skills Groups begin Monday, September 19th, from 9:25-9:55. The groups will meet 4 times a week. Fridays will be reserved for the students who may need additional assistance on a pull out basis with our Title One and Language Arts Specialist. You will hear much more about this at Kindergarten Curriculum Night.
**Don't Forget---Kindergarten Curriculum Night is Thursday, September 22nd from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Adults only please. The Kindergarten Team will speak on all aspects of the curriculum. All curriculum will be on display for you to examine. There will also be a question and answer time. Hope to see you there!!!
**The students have started the LEXIA Reading Program in the computer lab. Tracy N. and Michelle M. will be my troubleshooters. Thanks so much. This individualized readiness and reading program is a great companion to our Treasures Reading and Haggerty Blue Book Exercises. The students did a great job of learning to log in and listen to the instructions. In a few weeks, I will send each family information on home access for practice.
**Mr. Packer's Math Enrichment push in will begin next Thursday from 2:00-2:30. The students will explore the world of higher level problem solving skills thru hands on activities and projects.
**Friendship Club has begun under the direction of Ms. Bell Bey. The last 2 lessons have focused on having good manners and how best to avoid distractions in the classroom in order to be the best student they can be.
**A big thank you to Tech Specialist, Ms. Applebey, for helping the students with their IPAD projects. The students learned about the basic operation and care of the IPAD. Their Doodle Buddy Projects are totally cute!!
This week:
It was all about how to manage our time and focus on the task at hand in order to complete it. The students had their first experience with working in small groups where there is another student who is the table manager. What is a manager? What are their duties? How can they assist the group? What is important? Our new reading series uses workstations as one way to differentiate learning. The teacher will also have a station.. Everyone will have a turn being a table manager.
Reading: We are almost finished with the Start Smart portion of of our reading series. Next week, we will spend some time reviewing before we dive into Unit 1. This week the students continued to work on reinforcing letters and sounds A-P. They worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills by listening to the story, "Jazz Baby." The students continued to review their sight vocabulary and learned to "Walk their Words." We had a great discussion on music and dance and how our bodies can move and how we make music. The students "read" the pictures of the wordless story, "I am Picking Apples." They were able to discuss each picture and tell the story. The students were able to create a chart about their 5 Senses. Some students wrote while others helped to tell what letters to record. The students continue to work on tracking words in a sentence, rhyming patterns, oral vocabulary and syllables in words. In our thinking story, "The Clever Turtle," the students orally retold the story. We continue to make progress in our Haggerty Blue Book.
Math: The students continue to work on number recognition and one to one correspondence. They created their own personal number boards with stickers. We worked on counting down from a random number 12 and under and the students listened and moved to our funny counting rhymes. The students continue to work on recognizing pattern block shapes. We used the "Feely Bag" where the student had to feel for certain objects by their shape. It was a very fun sensory experience. We began to explore the penny. The students took their magnifiers to take a closer look. We looked at the head side with Abraham Lincoln and learned some facts about him. We looked at the tails side and saw the Lincoln Memorial. The students learned how to tell how old a penny was. We learned to play, "Heads or Tails Tally Game" with a partner and began to explore counting by fives using the tally marks. We worked to reinforce concept words--on , over, under. Ben and Eddie made the first changes to our AGE CHANGE GRAPH!!!
Writing: We continued working in our journals using the writing prompts from our reading series. We are learning to start at the top and on the left when writing a sentence. The students are beginning to use their sight vocabulary in their sentences. I am beginning to see some inventive spelling or words written based on what a student hears at the beginning, middle or end of a word. We continue to work on our FROG JUMP letters F, E, D. In our workshop time the students used clay to show how many lines and what kind of lines were needed to create a letter.
Literature: "Oh, David," "My School is a Zoo," "The Boy Who Wouldn't Share," "Louder, Lil,"
"The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Boom Chicka Rock," "Jazz Baby," "Made From Clay," "Cliffords Family," "My ABC Signs of Animal Friends."
**If you did not get a chance to sign up for parent conferences, I will be sending home some information on sign up next week.
**OOPS! Families, I realized that I did not include Home Links 5 and 6 in your child's homework packet. So sorry. Look for them to come home on Monday.
**Calling all volunteers!!!! Please fill out our Helpful Parents Wanted sheet. It went home today!
**Thanks to those of you who signed up for the cool class events for the year. I will be adding new opportunities to volunteer as we get further into our new reading series. Our first Station Day is October 14th.
**Route to Reading Skills Groups begin Monday, September 19th, from 9:25-9:55. The groups will meet 4 times a week. Fridays will be reserved for the students who may need additional assistance on a pull out basis with our Title One and Language Arts Specialist. You will hear much more about this at Kindergarten Curriculum Night.
**Don't Forget---Kindergarten Curriculum Night is Thursday, September 22nd from 6:30-7:30 pm in the Irving Auditorium. Adults only please. The Kindergarten Team will speak on all aspects of the curriculum. All curriculum will be on display for you to examine. There will also be a question and answer time. Hope to see you there!!!
**The students have started the LEXIA Reading Program in the computer lab. Tracy N. and Michelle M. will be my troubleshooters. Thanks so much. This individualized readiness and reading program is a great companion to our Treasures Reading and Haggerty Blue Book Exercises. The students did a great job of learning to log in and listen to the instructions. In a few weeks, I will send each family information on home access for practice.
**Mr. Packer's Math Enrichment push in will begin next Thursday from 2:00-2:30. The students will explore the world of higher level problem solving skills thru hands on activities and projects.
**Friendship Club has begun under the direction of Ms. Bell Bey. The last 2 lessons have focused on having good manners and how best to avoid distractions in the classroom in order to be the best student they can be.
**A big thank you to Tech Specialist, Ms. Applebey, for helping the students with their IPAD projects. The students learned about the basic operation and care of the IPAD. Their Doodle Buddy Projects are totally cute!!
This week:
It was all about how to manage our time and focus on the task at hand in order to complete it. The students had their first experience with working in small groups where there is another student who is the table manager. What is a manager? What are their duties? How can they assist the group? What is important? Our new reading series uses workstations as one way to differentiate learning. The teacher will also have a station.. Everyone will have a turn being a table manager.
Reading: We are almost finished with the Start Smart portion of of our reading series. Next week, we will spend some time reviewing before we dive into Unit 1. This week the students continued to work on reinforcing letters and sounds A-P. They worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills by listening to the story, "Jazz Baby." The students continued to review their sight vocabulary and learned to "Walk their Words." We had a great discussion on music and dance and how our bodies can move and how we make music. The students "read" the pictures of the wordless story, "I am Picking Apples." They were able to discuss each picture and tell the story. The students were able to create a chart about their 5 Senses. Some students wrote while others helped to tell what letters to record. The students continue to work on tracking words in a sentence, rhyming patterns, oral vocabulary and syllables in words. In our thinking story, "The Clever Turtle," the students orally retold the story. We continue to make progress in our Haggerty Blue Book.
Math: The students continue to work on number recognition and one to one correspondence. They created their own personal number boards with stickers. We worked on counting down from a random number 12 and under and the students listened and moved to our funny counting rhymes. The students continue to work on recognizing pattern block shapes. We used the "Feely Bag" where the student had to feel for certain objects by their shape. It was a very fun sensory experience. We began to explore the penny. The students took their magnifiers to take a closer look. We looked at the head side with Abraham Lincoln and learned some facts about him. We looked at the tails side and saw the Lincoln Memorial. The students learned how to tell how old a penny was. We learned to play, "Heads or Tails Tally Game" with a partner and began to explore counting by fives using the tally marks. We worked to reinforce concept words--on , over, under. Ben and Eddie made the first changes to our AGE CHANGE GRAPH!!!
Writing: We continued working in our journals using the writing prompts from our reading series. We are learning to start at the top and on the left when writing a sentence. The students are beginning to use their sight vocabulary in their sentences. I am beginning to see some inventive spelling or words written based on what a student hears at the beginning, middle or end of a word. We continue to work on our FROG JUMP letters F, E, D. In our workshop time the students used clay to show how many lines and what kind of lines were needed to create a letter.
Literature: "Oh, David," "My School is a Zoo," "The Boy Who Wouldn't Share," "Louder, Lil,"
"The Mixed Up Alphabet," "Boom Chicka Rock," "Jazz Baby," "Made From Clay," "Cliffords Family," "My ABC Signs of Animal Friends."
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
UPDATES for 8/29-9/2 and 9/5-9/9 2011
**We have had a busy 2 weeks! The students are now used to the routines and expectations of the classroom. We are continuing to work on shaping our classroom behavior and getting to know our teachers and peers.
**Hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. I was able to spend time with family in Arizona!
**Thanks for completing the Parent Information Form. It will be a great help to me.
**The students have gone to the LIBRARY and taken out a book. Students may keep their book for 7 days and then return it for a new one. Please keep books in a safe place (backpack) when not reading it. Ms. Noonan created a slide show about library routines and how to find books.
**This week the DIBELS test and PHONIC SCREENERS were given to each student. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific Route to Reading Groups. You will hear much more about this at Kindergarten Curriculum Night on September 22nd.
**COME ONE COME ALL to the IRVING SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE--Thursday, September 15th from 6:30-7:30 pm. Come meet all of the teachers involved in your child's learning at Irving. Your child will be your tour guild!
**VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! I am looking for 2 parent volunteers to assist on a weekly basis in the computer lab for our LEXIA lessons. Our lab times are MONDAYS-12:15-12:45 and Tuesdays-12:15-12:45 pm. This would be a weekly commitment. Please email me if you are interested.
**Lunch time is going well. The composting and recycling process is continuing is becoming more routine. Thanks to all my parent volunteers. You made a big difference!!
**Salome has volunteered to be our GREEN TEAM room rep! Many students were interested in helping out and I have their names for future projects.
This week:
It was all about learning and sharing about ourselves, our lives and our families. The students shared something they would like everyone to know about them as they drew their own portrait.
We took a look in the mirror to see our hair, face, body and clothing. Portraits are up in the room. They are amazing! We also discussed who is in our family. The students drew their family portrait. Many students drew their pets. All agreed that pets are part of their family.
Students are earning EAGLE SLIPS and our whole class has earned EAGLE WINGS!
Yes, the students did try some cactus candy and looked at a scorpion in a lollipop!!!!
Reading: We are continuing to work on our prep to TREASURES call START SMART. The students are focusing on letter and sounds recognition for letters A-L. We are learning about imprinting sound and how our mouths look when we make the sound. The students had an interesting time using mirrors to really see what happens when they produce a sound. Is their mouth open or closed? Is there air coming out? Is there a vibration in the throat? We continued with our Daily Warm Up and Word Webs. You can view them at Open House. We continued to work with rhyming activities. The students worked on new vocabulary--can, yellow and green. We read our pre decodable books "I" and "I Can." The students are learning to track each word and picture and begin at the left. Listening Comprehension, Retelling, Responding and Reflecting were also part of their daily lesson. A variety of poetry, fables, rhymes and wordless stories were introduced. We are really moving along with the exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book.
Math: The students worked on a variety of of number recognition activities including Egg Carton Math, Listen and Count and Building Number Boards to reinforce concrete meaning of numbers. We learned the names and shapes of pattern blocks. Can you recognize a trapezoid??? We played the Counting Towers game and Simon Says. In workshop, the students experimented with making a pattern of blocks. We discussed what a pattern does---repeats or starts over again. We continue to work our calendar and weather observation routines and observed our newly made AGE CHANGE GRAPH. Next week, we will have 2 students changing ages!!! We worked to reinforce concept words--before, after, between, above below.
Writing: The students are learning about the types of lines we use to form letters--straight, curved, slanted. We sang our song about where to start our letters----AT THE TOP of the page.
We also learned about starting on the left side of the paper to write. We sang a song and built MAT MAN. The students used the writing prompts in our reading series to reflect and illustrate. Many students wrote the first letter or words to describe their pictures. We began to use the wooden pieces to create letters. The students began letter formation practice on their mini boards. We started with the FROG JUMP CAPITALS----straight line down---frog jump up.....We worked on letters F, E and D.
Literature: "Hands are Not for Hitting," "How to be a Happy Hippo," "The New Bear at School," "Sharing Time Troubles," "The Colors of Us," "The Pout Pout Fish," "I Like Myself," "The Recess Queen," "Two Eyes a Nose and Mouth," "Curious George's First Day at School,"
"The Day the Teacher went Bananas," "Silly Sally," "Alphabet Rescue," "Alphabet Mystery," "I Like School," "Splat the Cat," "If You Take a Mouse to School."
**Hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. I was able to spend time with family in Arizona!
**Thanks for completing the Parent Information Form. It will be a great help to me.
**The students have gone to the LIBRARY and taken out a book. Students may keep their book for 7 days and then return it for a new one. Please keep books in a safe place (backpack) when not reading it. Ms. Noonan created a slide show about library routines and how to find books.
**This week the DIBELS test and PHONIC SCREENERS were given to each student. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific Route to Reading Groups. You will hear much more about this at Kindergarten Curriculum Night on September 22nd.
**COME ONE COME ALL to the IRVING SCHOOL OPEN HOUSE--Thursday, September 15th from 6:30-7:30 pm. Come meet all of the teachers involved in your child's learning at Irving. Your child will be your tour guild!
**VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! I am looking for 2 parent volunteers to assist on a weekly basis in the computer lab for our LEXIA lessons. Our lab times are MONDAYS-12:15-12:45 and Tuesdays-12:15-12:45 pm. This would be a weekly commitment. Please email me if you are interested.
**Lunch time is going well. The composting and recycling process is continuing is becoming more routine. Thanks to all my parent volunteers. You made a big difference!!
**Salome has volunteered to be our GREEN TEAM room rep! Many students were interested in helping out and I have their names for future projects.
This week:
It was all about learning and sharing about ourselves, our lives and our families. The students shared something they would like everyone to know about them as they drew their own portrait.
We took a look in the mirror to see our hair, face, body and clothing. Portraits are up in the room. They are amazing! We also discussed who is in our family. The students drew their family portrait. Many students drew their pets. All agreed that pets are part of their family.
Students are earning EAGLE SLIPS and our whole class has earned EAGLE WINGS!
Yes, the students did try some cactus candy and looked at a scorpion in a lollipop!!!!
Reading: We are continuing to work on our prep to TREASURES call START SMART. The students are focusing on letter and sounds recognition for letters A-L. We are learning about imprinting sound and how our mouths look when we make the sound. The students had an interesting time using mirrors to really see what happens when they produce a sound. Is their mouth open or closed? Is there air coming out? Is there a vibration in the throat? We continued with our Daily Warm Up and Word Webs. You can view them at Open House. We continued to work with rhyming activities. The students worked on new vocabulary--can, yellow and green. We read our pre decodable books "I" and "I Can." The students are learning to track each word and picture and begin at the left. Listening Comprehension, Retelling, Responding and Reflecting were also part of their daily lesson. A variety of poetry, fables, rhymes and wordless stories were introduced. We are really moving along with the exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book.
Math: The students worked on a variety of of number recognition activities including Egg Carton Math, Listen and Count and Building Number Boards to reinforce concrete meaning of numbers. We learned the names and shapes of pattern blocks. Can you recognize a trapezoid??? We played the Counting Towers game and Simon Says. In workshop, the students experimented with making a pattern of blocks. We discussed what a pattern does---repeats or starts over again. We continue to work our calendar and weather observation routines and observed our newly made AGE CHANGE GRAPH. Next week, we will have 2 students changing ages!!! We worked to reinforce concept words--before, after, between, above below.
Writing: The students are learning about the types of lines we use to form letters--straight, curved, slanted. We sang our song about where to start our letters----AT THE TOP of the page.
We also learned about starting on the left side of the paper to write. We sang a song and built MAT MAN. The students used the writing prompts in our reading series to reflect and illustrate. Many students wrote the first letter or words to describe their pictures. We began to use the wooden pieces to create letters. The students began letter formation practice on their mini boards. We started with the FROG JUMP CAPITALS----straight line down---frog jump up.....We worked on letters F, E and D.
Literature: "Hands are Not for Hitting," "How to be a Happy Hippo," "The New Bear at School," "Sharing Time Troubles," "The Colors of Us," "The Pout Pout Fish," "I Like Myself," "The Recess Queen," "Two Eyes a Nose and Mouth," "Curious George's First Day at School,"
"The Day the Teacher went Bananas," "Silly Sally," "Alphabet Rescue," "Alphabet Mystery," "I Like School," "Splat the Cat," "If You Take a Mouse to School."
Thursday, August 25, 2011
UPDATES for 8/24-26 2011
**Once again--WELCOME NEW KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AND FAMILIES!!! I am so glad you are a part of the Irving School family. I was happy to meet all of you. We are going to have a great year!
**Thanks to all who have signed up to help with LUNCH for the next 3 weeks. The students are learning about the lunch routine and about recycling and composting material. Please keep reinforcing---HOME LUNCH or SCHOOL LUNCH----MILK---WHAT KIND? Our volunteers and myself are working on students eating their MAIN ENTRE first, whether it is a sandwich, salad etc. and then eating fruit, granola bars, pudding etc. Thanks for sending such good choices in their home lunches.
**Keep sending in supplies if you have not done so.
**Please remember--gym shoes and socks on GYM days.
**The Back to School Party at Barrie Park was a blast! It was great chatting with many of you.
** I will be setting up the LEXIA, SPELLING CITY, XTRAMATH and TREASURES (our new reading series) sites hopefully in the next few weeks. These are great skill building activities on line for your child to access at home. Starfall.com is up and running. It is located on the left side under resources.
**No School on Monday, September 5th--Labor Day
This week:
It was all about routines and expectations! Yes, I talked a lot! Our daily schedule is slowly taking shape. The students are meeting their special area teachers. We are getting to know each other and fostering new friendships. The students learned how to earn EAGLE SLIPS for our School wide PBIS Behavior Initiative.
Reading: This week the students began a 3 week prep in our new TREASURES Reading Series called START SMART. The students worked on using their language skills by responding to a Daily Warm Up question. They worked on their listening comprehension and making predictions and connections by listening to the story "Animals in the Park-An ABC Book." The students worked on identifying a sequence of sounds using the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle." We reviewed the letters Aa and Bb and the sounds they make. The sight word, I was introduced along with red, blue, yes and no. We learned how to play the Hands Up, Hands Down game to help reinforce our sight vocabulary. The students were introduced to a wordless pre-decodable story, "We Go to School." They learned about book handling, locating title, author name and making inferences about what they think the story is about using the title and cover pictures. We told the story together as we looked at each page and then the students partnered up and retold the story to their partner. In our Haggerty Blue Book exercises the students worked on recognizing rhyming words, segmenting words, adding and taking away word parts and counting how many words are in a specific sentence.
Math: The students were introduced to our calendar and weather chart routines. We are adding a number each day we are in school to our worm. When we get to the number 100--PARTY!!!! The students did an activity called "Partner Match," where they found a partner who had the same length of paper that they did. We compared the lengths and ranked them from shortest to longest. The students worked on recognizing numbers 0-12, counting backward from 10-0 and recognizing basic shapes. We learned to play "Got It." During choice activity time, the students explored using unifix cubes, gears, pattern blocks and tiles. We worked on the positional words--top and bottom.
Writing: The students discussed what a journal was. They used the writing prompts from the TREASURES lesson. They drew a picture of themselves and wrote their name. They drew a picture of one of their classmates and labeled the picture with the name. The students began to explore the types of lines used in making a letter.
Literature: "What's My Name," "Wemberly Worried," "David Goes to School," "Kindergarten Rocks," "David Gets in Trouble," "First Day Jitters."
**All homework assignments are posted on my teacher website under assignments.
**Thanks to all who have signed up to help with LUNCH for the next 3 weeks. The students are learning about the lunch routine and about recycling and composting material. Please keep reinforcing---HOME LUNCH or SCHOOL LUNCH----MILK---WHAT KIND? Our volunteers and myself are working on students eating their MAIN ENTRE first, whether it is a sandwich, salad etc. and then eating fruit, granola bars, pudding etc. Thanks for sending such good choices in their home lunches.
**Keep sending in supplies if you have not done so.
**Please remember--gym shoes and socks on GYM days.
**The Back to School Party at Barrie Park was a blast! It was great chatting with many of you.
** I will be setting up the LEXIA, SPELLING CITY, XTRAMATH and TREASURES (our new reading series) sites hopefully in the next few weeks. These are great skill building activities on line for your child to access at home. Starfall.com is up and running. It is located on the left side under resources.
**No School on Monday, September 5th--Labor Day
This week:
It was all about routines and expectations! Yes, I talked a lot! Our daily schedule is slowly taking shape. The students are meeting their special area teachers. We are getting to know each other and fostering new friendships. The students learned how to earn EAGLE SLIPS for our School wide PBIS Behavior Initiative.
Reading: This week the students began a 3 week prep in our new TREASURES Reading Series called START SMART. The students worked on using their language skills by responding to a Daily Warm Up question. They worked on their listening comprehension and making predictions and connections by listening to the story "Animals in the Park-An ABC Book." The students worked on identifying a sequence of sounds using the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle." We reviewed the letters Aa and Bb and the sounds they make. The sight word, I was introduced along with red, blue, yes and no. We learned how to play the Hands Up, Hands Down game to help reinforce our sight vocabulary. The students were introduced to a wordless pre-decodable story, "We Go to School." They learned about book handling, locating title, author name and making inferences about what they think the story is about using the title and cover pictures. We told the story together as we looked at each page and then the students partnered up and retold the story to their partner. In our Haggerty Blue Book exercises the students worked on recognizing rhyming words, segmenting words, adding and taking away word parts and counting how many words are in a specific sentence.
Math: The students were introduced to our calendar and weather chart routines. We are adding a number each day we are in school to our worm. When we get to the number 100--PARTY!!!! The students did an activity called "Partner Match," where they found a partner who had the same length of paper that they did. We compared the lengths and ranked them from shortest to longest. The students worked on recognizing numbers 0-12, counting backward from 10-0 and recognizing basic shapes. We learned to play "Got It." During choice activity time, the students explored using unifix cubes, gears, pattern blocks and tiles. We worked on the positional words--top and bottom.
Writing: The students discussed what a journal was. They used the writing prompts from the TREASURES lesson. They drew a picture of themselves and wrote their name. They drew a picture of one of their classmates and labeled the picture with the name. The students began to explore the types of lines used in making a letter.
Literature: "What's My Name," "Wemberly Worried," "David Goes to School," "Kindergarten Rocks," "David Gets in Trouble," "First Day Jitters."
**All homework assignments are posted on my teacher website under assignments.
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