Friday, November 18, 2011
Our Talking Story Book
Check out our class take on Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle's great classic story.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
UPDATES for 11/4-11/10 2011
**We have had a seemingly fast but very productive week. It is hard to believe that it is November and that we are about half way to our 100th day!
**There was no school last Friday in observance of Veteran's Day. A shout out to all serving in the military--a personal shout out to my niece and nephew--Go Air Force!
**Thanks to everyone that contributed their $1.00 for "Hats off for Cancer." Our classroom raised $27 for the cause and many cool hats were worn. Thanks to our reps, Yaya and Alex for helping to spread the word.
**Don't forget to send in your child's permission slip and money for our Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo. Student and Volunteer information will be in next weeks homework packet.
**We have a few more baby pictures to collect, but our SEASONAL BABIES project looks spectacular! Come check out some of Irving's own faculty on our wall. Yes--you will see black and white photos! Some of us were around before color pics!!!
**PICTURE RETAKE DAY is Wednesday, November 16th. You received information in the homework packet.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 will be concluding next week. Students will be assessed on their skill and you will receive notification indicating the result. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Monday, November 28th.
**Here's a continued shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities.
**Mr. Packer's Math continues to focus on Probability. Next week, he will do a whole group activity and I will assist.
**We will have an ALL SCHOOL PBIS Olympic Day Tuesday, November 22nd. Kindergarten will participate in the morning. More info will follow next week.
**We will need 2-3 volunteers to help us with a special cooking activity in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 22nd. Please email me if interested.
**Please note--the end of Trimester 1 is Friday, November 18th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!!! We need several volunteers for our annual gingerbread cookie baking on Friday, December 9th, all afternoon. No experience needed! Create, decorate, bake and share!! I have 2 station day parents signed up but we need more. The more, the merrier!! Email me if interested.
**Students have begun preparing for the Kindergarten Winter Concert to be held Friday, December 23rd at 9:30 am in the Irving Auditorium. A reception will immediately follow in our classroom.
This week:
It continues to be all about our cross curricular theme on Bears. We continued our inquiry on brown bears and also began the study of black bears. The students continue to gather information from books and our online source, The North American Bear Center. The students learned where black bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics and habitats. The students specifically looked at the North American Black Bear. We learned that it is America's most common bear. The students began to observe some differences between the brown and black bear. (smaller paws, shorter claws, smaller stature, loves honey!) The students learned that bears are omnivores. Big word! On our nature table, the students experimented with trying on a brown bear paw, matching color bears, creating a bear claw out of clay using a template and writing about bears in their journal. Stay tuned--We will talk about polar bears next week.
Reading/Social Studies: The students have begun working in Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed what is meant by transportation--a way to move people and things from one place to another. They brainstormed ways that they get around and discussed forms of transportation that move fast and slow. They listened to the big book story, "A Bus for Us." The students made a prediction about what the story could be about using the title and picture. The students made connections in their own life about the various vehicles showcased in the story. The sight word see was introduced. The students defined it and wrote it as well as reviewed all the sight words we have learned thus far. Our target sound this week is Tt. The students made the sound and began locating items and words around the room that start with the sound. The students took a look a how the letter is made in both upper and lower case form. In our grammar section, the learned about action words or verbs. They had great fun coming up with an action and having the rest of the class guess what is was. As part of listening comprehension, the students listened to the big book story for the second time and then used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students had a lively discussion about the vehicles mentioned in the story and their function. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included TRANSPORTATION, VEHICLE, RAPIDLY, GLIDE, and CONTINUE. In our phonemic awareness activities, the students listened for and recorded when they heard the sound of Tt. They used their sound boxes to mark where they heard the sound of Tt, at the beginning or the end of the word. They practiced blending 3-4 letter words using their sound boxes. The students read their pre-decodable story, "I am Sam." They continue to finger point each word and picture. They are beginning to take note about how they are reading the sentences--choppy? smooth? They are working toward becoming fluent readers. The students listened to the informational text, "Signs in the Park." They took note of several things--types of signs, where you would see them, looking at a map, how to read the map symbols. The students practice reading their sight word see in sentences they created. In our read aloud story, "The Turtle and the Rabbit," many students had heard this fable before and were quick to retell and say what they thought the lesson of the story was. In the pre-decodable story, "Can Tam See?" the students had the opportunity to sound blend the name of the characters and share the story with a partner. Our work station activities this week included reading a story, retelling it and creating their own retelling cards, contributing to a graph of how students travel to school and writing about it, using their IPAD to spell their sight words, record reading their sight words and writing sentences containing their sight words, matching pictures to their initial sound letter and creating real and nonsense words for word family _in on their IPAD.
Math: The students began work on learning to sort based on common attribute. They participated in a game called, "What's My Rule?" where the students listened and looked for the obvious attribute being described by the teacher. Great for enhancing listening skills! The students continued to participate in generating, continuing and copying patterns using blocks, tiles and bears. In our folding paper geometry activity, the students randomly folded their paper, creasing it well. They unfolded it to see what shapes it revealed and outlined and colored the shapes. How many 3 sided shapes? How many 4 sided shapes? The students continue to work on writing and recognizing numbers 0-35 on our way to 100. They also continue to with place value and counting by 10's.
Writing: The students began working in their yellow lined journals. They are beginning to be more aware of where they write their upper and lower case letters when writing their sentences. We had a discussion on where tall lower case letters are written and where some lower case letters are written that fall below the bottom line. The students continue to work on practicing our Starting Corner Capitals they have learned thus far. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our reading series and have also made reflections based on their growing knowledge of bears. We continue to stress beginning with an upper case letter and ending with a period. We name and tell in our sentences. We are recognizing nouns and now--action words (verbs) in our sentences.
Technology: The students continue their study of and use of the IPAD as an enhancement tool for learning. The students welcomed Ms. Applebey, our great technology leader, to provide training and assistance to all of us. In reading, the students used the app Magnetic Letters along with Sonic Pics to spell their sight words, record themselves reciting them and emailing them to me so I could hear them too! The students then wrote 3 sentences using the words. The students used the app Word Wizard to work with the word family _in using their sound blending skills. They created a list of words and then recorded whether they were real words or nonsense words. After studying verbs, the students used their sponge painted bears and wrote a sentence describing an action the bear could perform. We then used the app ITALK to record each student reading their sentence and then emailing it to me. They loved hearing the playback--you will too! We learned a lot about speaking strong and clear when reading aloud. In math, the students used the app Number Find to challenge them to find 10 numbers hidden on the grid. It was all about finding a pattern to use to find all the numbers. The numbers ranged from 1-100. Challenging!!! The students also used the app Sam Phibian where they needed to find a targeted amount of each fish for the Sam's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Watch out!! Some of those fish travel fast!!! These activities were done in partners and small group. All the students sought information from the app Enchanted Learning in order to compare and contrast brown bears and black bears for our Venn Diagram.
Literature: "Black Bear Cubs," "Bears in the Forest," "Bears, Paws, Claws and Jaws," "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear," "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," "Black Bears," "Hibernation Station," "Every Autumn Comes a Bear."
**There was no school last Friday in observance of Veteran's Day. A shout out to all serving in the military--a personal shout out to my niece and nephew--Go Air Force!
**Thanks to everyone that contributed their $1.00 for "Hats off for Cancer." Our classroom raised $27 for the cause and many cool hats were worn. Thanks to our reps, Yaya and Alex for helping to spread the word.
**Don't forget to send in your child's permission slip and money for our Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo. Student and Volunteer information will be in next weeks homework packet.
**We have a few more baby pictures to collect, but our SEASONAL BABIES project looks spectacular! Come check out some of Irving's own faculty on our wall. Yes--you will see black and white photos! Some of us were around before color pics!!!
**PICTURE RETAKE DAY is Wednesday, November 16th. You received information in the homework packet.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 will be concluding next week. Students will be assessed on their skill and you will receive notification indicating the result. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Monday, November 28th.
**Here's a continued shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities.
**Mr. Packer's Math continues to focus on Probability. Next week, he will do a whole group activity and I will assist.
**We will have an ALL SCHOOL PBIS Olympic Day Tuesday, November 22nd. Kindergarten will participate in the morning. More info will follow next week.
**We will need 2-3 volunteers to help us with a special cooking activity in the afternoon of Tuesday, November 22nd. Please email me if interested.
**Please note--the end of Trimester 1 is Friday, November 18th. Report Cards will go home on Friday, December 9th.
**CALLING ALL COOKS!!! We need several volunteers for our annual gingerbread cookie baking on Friday, December 9th, all afternoon. No experience needed! Create, decorate, bake and share!! I have 2 station day parents signed up but we need more. The more, the merrier!! Email me if interested.
**Students have begun preparing for the Kindergarten Winter Concert to be held Friday, December 23rd at 9:30 am in the Irving Auditorium. A reception will immediately follow in our classroom.
This week:
It continues to be all about our cross curricular theme on Bears. We continued our inquiry on brown bears and also began the study of black bears. The students continue to gather information from books and our online source, The North American Bear Center. The students learned where black bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics and habitats. The students specifically looked at the North American Black Bear. We learned that it is America's most common bear. The students began to observe some differences between the brown and black bear. (smaller paws, shorter claws, smaller stature, loves honey!) The students learned that bears are omnivores. Big word! On our nature table, the students experimented with trying on a brown bear paw, matching color bears, creating a bear claw out of clay using a template and writing about bears in their journal. Stay tuned--We will talk about polar bears next week.
Reading/Social Studies: The students have begun working in Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed what is meant by transportation--a way to move people and things from one place to another. They brainstormed ways that they get around and discussed forms of transportation that move fast and slow. They listened to the big book story, "A Bus for Us." The students made a prediction about what the story could be about using the title and picture. The students made connections in their own life about the various vehicles showcased in the story. The sight word see was introduced. The students defined it and wrote it as well as reviewed all the sight words we have learned thus far. Our target sound this week is Tt. The students made the sound and began locating items and words around the room that start with the sound. The students took a look a how the letter is made in both upper and lower case form. In our grammar section, the learned about action words or verbs. They had great fun coming up with an action and having the rest of the class guess what is was. As part of listening comprehension, the students listened to the big book story for the second time and then used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students had a lively discussion about the vehicles mentioned in the story and their function. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included TRANSPORTATION, VEHICLE, RAPIDLY, GLIDE, and CONTINUE. In our phonemic awareness activities, the students listened for and recorded when they heard the sound of Tt. They used their sound boxes to mark where they heard the sound of Tt, at the beginning or the end of the word. They practiced blending 3-4 letter words using their sound boxes. The students read their pre-decodable story, "I am Sam." They continue to finger point each word and picture. They are beginning to take note about how they are reading the sentences--choppy? smooth? They are working toward becoming fluent readers. The students listened to the informational text, "Signs in the Park." They took note of several things--types of signs, where you would see them, looking at a map, how to read the map symbols. The students practice reading their sight word see in sentences they created. In our read aloud story, "The Turtle and the Rabbit," many students had heard this fable before and were quick to retell and say what they thought the lesson of the story was. In the pre-decodable story, "Can Tam See?" the students had the opportunity to sound blend the name of the characters and share the story with a partner. Our work station activities this week included reading a story, retelling it and creating their own retelling cards, contributing to a graph of how students travel to school and writing about it, using their IPAD to spell their sight words, record reading their sight words and writing sentences containing their sight words, matching pictures to their initial sound letter and creating real and nonsense words for word family _in on their IPAD.
Math: The students began work on learning to sort based on common attribute. They participated in a game called, "What's My Rule?" where the students listened and looked for the obvious attribute being described by the teacher. Great for enhancing listening skills! The students continued to participate in generating, continuing and copying patterns using blocks, tiles and bears. In our folding paper geometry activity, the students randomly folded their paper, creasing it well. They unfolded it to see what shapes it revealed and outlined and colored the shapes. How many 3 sided shapes? How many 4 sided shapes? The students continue to work on writing and recognizing numbers 0-35 on our way to 100. They also continue to with place value and counting by 10's.
Writing: The students began working in their yellow lined journals. They are beginning to be more aware of where they write their upper and lower case letters when writing their sentences. We had a discussion on where tall lower case letters are written and where some lower case letters are written that fall below the bottom line. The students continue to work on practicing our Starting Corner Capitals they have learned thus far. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our reading series and have also made reflections based on their growing knowledge of bears. We continue to stress beginning with an upper case letter and ending with a period. We name and tell in our sentences. We are recognizing nouns and now--action words (verbs) in our sentences.
Technology: The students continue their study of and use of the IPAD as an enhancement tool for learning. The students welcomed Ms. Applebey, our great technology leader, to provide training and assistance to all of us. In reading, the students used the app Magnetic Letters along with Sonic Pics to spell their sight words, record themselves reciting them and emailing them to me so I could hear them too! The students then wrote 3 sentences using the words. The students used the app Word Wizard to work with the word family _in using their sound blending skills. They created a list of words and then recorded whether they were real words or nonsense words. After studying verbs, the students used their sponge painted bears and wrote a sentence describing an action the bear could perform. We then used the app ITALK to record each student reading their sentence and then emailing it to me. They loved hearing the playback--you will too! We learned a lot about speaking strong and clear when reading aloud. In math, the students used the app Number Find to challenge them to find 10 numbers hidden on the grid. It was all about finding a pattern to use to find all the numbers. The numbers ranged from 1-100. Challenging!!! The students also used the app Sam Phibian where they needed to find a targeted amount of each fish for the Sam's breakfast, lunch and dinner. Watch out!! Some of those fish travel fast!!! These activities were done in partners and small group. All the students sought information from the app Enchanted Learning in order to compare and contrast brown bears and black bears for our Venn Diagram.
Literature: "Black Bear Cubs," "Bears in the Forest," "Bears, Paws, Claws and Jaws," "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear," "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," "Black Bears," "Hibernation Station," "Every Autumn Comes a Bear."
Thursday, November 3, 2011
UPDATES for 10/31-11/4 2011
**What a week it has been! Our Halloween Parade, Party and Assembly was great. We had a beautiful day for a parade. Lots of very cute and cool costumes. I have pictures taken by Lindsay's dad that I will post soon. Mei-Li, Tyler, Ava, Isabel and Ben are featured on the main District 97 website. Hats of to Room 110 at Irving!
**Yaya and Alex, our Student Council reps have a flyer included in this weeks homework packet for "Hats Off for Cancer" raising money for cancer research. Hope to see dollars and hats on Tuesday.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Don't forget to send in a picture of your child's baby picture for our SEASONAL BABIES project on Monday, November 7th.
**Permission slip and info for our field trip to Brookfield Zoo is enclosed in the homework packet. Please send money and slip back ASAP.
**Picture Retake Day is Wednesday, November 16th. You will be receiving more info on this from the office.
**The students participated in an informative presentation by Ms. Allen of the Multicultural Center on Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration that honors the dead. Ms. Allen used pictures and artifacts in her presentation. Ask your child about the use of skeletons, sugar artifacts and special bread or pan.
**The students had a COOL TOOLS Assembly on Friday, November 4th to review procedures and appropriate behavior in the bathrooms and on the playground.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 has begun. If you have any questions about your child and the skill level he/she is working on, please contact the teacher at the bottom of the notification sheet.
**Here's a shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities. Send them in when you can. Thanks!
**Mr. Packer's Math focused on a new unit on Probability. Mr. Packer and I continue to use rotating small groups on Thursdays. All students work in both groups.
** Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatts Friendship Club lesson centered around the appropriate behavior on the playground. Role playing and skits helped reinforced the concepts.
**We have completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series and will take our unit assessment on Monday.
**The students have begun exploring the IPAD as a tool to enhance their learning. See the new heading below that will describe our weekly activities and usage.
This week:
It was all about BEARS and IPADS, but we will save IPADS for the tech section. We began with an initial discussion/dictation on what students knew about Bears. We looked at some characteristics that all bears have and talked specifically about brown bears. We gathered some information online from the North American Bear Center. The students learned about where brown bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics, habitats and how they are mammals like us. The students were wowed by the fact that bears become adults when they are 2 years old and that female bears are excellent mothers. During station day activities the students created a sponge painted bear for our writing assignment, built a pattern block bear and sorted, counted and added bears in an activity. We read and shared many fiction and nonfiction books about the brown bear. The bear nature table will be up and running next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading Series. This week centered around friends who solve problems together. The students listened to the story, "Simon and Molly plus Hester." They asked and answered questions and responded to the literature by making connections in their own lives. The students reviewed sight words a and like, wrote them and used them in a written sentence. They reviewed the sounds of Pp and Ss and what a noun is. The students retold the story using the retelling cards. In phonemic awareness activities, the students categorized and blended phonemes to make 3 letter words. The students read the pre-decodable, "I Like, We Like." The students made predictions about what the story was about and practiced their reading with a partner. We used the oral vocabulary cards to develop our robust vocabulary in the tale from Haiti called, "The Turtle and the Sheep." Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were PROBLEM, SOLVE, GRATEFUL, THOUGHTFUL and INCLUDE. Our reading puppet, Mr. Happy helped us blend more 3 letter words. We used our dry erase boards to record the initial sound we heard in a word. In our read aloud folktale. "The Little red Hen," the students listened to fluent reading, recurring phrases and discussed what the lesson was at the end of the story. The students sequenced the events in the story. The students read their pre-decodable, "We Like" and "Pam" and practiced reading for fluency. We continued to review asking questions, sight words, nouns, colors and initial sounds-Pp, Ss, Mm and Aa. Workstations activities this week included creating sounds files with A, S, T, P and M pictures, creating a sentence or sentences about what two friends might say to each other and putting it in a speech bubble, expressing your feelings by drawing yourself happy and sad and writing a sentence about both and reading and responding to a book you read and sharing it with a friend.
Math: This week the focus was on the concept of time. The students had a lively discussion about the present, past and future and what happened today and yesterday or tomorrow, what is a short time and what is a long time. We took a look at the both digital and analogue clocks. We looked at numbers, hands and talked about minutes, hours and seconds. The students participated in an activity where they marked time using a drum beat, second hand, stop watch. What does five minutes feel like? Is ten minutes a long time? We observed the movement of the various hands on an analogue clock. We continue to work with patterns and shapes and are noticing more common attributes. We continue counting our way to 100 and think about place value. In our Problem of the Day activities, the students explored the concept tallest and problem solving by using math vocabulary in all, all together. We continue to explore the concepts greater than and less then.
Writing: The students continued work on letters U and V and added W. The students continue to work on proper posture and strengthening pencil grasp. They are now working toward where to put upper and lower case letters on a given line. Next week, we will have new lined journals! The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Many students are beginning to use more then their sight vocabulary in their sentences. The students do continue to use their inventive spelling. They are also using more labeling and speech bubbles to get their point across in their writing.
Technology: The students have begun using the IPADS in work stations, for small group work and for choice time. Ms. Applebey, our skilled IPAD tech will be working with us the next few weeks to help with technique and lesson choice. She is fabulous! In our work stations this week, students used the app Word Wizard to work with word families, creating real and nonsense words and then composing sentences. Students also used the app My ABC's to explore ordering the alphabet, locating upper and lower case letters, finding the pictures and corresponding letter sound and matching words. In Math, students used the app Monster Squeeze with a partner using numbers 5-15, 10-20 and 20-30. Students also used the app Intro to Numbers in small group to sequence order, locate the missing number, count and listen and recreate the musical pattern. The students also explored recoding themselves reading a story and playing it back to hear. Tons of fun and learning!
Literature: "Good Boy, Fergus," "Hispanic Holidays," "The Pumpkin Circle," "Zero is the Leaves on the Tree," "Skippy John Jones in Mummy Trouble," "T-Rex Trick or Treats," "Amazing Bears," "Time to Sleep," "Brown Bears," "If Bear Can, I Can," "A Birthday for Bear," "There's No Such Thing As Monsters."
**Yaya and Alex, our Student Council reps have a flyer included in this weeks homework packet for "Hats Off for Cancer" raising money for cancer research. Hope to see dollars and hats on Tuesday.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Don't forget to send in a picture of your child's baby picture for our SEASONAL BABIES project on Monday, November 7th.
**Permission slip and info for our field trip to Brookfield Zoo is enclosed in the homework packet. Please send money and slip back ASAP.
**Picture Retake Day is Wednesday, November 16th. You will be receiving more info on this from the office.
**The students participated in an informative presentation by Ms. Allen of the Multicultural Center on Dia de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration that honors the dead. Ms. Allen used pictures and artifacts in her presentation. Ask your child about the use of skeletons, sugar artifacts and special bread or pan.
**The students had a COOL TOOLS Assembly on Friday, November 4th to review procedures and appropriate behavior in the bathrooms and on the playground.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 has begun. If you have any questions about your child and the skill level he/she is working on, please contact the teacher at the bottom of the notification sheet.
**Here's a shout out for old magazines. We use them to find pictures and for collage activities. Send them in when you can. Thanks!
**Mr. Packer's Math focused on a new unit on Probability. Mr. Packer and I continue to use rotating small groups on Thursdays. All students work in both groups.
** Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatts Friendship Club lesson centered around the appropriate behavior on the playground. Role playing and skits helped reinforced the concepts.
**We have completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series and will take our unit assessment on Monday.
**The students have begun exploring the IPAD as a tool to enhance their learning. See the new heading below that will describe our weekly activities and usage.
This week:
It was all about BEARS and IPADS, but we will save IPADS for the tech section. We began with an initial discussion/dictation on what students knew about Bears. We looked at some characteristics that all bears have and talked specifically about brown bears. We gathered some information online from the North American Bear Center. The students learned about where brown bears are found, how they live, distinguishing characteristics, habitats and how they are mammals like us. The students were wowed by the fact that bears become adults when they are 2 years old and that female bears are excellent mothers. During station day activities the students created a sponge painted bear for our writing assignment, built a pattern block bear and sorted, counted and added bears in an activity. We read and shared many fiction and nonfiction books about the brown bear. The bear nature table will be up and running next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading Series. This week centered around friends who solve problems together. The students listened to the story, "Simon and Molly plus Hester." They asked and answered questions and responded to the literature by making connections in their own lives. The students reviewed sight words a and like, wrote them and used them in a written sentence. They reviewed the sounds of Pp and Ss and what a noun is. The students retold the story using the retelling cards. In phonemic awareness activities, the students categorized and blended phonemes to make 3 letter words. The students read the pre-decodable, "I Like, We Like." The students made predictions about what the story was about and practiced their reading with a partner. We used the oral vocabulary cards to develop our robust vocabulary in the tale from Haiti called, "The Turtle and the Sheep." Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were PROBLEM, SOLVE, GRATEFUL, THOUGHTFUL and INCLUDE. Our reading puppet, Mr. Happy helped us blend more 3 letter words. We used our dry erase boards to record the initial sound we heard in a word. In our read aloud folktale. "The Little red Hen," the students listened to fluent reading, recurring phrases and discussed what the lesson was at the end of the story. The students sequenced the events in the story. The students read their pre-decodable, "We Like" and "Pam" and practiced reading for fluency. We continued to review asking questions, sight words, nouns, colors and initial sounds-Pp, Ss, Mm and Aa. Workstations activities this week included creating sounds files with A, S, T, P and M pictures, creating a sentence or sentences about what two friends might say to each other and putting it in a speech bubble, expressing your feelings by drawing yourself happy and sad and writing a sentence about both and reading and responding to a book you read and sharing it with a friend.
Math: This week the focus was on the concept of time. The students had a lively discussion about the present, past and future and what happened today and yesterday or tomorrow, what is a short time and what is a long time. We took a look at the both digital and analogue clocks. We looked at numbers, hands and talked about minutes, hours and seconds. The students participated in an activity where they marked time using a drum beat, second hand, stop watch. What does five minutes feel like? Is ten minutes a long time? We observed the movement of the various hands on an analogue clock. We continue to work with patterns and shapes and are noticing more common attributes. We continue counting our way to 100 and think about place value. In our Problem of the Day activities, the students explored the concept tallest and problem solving by using math vocabulary in all, all together. We continue to explore the concepts greater than and less then.
Writing: The students continued work on letters U and V and added W. The students continue to work on proper posture and strengthening pencil grasp. They are now working toward where to put upper and lower case letters on a given line. Next week, we will have new lined journals! The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Many students are beginning to use more then their sight vocabulary in their sentences. The students do continue to use their inventive spelling. They are also using more labeling and speech bubbles to get their point across in their writing.
Technology: The students have begun using the IPADS in work stations, for small group work and for choice time. Ms. Applebey, our skilled IPAD tech will be working with us the next few weeks to help with technique and lesson choice. She is fabulous! In our work stations this week, students used the app Word Wizard to work with word families, creating real and nonsense words and then composing sentences. Students also used the app My ABC's to explore ordering the alphabet, locating upper and lower case letters, finding the pictures and corresponding letter sound and matching words. In Math, students used the app Monster Squeeze with a partner using numbers 5-15, 10-20 and 20-30. Students also used the app Intro to Numbers in small group to sequence order, locate the missing number, count and listen and recreate the musical pattern. The students also explored recoding themselves reading a story and playing it back to hear. Tons of fun and learning!
Literature: "Good Boy, Fergus," "Hispanic Holidays," "The Pumpkin Circle," "Zero is the Leaves on the Tree," "Skippy John Jones in Mummy Trouble," "T-Rex Trick or Treats," "Amazing Bears," "Time to Sleep," "Brown Bears," "If Bear Can, I Can," "A Birthday for Bear," "There's No Such Thing As Monsters."
Friday, October 28, 2011
UPDATES for 10/24-10/28 2011
**We have had a busy and productive week in Kindergarten! Route to Reading Rotation 2 has concluded. You should have received notification of skill status. Please email me if you have not. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, October 31st. At that time, you will receive notification of what skill group your child is now working in.
**Reminder information on our Halloween Events is enclosed in the homework packet. Please join us for the parade, party and performance. Siblings are also welcome!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders coordinated by our own Jen Andersson. Please place the order as soon as you can. I believe 1 week is left.
**We planted our tulip bulbs under the direction of Mr. Packer. The students learned about why we are planting them now, how to plant them and how to humanely ward off animals who love to dig them up. (1. squirrels 2. cayenne pepper)
**Please see the flyer on the Young Artists Workshop to be held on February 4, 2012. Great and fun opportunity!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our seasonal babies project. We will do the project on Monday, November 7th. Yes, I will have mine too and some surprise photos.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Our leaf sort went well. Each student added their leaves to the sort. We then labeled each pile. There was much discussion on color, size, shape and texture. We took a photo of the results.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about Red Ribbon Week, the theme being staying healthy and safe. They provided the students with examples of a healthy life style and things to avoid.
**Ms. Allen, from the Multicultural Center, will come to talk to the students on el dia de los muertos on Tuesday, November 1st at 8:45 am. Come join us if you can.
**We will begin our new theme-BEARS/CHANGING SEASONS on Tuesday, November 1st.
**Future field trip to Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st. More info will follow.
**Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed--Date is the same-Friday, December 22nd--but time is now 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm. Please make a note of it.
This week:
It was all about skeletons, bats and spiders!! Oh my! We took the fright out of these incredibly amazing specimens. The students listened to information from books as well as looked up information on the internet. They took a look at a model of a human skeleton and got to touch and feel a human REAL leg bone (courtesy of my brother, Dr. Gullo.) The students took a look under the microscope at a leg bone of a mouse and spongy bone particles from a human leg bone. Cool! Under our magnifier, we took a look an intact mouse skull (thanks to Justin's mom.) We could even see his teeth! They looked pretty sharp! The students looked at a model of a bat. It was really cool to see his thumbs. We also looked at a model of a spider. The students observed 8 legs and 2 body parts. They noted that this was different from an insect. The students worked with the terms--mammal and arachnid. Ask your child to tell you a fun fact about our specimens. (compact bone, spongy bone, nocturnal, pink pups, 8 eyes, silk, web) The students reflected and labeled in their journals. We will make an origami bat on Monday!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued on in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series. They built background knowledge about how friends in different parts of the world share activities. The student listened to the Big Book story,"Friends Around the World." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where the friends lived. We located the countries on the map so students could get an idea of where they live in relation to the friends in the story. The sight word a was added to our sight word list. We reviewed our other sight vocabulary and played ,"Hands Up, Hands Down." Our letter in isolation this week was Pp. The students made the sound and brainstormed words with that beginning sound. Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST and HONEST.
The students worked on listening comprehension skills using our big book story. We also used the photos on our retelling cards to tell the order of events. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy assisted us in practice blending of letter sounds to make 3 letter words. The students used their sound boxes to isolate where they heard the Pp sound--at the beginning or ending of a word. We read our pre-decodable book, "I am a Doctor." The students are really improving in tracking every word and picture from left to right as they read. The students listened to the story, "Brer Turtle Helps Out." They made predictions on what they thought might happen in the story. The animals in the story have an argument and then make up. The students also compared and contrasted 2 poems dealing with friends. The students used their sight word vocabulary and pictures to create sentences. They practiced reading them to a partner. We read the fable, "The Lion and the Mouse." The students retold what happened in the fable. The students had several partner reading opportunities in order to practice their fluency skills. They worked in their activity books and read the pre-decodable story, "I Am." Work stations this week included
creating word puzzles and recording the words created, read it and add to it where the student reads a story and then draws and writes a new page, friend puppet where you make a puppet and then draw and write about how to be a good friend and creating letter Pp with clay and drawing pictures and writing words that begin with the letter.
Math: This week our focus was on continued work with 2 and 3 dimensional structures. Come and check out some of our projects! We also worked on Drip Paint Symmetry. The students came up with some pretty unique ideas on what their paintings looked like. They are on display in the hallway. Our leaf collection project was enjoyable. Each student decided what group their leaves belonged in. The class examined the groups and made changes as needed. Students labeled the categories. It looks pretty cool. Our problems of the day involved sequencing steps in making a sandwich, how leaves were alike and different and beginning computation stories. We continue work on recognizing numbers 0-30 and counting quantities. We continue to do activities focusing on the concepts greater than and less than.
Writing: The students worked on the Starting Corner Capital letters U and V. They used their mini boards to practice and used their wet sponges in our wet, dry, try practice. They used the wooden pieces to create a tactile model of the letter and worked in their orange practice books. We used the writing prompts from our Treasures series to illustrate and write in our journal. The students also found our word webs and sentence starters useful. We continue to work on becoming more confident writers.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Skeleton Science," "Bones," "Bats: Creatures of the Night," "Fantastic Bats," "Bats Ball Game," "What Does the X-Ray Say?" "What is Inside My Body?" "Skeleton Meets the Mummy," "Spiders," "Three Hungry Spiders," "The Very Busy Spider," "Spiders Spin Webs," "Super Spiders," "Scaredy Cat, Splat."
**Reminder information on our Halloween Events is enclosed in the homework packet. Please join us for the parade, party and performance. Siblings are also welcome!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders coordinated by our own Jen Andersson. Please place the order as soon as you can. I believe 1 week is left.
**We planted our tulip bulbs under the direction of Mr. Packer. The students learned about why we are planting them now, how to plant them and how to humanely ward off animals who love to dig them up. (1. squirrels 2. cayenne pepper)
**Please see the flyer on the Young Artists Workshop to be held on February 4, 2012. Great and fun opportunity!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our seasonal babies project. We will do the project on Monday, November 7th. Yes, I will have mine too and some surprise photos.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Our leaf sort went well. Each student added their leaves to the sort. We then labeled each pile. There was much discussion on color, size, shape and texture. We took a photo of the results.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about Red Ribbon Week, the theme being staying healthy and safe. They provided the students with examples of a healthy life style and things to avoid.
**Ms. Allen, from the Multicultural Center, will come to talk to the students on el dia de los muertos on Tuesday, November 1st at 8:45 am. Come join us if you can.
**We will begin our new theme-BEARS/CHANGING SEASONS on Tuesday, November 1st.
**Future field trip to Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st. More info will follow.
**Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed--Date is the same-Friday, December 22nd--but time is now 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm. Please make a note of it.
This week:
It was all about skeletons, bats and spiders!! Oh my! We took the fright out of these incredibly amazing specimens. The students listened to information from books as well as looked up information on the internet. They took a look at a model of a human skeleton and got to touch and feel a human REAL leg bone (courtesy of my brother, Dr. Gullo.) The students took a look under the microscope at a leg bone of a mouse and spongy bone particles from a human leg bone. Cool! Under our magnifier, we took a look an intact mouse skull (thanks to Justin's mom.) We could even see his teeth! They looked pretty sharp! The students looked at a model of a bat. It was really cool to see his thumbs. We also looked at a model of a spider. The students observed 8 legs and 2 body parts. They noted that this was different from an insect. The students worked with the terms--mammal and arachnid. Ask your child to tell you a fun fact about our specimens. (compact bone, spongy bone, nocturnal, pink pups, 8 eyes, silk, web) The students reflected and labeled in their journals. We will make an origami bat on Monday!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued on in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series. They built background knowledge about how friends in different parts of the world share activities. The student listened to the Big Book story,"Friends Around the World." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where the friends lived. We located the countries on the map so students could get an idea of where they live in relation to the friends in the story. The sight word a was added to our sight word list. We reviewed our other sight vocabulary and played ,"Hands Up, Hands Down." Our letter in isolation this week was Pp. The students made the sound and brainstormed words with that beginning sound. Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST and HONEST.
The students worked on listening comprehension skills using our big book story. We also used the photos on our retelling cards to tell the order of events. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy assisted us in practice blending of letter sounds to make 3 letter words. The students used their sound boxes to isolate where they heard the Pp sound--at the beginning or ending of a word. We read our pre-decodable book, "I am a Doctor." The students are really improving in tracking every word and picture from left to right as they read. The students listened to the story, "Brer Turtle Helps Out." They made predictions on what they thought might happen in the story. The animals in the story have an argument and then make up. The students also compared and contrasted 2 poems dealing with friends. The students used their sight word vocabulary and pictures to create sentences. They practiced reading them to a partner. We read the fable, "The Lion and the Mouse." The students retold what happened in the fable. The students had several partner reading opportunities in order to practice their fluency skills. They worked in their activity books and read the pre-decodable story, "I Am." Work stations this week included
creating word puzzles and recording the words created, read it and add to it where the student reads a story and then draws and writes a new page, friend puppet where you make a puppet and then draw and write about how to be a good friend and creating letter Pp with clay and drawing pictures and writing words that begin with the letter.
Math: This week our focus was on continued work with 2 and 3 dimensional structures. Come and check out some of our projects! We also worked on Drip Paint Symmetry. The students came up with some pretty unique ideas on what their paintings looked like. They are on display in the hallway. Our leaf collection project was enjoyable. Each student decided what group their leaves belonged in. The class examined the groups and made changes as needed. Students labeled the categories. It looks pretty cool. Our problems of the day involved sequencing steps in making a sandwich, how leaves were alike and different and beginning computation stories. We continue work on recognizing numbers 0-30 and counting quantities. We continue to do activities focusing on the concepts greater than and less than.
Writing: The students worked on the Starting Corner Capital letters U and V. They used their mini boards to practice and used their wet sponges in our wet, dry, try practice. They used the wooden pieces to create a tactile model of the letter and worked in their orange practice books. We used the writing prompts from our Treasures series to illustrate and write in our journal. The students also found our word webs and sentence starters useful. We continue to work on becoming more confident writers.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Skeleton Science," "Bones," "Bats: Creatures of the Night," "Fantastic Bats," "Bats Ball Game," "What Does the X-Ray Say?" "What is Inside My Body?" "Skeleton Meets the Mummy," "Spiders," "Three Hungry Spiders," "The Very Busy Spider," "Spiders Spin Webs," "Super Spiders," "Scaredy Cat, Splat."
Friday, October 21, 2011
UPDATES for 10/17-10/21 2011
**Thanks so much for your attendance at Parent Conferences. I enjoyed sharing your child's progress with you. We are working hard in Kindergarten!
**The Irving Book Fair was very busy. There were many great choices. I did purchase some great titles for our class. A big THANKS to families who also purchased books from our classroom wish list. Reading is the way to go!
**Halloween Volunteers--J. Brock, A. Walker, M. Chlebek, T. Naber, G. Garcia, J. Chyna, H. Hamblin, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, J. Andersson and L. Waste are on my sign up to help. Please be at school on Monday, October 31st at noon to help the students change into their costumes. The students will have a regular morning schedule. They will be bringing their costumes and props in a bag. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, hand cuffs to school. Thanks! Our fabulous room parents have healthy snacks ready for our party. Students may bring a candy treat for classmates that will go in their treat bags. Our student assembly features a performance group called, "Be the Groove." It is a rhythm and movement group. Should be fun. Anyone else interested in coming--please join us!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders our own Jen Andersson. Try and place them as soon as you can.
**PLEASE NOTE--Our Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed. It remains on Friday, December 22nd but now is at 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm.
**Our first Kindergarten field trip is to the Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st as a culmination of our Bear Theme. Stay tuned for more info.
**Our Pajama/Book Discussion party was relaxing and enjoyable. The students viewed the selected "bedtime" theme stories and had a lively discussion about the setting, characters and content. Which story had the least amount of words spoken? Which story took place in a zoo? All stories had what main idea?
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt discussed with the students the meaning of compromise and how it is important to all of us in our daily lives.
**Alex and Yaya had quite a lot to report on from their first Student Council meeting. They ate lunch and talked about the purpose and goal of student council. They informed us that a fundraiser was in the works. It has something to do with hats. Stay tuned!
**Congratulations to Mei-Li! She is our first Eagle Slip winner in our classroom.
**Our age change graph is changing again!!! Jordan is moving to the land of the six year olds this weekend. Happy Birthday!
**World Language Classes begin on Monday, October 24th. I will receive a copy of the students participating. There are still openings for many of the languages. Check the Irving Website for details.
**Yes--Natalia brought a leaf hopper bug to school. The students marveled how it can camouflage in the grass. It was our special guest on Thursday morning!
**Spelling City has been updated.
**I need 2-3 volunteers to help with tulip bulb planting on Thursday, October 27th at 2:00 pm. Email me if interested. No green thumb needed!
This week:
It was all about Apples with our final project....The Great Apple Taste Test. The students tasted Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Honey Crisp and Fuji apples. Many descriptive words were shared--sweet, sour, crunchy, squishy, hard, soft, chewy, juicy, white, yellow, fleshy, watery, good, delicious. The students created a signature graph and when all was said and done--Golden Delicious was declared the favorite by a very narrow margin! What a healthy project.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you do with friends. We listened to the song, "The More We Get Together." Many students recalled the song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about different activities they do with their friends. The sight word LIKE was introduced. We reviewed our previous words and created sentences with them using words and pictures. Our sound in isolation this week was Ss. We used our sound cards and sound toys to guide us. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound. The students made the sound/symbol connection by writing the letter Ss. We reviewed what a NOUN is and looked for examples throughout the room. We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIEND, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPETE to our list. The students worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills. They reviewed their color words. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, helped us to work on blending sounds to form 3 letter words. The students read their pre decodable book, "We Like," and made predictions about the content. The students shared their story with a partner. The students listened and responded to the informational text, "Friends Follow Rules." We read our story, "I Like," and discussed what a speech bubble was. We used our sound boxes to isolate where we heard the sound of Ss--beginning or end. Work station activities this week included picture sort with A, M, S, Super S activity-making an S with clay, making pictures and writing S words, Reading Buddy--read one of your stories to a stuffed animal or puppet, draw a picture of you and your reading buddy, write a sentence about something you remember from the story, work on group mural about friendship--use the sentence starter, We can.....to tell about the pictures you selected.
Math: The students worked on variety of math concepts this week. We are up to numbers 1-30 in our Monster Squeeze game. We continue to review numbers 0-20, counting quantities, what number comes before or after a random number and concept of one more and one less. The students began experimenting with creating 2 and 3 dimensional shapes out of straws and pipe cleaners. We talked about flat shapes and shapes that have depth. The students used vocabulary words-- corners, sides and angles as they were building their structures. Magneetos and Connects were also included in their experimentation and creation. We are beginning to work on Geometric Solids recognition. Our Problem of the Day focused on counting by 2's using chopsticks.
Writing: The students reviewed their Frog Jump letter and began work on Starting Corner Capitals--H, K and L. We continue reinforcing starting at the top. In the case of H and K, we are lifting our hand off the paper to go to the opposite corner. We continue to stress proper writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil, the other hand holding down the paper. The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Sentence mapping has become a useful tool for some students. Other students are benefiting from written cloze activities and still others are independently writing their own sentence working on spacing between words in a sentence, inventive spelling and adding details.
Literature: "Apples," "Pumpkin Soup," "We Share Everything," "I Want to be Your Friend."
**The Irving Book Fair was very busy. There were many great choices. I did purchase some great titles for our class. A big THANKS to families who also purchased books from our classroom wish list. Reading is the way to go!
**Halloween Volunteers--J. Brock, A. Walker, M. Chlebek, T. Naber, G. Garcia, J. Chyna, H. Hamblin, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, J. Andersson and L. Waste are on my sign up to help. Please be at school on Monday, October 31st at noon to help the students change into their costumes. The students will have a regular morning schedule. They will be bringing their costumes and props in a bag. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, hand cuffs to school. Thanks! Our fabulous room parents have healthy snacks ready for our party. Students may bring a candy treat for classmates that will go in their treat bags. Our student assembly features a performance group called, "Be the Groove." It is a rhythm and movement group. Should be fun. Anyone else interested in coming--please join us!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders our own Jen Andersson. Try and place them as soon as you can.
**PLEASE NOTE--Our Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed. It remains on Friday, December 22nd but now is at 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm.
**Our first Kindergarten field trip is to the Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st as a culmination of our Bear Theme. Stay tuned for more info.
**Our Pajama/Book Discussion party was relaxing and enjoyable. The students viewed the selected "bedtime" theme stories and had a lively discussion about the setting, characters and content. Which story had the least amount of words spoken? Which story took place in a zoo? All stories had what main idea?
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt discussed with the students the meaning of compromise and how it is important to all of us in our daily lives.
**Alex and Yaya had quite a lot to report on from their first Student Council meeting. They ate lunch and talked about the purpose and goal of student council. They informed us that a fundraiser was in the works. It has something to do with hats. Stay tuned!
**Congratulations to Mei-Li! She is our first Eagle Slip winner in our classroom.
**Our age change graph is changing again!!! Jordan is moving to the land of the six year olds this weekend. Happy Birthday!
**World Language Classes begin on Monday, October 24th. I will receive a copy of the students participating. There are still openings for many of the languages. Check the Irving Website for details.
**Yes--Natalia brought a leaf hopper bug to school. The students marveled how it can camouflage in the grass. It was our special guest on Thursday morning!
**Spelling City has been updated.
**I need 2-3 volunteers to help with tulip bulb planting on Thursday, October 27th at 2:00 pm. Email me if interested. No green thumb needed!
This week:
It was all about Apples with our final project....The Great Apple Taste Test. The students tasted Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Honey Crisp and Fuji apples. Many descriptive words were shared--sweet, sour, crunchy, squishy, hard, soft, chewy, juicy, white, yellow, fleshy, watery, good, delicious. The students created a signature graph and when all was said and done--Golden Delicious was declared the favorite by a very narrow margin! What a healthy project.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you do with friends. We listened to the song, "The More We Get Together." Many students recalled the song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about different activities they do with their friends. The sight word LIKE was introduced. We reviewed our previous words and created sentences with them using words and pictures. Our sound in isolation this week was Ss. We used our sound cards and sound toys to guide us. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound. The students made the sound/symbol connection by writing the letter Ss. We reviewed what a NOUN is and looked for examples throughout the room. We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIEND, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPETE to our list. The students worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills. They reviewed their color words. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, helped us to work on blending sounds to form 3 letter words. The students read their pre decodable book, "We Like," and made predictions about the content. The students shared their story with a partner. The students listened and responded to the informational text, "Friends Follow Rules." We read our story, "I Like," and discussed what a speech bubble was. We used our sound boxes to isolate where we heard the sound of Ss--beginning or end. Work station activities this week included picture sort with A, M, S, Super S activity-making an S with clay, making pictures and writing S words, Reading Buddy--read one of your stories to a stuffed animal or puppet, draw a picture of you and your reading buddy, write a sentence about something you remember from the story, work on group mural about friendship--use the sentence starter, We can.....to tell about the pictures you selected.
Math: The students worked on variety of math concepts this week. We are up to numbers 1-30 in our Monster Squeeze game. We continue to review numbers 0-20, counting quantities, what number comes before or after a random number and concept of one more and one less. The students began experimenting with creating 2 and 3 dimensional shapes out of straws and pipe cleaners. We talked about flat shapes and shapes that have depth. The students used vocabulary words-- corners, sides and angles as they were building their structures. Magneetos and Connects were also included in their experimentation and creation. We are beginning to work on Geometric Solids recognition. Our Problem of the Day focused on counting by 2's using chopsticks.
Writing: The students reviewed their Frog Jump letter and began work on Starting Corner Capitals--H, K and L. We continue reinforcing starting at the top. In the case of H and K, we are lifting our hand off the paper to go to the opposite corner. We continue to stress proper writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil, the other hand holding down the paper. The students continue to use writing prompts from our reading series. Sentence mapping has become a useful tool for some students. Other students are benefiting from written cloze activities and still others are independently writing their own sentence working on spacing between words in a sentence, inventive spelling and adding details.
Literature: "Apples," "Pumpkin Soup," "We Share Everything," "I Want to be Your Friend."
Friday, October 14, 2011
UPDATES for 10/10-10/14 2011
**The students had a short but very busy and productive week. We have finished Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading Series. We will take our unit assessment on Monday!
**Parent/Teacher Conferences are set for Tuesday, October 18th, Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Scheduled times are posted on our entrance door. If you have not confirmed your time, please do so, thanks!
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the MORNING on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and RFCC pickup will be at 11:00 am.
**The Irving Book Fair is Tuesday through Friday, October 18th-21st in the auditorium. Stop by during conferences, after school and in the evening. We will be going to the fair as a class to "scope out" the books we are interested in on Tuesday. I have already spied some great selections!
**A flyer for our HALLOWEEN PARADE and CELEBRATION is enclosed in the packet. Many of you have signed up to help. I will send additional information next week.
**Alex and Yaya will attend their first Student Council meeting on Tuesday, October 18th. They will report back to us on what is discussed.
**We met our BOOK BUDDIES on Wednesday! Each student has an assigned book buddy for the school year. Book buddies interviewed each other for their book buddy book (sent home on Wednesday) and shared a story or two with each other. Ms. Balicki has a super class of kind and engaging students. We will have lots of fun. Our next meeting is in November.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt taught a lesson in Friendship Club on the importance of being a good listener. They used stories and role play.
**We will have our PAJAMA/CD BOOK DISCUSSION PARTY to celebrate our 93 eagle wings on Thursday, October 20th from 10:00-11:00 am. Our book theme is "famous bed time stories." The students will watch stories from authors, Frank Asch, Jane Yolen and Peggy Rathmann. We will then discuss characters, story development and create a compare and contrast chart. The students CAN come dressed in their pajamas on Thursday. We have early dismissal at 11:00 am. If they need to change.... just send their clothes.
**Don't forget--On line or flyer/money book orders are due October 19th.
**Our age change graph is changing again with Mei-Li and Reuben moving to the land of the 6 year olds. Happy Birthday! Ava also made the move last weekend. Happy Birthday!
This week:
Once again, its Apples, Apples, Apples!! The students continued to compare and contrast different types of apples, took a look at the skin of the apple and the flesh of the apple under a microscope and made a diagram of an apple and labeled its parts. We took a look a what trees in an apple orchard look like in each of the seasons and had a yummy treat voted on by all the students--apple slices dipped in melted chocolate!!!! The students helped use the apple slicer and counted how many slices where in each apple. What a treat! We will conclude our theme next week and begin prep for our next mini cross curricular theme -Pumpkins, Spiders and Bats.
Reading/Social Studies: We have finished Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Series. The students discussed and read about how families can change. They also talked about other members of their family called relatives and who relatives can be--grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousins etc. I shared the the story, "Peter's Chair," and students listened and made a prediction about what they thought might happen and discussed story structure --what actually happened. We review the sight words WE and THE through chants and rhymes. The students reviewed the isolated sounds of Mm and Aa (both short and long sounds.) We reviewed naming words (NOUNS) that describe a person, place, thing or animal. In our Robust Vocabulary development we discussed the meaning of the words CHANGE, GATHER, RELATIVE, OCCASION, EAGER, CELEBRATE and added them to our word bank. Students orally retold the story, "Peter's Chair" and sequenced events in the story. Students reviewed concept words--big, small, short, tall. We read our pre-decodable books, "We Can See," "Am I? and "Can We?" The students continue to work on reading from left to right, finger pointing each word and picture and noting a statement sentence and question sentence by voice inflection. We read the informational text, "Family Fun." The students responded and retold important facts about families. The students worked with their sound blending boxes to blend phonemes (individual sounds) to form words. They listened to a vocabulary story from Cuba called, "Rooster goes to Tio's Wedding." The students retold the story and pointed out how the rooster needed help but no one would help him until he spoke to the sun. Some of our robust vocabulary words were contained. We concluded our unit by re-reading all our pre-decodable stories for practice. We are ready for our unit assessment on Monday! The students enjoyed their work station activities which included drawing and naming your family members and using a complete sentence to tell what your family likes to do, before and after sequence--drawing yourself before you could walk and drawing yourself now and writing a sentence about each picture, reader's response where you read a book, think about it and write what you think about it and why and mixed up sentences revisited where students take sight words and pictures and create complete sentences with punctuation.
Math: The students worked on a number of math concepts this week. They learned and practiced techniques for drawing using a template with pattern block shapes. They used their knowledge of pattern blocks for Shape Hokey Pokey and spent sometime creating a pattern block design with blocks. The students studied Symmetry and what it means. They looked at examples of symmetry in life and in nature. They worked with a partner to create a symmetrical fold and cut project. They are on display in our classroom. The students also worked with paint bag number making. This sensory activity feels good and helps students with number recognition and form. We also used this activity to write our letters. We continue to work on sequencing numbers 0-20 and played the Monster Squeeze Game with numbers 0-25. We continue to work with concepts what comes next, what comes before. Mr. Packer continued work on an activity called Smart Snips where students create everyday pictures using only 4 shapes in his weekly thinking math sessions with our class. Pretty cool!!
Writing: The students continue to work on reviewing Frog Jump Capitals. Our next set of letters will be the Starting Corner Capitals. Stay tuned! The students continue to work on sentence construction and adding more details to their drawings. We continue to use our writing prompts from our reading series. They are working consistently on recording the sounds they hear in the words they use to describe their pictures.
Literature: "Totally Apples Cook Book," "How do Apples Grow," "Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins," "Leaves," "The Leaf Man," "I Am Picking Apples," "Leaves Fall Down," "The Perfect Pumpkin," "We Share Everything."
**Parent/Teacher Conferences are set for Tuesday, October 18th, Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th. Scheduled times are posted on our entrance door. If you have not confirmed your time, please do so, thanks!
**PLEASE NOTE that school is in session ONLY in the MORNING on Thursday, October 20th and Friday, October 21st. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and RFCC pickup will be at 11:00 am.
**The Irving Book Fair is Tuesday through Friday, October 18th-21st in the auditorium. Stop by during conferences, after school and in the evening. We will be going to the fair as a class to "scope out" the books we are interested in on Tuesday. I have already spied some great selections!
**A flyer for our HALLOWEEN PARADE and CELEBRATION is enclosed in the packet. Many of you have signed up to help. I will send additional information next week.
**Alex and Yaya will attend their first Student Council meeting on Tuesday, October 18th. They will report back to us on what is discussed.
**We met our BOOK BUDDIES on Wednesday! Each student has an assigned book buddy for the school year. Book buddies interviewed each other for their book buddy book (sent home on Wednesday) and shared a story or two with each other. Ms. Balicki has a super class of kind and engaging students. We will have lots of fun. Our next meeting is in November.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt taught a lesson in Friendship Club on the importance of being a good listener. They used stories and role play.
**We will have our PAJAMA/CD BOOK DISCUSSION PARTY to celebrate our 93 eagle wings on Thursday, October 20th from 10:00-11:00 am. Our book theme is "famous bed time stories." The students will watch stories from authors, Frank Asch, Jane Yolen and Peggy Rathmann. We will then discuss characters, story development and create a compare and contrast chart. The students CAN come dressed in their pajamas on Thursday. We have early dismissal at 11:00 am. If they need to change.... just send their clothes.
**Don't forget--On line or flyer/money book orders are due October 19th.
**Our age change graph is changing again with Mei-Li and Reuben moving to the land of the 6 year olds. Happy Birthday! Ava also made the move last weekend. Happy Birthday!
This week:
Once again, its Apples, Apples, Apples!! The students continued to compare and contrast different types of apples, took a look at the skin of the apple and the flesh of the apple under a microscope and made a diagram of an apple and labeled its parts. We took a look a what trees in an apple orchard look like in each of the seasons and had a yummy treat voted on by all the students--apple slices dipped in melted chocolate!!!! The students helped use the apple slicer and counted how many slices where in each apple. What a treat! We will conclude our theme next week and begin prep for our next mini cross curricular theme -Pumpkins, Spiders and Bats.
Reading/Social Studies: We have finished Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Series. The students discussed and read about how families can change. They also talked about other members of their family called relatives and who relatives can be--grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousins etc. I shared the the story, "Peter's Chair," and students listened and made a prediction about what they thought might happen and discussed story structure --what actually happened. We review the sight words WE and THE through chants and rhymes. The students reviewed the isolated sounds of Mm and Aa (both short and long sounds.) We reviewed naming words (NOUNS) that describe a person, place, thing or animal. In our Robust Vocabulary development we discussed the meaning of the words CHANGE, GATHER, RELATIVE, OCCASION, EAGER, CELEBRATE and added them to our word bank. Students orally retold the story, "Peter's Chair" and sequenced events in the story. Students reviewed concept words--big, small, short, tall. We read our pre-decodable books, "We Can See," "Am I? and "Can We?" The students continue to work on reading from left to right, finger pointing each word and picture and noting a statement sentence and question sentence by voice inflection. We read the informational text, "Family Fun." The students responded and retold important facts about families. The students worked with their sound blending boxes to blend phonemes (individual sounds) to form words. They listened to a vocabulary story from Cuba called, "Rooster goes to Tio's Wedding." The students retold the story and pointed out how the rooster needed help but no one would help him until he spoke to the sun. Some of our robust vocabulary words were contained. We concluded our unit by re-reading all our pre-decodable stories for practice. We are ready for our unit assessment on Monday! The students enjoyed their work station activities which included drawing and naming your family members and using a complete sentence to tell what your family likes to do, before and after sequence--drawing yourself before you could walk and drawing yourself now and writing a sentence about each picture, reader's response where you read a book, think about it and write what you think about it and why and mixed up sentences revisited where students take sight words and pictures and create complete sentences with punctuation.
Math: The students worked on a number of math concepts this week. They learned and practiced techniques for drawing using a template with pattern block shapes. They used their knowledge of pattern blocks for Shape Hokey Pokey and spent sometime creating a pattern block design with blocks. The students studied Symmetry and what it means. They looked at examples of symmetry in life and in nature. They worked with a partner to create a symmetrical fold and cut project. They are on display in our classroom. The students also worked with paint bag number making. This sensory activity feels good and helps students with number recognition and form. We also used this activity to write our letters. We continue to work on sequencing numbers 0-20 and played the Monster Squeeze Game with numbers 0-25. We continue to work with concepts what comes next, what comes before. Mr. Packer continued work on an activity called Smart Snips where students create everyday pictures using only 4 shapes in his weekly thinking math sessions with our class. Pretty cool!!
Writing: The students continue to work on reviewing Frog Jump Capitals. Our next set of letters will be the Starting Corner Capitals. Stay tuned! The students continue to work on sentence construction and adding more details to their drawings. We continue to use our writing prompts from our reading series. They are working consistently on recording the sounds they hear in the words they use to describe their pictures.
Literature: "Totally Apples Cook Book," "How do Apples Grow," "Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins," "Leaves," "The Leaf Man," "I Am Picking Apples," "Leaves Fall Down," "The Perfect Pumpkin," "We Share Everything."
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
UPDATES for 10/3-10/7 2011
**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."
**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."
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