UPDATES for 1/30-2/3 2012

**Thanks for your participation at Parent/Teacher Conferences. It was great to meet with all of you and share your child's progress. So much social and cognitive development has taken place since the beginning of the year. As your child's first teachers, I applaud YOU in setting the foundation!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 10th from 1:00-2:55 pm. Volunteers have received written notification. Of course, the more, the merrier! Along with their "HEART" project, don't forget to send in a picture of a 100 day old baby and a picture of a 100 year old person. We are also having an early Valentine's Day, so a valentine is also needed for each student in the class. Please keep in mind our NO NUT/NUT PRODUCTS and DAIRY FREE restrictions when sending in a treat.
**Time got away from us this week and we did not choose our new reps for Student Council. We will choose them on Monday. The first meeting is February 21st.
**Next week will be an assessment week for Route to Reading Rotation 5.
**Please Note--NO SCHOOL on Monday, February 20th in observance of President's Day.
**The FUN FAIR is coming!! The FUN FAIR is coming!! Play a game with me on Saturday, February, 26th from 11-3 pm at Irving School. There will be games, fun, prizes, dancing for desserts, a silent auction, food. It's a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon and raise money for Irving School. Our classroom donated CUBS BASKET is really turning out to be something! Thanks to L. Waste for organizing it and thanks to all of you who have contributed. Oh----There will be something REALLY COOL going on for the Pie in the Face Contest. You will have to see it to believe it!!!!
This week:
It was all about Bubbles part 2 and groundhogs Punxsutawney Phil vs. Woodstock Willy--early spring or six more weeks of winter??? How about Bubbles part 2 to start. Bubbles were back by popular demand! We also had many students absent last week and I wanted everyone to experiment with the bubble solution. This time, the temperature outside was warmer so no frozen bubbles. The students observed what happens when bubbles bump into each other. Some students noted that the bubbles seemed to bounce away. Others noted that some of the bubbles stuck together. It was great fun to watch a bubble hit the concrete. It popped and a wet spot was left. Why? A question to ponder. Once again the bubble machine was in action. tons of bubbles and 19 kindergartners running in all directions trying to chase them down. Fun!
On Groundhog Day, the students listened to the tale of the groundhog story. It appeared that we would have 6 more weeks of winter if you saw Punxsutawney Phil on T. V. .....but wait....what about a groundhog closer to home (Woodstock, Illinois)---What did Woodstock Willy see...or not see? He did not see his shadow! Great discussion about the two different results. Why was it different? We looked on our map and found Illinois and Pennsylvania. Students volunteered to share what they were thinking. We took a look at the weather of the day in each state and .......cloudy in Illinois......sunny in Pennsylvania......What is the connection??? Many students noted that the weather is different in different parts of the country and sometimes even different parts of the state. We took a vote about which groundhog to support. Though we haven't had a bad winter (knock on wood,) the majority of students voted for an early spring. Let's see how it plays out!!!!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading Series. They accessed some prior knowledge about what a neighbor is and what a neighborhood is. The students made a group list of places and things that a neighborhood might have. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Russ and the Firehouse." We reviewed the word expository (information) text. The students were reminded to think about story elements as I read the story. Who is Russ? What is he doing at the firehouse? Why is he there?
Our new sight word is are. The students added it to their growing sight word list. The students read a Rhyme and Chyme about a hippo and one student placed a wickie circle on all the are words. Our target sound this week was Hh. The students used the photo cards to identify all the pictures with the Hh sound. We used the sound toys to sort by exclusion all the ones that started with our target sound. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included the words NEIGHBORHOOD, EQUIPMENT. In the second reading of our story, students told what they thought the main idea could be and recalled details about the work Russ did at the firehouse. The students summarized the events in the story using the retelling cards. Our puppet, Mr. Happy guided the students through a sound blending exercise. The students then used their elkonin sound boxes to isolate each individual sound in their practice words. The students read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats?" They made predictions about story content. Each student had a chance to read a page. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at a comma? Were you able to sound blend the phonemes to say the word? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to reread the story to. They each recorded a page of their reading and played it back to hear how they sounded. They discussed with their partner the Reader's Checklist. They wrote down their responses. Workstation activities this week included Word Family Fun--where you chose from the word family cards--an, at, on, ot, in, it---added a single consonant, blend or digraph to create a word and write it on you paper--10 words to create and a sentence, Montessori Crossword skill groups working on sound blending words--long e, short i and ch, tool talk where students grouped tools 3 different ways and then drew a picture of someone using the tool and writing a sentence about it and writing about neighborhood places using the sentence starter--I go to....... and drawing a picture to go with it.
Writing: The students reviewed how to write a sentence. It names and tells. They wrote sentences in their journal about their Treasures story, "Russ and the Firehouse." The students also began to work on simple prepositions--for, on, at and in and include them in their journal entries. The students had great fun revisiting the use of speech bubbles in writing dialogue. They drew pictures in their journal and created speech bubbles to show what they said. The students continue to work on Magic "C" lowercase letters c, d, o, a, g, s.
Math: The students began lessons on nonstandard measurement and standard measurement. They listened to the story, "How Big is Big?" We took a look at how the term "feet" and its origin. The students made a foot 12 inches long. We also looked at a ruler. We discussed feet and inch as standard units of measure. The students experimented using the feet to "measure" the distance around a table. how long a classmate was, how tall a book was. The students created "beds" around their friend. We recorded our results on chart paper and the students began to think about marking off length, measuring from heel to toe in order to get a uniform count. The students also took a look at rulers and yardsticks. They are also working on counting by 10's to 100 and grouping items by 10"s and 1's and recoding the number. The students counted by 1's to 95. When looking at the numbers in order--do you notice any patterns?
Science: We continued our bubble experiments. The students partnered up as one student blew a bubble and other tried to catch it.....first with a dry hand and then with a hand that had sopay water on it. Is it easy or hard to catch a bubble with a dry hand? Students noted that the bubble popped pretty quickly. What about with a wet hand? Some students noted it was easier with a wet, soapy hand. Why? Students were on the money when explaining they know bubbles stuck to each other---perhaps because they were both wet........water sticks to water......Trying to catch bubbles with a dry hand means, the bubble might dry out quicker...pop! Lots to write and draw about in their science journal. Next week the students will explore water as ice.
Technology: In reading, the student small groups use the app Montessori Crossword to work on sound blending skills and word structure of silent e, short i and the digraph ch. The app ITALK was used to record partner reading for fluency and discussion. Students continue to use the app Magnetic Letters to create sentences using proper spacing, grammar and punctuation. In math, the app Labyrinth, Monster Squeeze and Math Bug were used by individual students, partners and small groups. Students continue to enjoy the challenge of TanZen.
Literature: "Water Can Change." How Big is Big?" "RRRalph." "E-mergency!" "How Big Am I?" "Press Here," "Little Penguins Tale," "Owl Moon."

UPDATES for 1/23-1/27 2012

**The Chinese Year of the Dragon has begun! The students learned about Chinese New Year, Tangrams and the science behind Bubbles this week.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 began this week. All students received notification of skill being worked on.
**Parent/Teacher Conferences begin Tuesday, January 31st and continue Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. Don't forget to confirm your time. Thanks! Please Note: School will only be in session the morning of Thursday, February 2nd and Friday, February 3rd. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session or lunch. Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pickup is at 11:00 am.
**We have finished Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series and the students will be taking their unit assessment on Monday.
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps. Please take a look at the information enclosed in the homework packet. If interested--send back. I will pick from the names submitted on Friday, February 3rd.
**Welcome Reading Grandma Mary! The students chose their own story to read to her.
**Welcome Ms. Amanda! The students had many questions about her wheelchair, how much movement she has, her daily activities, her school and what she does for fun. Ms. Amanda was candid and answered every question!
**The 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Friday, February 10th from 1:00-2:55 pm. We have M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quinones-Garcia, J. Andersson, Lottie's Grandma, I. Henry, R Leveridge and S. Armbruster as our volunteers. All students have received their "heart" for their project. Please read the information on the heart.
**Mei-Li's mom did a wonderful presentation on the Chinese New Year. It's the Year of the Dragon! She brought Chinese instruments, Chinese music and the Nian (Year Monster) heads that they use in parades. Each student got to try on the Nian (Year Monster) and other students supported the middle and back parts. The remaining students used the instruments and we paraded down the hall to the office ridding the hallway of evil spirits. The students learned about the color red for luck and special foods such a oranges, good luck messages and red envelopes called Lai-See given to children. The students learned which animal rules the year they were born. A great time was had by all. Thank you, Ms. Mikos!
**Mr. Packer presented a lesson on sequencing. He showed the students how to look for clues in each picture to help determine order. He also talked to them about trying to figure out the MAIN IDEA first by looking at all the pictures.
**The FUN FAIR is coming! The FUN FAIR is coming! L. Waste is heading up our classroom basket project that will be auctioned off at the Fun Fair. It is a CUBS/BASEBALL theme. She already has CUB tickets. Please help contribute to the basket. It can be items or money donations. You can send it to me with your child if you like. The FUN FAIR is SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25th from 11-3 pm at Irving School. Come play a game with me!
**Thanks for your support in having kids dress for the weather. Please keep it going! We have had a recent outbreak of sickness in our classroom. We are disinfecting and trying to keep as clean as possible.
**The GIANT BOX and COOL THINGS shout out continues. Keep saving them!
This week:
It was all about bubbles! The students had a great time investigating plain and then soapy water. The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounding a gas inside. That outside layer is like a skin. The students took their bubble wands outside with a big tub of bubble solution and bubbles were everywhere! The temperature was near freezing so some bubbles remained on the wand and were easy to photograph. Some students had clusters of bubbles. The students experimented with different shaped bubble wands. What shape did all the bubbles come out? Ask your child! Bubbles Part 2 is next week. Stay tuned!
Reading/Social Studies: The students worked to complete Unit 5 Animals in their Treasures Reading series. This week the students talked and read about animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal homes that they knew of. The students listened to the story, "A Mole and the Baby Bird." Students looked at the cover picture and made predictions about story content. The students recognized the characters and plot of the story. They made connections in their life to having or wanting a pet and the care involved. Ask your child what happens at the end of the story. The students reviewed the sight words--is and play. We played sight word bingo and students partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and pictures. The students "walked" all the words that have been presented thus far. The students reviewed the target sounds Ff and Oo. We reviewed all the target sounds presented in our lessons thus far. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE and ENTER. The story was reread and students were asked to think about the story elements. The students took turns retelling the story in their own words using the retelling cards. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy, assisted us in our sound blending routine. We used our elkonin boxes and placed the blocks according to the order of the sounds heard. The students blended the sounds and said the word. We continue to use 3-4 phonemes. The students read aloud the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap!" They made predictions about what would happen. After the first reading, each student chose a partner to read the story again to. I read a selection on the oral vocabulary cards called, "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats we may not see? Are some of their homes beneath the ground? The students listened to the expository text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." They made predictions on story content and responded with their thoughts on the animals in the story. We had a lively discussion on Wild vs. Domestic (animals that need to be taken care of.) The students read their paper story, "Can Tam Play?" Each student took a turn to read the story in their best voice. The students listened to the Mexican folktale, "The Coyote and the Turtle." We located Mexico on our map. The students responded to the story and discussed what the big idea of the story was. The students worked on sound spelling cvc words. They worked to complete activity books. Workstation activities this week included reading about animal homes--drawing a picture of an animal and home they read about and writing a sentence about the habitat and sharing their picture and sentence with a partner, book club reading-reading a story as a group-fingerpointing each word and then discussing story elements, rhyme it--working with a partner to make rhyming pairs and then writing a pair of sentences that rhyme, word picture web--using the sentence written in the middle...We play..... and then finding and cutting out pictures that describe the action, gluing them around the sentence and labeling the pictures.
Math: The students continue to practice counting to 100 and work on counting by 10's. We are also working on counting by 2's and 5's. In a nod to the Chinese New Year and geometry, our great tech advisor Ms. Applebey, led a 2 day study of tangrams. (ancient Chinese puzzles) She read the story, "Grandfather Tang's Story." The grandfather and the granddaughter share a story under a tree. On each page, the tangram is part of the story. Ms. Applebey introduced the 7 shapes called tans that are used in the tangrams. The students practiced at their tables with their own set of tans and used models to construct their tangram puzzle. On day 2, the students used the app, TanZen and chose a puzzle to complete. Lots of great brain work going on!!! The students had to manipulate the tans into the puzzle space with a light touch. They could also flip the tan over by tapping it twice. Not as easy as it looks. Very challenging!! Amazing concentration and determination not to give up. Really great problem solving for these 5-6 year olds. The look on their faces when they put all the pieces in place---priceless!!! A follow up to the project is a home project with a written component.
Writing: The students finished the lowercase Magic "C" letters c, o, a, s, d, g. They practiced using their mini slates and followed up in their orange books. The students continue to use writing prompts from the Treasures Reading series. We began a discussion on expanding sentence length.
Science: The students experimented with bubbles. The main experiment was explained above. The students learned that bubbles pop because the soapy water eventually evaporates from the surface of the bubble. We discussed what is meant by evaporation. The students watched a line drawn with water on the chalk board fade away. Where did the wetness go? Evaporation! The students reflected in their science journals and also drew pictures and sketches to illustrate their experience. Bubbles part 2 will continue next week.
Technology: The students main app in math was TanZen. While the students were working on their puzzle, the app played Chinese music that was very soothing to the mind. The app Math Bug was used by students individually to work on addition and subtraction. The apps Labyrinth (problem solving) and Underwater Memory (visual motor and memory) were also used by small groups of students. In reading, the students worked with partners using the app Sight Words. They located their appropriate group of words, said the word, recorded themselves saying the word and then used the stylus to practice writing the word. Small group student work also centered around the app Magnetic ABC's. The students used their sight words to construct sentences using appropriate spacing, beginning sentence capital letter and ending mark.
Literature: "The Chinese New Year," "Ruby's Wish," "Paper Lanterns," "What is a Bubble?" "I Know How We Fight Germs," "Ms. Bindergarten Stays Home from Kindergarten," "The Biggest, Best Snowman," "Artic Animals," "Snow on Snow on Snow," "Grandfather Tang's Story," "Tacky and the Winter Games," "The Snowsuit."

UPDATES for 1/17-/1/20 2012

**We have a good, productive week. The students are enjoying our water experiments and the anticipation of more snow!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Monday, January 23rd. Your child will receive notification of the current skill being worked on.
**I am continuing to administer assessments in preparation for our Parent/Teacher Conferences. If you have not done so already, please confirm your day and time. If you cannot make the time, no problem, email me for a new time.
**Mid Year Conferences for my class will be held Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. Please Note: School will only be in session the morning of Thursday, February 2nd and Friday, February 3rd. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. No afternoon session or lunch. Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pickup is at 11:00 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary (Monday afternoon) and Ms. Amanda (Wednesday morning) will begin assisting next week. We are excited!
**The 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quiones-Garcia and J. Andersson have signed up to help. We also have Lottie's grandma coming too! We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested. The student's 100th Day project will be sent home on Thursday along with instructions.
**We enjoyed snacks and stories with our Book Buddies for our January meeting. Next month, we will go up to their classroom!
**We are getting ready to ring in the Chinese New Year next week. It is the Year of the Dragon! Mei-Li's mom will give a presentation on their family tradition and history. Ms. Applebey will help facilitate a cool technology project using Tangrams and the IPAD. Stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt revisited the concept of self control. The students brainstormed ideas to help get them through situations that become frustrating.
**Mr. Packer continued his lesson on graphing outcomes and the terms probably, always and never. He started reading a really cool book called, "Tomorrow's Alphabet."
**Keep sending your child dressed for the weather. Unless it is super cold, we will go out each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**A Continued Giant Boxes and Cool Things shout out for our future space station project in April. Keep saving them. I will have you bring them in after spring break.
**Spelling City has been updated. Remember, you can always access a prior list to review!
This week:
It continues to be all about Weather and Water. Once again on Friday, the students tracked the latest snowstorm using the Weatherunderground site. The students also tracked where the storm came from and where it was headed. The students also observed what area would get the greatest amount of snow or rain. Pretty cool! In science, the students continued to marvel at the "climbing water" experiment with celery in red water. On the return to school on Monday, the celery was all red!!! Many objects and foods have tiny spaces for water to climb into. Even our skin has tiny spaces! Ask your child about it. The students experimented with water tornadoes and continues to explore water table activities. Station Day activities this week included, creating a lantern style snowman, making a sound blending wheel for the OCK word family and using the extension activities and using pictures to tell what happens to the snowman and writing a sentence under each picture. We are changing our Friendship Tree into a Mitten Tree. We read a story about a grandma who knits mittens for children who do not have any and hangs them on a spruce tree. What do the children do in return?
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. This week the student's built background knowledge surrounding how an animal changes and grows. They listened to the Big Book story, "Animal Babies ABC." We reviewed the word, expository--a story that give information about a subject. The students made connections about animals they had seen from the story and where they had seen them. They made comparisons on how some animals perhaps live in the same areas or eat different foods. The sight word for this week was play. The students reviewed the word and all others previously taught using the "Hands Up, Hands Down" game. Using our sound spelling workboard, the students took a spelling test to see how many of the words they could spell. Great work! Our target sound for the week was letter Ff. We read a rhyme and chant containing letter Ff words. The students took turns coming up to the rhyme and circling all the letter Ff's they saw. They continued to review nouns and verbs and wrote sentences in their journals with an animal name and action. The students used the retelling cards to help retell the story in their own words. Robust Vocabulary for this week included the words, FRAGILE, BELONG, SEVERAL, PARENT and INFORMATION. Our puppet, Mr. Happy helped the students model blending sounds to form a word. They used the elkonin boxes to sound blend words using short O, A and I vowels and consonants. We are working on 3-4-5 phoneme words. The students read their decodable story, "Can It Fit?" and made predictions about story content. They practiced reading their story to a partner and received feedback on how they read using the reader's checklist. The students listened to the fairytale, 'The Ugly Duckling." They reflected on the differences between the the gray duckling and the others. They commented on what the mother told the gray duckling. They talked about the change at the end of the story. The students enjoyed two poems about animals and discussed which one they liked better and why. All students read the paper story, "We Play" for fluency building. The students listened to the tale of the "Three Bears." Many of the children commented that they had heard the story many times. The students thought and responded about--What would have happened if the bears came home early? Why do you think the author wrote this story? The students recorded some of their ideas in their journals. Workstation activities this week included animal sort where the students graphed animals according to categories pets-wild-farm. They then wrote a sentence about one of their animals, What can you and your animal do? Writing an I can/They can sentence and illustrating it, read it and add to it where a student shares a story with a partner and then writes and illustrates a different ending and an IPAD activity emphasizing word building with short o and writing down words that were made.
Math: The students continued to study time by the hour and review clocks parts. We discussed the concept of counting by 5's as you move from number to number on an analog clock. We used our clocks to practice counting by 5's to 60. Some students are beginning to get the idea. We continue to work with counting to 100, counting to 100 by tens, and counting back from 15-0, as well as graphing opportunities with Mr. Packer. This week, we explored the world of scales and weights and measures. We practiced "weighing" objects and seeing how many bears or cubes it took to balance the scale. We took a look at the parts of the scale. The students were busy adding quantities together. Some students used the IPAD to illustrate a given problem.
Writing: The students have begun work on "Magic C" lowercase letters, c,o and a. We used our practice boards and paper to work on formation. The students worked in their orange books. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series. The students are writing 2 sentences. We continue to stress use of an uppercase letter to begin a sentence, an ending mark, spacing between words in a sentence, beginning at the left and placement of letters on a given line. In order for it to be a sentence, it has to name and tell.
Science: The students recorded what they observed with their celery in red water. We took sample pieces of a plain piece of celery and the piece that had turned red. We placed them under the microscope. WOW! Lots of spaces observed in both, but the red celery had much more defined spaces. The students moved on to Experiment 4--The Shape of Water. As the students took turns pouring water from one container to another, they discovered that water does not have its own shape, it takes the shape of whatever container it is in. The students extended this activity to think about the shapes of bodies of water and what the shape reminded them of----Lake Michigan, The Mississippi River, The Atlantic Ocean. Cool thinking! In Experiment 5, the students observed how various objects behave in water and predicted whether they will sink or float. I used some big words--displacement (pushing away), density (measure of mass.) The students did their experiment with members of their table. They observed the results and recorded them. They then got to go other tables to see other table results. Not all tables had the same results. Two tables had rubber bands sink--two tables had rubber bands that floated. Why? Much discussion took place. Stay tuned. Next week--what is a bubble?
Technology: In reading, the students used the app Montessori Crossword with the option of using short o words to sound out. They looked at the picture, found the letters to spell the word and wrote it down. The app Sound Sort was used by small groups to review beginning letter sounds. In handwriting, students got an opportunity to work with the app Whiteboard to practice their 'Magic C" lowercase letters. In math, small group work centered on the app Math Bug (addition and subtraction,) the app Labyrinth (problem solving) and the app Underwater Memory Match (visual motor and memory) and the app Doodle Buddy was used to illustrate story problems.
Literature: "Ice," "Six Snowy Sheep." "Curious George Snowy Day," "Snowman at Night," "Sink or Swim," "Water," "The Mitten," version 3 by S. Oliver, "Blizzards," "Some things Float," "Duck for President," "The Mitten Tree," "All You Need to Make a Snowman."

UPDATES for 1/9-1/13 2012

**Welcome back everyone! Happy 2012! Snow, Snow, Snow! I trust you all had a fun and restful break. It was great to hear about all the student's activities and travels. We had lots of travel journal sharing!
**There is NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 16th in observance of Martin Luther King's birthday. We shared stories and speeches from Martin Luther King's life. The students engaged in a very thought provoking discussion about Martin Luther King's childhood. The students questioned why your skin color should matter if you want someone to be your friend. Some students wondered what it would be like for them in Martin Luther King's time because one of their parents is black and other white. Powerful insights from five and six year olds. Our final discussion was on a quote from Martin Luther King's "Experiments in Love " speech from 1958 that reads, "The important thing about a man is not the color of his skin or the texture of his hair, but the texture and quality of his soul." Each student talked about what those words meant to them.
**Mid Year DIBELS testing was completed this week. I will be sharing the scores with you at conference time.
**I am beginning Mid Year Assessments next week in math, reading and writing. These assessments will also be shared with you at conference time.
**Speaking of conferences---Mid Year Conferences for my class will take place on Tuesday, January 31st, Wednesday, February 1st and Thursday, February 2nd. All students have a letter regarding conferences in their folder for you. Please respond by January 30th. Thanks!
**Vision Screening will take place Friday, January 20th. Hearing Screening will take place on Tuesday, January 24th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be begin her 5th year listening to young readers on Monday, January 23rd from 1-2:55 pm. She will be here every Monday.
**I am pleased to announce that Ms. Amanda will also begin assisting us every Wednesday from 9-11 am, beginning January 25th. Ms. Amanda assisted me this summer during summer school. She currently attends OPRF. We are so grateful for all of our helpers!
**The 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY CELEBRATION will soon be here! Our celebration is set for Friday, February 10th from 1-2:55 pm. I have S. Walker, M. Chlebek, M. Meagher, C. Bravo, T. Naber, G. Quinones-Garcia and J. Andersson signed up to help. We could use a few more volunteers. Email me if interested.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about self control and ways we manage our bodies and mouths. She did an activity involving how well we control our actions.
**Mr. Packer began an activity with the students what will involve graphing results.
**Don't forget to send your child dressed for the weather each day. Unless it is super cold, we will go outside each day. Snow pants, gloves, hats, scarves and boots are a must! Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Tuesdays and Fridays) Thanks!
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other COOL stuff for our space station construction in APRIL, during our SPACE theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start sending things in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about Weather and Water! Our first snow fall was very exciting! The students enjoyed tracking the storm using the Weatherunderground site. They were able to "animate" the images to see where the storm was heading. We put on all our gear and went outside to catch snowflakes on black paper. The students took their magnifiers out to take a closer look. Before venturing out, we read about how snow is formed and why it snows. It all starts with a speck! (Ask your child about it!) The students have begun experimenting with the properties of water. Who knew a water droplet could be so much fun! Check out our experiments and results under the science heading. Station Day activities included "sewing" a mitten and retelling the story with the paper characters, conversational snowmen, written reflections on snow, sound blending wheels using the op word family.
**Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know from seeing them in a zoo. We had an amazing teachable moment when Mei-Li talked about seeing manatees on her vacation. Many of the students did not know what a manatee was so we accessed some internet information on manatees. Using the site, "Defenders of Wildlife.com, " the students saw a video about manatees and learned about their life, behavior, what they eat and that they are a distant relative of the elephant. Most importantly, the student learned that manatees are an endangered species. Pretty cool! The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions a cat or kitten might perform. Those students with cats as pets made connections between their pet and the kittens in the story. Our sight word for this week is the word is. We reviewed it along with all our other words that have been introduced. The target sound and letter this week in Oo. The students worked on associating the sound with picture cards. The students listened to the rhyme. "The Ostrich is Talking." They were able to pick out the rhyming words as well as the words that began with short o. The students went back into the rhyme and marked all the words containing the letter Oo. The students continued to review and work with verbs by making a list of what kittens can do by naming a verb. Our robust vocabulary for this week contained the words ACTION, COMPARE, CONTENT, GENTLE, POUNCES. The students made comparisons in the the Big Book story about what the two kittens do compared to Boris (the third kitten.) The students worked with their elkonin sounds boxes to blend sounds using short o to make new words. They read their decodable book, "Sit," making predictions and commenting at the end of the story about the fish. The students listened to the vocabulary card tale, "Mam Mouse and El Gato." They discussed similarities and differences between cats and mice. In the expository text, "Let's Go to the Vet," the students learned about what a diagram was and focused on the content of the story. The students worked with partners to create sentences using target words and pictures and read them back to one another. They read aloud the paper story,"The Cat," and filled out the Reader's Checklist to critique themselves. The students also listened to their friends comments on their reading. (Could they be heard? Did they finger point each word and picture? Did they read smooth or choppy?) The students did an exercise where they had to listen to the word and place their marker in the box where they heard the Oo sound. The students listened to the rhyme, "The Three Little Kittens." They picked out the rhyming words, talked about the lesson in the story and reflected that many of them had heard this rhyme in preschool. The students worked in their activity books. Our workstations this week included making a pet chart by discussing pets with a partner, drawing a picture of your pet and writing your name, adding it to the pet chart. At the end of the week, the students recorded the pets and how many children liked each one. They recorded this on a separate chart. They also completed a sentence starter--It is on the______. They drew their pet on something. There was Buddy Reading. the students shared a story, talked about it and then wrote about what happened in their story. The students played WORD MAKER, where they picked a card, chose the letters and built the word on their word maker board and then recorded it on a separate paper. Some students made 15 words. WOW! The last workstation was SIGHT WORD practice using the Magnetic ABC app. The students has to spell their word, record it on a separate sheet and then compose a sentence on the app using appropriate grammar and punctuation.
**Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 70, counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. They continue to work on place value and grouping by 10's. This week we revisited our number rhymes and practiced writing 1, 2 and 3 digit numbers. They students are beginning to record information in a story story problem. We are using the plus and equal signs to create number sentences. The students revisited creating and continuing patterns and naming patterns. The students explored the world of clocks and other concepts of time. We took a look at an analog and digital time pieces and their characteristics. We learned about time by the hour.
Writing: The students revisited forming upper case letters, using the cues from our Handwriting Without Tears series. They continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series in their journals. They continue to concentrate on sentence structure--naming and telling, beginning with a capital letter, using an ending mark, placement of letters on a given line and spacing between words in a sentence.
Science: The students began with an inquiry discussion/dictation on what they know about WATER. The students were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student has an experiment book along with a science reflection journal to record their experiment results as well as their own thoughts and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of materials--straws, cups, tongue depressors etc. Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks. In Experiment 2, students learned that water drops have their own shape and can "stick" to one another. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another to form a bigger droplet! We talked about the scientific word--cohesion, to describe this process. The students found it was difficult to separate the droplets in two. In Experiment 3, the students discussed how water can be absorbed or sucked into certain materials. They experimented with paper, paper towels, sponges. In the experiment, the students saw the red water "climb" up their paper towel. They learned that there are tiny spaces that the water can get into. We took a piece of the regular paper towel and red water paper towel and put it under the microscope. WOW! Millions of little holes!!! In part two of this experiment, the students put celery in red water. They will check it out on Monday. Stay tuned! Our water table is now open for student exploration. The students are having great fun with our water wheel!
Technology: In reading, students used the app Magnetic Alphabet in their workstation. The app Reading Sightwords was used individually and with partners. The students said the target word, recorded themselves, played it back and used the stylus to practice writing the word. In math the students used the app Top It for one and two digit addition practice. The app Find the Sums was used to create addition problems using number families. The app Ace Mathland was used in small group and individually find the sums that create and solve a puzzle. The students continue to use all apps introduced thus far for their choice time activities.
Literature: "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow," "Stella, Queen of the Snow," "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, "The Mitten" by Jim Alyesworth, "Martin's Dream," "Water," "Turn on the Faucet," "Counting Time from Seconds to Minutes," "The Story of Snow," "Why Does it Snow," "It's Winter."

UPDATES for 12/19-12/23 2011

**There was lots of singing and instrument playing this week. Our class attended the programs
of grades 1-5. Wow! Amazing voices , movement and instrument playing by these classes. The students were completely enthralled by the harp music played by 5th grader and Book Buddy, Ari, as well as the jiembe and drum pieces played by Mr. Williams and Ms. Tarabus' husband. We are sure talented here at Irving School!
**Our kindergarten classes performed wonderfully on Friday! The students had such fun seeing their family and friends in the audience. Our class had a great luncheon and family craft time. Thanks to L. Waste for providing the craft. Our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class joined us in the afternoon for a project using the IPAD and the app, Doodle Buddy. A big thanks to Ms. Applebey for assisting. Stay tuned! I am so thankful for all the parental help this week! You guys are the best! What a perfect ending to a busy week.
**Yaya and Alex finished their time serving as Student Council reps. They had their final update meeting with the class to express their thoughts and tell their favorite parts of their service. We will be looking for 2 new reps in January.
**Mei-Li's mom shared with us the history behind the Winter Solstice. She read a story and Mei-Li helped show the suns position using a flashlight and globe. We toasted the sun by sipping orange juice and listening and singing to the Beatles tune,"Here Comes the Sun." I presented the story of the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. I shared several stories and artifacts. The students pointed out the use of light in the form of candles in the Kinara and what each colored candle symbolized. The festival of Hanukkah (which began on Tuesday) was shared by our own Ms. Applebey. She taught the students a cool math game called the "Dreidel Race."
**Classes resume on Monday, January 9, 2012.
**Mid Year DIBELS Testing will take place the first 2 weeks of January. Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on January 23rd.
**Vision Screening for students will take place on Friday, January 20th. Hearing Screening will take place on Tuesday, January 24th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 5th year listening to young readers and helping them to shape their decoding and comprehension skills.
** Mrs. Donaldson (Mrs. D.) will continue to assist us on Tuesday mornings. We so value her commitment to us.
**For those who are traveling--your travel journals went home. It will great to share them in January.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other COOL stuff for our space station construction in APRIL during our SPACE theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start sending things in after spring break.
**LOOKING AHEAD in 2012.......We will begin our next cross curricular theme-WINTER and Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. We will also begin our first Science unit-Properties of Water. In the area of reading, we will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending 3, 4, 5, and even 6 phoneme words, work on our decoding strategies, vowel sounds, oral and written comprehension skills and reading fluency. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. In the area of writing, we will begin formal instruction on lowercase letter formation, continue with our inventive spelling, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation and expanding our sentences to include adjectives. In the area of math, we will continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, identifying coins and their values, problem solving, counting down from random numbers and combining and decomposing sets (addition and subtraction) and telling time. We will begin using our math journals to illustrate process. Socially, we will continue to work on becoming more responsible, independent learners and thinkers and continue to form positive relationships and respect all around us. WOW--we will be busy!!
This week:
It was all about community with one another, family and friends. We put up our 'Friendship Tree." The students made friendship chains, working in pairs and groups and then combined the chains for one super long chain to decorate the tree. They wrote messages to friends in class and posted them on the message board next to the tree. Really wonderful thoughts were expressed. I have photographed the tree and board and will post the pictures in the gallery. The students shared a great lunch with their families and worked on a craft together. It was great to observe such care and love. The interaction with our Book Buddies was awesome. My students really look up to the "big" kids for guidance. Their collaborations will be shared with you.
Reading/Social Studies: The students completed Unit 3 Food in the Treasures Reading Series. They took their unit assessment on Thursday. The students built background knowledge around food traditions. This tied in nicely with our ongoing theme of traditions. The students were able to tell about their personal family food traditions including Thanksgiving turkey, Chinese New Year foods, Hanukkah foods and Christmas traditional foods. We discussed what a menu was. The students listened to the story, "Yoko." The students worked on making inferences, summarizing and making connections in the story to their own lives. We reviewed the sight words have and to. The students used these and the rest of their sight vocabulary to create sentences using words and pictures. We reviewed our target sounds Cc and Nn in isolation at the beginning and ending of words. The students continued to used their photo cards to sort nouns and verbs. Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included the words MENU, TRADITION, DEVOUR, FRESH and DELICIOUS. The students used their sound (elkonin) boxes to sound blend 3 and 4 phonemes to create words. They practiced reading their decodable story, "Nat." The students made predictions about story content. The students listened to the tale, "The Three Wishes." They thought about ---What if they had three wishes? What would they be? What were the man and woman's wishes in the story? The students also listened and viewed pictures from the expository (informational) text, "Farming Then and Now." The students responded about how the way to farm has changed over the years. Students observed the use of animals and the gradual change to machines. Each student read the paper story, "I Have To," and then retold it in their own words. The students practiced their reading skills by sharing their story with a partner. For a small group project, the students collaborated with their group members and came up with a recipe for a food. The recipe had to include nouns (flour, sugar, fish etc.) and verbs (mix, stir, peel etc.) The students worked with the headings--what do we need? what do we do? Some of the food recipes include sushi, pancakes and cupcakes. The projects are on display in our classroom. Check them out! Our workstations this week included readers response, where the student reads a story aloud to Ms. D and discusses the story and their reaction to it, creating an ABC book, picking a letter, illustrate and writing the word, sound Tic Tac Toe Game with partners where you look at your game card, point to a letter and say a word that starts with that letter and mark it with the appropriate X or O and read aloud recording where the student practiced their story first, then recorded their story reading on ITALK , played it back and then filled out the reader's checklist.
Math: The students continued work on rote counting to 100 and beyond, counting by tens and fives, using calculators to do simple adding and listening to a number story and illustrating the process and writing a number sentence. All students completed their Gingerbread Man patterning project and shared it with the class.
Writing: All students reviewed writing uppercase letters A-Z. They reviewed which were the Frog Jumps, Magic "C"s, Starting Corner and Starting Center letters. Writing prompts this week included--sample menu writing, writing about the concerts you saw, writing about the Gingerbread person you created, writing about what you will do over break. We continue to stress beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence, ending mark at the end of the sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Technology: The students continue to use the app Whiteboard with a stylus to practice number and letter formation. They continue to record their reading using ITALK and playing it back to critique how they sound. The apps Word Wizard, Montessori Crossword and Sound Sort and Reading Bug helped assist students with sound recognition, sound blending, segmenting sounds and practice spelling their sight words. The apps Math Bug, Top It and Gingerbread Maker helped assist students with adding and subtracting, patterns and place value. The app Doodle Buddy was used with our Book Buddies for collaborative illustration, writing, graphics and fun!
Literature: "Count the Days of Hanukkah," "The Chanukkah Guest," "A Picture Book of Hanukkah," "The Longest Christmas List Ever," "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Merry Christmas Hungry Bear," "The Crunchy, Munchy Christmas Tree," "Bear Stays Up for Christmas," "Fiesta USA," "K is for Kwanzaa," "My First Book of Kwanzaa," "Muslim Holidays," "7 Candles for Kwanzaa."

UPDATES for 12/12-12/16 2011

**The countdown has begun to our final week in school for 2011! The students continue to be busy with concert practice, classroom lessons, thinking about their winter break from school (lots of travel journals to make) and sharing and caring about one another. Tis the season! We continue to talk about family traditions and celebrations and the use of lights. Lottie's father came to talk to our class about the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia. He read a story and Lottie dressed up in her white dress and wore her candle crown. She passed out ginger cookies similar to the ones eaten in Sweden. The students learned some Swedish words and heard the St. Lucia song in Swedish. Thanks so much, Josh for your presentation! I presented the story of Christmas. The students listened to the story. We talked about the North Star and I shared with them a set of special finger puppets that my mother had given to me. Next up is Mei-Li's mom, who will speak about the Winter Solstice celebration their family shares. Also, the students will learn about the traditions of Hanukkah and Posadas, as well as look back at the celebrations of Ramadan and Diwali. We are learning so much from each other.
**Our Kindergarten Winter Concert is Friday, December 23rd beginning promptly at 9:30 am. We are sure to have a full house. Please plan accordingly. Immediately following our concert, please join us in our classroom for craft making and lunch. An invitation is enclosed in the homework packet. Families and friends, please plan to be at school from 9:30-11:30 am if you can. In the afternoon, we will have a special treat. The students will be creating a project with their 5th Grade Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's class. Our great tech advisor, Ms. Applebey, will help facilitate the event. Don't forget--NO Lunch needed!!!
**Solar energy has come to Irving School! Our Green Team rep, Salome, has talked about the solar panels that our school was getting through a grant program. They arrived on Friday! We took a look at pictures of solar panels on the web and located information through the Energy Department on how solar energy works. We learned the words renewable and nonrenewable when speaking about energy sources. Solar energy is renewable. We went outside to see one of the panels. There are five in all. They were installed on the library roof. Stay tuned!
**The Girl Scout Toy Drive ends Monday, December 19th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 has concluded. All students have received notification of skill development. There is no Route to Reading from December 19th to January 23rd. Mid year DIBELS assessments will take place the first part of January.
** Due to our rehearsal schedule, we did not have Mr. Packer math this week.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Kwiatt read a story and lead a discussion with the students about what it means to be proud, both of themselves and their accomplishments in their everyday lives.
This week:
It was all about pride! We used the tale of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as a springboard to discussion and dictation about taking pride in yourself and your accomplishments, believing in yourself and taking pride in others. In our first tale, Rudolph was made fun of because of his shiny nose. The students made connections in their lives about times when others put them down or times when they felt they didn't know enough or know how to do something. Sometimes, it just takes one person or event to help us see our worth! In the second tale of Rudolph, he loses the shine on his nose because he feels sorry for himself and runs away. The students shared times in their lives when they wanted to give up or not try. At the end of the story, Rudolph's shiny nose returns as he stops thinking about himself but of how to help find the little bunnies. Simple stories with very teachable moments! Ms. Kwiatt continued the theme of pride in her Friendship Club lesson.
Reading/ Social Studies: The students continue to work in Unit 4 Food of our Treasures Reading Series. The discussion this week centered around the questions, "What is for dinner?" and "Did you ever help to make dinner?" The students accessed prior knowledge about meals
they helped prepare and special meals that are coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the story, "Our Special Sweet Potato Pie." They made connections in the story discussing parts that could not really happen (the potatoes getting bigger as they rolled down the hill,) and parts that could happen (making a sweet potato pie, having a special birthday dinner.) They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. Our sight word for this week was have. The students reviewed all sight words they learned so far by working with partners and using their words and picture cards to create sentences. The target sound this week was letter Cc. The students used chants and rhymes to help reinforce the letter sound. The students continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their journals. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, PREFER, FLAVOR and SPECIAL. The students also used the story to sequence events, summarize and make inferences about what would happen. The students continue to use their sound boxes (elkonin boxes) and blocks to listen, place the block in the correct box and sound blend the phonemes to make the word. We are adding more blends and digraphs to our sound blending. The students read the decodable story, "We Can!" We read aloud together. Students then took turns reading their story to a friend. The students continue to work on their oral language by listening and responding to the vocabulary story from Puerto Rico, called, "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot." They also heard two poems containing the sound of Cc words. The students read their story, "I Have." They located the speech bubble and knew who was talking. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, assisted the students by saying the sounds and the students responded by saying the whole word made. The students continue to work on their small group interactive project--Writing a Recipe--using nouns and verbs to describe what they need and what they do in order to make their group food recipe. Lots of team work involved. Projects will be on display next week. In the Russian folktale, "Grandfather Bear is Hungry," the students listened and responded to the tale. They made prior knowledge connections in thinking back about our unit on Bears. The students topped off the week by playing "Hands Up, Hands Down" with their sight words. Work stations this week included, creating a word web about foods "I like to have" and writing 2 sentences about it, read it and add to it where they choose their own story to read, read it to a friend and write about what could happen next, creating a store sign with magazine pictures and labeling the foods on your sign and making a pretend meal in the house corner area, photographing it and writing about your favorite meal and where you got your food from.
Math: The students worked on an introduction to the Calculator. They learned how solar power operates the calculator and terms DISPLAY, ON/CLEAR, REPEAT KEY, PLUS SIGN and locating numbers. The students worked with counting on the calculator and the term, "one more." They also learned the counting shortcut. More to come next week. The students continue to work on counting sequences, oral number stories and beginning number sentences. They have become more consistent in writing 2 digit numbers. Place value has become more understandable. The students are locating numbers in the tens and ones places. The students are working on counting by tens to 100. This weeks station day activities included sorting, graphing and counting trees, creating a tree out of pattern triangles and following directions using shapes to make Rudolph.
Writing: The students are using their writing for many assignments. They finished the starting center capitals A, I, T, J. We will review all upper case letters next week. The students used the writing prompts in their Treasures Series and continue to work on letter formation, spacing of words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line. Next week, the students will begin using regular #2 pencils. Any special tools will continue to be used on these pencils.
Technology: The students continue to use the stylus and app Whiteboard to practice their number rhymes and letter formation. Groups of students began to using the ITalk to record the story of their choosing. They played back the recording to hear how they sounded. They then filled out a Reader's Checklist form reflecting how they felt about their reading. Some surprising responses! The students were honest about how they sounded. This checklist will be used to help the students self reflect and make them more aware of their volume/projection, fluency and sound blending. Ms. Applebey assisted in guiding them through the process so that I could hear them too. Some of the stories were too long to email. We are working to see what can be done. My hope is for families to get a chance to hear the recording at some point. Stay tuned. Math small groups worked on the apps Math Bug and Top It for enhancement of adding numbers and number order. The students continue to work on their individual projects with the app Gingerbread Maker. We will finished them this week.
Literature: "St. Lucia Day," "The Christmas Story," "Silent Night," "This is the Star," "Too Many Toys," It's Christmas, David," Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Merry Christmas, Splat."

UPDATES for 12/5-12/9 2011

**What a great week! The tiny bit of snow we had created excitement of the coming of winter....at least if you are a five or six year old!!! We had our first guest speaker, Salome's mom, who came to talk to us about the legend of St. Nicholas. A native of France near the German border, she read a picture story in French about St. Nicholas and taught the students a song that their family sings to invite St. Nicholas to come. Each student received a special cookie (somewhat like gingerbread!) and got to color a picture of St. Nicholas (who looks a bit like Santa Claus!) Thanks so much, Isabel, for your presentation. Next up is Lottie's dad who will speak about the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia Day, celebrated by Lottie's family.
**If you have any questions about your child's report card, please contact me.
**Our Gingerbread Baking was fabulous! Everyone had a ball--students and volunteers alike. The smell of gingerbread was in the air! Lots of detail went into decorating these cookies. They were really works of art. A big thanks to our volunteers--B. Chyna , J. Chyna, C. Bravo, T. Naber, J. Brock. P. Hamblin, T. Orozco and M. Chlebek for their great assistance.
**The Girl Scouts have collected many donations of toys and books but could always use more. The drive goes on until December 19th.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will conclude on Wednesday, December 14th. At that time, you will receive notification of skill development. There is no Route to Reading 12/19-12/22.
**I was not able to attend Irving's Annual Cookie Crumble and Craft Show but heard it went very well!
**Mr. Packer's lesson continued to focus on Probability /Chance this week.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Kwiatt worked an activity where the students had to take turns, be respectful and give clues about a particular animal card they held so that the other students could guess what animal is was. Great clue giving!
**The students will begin rehearsing for their concert in the auditorium this week. They sound really great!
**Families and other guests--please join us after our concert for a light luncheon in our classroom. We will have sandwiches, a veggie tray, fruit, yogurt tubes and dessert. There will be plenty for all. The concert is December 23rd at 9:30 am. in the Irving Auditorium.
This week:
It was all about the gingerbread!! The students gathered information from books and internet sources to find out how gingerbread began and why it is so popular at this time of year. Ginger was valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made using ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, cakes and houses. We read many stories about various gingerbread characters. The students worked on a compare/contrast project where they discussed each story we read and how it ended (was he/she eaten?), who the characters were (boy, girl, cowboy, baby, fox, wolf, coyote?), what the plot of the story was. They had loads of fun! The students wrote in their journal about gingerbread, counted gingerbread, created their own gingerbread man and graphed patterns following their gingerbread person's trail. The students were quite inventive as they rolled out their dough and decorated their cookies. I can't wait to read their homework assignment on their favorite gingerbread tale!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading Series. The unit started with a question about where our food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets, orchards as places where food can be found. The students listened to the big book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." The students listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple orchard farmer. Students made connections about their recent theme on apples and the types of apples that Annie grew and what she made with them. Some students related that they had gone to a farmers market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target word for this week was to. We added this word to our other sight words and created sentences using words and our picture cards. Our target letter and sound was Nn. We reviewed our sound toys and picture cards and read a rhyme/chant containing the Nn words and the sight word to. The students reviewed action words or verbs by taking a noun picture and adding their own verb to it. The students use the retelling cards to tell the story in their own words. Our Robust vocabulary this week contained the words FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. Our puppet, Mr. Happy, helped the students with their phoneme blending. We continue to use our sounds boxes (elkonin boxes) and blocks to move block where we hear the phoneme. We continue to work on 3-4 phoneme words. The students read their decodable book, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about content. Students took turns reading each page (the other students finger pointed to follow along.) We also read each sentence together. We reviewed what a question mark is and the students orally answered questions about the story. Using our vocabulary cards, the students listened to the selection, "Pizza Please!" The students had great fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own home made pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza and that some students never made their own pizza but ordered it from a pizza place. The students listened to an expository (informational) text "From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Salad." We discussed what a diagram is and how you follow a recipe. The students read their pre-decodable story, "We Go!" The students took turns reading aloud. They continued to work on voice quality when reading aloud and their reading fluency. The students spent time rereading their story to a partner and talking about story elements. Workstations this week included using the sight word Can to write a question sentence and illustrating it, story retelling where the students read a story, retell it to a partner and make retelling cards, feeling foods, where the students feel into a bag of foods, describe what they feel, pull out the food, show it and describe it to a partner and then write 2 sentences to describe their food and Word Pies, where the students have to create 4 words-one in each part of their pie, recording the words and writing a sentence using one of their words. The students could make a word containing 3-4 phonemes. Some students are exploring 5-6 phoneme words!
Math: The students finished their number rhymes for numbers 6-9. They continue to work on creating their number rhyme sticker book. The students continue to work on rote counting to 75, revisiting pattern block shapes and geometric solids, taking a look at distance in terms of number of steps to various places in the classroom and out and writing 1 digit, 2 digit and 3 digit numbers on their dry erase boards. They continue to work on listening for key information in oral addition an subtraction story problems.
Writing: The students work on the "Magic C" letter, Ss and reviewed the starting center letter A. The students continue to use the writing prompts from their Treasures Reading Series. The students also wrote about gingerbread. The emphasis remains on spacing between words in a sentence, using lowercase letters and knowing where to place them on a given line and making their writing readable. We will finish our center starting uppercase letters next week.
Technology: The students took turns using their stylus and app Whiteboard to practice both "Magic C" letters and their number rhymes. Each table got a chance to work with this app. Ms. Applebey worked with workstation groups on word building with an app called Montessori Crossword. The students tapped the box to listen to each phoneme and dragged the letters to form the word. They then wrote down all the words they made. The app was differentiated to produce crosswords puzzles for students too. The app Sound Sort was also used by individual students to reinforce letter/sound correspondence. Students also used the stylus and the app Intro to Math to practice reproducing their number rhymes. Students worked with a partner on the app Top It (both 1 and 2 digit) to reinforce knowledge of addition. Students explored the app Math Bug to work on addition and subtraction with pictures. The students are continuing to work on a project with the app Gingerbread Maker. Here they create a gingerbread person of their choice, with shapes for the features. The students then touch and take their gingerbread boy or girl to follow the random pattern. They draw the pattern on the activity sheet and then do it 2 more times. The patterns can get tricky!! The students then make a picture of the gingerbread person they made on the app.
Literature: "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Boy," "Gingerbread Baby," "Gingerbread Friends," "Gingerbread Man Loose in the School," "The Gingerbread Girl," "The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers," "Bad Boys Gets Cookie," "Gingerbread Fred," "The Gingerbread Cowboy," "Ten Gingerbread Men."