UPDATES for 3/5-3/8 2013

**Please send a potato of your choice to school on Friday, March 15th for our Super Tuber Activity.
Yes--a potato!  Do not cook it!!  We will learn its history, examine it closely, perform some graphing exercises, measure it, look for its "eyes," take a look at different varieties and learn more about its connection to Ireland.  We will also choose one to grow!  I could use 2-3 volunteers to help with this activity.  We will do it on Friday morning at 9:30 am.  The activity will last about 45-50 minutes.  Email me if you can help.
**In our bingo mania on Friday, the student clown clocks and decodable paper story didn't make it into your child's homework folder.  Those items will be there on Monday.
**Keep sending in permission slips and money for our field trip to ADLER PLANETARIUM.  I would like all money in before spring break to secure our spot.  The trip is Thursday, April 11th from 9-1:30 pm.  Students and teachers will be riding the bus.  Volunteers will carpool.  Directions will be provided.
**Report Cards will go home on Friday, March 15th.  The report card envelope will also contain some information on Common Core Standard activities we have been doing in the classroom and more information on the new standards that will take effect in 2015-2016.
**This coming week is PACK WEEK!  Wear and pack the color of the day in your lunch or snack!  Think fruits and vegetables!!  We are encouraging students to "Eat the Rainbow."  The school lunch program will also be participating.  MONDAY--pack and wear GREEN.  TUESDAY--pack and wear WHITE.  WEDNESDAY--pack and wear YELLOW/ORANGE.  THURSDAY--pack and wear PURPLE.  FRIDAY--pack and wear RED!
**Will's mom, Nurse Smith, is coming Friday, March 15th at 1:00 pm to do a program on GERMS!  Cool!
**Opera for the Young presentation is Thursday, March 21st in the gym at 9:30 am.  This year's presentation is "CINDERELLA."  It is pretty cool.  The students are learning a group part during their music time.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 18th.  More info will follow.
**Our PBIS All School BINGO game was so much fun!  We played along side our Book Buddies which doubled the fun!  Looking for the letters and 1 or 2 digit numbers was great for our hand eye, visual spatial and visual motor coordination.   We even had 2 of our own kindergarten winners--Sophie and Amare!  Our next Book Buddy get together will be in April.
**Everyone looked that they were enjoying themselves at the Taste of Irving on Friday.  I heard the food was great!  I made it to see the band which sounded awesome!!  Did I see some very smooth Room 110 dancers and parents???  Go Isabella , Angus and Vivian!
**Future Events---The Academic Fair/Egg Drop Contest has been moved to Tuesday, April 16th.  The K-2 Spelling Bee is Wednesday, April 17th.  More info will follow soon.  Great opportunity to participate!
**School is closed for spring break--March 23-31.  Classes resume on Monday, April 1st.
**Mr. Packer continues to work with small student groups on follow directions and being a detective and looking for clues and details.
**It is almost time to bring all the GIANT boxes and COOL stuff you have been saving for our space station projects.  You can start bringing it in after spring break!!!
This week:
It was all about Shadows and the beginning of our Space cross curricular theme.  We will save the shadows part for science down below.  We are slowly transforming our classroom into a space workshop.  The students are exploring the different items on our Space Table and are encouraged to bring in items of their own.  Students have begun bringing in books with great information. The students began with an inquiry discussion about what they know about space.  What is in it?  How did we the Earth and other planets?  What is a universe?  Wow--lots of thinking going on!  Station Day activities this week included Mr. Clown Clock, tracing our face silhouette and creating a mixed media sun.
Reading/Social Studies:    The students continued to work on Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series.  This week, the students built background knowledge around the idea of seasons or certain times of the year and different activities and ways people and animals relate to them.  The students listened to the Big Book story, "In the Yard."  They made predictions about story content by reading the title and looking at the book cover picture.  The students identified the setting and also the BIG idea or MAIN idea of the story.  They made connections in the story about their own activities they do in their back yards with their families.  The sight words and and what were reviewed.  We looked for them in our rhyme and chime and circled them.  The students continued to work with target sounds Bb and Ll.  The students did an activity where they listened for the targeted sound and told if it was at the beginning or ending of the word.  The students worked on reviewing what an adjective does to a word. (it further describes it)  They took turns using an adjective to further describe some picture cards. (big bike, juicy watermelon)  The students also reviewed the function of verbs. (show action)  They came up with a list of verbs to describe what we can do in each season.  The students took turns retelling the story.  We took a break from our elkonin boxes this week and "jumped" segmented 5-6-7 phoneme words.  Lots of movement!  The student continue work in the Haggerty Blue Book--this week's focus was on adding, deleting and substituting sounds to create words.
  This week, the students worked on a specific Commom Core Standard and produced an assessment sample.  Our school district is exploring ways to assess these standards and each grade level has discussed a particular way.  Our Kindergarten team is using Dr. Seuss books to assess Standard W.7--Participate in shared research and writing projects.  Our assessment prompt was--explore a number of books by a favorite author and express an opinion about them.  The students selected 5 books.  I read each one aloud.  The class created a story board where they collectively told the story elements of each story.  The key story elements were reviewed--Title, Setting, Characters, Plot, Details, Main Idea. I recorded their information of each story on the story boards.  We defined the word-opinion.  (What is your favorite story?  Why is it your favorite?)  This activity was done over a 4 day period with their assessment on Friday.  These assessments will be shared at our district level kindergarten meeting in April.  There will be 3 standards and assessments total this year.  All students expressed much orally.  It was interesting to read their written comments.
Workstations this week included small group literature discussions and read alouds with leveled readers focusing on story elements and question words, using the Reader's Checklist for fluency, word sort with short e word families and cvc sort with short e, activities with consonant blends and digraphs, comparing and contrasting your house in summer and in winter using illustration and writing, use of partner and small group board games and iPad activities with focus on vocabulary development, phonemic awareness and phonics skills and working with finding details in a given story.
Math:   The students revisited the color and shapes in their pattern blocks.  They also reviewed recognition of geometric solid shapes.  They created puzzles at various levels.  The students continued the study of coins and their values.   They worked on various activities with coins including Penny Grab, Coin Exchange and Mushroom Money to strengthen recognition skills.  We continue to work on time by the hour with analog and digital clocks.  The idea of counting by increments of 5 on an analog clock is beginning to make more sense.  The students continue to work hard in their math process journals.  They are listening for key words in the story problem in order to illustrate their work and write the number sentence. 
Writing:   The students continue to work on refining their uppercase letters and reviewing the lowercase letters we have learned so far.  More students are beginning to use adjectives in their sentences.  All students continue to refine sentence structure.  Did I begin with a capital letter?  Did I name and tell?  Did I capitalize a proper name?  Do I have an ending mark?  Did I space between words in a sentence?  Did I place my letters properly on a given line?  Lots to remember!!
Science:   The students began their science unit, "Sunshine, Shadows and the Moon."  We used the projector to create various shadows of people and objects.  I posted the question--How are these shadows made?  Do we need certain elements before we can have a shadow occur?  I recorded the ideas the students had on the subject.  All students agreed that we needed some kind of light source.  One student commented that a body or some kind of object blocked the light.  Some students noticed that we needed some kind on area in order to see the shadow.   The recipe for a shadow became light source, object to block the light and surface in order to see the shadow.  Wow--A shadow is really blocked light!  Some students noticed that some shadows were were totally black, while others were gray or a light color.  Why is that?  Can light pass through an object?  Stay tuned for more!!! 
Technology:   The students continue to use all the apps in reading and math that have been mentioned so far in small, individual and whole group settings.  Stay tuned for some new apps related to science next week.
Literature:   Dr. Seuss Books--"Cat in the Hat," "Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," "Ten Apples Up on Top," "Fox in Socks,""Telling Time," "The Universe," "Children's Atlas of the Universe," "The Sun," "Shadows."

UPDATES for 2/25-3/1 2013

**It was a wild and wacky week full of experiments, team building and teeth!!  The students enjoyed the measurable snowfall and celebrated by working together to build a really cool snowman.  Kanohi chose the spot out on the blacktop and Isabella brought the details (hat, scarf, nose, buttons.)  Students AND teachers worked to create a masterpiece!!  Check out our group photo with our snowy friend.  The students also enjoyed taking him apart piece by icy piece!  What fun and exercise!
**It was all about our teeth!!  The students spent an informative 40 minutes with Dr. Natalie Layne (Amare's mom ) and her assistant, Jessica.  Dr. Layne read the class a book on why we brush our teeth.  She chose a group of students to be human teeth and one student to "brush" them with a giant tooth brush.  She also took a piece of rope and a student got to "floss" the human teeth!  The students and teachers were mesmerized by Dr. Layne's experiment on tooth decay.  The students learned that too much sugar can cause tooth decay and that acid can damage your teeth by making a hole in the enamel (cavity.)   Dr. Layne took some foam cups (teeth) and Amare poured chocolate syrup (sugar) on the teeth and Amare then put some nail polish remover (the acid) on the teeth and ........Wow, where did the teeth go????!!!  They were eaten away by the acid much like our real teeth would be.  Dr Layne gave each student their own teeth cleaning kit.  It was a great presentation.  The students wrote thank you notes to express their appreciation.
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular!  There were great games, prizes and fun.  Many students danced for a dessert or two!  Our FUN DAY class basket was awesome.  There were lots of great silent auction items.  At the closing of the Fun Fair was "Irving's Got Talent"  show.  Wow--some talented teachers!  The PIE TERMINATORS were the winners of the Pie in the Face contest!  Lots of whipped cream flying around!!
**Thanks to all who attended Dr. Seuss Family Reading Night.  I was only able to help set up, but there were many fun stories and activities for all to enjoy.
**NO SCHOOL MONDAY, MARCH 4th in observance of Casimir Pulaski Day.
**Our Book Buddies helped us celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss on Friday.  The students chose a Dr. Seuss book to read with their book buddy.  They completed a variety of activities--word searches, mazes. coloring, written reflections and played Dr. Seuss Trivia.  What was Dr. Seuss' real name?  Did art or story come first for Dr. Seuss?  Of course the celebration would not be complete without popcorn and veggie straws our favorite snacks!
**Keep sending the permission slips and money for our Field Trip to ADLER PLANETARIUM.  I would like to have all money and slips in before spring break. Thanks!
**SUPER TUBER ACTIVITY--Please send a potato (any kind, not cooked) with your child on Friday, March 15th.  We will learn its history, examine, perform some graphing exercises, measure, look for its "eyes," take a look a different varieties and learn about its connection to Ireland.  We will do this from 9:30-10:30 am.  I will need 4 volunteers to help out.  Email me if you are interested.
**TASTE of IRVING is Friday, March 8th from 6:30-8:30 pm.  Come share the love of food and community with our Irving family.
**REPORT CARDS out on Friday, March 15th.  Trimester 2 has concluded.  Trimester 3 has begun!!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude on March 6th.  At that time you receive notification of skill acquisition.
**OPERA for the YOUNG presentation is Thursday, March 21st at 9:30 am.  This will be the very first performance of  "Cinderella."
**Spring Break begins March 23rd-31st.  Classes resume on Monday, April 1st.
**All school PBIS Bingo Game on Friday, March 8th-2:00 pm.  We will have an shorter station day.
**Future Events--I have begun talking to the students about some cool opportunities that they can participate in----more information will follow soon----Wednesday, April 10th-ACADEMIC FAIR and EGG DROP CONTEST--Do you have something that you are really interested in?  Can you make a project out of it?  Can you construct a vehicle that will keep and egg from breaking when dropped out of a third floor window?  Think about it..........  also ........All School Spelling Bee--Wednesday, April 17th.
**Spring  Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 18th.  More info to follow. 
**We are getting closer to collection of giant boxes and cool things for our space station projects.  Keep saving them!  You can bring them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the weather!  We began tracking weather via the site, Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our Treasures Unit 7.  We do have a previous fascination with weather in Room 110!  Students are observing "fronts" moving in and the direction that weather patterns move.  The students love watching the color changes on the animated radar.  They are becoming experts at locating areas of rain, snow, wind speeds and ice.  We now know where to locate the moon phases as we begin our study of the moon.  The students have also become interested in the chance or percentage of a storm occurring.  The students looked at types of storms including tornadoes, thunder/lightening and snow in our area.  Perhaps we have some budding meteorologists in our midst!  In observance of Casimir Pulaski's birthday, the students googled information about his childhood in Poland to his eventual travel to the United States to assist George Washington during the Revolutionary War.
Reading/Social Studies:    The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began pondering the simple question, "What is the weather like today?"  They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but also in other parts of the United States.  The students listened to the expository text, "The Rainy Day."  They thought about what the main idea could be.  They made connections about rain in their own daily lives.  The sight words this and do were introduced.  The target sound for this week is short Ee.  The students used pictures as well as words to to create a Short Ee web.  The students continue to work on recognizing adjectives in their daily sentence work and using them in their writing.  Together the students created a word web of words that describe a rainy day.  Working with adjectives, they came up with word lists to describe themselves, pets, home and the weather.  We reread the story a second time and the students created a picture in their mind (visualized) of what it would look like after the rain.  The students then reviewed the water cycle (go science!) and facts about rain.  They examined 2 parts of a book--the glossary and the index and what they are used for.  The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 phoneme words.  The students read aloud from their decodable story, ":Ed Can, Ted Can."  They answered comprehension questions about the story and practiced reading aloud with a partner for fluency.  Our Robust Vocabulary this week included, BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUD and WEATHER.  The students listened to the Choctow tale, "How Thunder and Lightening Came To Be."  They also had a chance to hear and reflect on 4 poems about weather.  The students also listened to another Native American tale from the Pueblo Nation called "The Frog and the Locust."  We discussed rain dances and sung in order to bring rain to a very dry area.  We located on the map where the Pueblo Native Americans lived and looked at a surface map to see how the land looked.  What did the frog so to get rain? (sang)  Why didn't his plan work? (It wasn't loud enough)  What happened at the end of the story? (The frog and the locust worked together to sing a loud song.)  What do you think the story tellers message was?  See if your child can recall.  The students did some comparing of information across weather related texts.  Our workstations this week included leveled reader discussion, read aloud and story element recording, working with word families, adding and deleting phonemes in words,comparing and contrasting 2 seasons via sentences and illustrations and writing and illustrating a weather event.
Math:    The students continued to work on coin recognition and values.  They worked on money exchange and played "Penny Grab."  Students reviewed their tricky teen numbers playing the game, "Purr-fectly Perfect teen Numbers."  How fast can you read them?  The students worked on a variety of addition and subtraction games.  Students worked with partners on the ipad with the math activities introduced thus far.  The students also practiced writing 2 and now 3 digit numbers on their dry erase boards.  The students continue to work on counting on from a random number and skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's.
Writing:    The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation.  We have reviewed letters a, c, e, g, i, j, k, l, o, p, s, t, u, v and w.  Students have been encouraged to use adjectives to describe their nouns in sentences they write in their journal.  Students continue to refine their sentence structure and reread their sentences (proofing) before coming to journal conference.  Next week, we will use our snowman creating adventure in a writing project.
Science:    The students had a great time observing the tooth decay experiment done by Dr. Layne.  They wanted more!!!  The class gathered more information on teeth.  We came across another experiment on tooth decay using a raw egg and vineager.  The students knew that too much sugar/acid causes teeth to decay.  The egg was our tooth and the vineager was the acid.  The students thought about what might happen if we placed the egg in a cup of vineager.  What do you think?  The students felt the shell around the egg.  Students commented that it was cold and hard.  We placed it in the vineager.  Students made predictions about what might happen.  It might explode!  It might turn black!  It will crack!  As we put the egg in the vineager, the students noticed many bubbles forming around the egg.  We left it over night until the next afternoon.  As the students looked at it. they observed that it appeared bigger.  The shell was a little yellow  There were still bubbles around it.  Putting on a glove, I picked it out of the vineager and put it on a tray.  One by one the students, donning a plastic bag, touched the egg.  Revelation---It felt like a rubber ball, squishy and soft!!!  Cool!  Students began to discuss what happened.  Much like our teeth, too much acid broke down the shell of the egg, like sugar would make a hole in our enamel.  The students got the connection!!  The next day, they wanted to see what would happen when I cut open the egg.  Would it be hard inside or soft?  Could we see the yolk or white?  As I cut a piece off---the egg burst and out came the the intact yolk and gooey white.  It was the highlight of the afternoon!!  Try it at home!  Next week:  What is a shadow?  What is the universe?
Technology:   The students continue to use all the apps currently introduced in small group, partner and individual sessions during their reading, math, writing, science and choice times.
Literature:   "Great Black Heroes--Notable Inventors," "Why Do We Brush Our Teeth?" "Lola Loves Books," "Open Wide," "The Secret Olivia Told Me," "The Missing Tooth Mystery," "Little Rabbits Loose Tooth," "Honey, I Love You," "How's the Weather?" and 22 Dr. Seuss Books with our Book Buddies!!
   

UPDATES for 2/11-2/15 and 2/19-2/22 2013

**Let me update you on the past 2 weeks of learning fun for my students as well as myself.  I was fortunate to attend the International Learning Disabilities Conference last week.  I was able to meet and listen to many professionals speak on the subjects of math, reading, science, technology and behavior.  It was very enlightening and motivating.  I returned with some great ideas.
**Our Valentine Sharing Party was wonderful!  Many samples of "heart felt" feelings of love and friendship were shared among the students.  They passed out and read their Valentines, played "Heart to Heart," and ate some treats.  Thanks to the great show of parents, siblings and grandparents at our celebration.  We were so glad you came!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 began February 19th.  You should have received a letter of notification concerning your child's skill level.  Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude on March 6th.
**The FUN FAIR is almost here!!!!  Come on out and play a game with me on Saturday, February 23rd from 11-3 pm.  There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts and a silent auction (a bed time story read by me---lunch with your bf's at the Junction Diner-bid-bid!!!  Tickets will be sold after school and on the day of the fair.  Special Attraction--What TEAM will get the PIE in the FACE??????!!!  Toward the end of the Fun Fair, join Mr. Packer as he serves as MC for Irving's version of "America Has Talent."  You may see some familiar faces!! Bring your money to put in the containers of your favorite team.  The team with the most money gets the pie the face!  It's the battle of the Cutie Pies, Pie Terminators, Who Me's and the 2 Sak P's!!!
**Asher's mom has put the finishing touches on our classroom FUN DAY BASKET.  Thanks to all who have donated money or items.
** Kindergarten students participated in a Hearing Screening this past Friday at 9:00 am.
**Congratulations to our new Student Council Reps--Ellie and Keyshaun!  Their first meeting is Tuesday, February 26th during the lunch hour.
**Dr. Seuss Family Reading Night is Thursday, February 28th from 6:30-7:30 pm.  There is still time to sign up!  Let's celebrate the love of reading!
**February is National Dental Month!  Amare's mom is coming to give a little program about good dental care of Tuesday, February 26th at 10:00 am.
**It's our first meeting of the new year with our Book Buddies from Ms. Balicki's room.  They will join us on Friday, March 1st at 1:30 pm.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey shared with the students ways to be caring and considerate to others.  The students discussed the people, animals and things they most care about.  We turned our Christmas Tree into the "I Care" Tree.
**Mr. Packer continues to work with small groups of students on his organizing details lesson.
** The new UPDATED list of Station Day Volunteers for the rest of the school is posted.  I will also send a hard copy.
**I would like your feedback about our Busy Reader Program.  Please take a few minutes to fill out the feedback sheet and return it to me.  Thanks!
**The students have completed their Science Unit on Investigating Water.  They really enjoyed it!  Our next Science Unit is "Sunshine, Shadows and the Moon."  Our next cross curricular theme is SPACE!
**Keep saving those giant boxes and other cool things for our Space Station Projects.  You can send them in after spring break.
**Future Field Trip--ADLER PLANETARIUM--Thursday, April 11th from 9-1:l30 pm.  The permission slip and info is in your child's homework folder.  We would like all the money and permission slips in before spring break to secure our spot at the planetarium. 
These past two weeks:
It has been all about sharing and caring, kindness,Valentine's Day and Abraham, George and teeth.  The students paid special attention these past two weeks to their attitudes and actions toward their classmates and teachers.  Saying a kind word to someone not having a good day, offering words of encouragement to a friend, praising someone for a job well done and thanking an adult for a particular lesson were just some of the ways students celebrated.  The students also read about the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.  They studied about what makes a good leader of a country.  The students learned that presidents come from all walks of life.  The students also studied the accomplishments of Ruby Bridges.  They were proud to know that even a child of their age can affect change in our country.  The students also read about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  The students were fascinated by the fact that it was not really a railroad but a series of safe homes, places and areas that were used to help slaves escape to the north to freedom.  Hooray for teeth!  The students learned that many living things have teeth and the care that goes into keeping them healthy.  Station Day activities included making a tri-corner hat, working with a word wheel and writing the sentences, graphing and analyzing data on the Valentine board, ending sound fun and pattern block design building.  Other Station Day activities included Penguin "Dial-a-Sum," more word wheel and writing sentences and more pattern block design building side by side. (great visual motor and visual integration/figure ground brain work!)
Reading/Social Studies:   The students worked to continue and complete Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures series.  They accessed prior knowledge about places in and around their neighborhood and who you can find there.  The students talked about what the words community and workers meant.  They listened to the Big Book story, "Bus Stops."  The students made predictions about what the story could be about and were asked to listen for what happens at the beginning, middle and end of the story.  They made connections about places in the story and how they relate to their own community.  Who got off the bus?  The students reviewed our target words, for, are, you and target sounds Dd, Hh and Rr.  The students worked in small groups to create sentences using words and pictures.  The students reread the story and worked on retelling as well as story elements.  They worked on sound blending skills using their elkonin boxes.  It is really cool to see them blending and segmenting 4-5 phoneme word!  In the decodable story, "Rod Can See It," the students worked on main idea.  Robust Vocabulary for the past two weeks included ADMIRE, DELIVER, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY, WORKER, ALERT, JOB, CELEBRATION, PRECISE, REPAIR.  The students listened to the vocabulary story, "Acrefoot, the Barefoot Man."  They made predictions about story content.  They responded to the poem, "The Park."  The students retold parts of the poem.  The students read their paper story, "For You."  They each read aloud to practice their fluency.  The students added to our neighborhood word web and created a Venn diagram about similarities and differences between hospitals and schools.  The students reread the story, "Rod can See It" with a partner and quizzed each other on story elements.  Workstations that week included map it out--drawing and labeling a neighborhood map with their group, Word Wizard app-cvc short u words create and record, tool sort--classifying tools and drawing a picture of someone who might use one of those tools, leveled readers read aloud, fluency check and story elements discussion and group sort --short a, long a words and word search.  In the final week of Unit 6, the students discussed jobs that people in their neighborhood do.  They accessed prior knowledge about workers they see in their neighborhood. The students listened to the trade book, "Alicia's Happy Day."  As she walks down the street, what does Alicia hear and see?  Why did Alicia feel happy?  The students summarized and retold the story in their own words.  The students worked in small groups to create words using the word families an, at, en, et, it, op, up.  The students used consonant blends, single consonants and consonant digraphs.  The students read their paper story, "Are You?"  They each read a sentence aloud practicing their fluency.  They also reread their story to a partner and each discussed how they sounded.  The students listened to the expository text, "Is This Job For You?" and made future predictions on what job they would have and why.  Workstations for the week included leveled readers with comprehension/discussion checks, creating a neighborhood worker puzzle, sentence building using the app Magnetic Letters and sight words, writing a friendly message to a friend and posting it on our friendship board and putting the finishing details on group neighborhood maps.
Math:   The students worked on following a simple map for in school destinations.  They worked in small groups from a given starting point to a certain destination.  They discussed the sequence of events in their daily lives and created a timeline of drawings and words to reflect what they do in the morning, noon and at night.  The students continue to explore building with pattern block templates that use internal lines, without internal lines and templates that have small pictures the students cannot build directly onto but next to.  It's all about visual perception!  We continue working on place value in the 100's place, writing numbers and telling how many hundreds, tens, ones each number has.  The students worked on introduction of the quarter, dime and nickel.  They learned some fun facts about the men on these coins and coin values.  Much fun was had playing addition and subtraction games "Broken Heart Math," "Take Away," and "Dial a Sum."  The students experimented with lots of new math apps and the problem solving, mind blowing app, "Labyrinth."
Writing:    The students continue to work on lowercase forms l, k, y, and j.  Most students are writing their first and last names.  We continue to use the writing prompts in our Treasures series to create lists, write sentence using target vocabulary, write 3-4 sentence about one topic and work on sentence structure-- beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence and putting a ending mark on the end.
Most students are using nouns and verbs, naming and telling and some have begun to expand their sentence length using adjectives and prepositions. 
Science:   The students revisited all their experiments as we concluded our Investigating Water unit.  They viewed the DVD "Peeps Big Wide World Explores Water" as a culminating activity.  Students made their final comments in their science journals about the experiment they enjoyed most, which one had surprising outcomes and which experiment they would like to do again.  All the students commented that they would like to see bubbles come out of the bubble machine!  We will wait for the weather to be a little warmer!  Next week, we will begin prep for our new unit--"Sunshine, Shadows and the Moon."
Technology:   It was truly all about the math apps these past two weeks!  As their knowledge of addition and subtraction processes grows, the students were introduced to the apps Math Bug (addition/subtraction,) Find Sums base 10, Kids Math Fun (vertical sums,) Kids Math Free (addition/subtraction,) Ace Mathland (solving addition/subtraction problems and solve a puzzle,) and Butterfly Math Addition (making butterflies for correct sum.)  The brainful problem solving app Labyrinth has got all students working on their own strategies to get the little ball thru the mazes!
Literature:    "Splat the Cat-Funny Valentine," "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose," "Howard Wigglebottom Has a Heart," "Will You Be My Valentine?" "Bears Loose Tooth," "The Story of Ruby Bridges," "Arthur's Valentine," "George Washington," "Abraham Lincoln," "A Picture of George Washington," "Love Splat!" "Magic School Bus Has a Heart," "Young Abraham Lincoln," "My Tooth is About to Fall Out," ""Hooray for Teeth," "Open Wide," "Tar Beach," "You Think it is Easy Being a Tooth Fairy?" "Harriet Tubman," "Zoomer," (thanks, Noah!) "Bunnies."  (thanks, Amare!)

UPDATES for 2/4-2/8 2013

**The students are enjoying our mini snow hills at Irving.  Thanks for your attention to their dress for our lunch time recess.  They are having fun and staying warm.  Don't forget gym shoes on our gym days.
**I am in the process of updating our Station Day volunteer list to reflect dates until the end of the year.  Let me know if there are any new names to add.  If you have a specific Friday you would like to come, please email with that date.  I have volunteers until February 22nd.  The new list will begin March 1st until May 17th.
**Please read the info on our Valentine Party and the Valentine container project.  Our Valentine Sharing Party will be Wednesday, February 13th from 1:00-1:55 pm.  Students will share valentines, have treats and work on some activities.  Family members are welcome to come enjoy the festivities. 
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, February 18th in observance of President's Day.
**There will be a Hearing Screening on Friday, February 22nd for Kindergarten students.
**The FUN FAIR is coming!  The FUN FAIR is coming!  Come play a game with me on Saturday, February 23rd from 11-3 pm.  I will also have some experiences to bid on at the silent auction!!  There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts, silent auction and a special activity----Who will get the pie in the face?????  Stay tuned to see how you can become part of it.  Our Room Parents are working on a FUN DAY CLASS BASKET for the silent auction.  There is still time to contribute.  Items and donations will be accepted until the end of this week.  Let's make our basket the best!!! 
**Dr. Seuss Family Reading Night is Thursday, February 28th from 6:30-7:30.  The sign up form is in your child's homework folder.  Let's celebrate the love of reading!
**February is National Dental Month!  Amare's mom is coming to give a little program about good dental care on Tuesday, February 26th at 10:00 am.
**Save the Date---FIELD TRIP to Adler Planetarium on Thursday, April 11th from 9:00-1:30 pm.  Our next cross curricular theme is SPACE!
**Keep reading the BUSY READERS and recording your books on the reading log.  The first 10 minutes of our morning is spent sharing our book with others or reading independently.  Oh, the sound of readers!!!
**Keep saving those boxes and cool things for our space stations.  We are getting closer!
This week:
It was all about snow hills, Chinese New Year and Tangrams.  The students welcomed the YEAR of the SNAKE representing the Chinese New Year.  What animal sign were you born under?  We read about how the Chinese prepare for the arrival of the new year, cleaning, special colors and foods, lanterns and dragon parade.  In a nod to the Chinese New Year and geometry, the students studied tangrams. (ancient Chinese puzzles)  More about this in the math section!  Our station day activities this week included graphing and analyzing animals in the winter, heart sequence--cutting out and ranking hearts from largest to smallest, teen number review where the students count how many snowballs will fit on the shovel and building 3 dimensional structures using unifix cubes.  It was so fascinating to watch young brain power at work viewing a model and then working to solve how to build it.  Great problem solving and perseverance to complete the task!
Social Studies/ Reading:    The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series.  They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighbor is and what a neighborhood is.  The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood might have.  They 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 list of words.  Our target sound this week was Hh. The students reviewed all our sound toy boxes so far.  They work in small groups using words and pictures to create sentences.  In the second reading of our story, the students told what they thought the main idea of the story was and recalled details about the work that Russ did at the firehouse.  The students summarized events in the story using the retelling cards.  They used their elkonin boxes to segment 4-5 phoneme words.  They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats?"  They made predictions about story content.  Each student had the opportunity to read a sentence aloud.  Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you?  Did you stop at each ending mark?  Did you pause at the comma?  Where you able to sound blend phonemes to say a word?  Did your reading sound choppy or smooth?  The students chose a partner to reread the story to.  The partners discussed and critiqued each others work using the Readers Checklist.  Workstations this week included leveled readers and discussion, word family fun--where you choose from the word family cards-an, at, in, ot, in, it and add a single consonant,consonant blend or digraph to create a word and record it on paper--create ten words and use 2 in a sentence, Montessori Crossword skill groups working on sound blending words with short i, short e and ch and writing about neighborhood places using the sentence starter...I go to the... and drawing a picture to go with it. 
Writing:    The students reviewed how to write a sentence.  A sentence names and tells.  They wrote sentences in their journal about the Treasures story, "Russ and the Firehouse."  They also began to work on simple prepositions--for, on, at and in and included them in their journal entries.  The students had great fun revisiting the use of speech bubbles in writing dialogue.  Formal handwriting practice included a review of lowercase letters c, o,a,d,g,s,v,w,t.
Math:    The students practiced counting to 100 and counting by 10's.  As a group, they are working on counting by 2's and 5's.  As an introduction to tangrams, I read  the story, "Grandfather Tang's Story."  The grandfather and granddaughter share a story under the tree.  On each page, a tangram becomes part of the story.  I introduced the shapes called tans that are used in the tangrams.  There are 7 tans.  From those 7 tans, many different pictures can be created.  The students experimented with their own set of tans and used a set of model pictures to see if they could create the picture from the model.  The next day, students were introduced to the app TanZen Lite 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!!  I observed amazing concentration and determination to keep trying!  The look on their faces when they have all the pieces in place--priceless!!  A follow up project is part of their homework.The students continue to work in their math process journals.
Science:   The students talked about the experiments they have done so far.  They noted also that the water bottles that once held ice and then water were now low in water.  Students used the word evaporation.  The students know water as a liquid and a solid.  Another property of water is as a gas.  We discussed freezing (32 degrees) and boiling (212 degrees) points and created steam.  The students observed the "smoke" or steam coming out of the glass container of boiling water.  We marked the water line with a marker.  The students also took note of a piece of plastic wrap I put over the glass container of boiling water.  Question:  What did you observe?  Students reported seeing water drops forming on the inside of the plastic wrap and on the side of the glass.  Condensation!!  The students also viewed evaporation in action when they "painted" with water and paint brush on the blackboard.  After a few minutes--where did the water go???  The students reflected both in written and drawing form about their thoughts on the experiments.   They will  continue to keep watch on the glass container and the water line.  Let's see if there are any changes when they come back on Monday!!
Technology:    The students main app this week in math was TanZen Lite.  While the students were working on their puzzle, the app also played Chinese music that was very soothing to a mind at work.  Students continue to use the apps Math Bug, Number Find, Top It-Addition and Underwater Memory in their math studies.  In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword, Sight Words, Reading Magic 3 were used in student small groups and with partners.  The students continue to work with the app Story Kit to record read alouds and discussions. 
Literature:    "Grandfather Tang's Story," "Ruby's Wish," "Chinese New Year," "Curious George-A Winter's Nap," "The 100th Day," "Rosa Parks," "One Hundred Shoes," "One Hundred Hungry Ants," "Snow," "Bringing in the New Year," "Water's Journey," "A Drop of Water-Chapter 4-Steam," "Evaporation/Condensation."

UPDATES for 1/22-1/25 and 1/28-2/1 2013

**Greetings!  I will catch you up on all that has happened in the past 2 weeks.  Thanks so much for your patience!  It has been an incredibly busy 2 weeks for me and my energetic class!  Thanks for your participation at Parent/Teacher Conferences.  It was great to chat with all of you and share your child's progress.  It is hard to believe that it is February.
**Our 100th Day Celebration was fabulous!  The students were engaged in a number of activities surrounding the number 100.  The students really enjoyed all the activities.  Our day was double the fun with the celebration of Will's birthday.  A HUGE thank you to all our parent volunteers!  What a spectacular turnout!  Check your child's backpack for homework fun over the weekend.  Remember, you can always click on the "click here for assignments" link below my name.
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!  The FUN FAIR is coming!!  Play a game with me on Saturday, February, 23rd from 11-3 pm at Irving School.  There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, a silent auction and food.  It's a great way to spend the day!  Don't forget to contribute to our class gift basket.  Our theme is INDOOR FUN!  Donations and items can be dropped off in our classroom.  Thanks to our great room parents  for organizing it. 
**We will be having a Valentine's Day Party.  I will send you the details soon.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 is in full swing.  You should have received notification of your child's skill level.  Email me if you did not.
**Young Scientist Conference is Saturday, February 23rd at Mann School.
**Family Reading Night Celebrating Dr. Seuss will be held on Thursday, February 28th from 6:30-7:30 pm in various classrooms around the school.  See sign up sheet on line. 
**No School February 18th in observance of President's Day.
**Continue saving those giant boxes and other cool stuff for our April space station project.
The past 2 weeks:
 Where do I begin......It was about so many things.......Water, Sink and Float, Bubbles, Ice, 100, counting by 10's, prep for 100's Day and Punxsutawney Phil.  Will he see his shadow???  The students created a sign in chart and it is pretty evenly split.  Listen to the news on Saturday to find out the result.  We used Weatherground on our computer to check weather around the states.  The students commented that while it may be cloudy in Pennsylvania, it may be sunny here in Oak Park.  Let's wait and see!  We tracked the rain storm and learned about the colors that denote super heavy rain.  The students observed frozen bubbles and a bubble machine that would not spin (frozen!)  Station day activities  included word wheel and sentence writing, word search and word writing activity, color the code snowflake and the Snowman adding game.
Reading/Social Studies:    The students worked to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series.  The students talked and read about animal habitats.  They accessed prior knowledge about animal homes they knew of.  The students listened to the story, "The Mole and the Baby Bird."  They looked at the cover picture and made predictions about story content.  The students recognized the characters and the plot of the story. They made connections in their own lives of having and wanting a pet and the care involved.  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 also reviewed all the target sounds presented.  Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER.  The story was re read and the students were asked to think about the story elements.  The students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story.  The students used their elkonin boxes to segment the sounds in 3-4 and 5 phoneme words.   The students read the decodable story,  "Tap, Tap, Tap!  They used a graphic organizer in the form of a butterfly to discuss setting (where), time (when), characters (who) and plot (what happened).  Students came up to the board to record the various parts in writing.  I read a selection on the oral vocabulary cards called  "Hidden Homes."  The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats we might not see?  Are some of their homes beneath the ground?  The students also listened to the expository text, "At Home in the Rain Forest."  They made predictions about story content and responded with their thoughts.  We had a lively discussion on Wild vs.Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation.  The students also listened to the Mexican folktale, "The Turtle and the Coyote."  We located Mexico on the map.  The students responded to the story and discussed what the big idea was.  They worked on sound spelling CVC words.  They worked to complete their activity books.  Workstation activities included reading about animal homes--drawing a picture of an animal home they read about and writing a sentence about the habitat and sharing their picture and sentence with a partner, reading a leveled reader story as a group--finger pointing each word and then discussing story elements, rhyme it--where you work with a partner to make rhyming pairs of words and then write a pair of sentences that rhyme, word picture web--using the sentence We play and cutting out pictures that describe the sentence and Reader's Checklist where students read to each other--teacher records their reading and the group listens to the play back to critique. 
Math:   The students worked with partners to count out ten groups of ten items of their choice for 100 items total.  We took photographs of their projects and they are posted in the classroom.  The students continue to work on counting to 100.  They worked on their 100 number grid writing.  In our number journals, the students are really beginning to get the idea of my daily number story and are becoming more independent in
listening for vocabulary that will tell if you add or take away, how to illustrate their problem and how to write a number sentence (solution) using a plus/minus and equal sign.  The students continue to explore weights and measurement with scales, building 3 dimensional structures and using ramps and inclines to construct a path for a marble.
Writing:   The students continue to work on "Magic C" lowercase letters c,o,a,d,s.  They practiced using their mini boards,chalk and sponges.  They also practiced in their orange books.  They continue to work on journal prompts and independent reflections.  We have recently begun talking about expanding sentence length and the use of adjectives in their sentences. 
Science:   The students made some great discoveries the past 2 weeks.  In their Sink or Float experiment, the students first made their guess and then took turns dropping the particular items in the water.  They then recorded what actually happened.  I used some big words--displacement (pushing away) and density (measure of mass.)  Some tables had different pencils--eraser or no eraser...Why did one sink and one float?  Why did the cork keep floating even after students pushed it down?  Why did the washer go straight to the bottom?  Lots of discussion.  Their science reflection journals had lots of sketches and thoughts.  In Sink or Float part two, the students, under the direction on Ms. Dennis, were given a piece of aluminum foil and were told to make a boat.  The question posed to them was--"How many marbles will it take to sink your boat?"  The students made their boats and recorded their guess of how many marbles it would take.  The boats were all shapes and sizes.  One student even tried to make seats in theirs!  Each student took their turn and placed their boat in the water and began to put marbles in it.  It was fascinating to watch the strategies---putting them all in the front of the boat---spreading them all out---putting them all in the middle--or no strategy at all!!!  Each student recorded their result and compared it with their guess.  Some students came close--one student was exact--some were very far apart in their guess and actual.  Sophie had the record of 39 marbles before her boat sunk!  It was great fun.  This past week, the students explored BUBBLES.  What makes a bubble?  The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that surrounds a gas (air)  The outside layer is like a skin.  The students examined various bubble wands.  Some were circular, heart shaped, triangular and oval.  The question posed to them was "Will the bubbles come the same shape as the wand/"  The students braved the frigid temperatures and with bubble wands and soapy water ventured outside.  The bubbles created were very slow to pop and some "froze" on the wand!  The students observed the watery outer layer.  It was pretty cool!  The students commented that all the bubbles created were round no matter what the shape of the wand was.  For what I thought would be a real treat, I turned on my bubble machine----guess what----the machine could not turn---a frothy mess came out of the machine--no bubbles.  The students were laughing.  It was too cold for my bubble machine.  I guess we will save it for warmer weather.  Back in the warmth of our classroom, the students sketched and wrote about their adventure.  The students are also watching bottles of water and their slow disappearing water. (evaporation)  We also discussed evaporation in relation to how a bubble pops.  The liquid surrounding the gas begins to evaporate and......pop! 
Technology:   In reading, student small groups were aided by the apps Story Kit, Rocket Speller, Sight Word Record and Montessori Crossword-segmenting and blending.  In math the apps Number Find, 100's Board, Math Bug and Underwater Memory Match have been useful tools for small groups and independent study.  In science Weatherunderground and Google Earth have enhanced our studies. 
Literature:   "A Drop of Water-Bubbles,"  "100 Days of School,"  "I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words," "Counting Your Way to the 100th Day"-poetry,  "Have You Filled Your Bucket Today?" "Go to Sleep, Groundhog,"  "Gretchen Groundhog Saves the Day," "The 100th Day of School," "The Biggest Snowball Fight," "Winter Days in the Big Woods," "Curious George, the Snowy Day," "The Special Snowflake," "One Snowy Day," "Weather," "100 Shoes," "Why Does It Float?"  "Sink or Float-All About Water," "Some Things Float."

UPDATES for 1/11-1/18 2013

**This week has really flown by!  The students are hoping for some snow but are excited about the coming frigid weather and experiments with ice!!   Thanks for doing a great job of dressing them appropriately for the weather.  Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days!
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 21st in observance of M. L. King Day.  The students discussed the many accomplishments of Dr. King.  They listened to the "I Have a Dream" speech.  They made some connections in their own lives of becoming thoughtful, caring and peaceful adults.  All agreed that Dr. King really followed the Eagle Essentials in his daily life!
**All DIBELS assessments and midyear assessments have been completed.  The students are working so hard!  I look forward to sharing their progress with you at conferences.
**Conferences for my class will be held Monday, January 28th, Tuesday, January 29th, Wednesday, January 30th and Thursday, January 31st.  If you have not done so already, please confirm your assigned time.  I am in the process of working on rescheduling those who have requested a new time.  I will get back to you this week.  Please note--There is no class the afternoon of Thursday, January 31st and Friday, February 1st.  Dismissal will be a 11:00 am.  Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pick up is at 11:00 am.
**Our 100th Day Celebration is fast approaching!!  No doubt you have seen the giant heart project that went home on Friday.  The students are so excited about this.  Our celebration will take place on Friday, February 1st from 9-11 am.   I have M. Schwager, T. Larnell, A. Struckmeyer, L. Banghart, C. Cummings, K. Jones, D. Frank and L. Pointer and Grandma who have volunteered to help.  The more the merrier!!!  Email me if you would like to volunteer.  The 100 item Heart Project is due Wednesday, January 29th.  Have fun!
**Don't forget to check the Irving website for info and registration on the Young Scientist Conference.  It will be held February, 23rd at Mann School.  It is a really cool conference for all ages--check it out!
**Please read the info on the 2 new additions to our classroom fun--Busy Reader Club and Word Play.  All information is located in your child's homework folder.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey worked with the students on a review of activities covered thus far on the topics of Feelings, Doing your Best, Personal Safety, Friendship, Conflict Resolution.
** In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer did a totally cool higher level thinking activity with the students using their ability to be detectives and look for clues when listening to a script and having them select or rule out pictures that will eventually help them solve the problem.
**A continued shout out for saving Giant Boxes and other cool stuff for our space station projects that will be done in April.  I cannot store them now.  Keep them until after spring break.  Thanks!
**Spelling City has been updated.  Remember, you can always access previous lessons.  We are moving into our First Grade words.
This week:
It continues to be about Weather and Water.  The students thought it was totally cool and a bit scary that ice had formed on all the playground equipment earlier in the week.  We all had to move to the blacktop at lunch recess for a few days.  Students broke off ice pieces to bring inside.  It did not take long for them to turn into water.  That solid-liquid thing....We kept a close eye on our iPad weather app to check the weather for the coming week----oh my----frigid conditions for a few days.  It is great for our next set of experiments-water as ice and bubbles.  Can't wait!  Our station day activities this week included snowman sequence, graphing and analyzing winter clothing, snowflake symmetry and color the code--ending sound review.
Reading/Social Studies:   The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasurers Reading series.  The students built background knowledge surrounding how an animal changes and grows.  They listened to the big book story," Animal Babies ABC's."  We talked about the word "expository" as meaning information about a subject.  Our story was an expository text.  The students made connections from the story about animals they had seen grow from babies to grown ups.  Many students talked about their pets or animals they had seen in the zoo or on t.v.  Some animal changes are pretty dramatic like tadpoles to frogs or very curious like a joey living in their moms pouch.  The students used the retelling cards to retell the animals story in their own words.  Our target word for this week was play.  The students added this word to their growing list of words and used them in the activity, "Walk Your Words."  They continue to work on the exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book.  They are so much quicker in their ability to segment, add, delete and substitute phonemes in words.  They continue to review the use of nouns and verbs in their sentence reading.  The students used their elkonin boxes to segment 3-4 phoneme words.  The students also used the boxes to place a marker in the box where they heard the target sound.  They reviewed the target sound on Ff at the beginning and ending of words and the vowel short o.  The students read their decodable story, "Can It Fit?" and made predictions about story content.  Our Robust Vocabulary for this week included FRAGILE, BELONG, SEVERAL, PARENT, INFORMATION.  The students practiced reading their leveled readers to a partner and receiving feedback in the form of a Reader's Checklist.   Some questions to pondered--Where you able to hear my reading?  Did I finger point to each word?  Did I stop at the ending mark?  Was my reading smooth or choppy?  How do I think I personally sounded when I read?  The students read the paper story, "We Play," and used it for fluency building.  The student listened to the read aloud story, "The Three Bears."  Many students commented that they had heard this story many times.  The students thought and responded about what would have happened if the bears had returned home early?  The students recorded some of their ideas.  Workstation activities this week included group animal sort and categorization using appropriate verbs, using the app Montessori Crossword to blend short o and digraph ch words and write a sentence to go with them, partner reading and discussion using the Reader's Checklist with support from the teacher and assistant, creating a topic collage using the sentence "We Play."
Math:   The students continue to work on counting to 100 and counting on from a random starting point.  They have begun working more exclusively with place value--counting by 10's, how many 10's in a number and how many 1's.  They are also becoming more familiar with counting by 2's and 5's.  They are loving working in their daily math journals.  They are beginning to listen more closely to the information given and the vocabulary used in order to determine if they add or take away.  Their illustration and analyzing through their drawings is really beginning to take shape.  They are starting to think about number families and ways to say a number.  In the activity "Plus or Minus," they used 10 pennies and listened listened to the directive to show how many to take away or add and what the resulting number was.  The students are in various stages of understanding---some counting penny by penny, some counting by 2's, some realizing that if they start with 10 pennies and the call is "minus 3" they calculate quickly via fingers or thinking with no manipulatives what the answer is.  It is fascinating to watch!!  The students also revisited symmetry and graphing and analyzing data in other activities this week. 
Writing:   The students are working on "Magic C" lowercase letters c, o, a, s.  They are continuing to use their mini boards and chalk/sponges as well as practice in their Orange Books.  They continue to use the prompts in our Treasurers series for writing practice.  This week the students wrote 3 sentences on the topic of their choice in their journals.
Science:   The students reviewed what they knew about WATER so far.  This week they worked with the question--what happens when you have a spill?  I spilled some water on a surface and student volunteers came up to "fix" it.  Kleenex, paper towels, regular paper, sponge, cloth were the tools they used.  They discovered that some of the tools were better able to "suck up" the water than others.  We discussed the word  "absorb."   The water was absorbed by some of the tools better than others.  Another Why?  Students remarked that the sponges and paper towels absorbed the water faster.   Students said that the sponges had holes in them and they observed the towels were bumpy.  A closer look under the microscope of the paper towel and sponge revealed tiny holes or spaces.  In Experiment 3, the students discovered that certain items have more holes or spaces than others and that lets the water "climb" up faster into them.  Students used paper towels in red water and celery in red water.  The water immediately climbed up the towel.  The students left the celery in overnight and discovered the tips and leaves of the celery were red.  WOW--foods have spaces for water to travel---We looked at the celery leaves under the microscope and the spaces very very visible--cool!  Question--What happens to your fingers when you stay in the bathtub a long time?  One students described it as "prune fingers."  Revelation--our skin has spaces where water can climb into!!!  In Experiment 4 the students experimented with the shape of water and concluded that water takes the shape of its container.  Students recorded their thoughts and sketches in their science reflection journal.  They continue to have great fun experimenting with objects in the water table and using the water tornadoes.  Next week--sink/float and water as ice.
Technology:    In reading, student small groups used the app Montessori Crossword for blending, segmenting and word building using short o and ch words.  Students also used the apps Rocket Speller and Reading Sight Words in their independent study.  The app Story Kit continues to benefit student small groups in the ability to hear their reading and discussions in order to build fluency and increase comprehension and participation.   In math, student small groups continue to use the apps Number Find, Top It Addition and Addition Bug independently and small groups to enhance their study of numbers and patterns.  In science, the students are using the apps Weather and Weather Underground to examine snow, ice and water patterns occurring in the United States and to track daily weather.
Literature:   "Martin's Dream," "A Picture Book of ML King," "Snowball Soup," "Footprints in the Snow," "A Drop of Water," "ML King Jr," "Martin's Big Words," "Winter," "Turn on the Faucet," "Slip, Slide, Skate," "Snow Dude," "Water," "The Words and Inspiration on Martin Luther King's Dream," "50 Degrees Below Zero."

UPDATES for 1/7-1/11 2013

**Happy New Year and welcome back everyone!  I trust everyone had a restful and fun break.  Many students traveled over the break and shared their travel journal writings and illustrations.  The forecast of snow next week has gotten everyone excited.  We will see!!
**The students participated in a school wide lock down drill on Friday afternoon.  Our class had a great discussion about all kinds of safety.  The importance of being prepared-- whether it is for bad weather, a fire or a stranger entering our building was discussed.   
**Parent/ Teacher Conference info is in your child's homework folder.  Please confirm your time and send it back to me.  Parent/Teacher Conferences for mid year will be held on Monday, January 28th, Tuesday, January 29th, Wednesday, January 30th and Thursday, January 31st.  Please note that Thursday and Friday, January 30th and 31st school is in session in the MORNING ONLY.  Dismissal is at 11:00 am.  Hephzibah and River Forest Community Center pick up is at 11:00 am.
**Vision Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, January 18th beginning at 9:00 am.
** Mid year DIBELS testing will take place next week.  I will be sharing the results with you at conference time.  Letter recognition, letter sound recognition and blending sounds to create words will be assessed.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will resume on Tuesday, January 29th.
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 21st in observance of M. L. King Day.
**Our 100th Day in School is fast approaching!!!  Our 100th Day Celebration will take place on Friday, February 1, 2013 from 9-11 am.  I have 8 volunteers who signed up during Open House.  They are K. Jones, D. Bovio, M. Schwager, T. Larnell, A. Struckmeyer, L. Banghart, C. Cummings and M. Meagher.  Some of you have already confirmed that you are still coming.  Please confirm with me if you have not already.  We could still use a few more.  The more, the merrier!!!  A special project will go home with each student with instructions this coming Friday, January 18th.  The project is due on Tuesday, January 29th.  Our celebration will focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's to 100.
**Check out the Irving website for information on the YOUNG SCIENTIST CONFERENCE being held on February 23rd at Mann School.  Registration is being handled online this year.  It is a really cool conference for all ages!  I highly recommend you check it out. 
**I am beginning mid year assessments next week in math, reading and writing.  These assessments will also be shared with you at conference time.  The students are really working hard!
**Reading Grandma Mary began her 6th year listening to young readers this past Friday.  She will be with us every Friday morning from 9-11 am.  She is thrilled to be back and we are so happy to have her!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey worked with the students on the concept of working together toward a common goal.
**Mr. Packer continued his lesson on being a detective and looking for clues to solve story problems.
**As the weather gets chillier and maybe snowier--don't forget to dress for the weather each day.  Snow pants, gloves, boots, scarves and hats or hoods are a must!  Don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. 
**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.
**What--nothing to do this Sunday afternoon (January 13th)--come join me at Ridgeland Ice Rink from 2-4 pm for ice skating!!  Some of my first grade friends will also be there.  I hear there are special walkers to help assist beginning skaters.  Check the ice rink website for details.  
This week:
It was all about wishing for snow and observing water.  The students turned our Friendship Tree into a Mitten Tree after reading and discussing the inspirational story, "The Mitten Tree," by Candace Christiansen. Ask your child to retell the story.  The students began an inquiry about the properties and behaviors of WATER.  Who knew a water droplet could be so much fun!!  Station Day activities included, creating a windsock snowman, conversational snowmen, written reflections about winter and counting on with snowmen to solve addition problems.  We had a teachable moment this week when Sierra announced that her pet fish had passed away.  The students talked about their pets being like part of their family and how sad it was to lose your pet.  Sierra wanted to bring in her fish so we could see what it looked like.  Sierra brought it in and talked about how she cared for it and why it might have died.  All the students took turns observing the fish under the magnifier.  Students commented how pretty the eyes were and about the fins  and tail.  The students shared kind words with Sierra that carried through her day!
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 the zoo.  The students listened to the big book story, "Mama Cat has Three Kittens."  They made predictions about story content and talked about the actions the cat or kitten might perform.  Those students who had cats as pets made connections between their pet and the cats in the story.  Our sight word this week is the word is.  We reviewed it along with all the words taught thus far.  The students played "Hands Up, Hands Down."  Many students commented on how many words we now have in the game.  Our target sound this week is 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 word that had a short Oo in them.  The students continued to review and work with verbs by making a list of what kittens can do.  Our robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, COMPARE, CONTENT, GENTLE, POUNCES.  The students made comparisons in the Big Book story about what the two kittens do compared to the third kitten named Boris.  The students worked with their elkonin boxes to blend sounds using short o to make words.  They read their decodable story, "Sit," making predictions and commenting at the end of the story about the fish.  The students listened to the vocabulary card tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato."  They discussed the similarities and differences between cats and mice.  In the expository text, "Let's Go To The Vet," the students reviewed what a diagram was and focused on the content of the story.  They worked together with a partner to create sentences using target words and pictures and read them back to one another.  They did an exercise where they placed a marker in the place where they heard the short o sound. (beginning, middle or end)  Our workstations this week included word maker, where the students chose a picture and found the letters to spell it (3-4 phonemes), sight word spell and sentence practice using the app Magnetic Letters, I Can-They Can-people and animal sentences and illustrations, reading, recording and critiquing a leveled reader story using Story Kit, creating a Favorite Pet Graph and Buddy Reading where a pair of students shared a story, discussed it and told about their favorite part.
Math:    The students continue to work on rote counting to 70 and beyond and writing single and double digit numbers.  The students did some special work with counting on addition and writing teen numbers.  The students began working in their Math Process Journals.  They are learning to listened for information in a story problem, illustrating its particular problem and writing the solution in the form of a number sentence and writing about how they solved the problem.  They are also working on pertinent math vocabulary--plus, minus, equals, all together, in all, are left, problem, solution, equation.  The students are also learning about joining two sets (addition) and decomposing sets (subtraction). 
Writing:    The students revisited forming uppercase letters using the cues from our Handwriting Without Tears series.   The students continue to work on sentence formation--beginning with a capital letter, spacing between words in a sentence, having some kind of ending mark, placement of words on a given line, rereading their sentences to see if they name and tell and refining their letter formation.  Next week, we will begin formal teaching of lowercase letters.
Science:   The students began with an inquiry discussion/dictation on what they knew about WATER.  The students were introduced to the word property and what it means.  A property is a type of behavior.  Each student was given an experiment book along with a science reflection journal to record their experiment results as well as their own thoughts and drawings or sketches.  In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools--straws, sticks, cups etc.  Using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, sounds and looks.  In Experiment 2, the students discovered water droplets have their own shape and can "stick" to one another.  Using a pipet, the students practiced sucking up water into it and releasing the water back into the cup. It was really cool to observe them carefully trying to capture just one drop of water and putting it on their wax paper.  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 hard to separate the droplets.  The students went over the rules for water table use.  They found a variety of tools and toys to experiment with.  Our class water tornadoes big and small are out for use.  Ms. Dennis and Amare brought their battery operated water tornadoes for use also!  Next week--"climbing water."
Technology:    In reading, the students are using the apps Story Kit to record themselves reading and story and critique how they sound for building fluency.  The app Magnetic Letters is was used to create sentences using sight words with appropriate capitalization and punctuation.  The app Reading Sightwords was used with partners to read the word--record themselves reading the word and playing it back and using the stylus to practice writing the word.  In math student small groups continue to use the apps Number Find, 100's Board and Top It Addition as an enrichment to their math curriculum.  At Choice Time, the student began exploring  manually the Marble Works blocks and inclines.  They are having lots of discussion on how to build in order to get the marble down and through.
Literature:    "Water," "I'm Bored," "A Drop of Water," "Water," "Ice," "Investigating Water," Chapter 1, "It's Winter," "Penguins to the Rescue," "When Will It Snow?" "Gingerbread Pirates," (thanks, Sophie!) "Winter is Here," "Thomas' Snowsuit," "Bear Feels Sick," "Snow Day for Mouse."