**What a great week! Spring weather is finally here! (I hope!) Space station construction began. The K-2 Spelling Bee was fantastic! Chef Ashley had her final session with students for some literature and food art. Our field trip to Adler Planetarium was great. The students listened to a cool program provided by Hatch School's Steel Drum Band under the direction of Evan and Paul Jacobson. Wow!
**There is still time to create an Egg Drop vehicle or Academic Fair project!! Sign up on line via the flyer enclosed in your child's homework folder. The Egg Drop and Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd!! Come on.....It will be fun!!
**A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to our Spelling Bee participants, ALLY and EMILY for their participation in the Spelling Bee. They were fabulous! Great poise and control. A SHOUT OUT also to REID who was our alternate.
**Our field trip to the PLANETARIUM was very fine. The students saw the movie, "One World, One Sky." They visited exhibits about space travel, the planets, the moon and saw some cool experiments about air pressure and block holes. They thoroughly enjoyed the interactive Planet Explorers exhibit dressing up like astronauts, blasting off, walking in space, seeing a space toilet, food and beds, building, crawling under space tunnels and driving the lunar rover and seeing space rocks. The weather did cooperate and we were able to picnic outside. The students will be reflecting on their experiences in writing for homework. Thanks to B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason, J. Flannery and H. Lim for their help on this trip. We all had a very productive and fun day.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude next week. You will receive notification of your child's skill mastery.
**BRING IN YOUR COINS!! This year, in conjunction with the Book Fair, the students will participate in Scholastic's All for the Books program. Money raised will be added to the library funds to purchase books for our Irving Library and we will be also donating used books to the Parenthesis Family Center--a local organization that aids families with young children. We already have our coin bucket and will be ready for donations of coins beginning on Monday, April 14th thru April 17th.
**REID and GINA and the GREEN TEAM participants are working some cool things for EARTH WEEK. (4/21-4/25) Look for a flyer of events in next week's Tuesday Packet.
**OPERA for the YOUNG'S presentation of the "Barber of Seville" is Tuesday, April 29th. Ms. Hiolski has been working with the students on some interactive singing parts! Families and siblings welcome. I am not sure of the time so stay tuned!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued to work with students on being a "social detective. She is reading from a marvelous book called, "Being a Social Detective." The students are taking a look a behavior that is "expected" in social situations.
**No math with Mr. Packer this week. We were watching the Steel Drum Band form Hatch.
This week:
It was about many things this week. I spoke about our field trip already. Our final session with Chef Ashley centered around the artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an Italian portrait painter best know for his creating imaginative portraits made entirely of vegetables, fruits, flowers, fish or books. The students looked at some of his portraits and then used the "food" Chef Ashley provided to create a portrait of their own. They used 2 kinds of noodles, oatmeal, lentils, 4 types of beans, bay leaves, corn seeds and rice. They turned out totally cool! The students will be bringing them home on Monday. We are working on arrangements to take a field to Chef Ashley's studio called "Constructive Chaos" in June. Stay tuned for details. This program was made available to students thru District 97's Oak Park Education Foundations Art Start. Kudos to Chef Ashley and her mom, Ms. Kris for their work! Space station work has begun. Each group has 5 or 6 participants. They then elected a project manager. Our field trip fueled more passion about construction. The student are using social, analytical, scientific and behavioral skills that they have embraced throughout the year. It is truly teamwork with a capital T! The students really did use their prior knowledge and new ideas about space and space station design. With their team, they discussed and sketched out some drawings or "prototypes" of what their space station might look like. Prior to all this, the class talked about the word "compromise" and what it means. Our room was filled with boxes. Each team received 3 giant boxes. They then decided as a team what other boxes they might need from the middle of the room. They made pencil lines where they wanted me to cut and placed the boxes in a places their team all agreed on. I cut and taped with"gorilla tape." The students crawled in to try them out to see if any other cutting/taping was needed. On Monday afternoon, we will begin the painting process. We are keeping track of progress by making a video which we will add to this blog when everything is complete. Station Day activities included creating 3D constellations with marshmallows and tooth picks, addition story problems--read, show your word, write the number sentence, creating a 2D constellation and naming it.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work on Unit 8 Plants in our Treasures Reading series. They talked about and read about seeds and plants. They accessed prior knowledge from our earlier fall unit on apples. The students revisited our apple seed tray. They made connections in their own lives of blowing dandelion seeds everywhere or helping their parents in backyard gardens planting different types of seeds. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Seed Secrets." The story contained ways that seeds travel. The students observed the pictures and tracked the print as I read. They were able to verbally ask and answer questions about the text. Our target words for this week are here and was. The students used these and all of their other words along with pictures to create sentences with a partner. Our target sound continues to be short u. We continue to revisit adjectives and how to use them to enhance the way we speak and write. The students took turns recalling events in the story and created a recall list of how seeds travel. In additional vocabulary development, the students worked on position words. The students worked with their white boards on exercises involving adding, deleting and substituting sounds. We revisited blends and digraphs in the initial and final position in words. The students read the decodable story, "The Bud is Up." They made predictions about story content. They also made a note about the sequential order in planting a seed. They reread the story to a partner to practice fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included GRADUALLY, SEEDS, OBSERVE. Workstations this week included leveled reader discussions and fluency checks, writing about seeds and plants, playing the game--"Super Sweet Parts of Speech," (noun, verb, adjective sort) building word family words--at, op, ug et, drawing and writing about vegetables, mixed up sentences solving, writing about people who have jobs with plants and playing, "What's my Ending Mark?"
Math: The students continue to work in their math process journals. They continue to work on reading the story problem, figuring out the process, illustrating their work and writing a number sentence. They reviewed time by the hour using analog and digital clocks. The students are enjoying searching for numbers 0-100 in the activity called "Number Hunt." The students continue to work with shapes experimenting with combining certain shapes to make a new shape. What happens when you combine 2 trapezoids? This week the students experimented with 3 dimensional shapes structure and beginning engineering! (who knew!) How do you construct a 3D shapes that will remain standing? You need a strong supportive base! It was really awesome to see the students figuring out how to get their structure to not fall over. Lots of brain work going on here! The students continue to work on refining number forms with practice writing of 2 and 3 digit numbers.
Writing: The students continue to work on their Shadow Pose paragraphs. Most students are working to finish their drafts. They are learning the importance of reading or proofing their own writing and making their own corrections.
Science: The students continue the study of shadows. We have 2 more experiments to complete outside and will move on to study of the moon next week. This week the students learned about constellations. We accessed information on our iPads about star patterns in the sky. The students are very interested in how constellations are formed and named. We read several books on Greek and Roman mythology and found out some of the stories and names behind the constellations. The students were totally fascinated by it! The students created and named their own constellation. They are displayed on out door.
Technology: The students looked at creating a video and how to position the iPad so your movie will not "jump" around. It does take some practice. No new apps were introduced this week.
Literature: "Zoo in the Sky," "Once Upon a Starry Night," "Seeing Stars," "Sun, Moon and Stars," "Stars and Planets," "Stories in the Stars," "Stars, Stars, Stars," "Cosmic Light Shows," "Un lazo a la luna," "Dwarf Planet Pluto," "The Asteroid Belt," "Meteors and Comets."
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Monday, April 7, 2014
UPDATES for 3/31-4/4 2014
**The students returned well rested and eager to begin the week. The weather is slowly warming up. The students are using their daily stretching and yoga poses to get in shape for Friday PACERS running club which will resume soon.
**Our Spelling Bee Reps, ALLY and EMILY along with our alternate, REID are studying for the K-2 Spelling Bee that will be held this Wednesday, April 9th at 11:25 am. in the Irving Auditorium. We will be there to cheer them on. Stop in if you like. Relax and have fun is our mantra! It will be exciting.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Adler Planetarium in this Thursday, April 10th. We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and return to school by 2:00 pm. Thanks so much for the overwhelming response to volunteer. Unfortunately, I can only take 4 chaperones. For this trip, B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason and J. Flannery will assist. We have 4 trips left plus our End of the Year Family Picnic so we will need many more volunteers! Parent volunteers will carpool courtesy of B. Ahring. ALL STUDENTS need a BAG LUNCH (peanut/tree nut free,) GYM SHOES, SOCKS and dress for the weather. We are hoping for an outside picnic! Keep your fingers crossed!! We will be seeing an Imax movie called, "One World, Once Sky" at 10:15 am. From there, the groups will see Our Solar System, Shoot for the Moon, and Planet Explorers exhibit rooms. Planet Explorers is an interactive exhibit that allows only 2 classrooms at a time for a 30 minute period. We will eat our lunch and then go to that exhibit with Ms. Weigel's class. It is going to be a great time!
**Sign up for the Egg Drop and Academic Fair continues! Ms. Creehan spoke to the class about each event and show examples of academic fair projects. Don't forget to sign up on line for one or the other or both. Let me know if I can help in any way. The Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair are Wednesday, April 23rd.
**Thanks for all the great boxes and cool stuff. We will begin our prep for Space Station design and construction this week. Because of our field trip and Good Friday off, we will work the next 2 weeks on the project.
**Future event--Opera for the Young presents "The Barber of Seville." Ms. Hiokski has begun prep for this interactive event that will take place on Tuesday, April 29th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a lesson on being a "social detective." The students explored different social situations and roll played appropriate ways to deal with them.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer shared with the students their student completed EST Book with each student's writing and illustrations.
This week:
It was all about planets, beginning to write about our paragraphs about our shadow pose. and tubers sprouting! The students learned a song about the order of the planets and some interesting facts about each one. Which ones are land planets? Which are gas planets? We accessed information on our iPads about NASA'S space station daily report. Students are particularly interested in new and dwarf planets and moons that the other planets have. In writing, the students started to learn what a paragraph is and how to write one. They are working on their draft ideas. Our tubers are both sprouting! We have some very healthy root systems and shoots growing out of the eyes! Stay tuned. Our station day activities this week included clock clocks, name rockets-addition project, ranking the planets in order and pattern block rockets.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 8 Plants this week in our Treasures Reading series. They began by building background knowledge around how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. Our class took a walk outside with our Tree Finder Book to see if there were oak trees in the area and what other types of trees were in our school neighborhood. They located maple, ginko and ash trees. The students understood that a tree is a plant that takes many years to grow. They also understood that a tree grows from a seed. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted that the book was non fiction or informational. The students responded to the literature expressing that they had seen acorn (the seed) and some students even collected them. Our sight words for the week are little and said. The students reviewed these words along with all of our other sight words. The students noted that the word said does not sound how it looks. Our target sounds for the week are short u and ck. We reread the big book story and the students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4,5, and 6 phoneme words. The students read the decodable story, paper story, "A Little Acorn." They made predictions about story content and orally answered questions about the story. The students took turns reading to a partner and filling out the Reader's Checklist. They used the story element guide to ask and answer Who, What, Where, When and Why questions about the story. Our Robust Vocabulary included PLANT, GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. Our oral vocabulary story, "The Conceited Apple Branch," gave us a healthy new respect for dandelions. The students listened to the poem, "Acorns." They discussed what they thought the author's message was and noted the rhyming pattern. We had a discussion about the quotation marks used in our decodable story. They tell that someone is speaking. The word said, like speech bubbles, tell that some is speaking too. Workstations this week included save the trees posters, short u sentences, sentences riddles, CVC sentence making, leveled reader oral fluency and comprehension checks and discussion, classifying long and short vowels, opinion piece: Why do we need trees? tree fact paper and Montessori Crossword iPad exercise on short u, ck and long e words.
Math: The student continue to work on counting beyond 100 and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They are continuing to work on listening to a story problem, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence for it. We are working with numbers 1-10. Students continue to work on telling time by the hour. The students had a great time this week using the app Subitize Tree to work on memory and retention of numbers. Working on pattern block rockets gave them a chance to work on visual perception skills and problem solving.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their upper and lowercase letter forms. We are almost finished with lowercase letter formation. The discussion this week centered around the question, "What is a paragraph?" The student learned that a paragraph is multiple sentences about one topic that flow together and have an introduction, middle and ending. The students used their shadow pose pictures as the topic for their paragraph and generated ideas about what they could write about. They are in the process of writing a draft and using a question format to guide them in organizing their ideas. Their draft will be a place where they can make any changes or corrections before they write their final copy. Stay tuned!
Science: The students continue to study shadows, the planets and the sun. In did an experiment where they placed plastic wrap, a book, a cup of water and wax paper on the overhead to create a shadow. They each created a graph answering yes or no to seeing if a shadow is produced. The students discovered they can produce light shadows and dark shadows or no shadow at all. They also found out that it depends how much light is allowed to pass through the object. We used some scientific words! Shadows can opaque--they do not allow light to pass through, so they produce a dark shadow or translucent--some light does pass through but produces a light shadow. The students enjoyed trying out other objects in their choice time. They reflected their thoughts in their science journal.
Technology: In reading and math this week, no new apps have been introduced. Student small groups continue to use all previously mentioned apps that enhance and reinforce blending, segmenting, vocabulary recognition, phonics, reading, and reading fluency recordings, addition, subtraction, counting, place value, writing numbers, problem solving, subitizing, number order and more or less concepts. In science, the students explored the app NASA to view pictures of space and spacecraft and get daily news from the international Space Station.
Literature: "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "My Place in Space," "Frog in Space," "Children's Atlas of the World," "1000 Facts About Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "The Planets," "Can You See My Shadow?"
**Our Spelling Bee Reps, ALLY and EMILY along with our alternate, REID are studying for the K-2 Spelling Bee that will be held this Wednesday, April 9th at 11:25 am. in the Irving Auditorium. We will be there to cheer them on. Stop in if you like. Relax and have fun is our mantra! It will be exciting.
**Our FIELD TRIP to the Adler Planetarium in this Thursday, April 10th. We will be boarding the bus at 9:00 am and return to school by 2:00 pm. Thanks so much for the overwhelming response to volunteer. Unfortunately, I can only take 4 chaperones. For this trip, B. Ahring, L. Wojcik, K. Mason and J. Flannery will assist. We have 4 trips left plus our End of the Year Family Picnic so we will need many more volunteers! Parent volunteers will carpool courtesy of B. Ahring. ALL STUDENTS need a BAG LUNCH (peanut/tree nut free,) GYM SHOES, SOCKS and dress for the weather. We are hoping for an outside picnic! Keep your fingers crossed!! We will be seeing an Imax movie called, "One World, Once Sky" at 10:15 am. From there, the groups will see Our Solar System, Shoot for the Moon, and Planet Explorers exhibit rooms. Planet Explorers is an interactive exhibit that allows only 2 classrooms at a time for a 30 minute period. We will eat our lunch and then go to that exhibit with Ms. Weigel's class. It is going to be a great time!
**Sign up for the Egg Drop and Academic Fair continues! Ms. Creehan spoke to the class about each event and show examples of academic fair projects. Don't forget to sign up on line for one or the other or both. Let me know if I can help in any way. The Egg Drop Contest and Academic Fair are Wednesday, April 23rd.
**Thanks for all the great boxes and cool stuff. We will begin our prep for Space Station design and construction this week. Because of our field trip and Good Friday off, we will work the next 2 weeks on the project.
**Future event--Opera for the Young presents "The Barber of Seville." Ms. Hiokski has begun prep for this interactive event that will take place on Tuesday, April 29th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did a lesson on being a "social detective." The students explored different social situations and roll played appropriate ways to deal with them.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer shared with the students their student completed EST Book with each student's writing and illustrations.
This week:
It was all about planets, beginning to write about our paragraphs about our shadow pose. and tubers sprouting! The students learned a song about the order of the planets and some interesting facts about each one. Which ones are land planets? Which are gas planets? We accessed information on our iPads about NASA'S space station daily report. Students are particularly interested in new and dwarf planets and moons that the other planets have. In writing, the students started to learn what a paragraph is and how to write one. They are working on their draft ideas. Our tubers are both sprouting! We have some very healthy root systems and shoots growing out of the eyes! Stay tuned. Our station day activities this week included clock clocks, name rockets-addition project, ranking the planets in order and pattern block rockets.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 8 Plants this week in our Treasures Reading series. They began by building background knowledge around how a tree grows. The students talked about Oak Park and how many trees they see daily. Our class took a walk outside with our Tree Finder Book to see if there were oak trees in the area and what other types of trees were in our school neighborhood. They located maple, ginko and ash trees. The students understood that a tree is a plant that takes many years to grow. They also understood that a tree grows from a seed. Students listened to the Big Book story, "Oak Trees." They noted that the book was non fiction or informational. The students responded to the literature expressing that they had seen acorn (the seed) and some students even collected them. Our sight words for the week are little and said. The students reviewed these words along with all of our other sight words. The students noted that the word said does not sound how it looks. Our target sounds for the week are short u and ck. We reread the big book story and the students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4,5, and 6 phoneme words. The students read the decodable story, paper story, "A Little Acorn." They made predictions about story content and orally answered questions about the story. The students took turns reading to a partner and filling out the Reader's Checklist. They used the story element guide to ask and answer Who, What, Where, When and Why questions about the story. Our Robust Vocabulary included PLANT, GROW, CONCEITED, EQUAL, CHARMING. Our oral vocabulary story, "The Conceited Apple Branch," gave us a healthy new respect for dandelions. The students listened to the poem, "Acorns." They discussed what they thought the author's message was and noted the rhyming pattern. We had a discussion about the quotation marks used in our decodable story. They tell that someone is speaking. The word said, like speech bubbles, tell that some is speaking too. Workstations this week included save the trees posters, short u sentences, sentences riddles, CVC sentence making, leveled reader oral fluency and comprehension checks and discussion, classifying long and short vowels, opinion piece: Why do we need trees? tree fact paper and Montessori Crossword iPad exercise on short u, ck and long e words.
Math: The student continue to work on counting beyond 100 and writing 2 and 3 digit numbers. They are continuing to work on listening to a story problem, illustrating the process and writing the number sentence for it. We are working with numbers 1-10. Students continue to work on telling time by the hour. The students had a great time this week using the app Subitize Tree to work on memory and retention of numbers. Working on pattern block rockets gave them a chance to work on visual perception skills and problem solving.
Writing: The students continue to work on refining their upper and lowercase letter forms. We are almost finished with lowercase letter formation. The discussion this week centered around the question, "What is a paragraph?" The student learned that a paragraph is multiple sentences about one topic that flow together and have an introduction, middle and ending. The students used their shadow pose pictures as the topic for their paragraph and generated ideas about what they could write about. They are in the process of writing a draft and using a question format to guide them in organizing their ideas. Their draft will be a place where they can make any changes or corrections before they write their final copy. Stay tuned!
Science: The students continue to study shadows, the planets and the sun. In did an experiment where they placed plastic wrap, a book, a cup of water and wax paper on the overhead to create a shadow. They each created a graph answering yes or no to seeing if a shadow is produced. The students discovered they can produce light shadows and dark shadows or no shadow at all. They also found out that it depends how much light is allowed to pass through the object. We used some scientific words! Shadows can opaque--they do not allow light to pass through, so they produce a dark shadow or translucent--some light does pass through but produces a light shadow. The students enjoyed trying out other objects in their choice time. They reflected their thoughts in their science journal.
Technology: In reading and math this week, no new apps have been introduced. Student small groups continue to use all previously mentioned apps that enhance and reinforce blending, segmenting, vocabulary recognition, phonics, reading, and reading fluency recordings, addition, subtraction, counting, place value, writing numbers, problem solving, subitizing, number order and more or less concepts. In science, the students explored the app NASA to view pictures of space and spacecraft and get daily news from the international Space Station.
Literature: "Mercury," "Venus," "Earth," "Mars," "Jupiter," "My Place in Space," "Frog in Space," "Children's Atlas of the World," "1000 Facts About Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "The Planets," "Can You See My Shadow?"
Friday, March 21, 2014
UPDATES for 3/17-3/21 2014
**Congratulations to our Spelling Bee reps--Emily and Ally!!!! Reid will serve as our alternate. These students will participate in the Irving School Annual Spelling Bee for K-2 to be held Wednesday, April 9th at lunchtime. Twelve of our classmates took part in the classroom bee. It was a great show of interest, effort and courage! All students are to be commended for their great sportsmanship and support of others!
**Spring Break begins 3/22-3/30. Classes resumes on Monday, March 31st. All students traveling near and far have their travel journals. Other students have requested a journal for home use. I can't wait to read about their adventures!
**Report Cards are in your child's homework folder along with a Lexia Core5 update and information for on line registration for the Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest. I would love to see our class represented by some projects and egg vehicles. Ms. Creehan will come in after break to show the students some past projects and answer any questions they have. The on line registration also gives detailed info on project set up. The Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd in the gym. Students will have speak about their projects to Irving students during the day and again at night for the public and families from 6:30-7:30 pm. The Egg Drop Contest will also be held on Wednesday, April 23rd beginning at 12:30 out on the playground.
**Keep sending in field trip permission slips and money for our Adler Planetarium Trip.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 has concluded. You should have received notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 1st.
**Everyone smiled brightly for their individual Spring Picture. A test pic will be sent home sometime in April with instruction for purchase.
**No Friendship Club this week. Ms. Bell Bey had a meeting.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer continued his activities on superlatives.
**YES!! It's finally time!!! You can now begin bringing in your GIANT BOXES, medium and small boxes, paper towel and toilet paper tubes/wrapping paper tubes, cup tops, empty containers and any other COOL things you have been saving for our Space Station Projects. Our space station prep, design, construction and detailing will take place the week of April 21st-25th. We may need some hot glue volunteers during the detailing process. Stay tuned!
**Please have a safe and restful spring break. It is somewhat of a homework holiday-----but-----you can read your Busy Reader, work on your project idea/vehicle idea for Academic Fair/Egg Drop, write and illustrate in your travel journal, log onto Lexia, XtraMath, Spelling City or BrainPop, play some of your games and do Word Play, get outside and exercise, do some yoga poses, observe nature and spend some time with family and friends.
This week:
It was all about Art Start Part 3--Welcoming Spring, Super Tuber and School Spirit Week Activities.
In Art Start, Ms. Kris read the story, "The Reasons for Seasons." She talked about how we have seasons and in particular the upcoming season of Spring. She also brought a book on mythology and talked to the students about myths--stories that were told to explain a happening.....no science involved. She read a story based on Greek mythology on how spring came to be. For our cooking session, the students created "flower" cupcakes and flower sugar cookies. They used brightly colored sprinkles for decorations. Pretty cool! On to Super Tuber----Students brought in their potatoes. We went over a little history of the potato using maps and pictures. The students learned that the potato is a tuber and the tuber grows into more potatoes. We talked about why Ireland is known for potatoes. The students used their magnifiers to look for the "eyes." They measured the length with cubes and weighed their potatoes using a scale and teddy bear counters. The students also graphed how they liked to eat potatoes. French Fried won out followed by mashed. I showed the students how to grow a potato plant using a potato and suspending it in water with toothpicks and placing it in a sunny window. Stay tuned! Emily's mom spoke to us about Ireland and brought some great Irish music and a special drum that was played using a small stick moved back and forth. All the students got to try it. School Spirit Week was great! Lots of smiles---wearing of green----lots of mini Mr. Wyza's, a mini nurse Jamie and mini Ms. Gullo and even a Ms. Weigel! Story book and movie characters were everywhere. Lots of princesses, super heroes, dragons, monsters, an Ariel and t.v. characters. It was a great week! Station day activities included writing about the sun, building animals with cubes (tricky!) and creating number sentence and illustrating the process.
Reading/Social Studies: We took a break from our Treasures Reading Series. We will begin Unit 8 Plants after spring break. The students reviewed all their sight words. The students worked on some Common Core standards--writing an opinion about a book, asking and answering questions about a fiction story and after reading a particular story, illustrating the front and back cover and title page. The students used previous stories and worked with partners to discuss and record the title, setting, characters and the plot. They used their story elements butterfly for this. The students listened to the story, "My five Senses." They listened for key details and orally sequenced events in the story. We continue to use the Haggerty Blue Book exercises for isolating vowels, blending and segmenting, adding and deleting and substituting phonemes. The students continue to review blends and digraphs. They are using their elkonin boxes to segment 4, 5, and 6 letter words. The students worked on a variety of games and movement activities with the focus on spelling their sight vocabulary.
Math: The students worked this week on illustrating and writing number sentences for story problems. Figuring out what process to use is becoming clearer. Students are sharper at recognizing even and odd numbers. They continue to work on counting on from a random number, counting quantities to 30, telling time by the hour and comparing 2 written numbers between 1 and 20. The students are also working on place value by putting together and taking apart teen numbers from 11-19 by naming how many tens and how many ones.
Writing: The students have been doing more writing this week. They wrote an opinion piece about a favorite story and wrote an information piece about the sun. They took some time to write in their journals about their lucky day. Students continue to work on sentence structure including capital letter at the beginning and punctuation at the end. They are beginning to be more consistent about reading or proofing their writing piece before they come to journal conference. Inventive spelling remains very acceptable. Students are working at composing and writing 1-4 sentences on a given topic independently.
Science: The students continue their study of shadows and the sun and space. The students reviewed what makes a shadow. They created their shadows as well as observed the shadows of their classmates during our sunny weather at lunch. They observed that a bigger shadow will "hide" the smaller one. They reflected in their science journal their ideas on which way a shadow will fall in relation to its light source. I took picture of each students action shadow. They will be using these for their beginning paragraph project. The students listened to informational stories about the sun. Many knew that the sun is a star and is made up of burning hot gases. It is the star that is closest to us on Earth. Some student were surprised to hear that the sun is just medium star. They wrote a fact piece to go along with their sun collages. We began learning a song about the order of the planets and looked up general facts via the internet and books on the first four land planets. The students are also learning that space is always changing and that scientists are discovering new planets and learning things about planets near to our Earth like Mars all the time. Our shadow silhouettes and photos are up in the hall. Can you guess the shadow that goes with the silhouette?
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad for small group and individual use. Vocabulary development apps have been the focus this week in reading. The apps Spelling Bug, Tic, Tac, Toe, Rocket Speller, Dolch Words, Write Words and Sight Words 100 were used this week. The students set their written words on fire with the free app Fire Finger! (thanks, Ms. Parkinson!) We are having great fun with it. In math, the students continue their work on addition and subtraction processes with the apps Mathland, Butterfly Math, Find the Sums, Top-It Addition and Kids Math. The app Math Rack was used with the whole group for counting and grouping. In science, the apps NASA, weatherunderground, Solar System are assisting students in the questions they have.
Literature: "My Five Senses," "There is No Place Like Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "Sun," "The Sun," "Day and Night," "The Reasons for Seasons," "Amazing Sun," "I Can See My Shadow."
**Spring Break begins 3/22-3/30. Classes resumes on Monday, March 31st. All students traveling near and far have their travel journals. Other students have requested a journal for home use. I can't wait to read about their adventures!
**Report Cards are in your child's homework folder along with a Lexia Core5 update and information for on line registration for the Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest. I would love to see our class represented by some projects and egg vehicles. Ms. Creehan will come in after break to show the students some past projects and answer any questions they have. The on line registration also gives detailed info on project set up. The Academic Fair is Wednesday, April 23rd in the gym. Students will have speak about their projects to Irving students during the day and again at night for the public and families from 6:30-7:30 pm. The Egg Drop Contest will also be held on Wednesday, April 23rd beginning at 12:30 out on the playground.
**Keep sending in field trip permission slips and money for our Adler Planetarium Trip.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 has concluded. You should have received notification of your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 1st.
**Everyone smiled brightly for their individual Spring Picture. A test pic will be sent home sometime in April with instruction for purchase.
**No Friendship Club this week. Ms. Bell Bey had a meeting.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer continued his activities on superlatives.
**YES!! It's finally time!!! You can now begin bringing in your GIANT BOXES, medium and small boxes, paper towel and toilet paper tubes/wrapping paper tubes, cup tops, empty containers and any other COOL things you have been saving for our Space Station Projects. Our space station prep, design, construction and detailing will take place the week of April 21st-25th. We may need some hot glue volunteers during the detailing process. Stay tuned!
**Please have a safe and restful spring break. It is somewhat of a homework holiday-----but-----you can read your Busy Reader, work on your project idea/vehicle idea for Academic Fair/Egg Drop, write and illustrate in your travel journal, log onto Lexia, XtraMath, Spelling City or BrainPop, play some of your games and do Word Play, get outside and exercise, do some yoga poses, observe nature and spend some time with family and friends.
This week:
It was all about Art Start Part 3--Welcoming Spring, Super Tuber and School Spirit Week Activities.
In Art Start, Ms. Kris read the story, "The Reasons for Seasons." She talked about how we have seasons and in particular the upcoming season of Spring. She also brought a book on mythology and talked to the students about myths--stories that were told to explain a happening.....no science involved. She read a story based on Greek mythology on how spring came to be. For our cooking session, the students created "flower" cupcakes and flower sugar cookies. They used brightly colored sprinkles for decorations. Pretty cool! On to Super Tuber----Students brought in their potatoes. We went over a little history of the potato using maps and pictures. The students learned that the potato is a tuber and the tuber grows into more potatoes. We talked about why Ireland is known for potatoes. The students used their magnifiers to look for the "eyes." They measured the length with cubes and weighed their potatoes using a scale and teddy bear counters. The students also graphed how they liked to eat potatoes. French Fried won out followed by mashed. I showed the students how to grow a potato plant using a potato and suspending it in water with toothpicks and placing it in a sunny window. Stay tuned! Emily's mom spoke to us about Ireland and brought some great Irish music and a special drum that was played using a small stick moved back and forth. All the students got to try it. School Spirit Week was great! Lots of smiles---wearing of green----lots of mini Mr. Wyza's, a mini nurse Jamie and mini Ms. Gullo and even a Ms. Weigel! Story book and movie characters were everywhere. Lots of princesses, super heroes, dragons, monsters, an Ariel and t.v. characters. It was a great week! Station day activities included writing about the sun, building animals with cubes (tricky!) and creating number sentence and illustrating the process.
Reading/Social Studies: We took a break from our Treasures Reading Series. We will begin Unit 8 Plants after spring break. The students reviewed all their sight words. The students worked on some Common Core standards--writing an opinion about a book, asking and answering questions about a fiction story and after reading a particular story, illustrating the front and back cover and title page. The students used previous stories and worked with partners to discuss and record the title, setting, characters and the plot. They used their story elements butterfly for this. The students listened to the story, "My five Senses." They listened for key details and orally sequenced events in the story. We continue to use the Haggerty Blue Book exercises for isolating vowels, blending and segmenting, adding and deleting and substituting phonemes. The students continue to review blends and digraphs. They are using their elkonin boxes to segment 4, 5, and 6 letter words. The students worked on a variety of games and movement activities with the focus on spelling their sight vocabulary.
Math: The students worked this week on illustrating and writing number sentences for story problems. Figuring out what process to use is becoming clearer. Students are sharper at recognizing even and odd numbers. They continue to work on counting on from a random number, counting quantities to 30, telling time by the hour and comparing 2 written numbers between 1 and 20. The students are also working on place value by putting together and taking apart teen numbers from 11-19 by naming how many tens and how many ones.
Writing: The students have been doing more writing this week. They wrote an opinion piece about a favorite story and wrote an information piece about the sun. They took some time to write in their journals about their lucky day. Students continue to work on sentence structure including capital letter at the beginning and punctuation at the end. They are beginning to be more consistent about reading or proofing their writing piece before they come to journal conference. Inventive spelling remains very acceptable. Students are working at composing and writing 1-4 sentences on a given topic independently.
Science: The students continue their study of shadows and the sun and space. The students reviewed what makes a shadow. They created their shadows as well as observed the shadows of their classmates during our sunny weather at lunch. They observed that a bigger shadow will "hide" the smaller one. They reflected in their science journal their ideas on which way a shadow will fall in relation to its light source. I took picture of each students action shadow. They will be using these for their beginning paragraph project. The students listened to informational stories about the sun. Many knew that the sun is a star and is made up of burning hot gases. It is the star that is closest to us on Earth. Some student were surprised to hear that the sun is just medium star. They wrote a fact piece to go along with their sun collages. We began learning a song about the order of the planets and looked up general facts via the internet and books on the first four land planets. The students are also learning that space is always changing and that scientists are discovering new planets and learning things about planets near to our Earth like Mars all the time. Our shadow silhouettes and photos are up in the hall. Can you guess the shadow that goes with the silhouette?
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad for small group and individual use. Vocabulary development apps have been the focus this week in reading. The apps Spelling Bug, Tic, Tac, Toe, Rocket Speller, Dolch Words, Write Words and Sight Words 100 were used this week. The students set their written words on fire with the free app Fire Finger! (thanks, Ms. Parkinson!) We are having great fun with it. In math, the students continue their work on addition and subtraction processes with the apps Mathland, Butterfly Math, Find the Sums, Top-It Addition and Kids Math. The app Math Rack was used with the whole group for counting and grouping. In science, the apps NASA, weatherunderground, Solar System are assisting students in the questions they have.
Literature: "My Five Senses," "There is No Place Like Space," "The Sun is My Favorite Star," "Sun," "The Sun," "Day and Night," "The Reasons for Seasons," "Amazing Sun," "I Can See My Shadow."
Sunday, March 16, 2014
UPDATES for 3/10-3/14 2014
**Please send a potato tomorrow (Monday, March 17th) for our Super Tuber Activity! It can be any kind. Don't cook it. We have G. Shelton, J. Smyth, H. Lim and Reid's grandma helping us out. Thanks so much! Please come at 10:00 am. Stop by the office to get a visitor's badge.
**REPORT CARDS for Trimester 2 will go home this Friday, March 21st.'
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, March 19th. At that time you will receive information on you child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 1st.
**Spring Picture Day is Monday, March 17th! If you are having a sibling picture taken--those will be taken at 8:05 am. Please let me know if you are. Our class will have their pictures taken at 8:50 am. This is an individual posed picture with a background.
**Next week Student Council has decreed---It is SPIRIT WEEK! Monday --"Smile at Everyone Day!" A flyer is in your child's homework folder about the other days this week. Thanks to reps, Ally and Colin for their contributions to the week. Those kids are sure busy!
**This week is also PACK Week. Pack the color of the day in your lunch! Think fruits and vegetables. We are encouraging students to "Eat the Rainbow." Monday-pack GREEN, Tuesday-pack WHITE, Wednesday, pack PURPLE, Thursday-pack YELLOW/ORANGE and Friday-pack RED. The school lunch program will also be participating.
**In preparation for Irving School's Annual Spelling Bee---We will have our "Classroom Bee" this Wednesday to see who will represent our class in the K-2 Spelling Bee. The "bee" will be cold-meaning that there is no study---anyone who wants to be a part of it can. Some students have expressed an interest. Others are thinking about participating. No worries! Remember--students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and all the different vowel combos. Words will be given at random starting with a Kdg-1 list. I will make it fun. We will end up with the 2 top spellers and 1 alternate. Their names will be submitted to Mr. Packer.
**Field trip permission and info for our trip to the Adler Planetarium are in your child's homework folder. The trip is April 10th. I would like to have all the permission slips and money in by this coming Friday before break if possible. Thanks. I will be able to take 4 chaperones. The chaperones will carpool.
**Information on the ACADEMIC FAIR/EGG DROP CONTEST (Wednesday, April 23rd) should also be out sometime this week. I believe it is an online sign up. I have spoken to my students about it. It is a great opportunity for them to research something they are really interested in!
**Spring Break begins March 22nd thru March 30th. Let me know if your child needs a TRAVEL JOURNAL for that week. Classes resume on Monday, March 31st.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey presented a lesson on feelings.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer began a unit on superlatives by reading a special story. The students will be doing a project on this topic.
This week:
It was all about Art Start and Bagpipes! First Art Start--Chef Ashley was out of town, but her mom, Ms. Kris spoke to the students about the continuing cold, snowy weather. Something warm is need when you come in from the cold.......Ms. Kris read the story, "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Lois Elhert. In the story the kids grow vegetables which will eventually become their "vegetable soup." The students talked about the types of vegetable they like and some students commented about growing them in their home gardens. Ms. Kris demonstrated how to make a layered soup mix using dried vegetables and spices. All the liquid and/or meat can be done at home. The students worked at measuring
**REPORT CARDS for Trimester 2 will go home this Friday, March 21st.'
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will conclude on Wednesday, March 19th. At that time you will receive information on you child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 7 will begin on Tuesday, April 1st.
**Spring Picture Day is Monday, March 17th! If you are having a sibling picture taken--those will be taken at 8:05 am. Please let me know if you are. Our class will have their pictures taken at 8:50 am. This is an individual posed picture with a background.
**Next week Student Council has decreed---It is SPIRIT WEEK! Monday --"Smile at Everyone Day!" A flyer is in your child's homework folder about the other days this week. Thanks to reps, Ally and Colin for their contributions to the week. Those kids are sure busy!
**This week is also PACK Week. Pack the color of the day in your lunch! Think fruits and vegetables. We are encouraging students to "Eat the Rainbow." Monday-pack GREEN, Tuesday-pack WHITE, Wednesday, pack PURPLE, Thursday-pack YELLOW/ORANGE and Friday-pack RED. The school lunch program will also be participating.
**In preparation for Irving School's Annual Spelling Bee---We will have our "Classroom Bee" this Wednesday to see who will represent our class in the K-2 Spelling Bee. The "bee" will be cold-meaning that there is no study---anyone who wants to be a part of it can. Some students have expressed an interest. Others are thinking about participating. No worries! Remember--students can only spell what they have knowledge of in terms of consonants and all the different vowel combos. Words will be given at random starting with a Kdg-1 list. I will make it fun. We will end up with the 2 top spellers and 1 alternate. Their names will be submitted to Mr. Packer.
**Field trip permission and info for our trip to the Adler Planetarium are in your child's homework folder. The trip is April 10th. I would like to have all the permission slips and money in by this coming Friday before break if possible. Thanks. I will be able to take 4 chaperones. The chaperones will carpool.
**Information on the ACADEMIC FAIR/EGG DROP CONTEST (Wednesday, April 23rd) should also be out sometime this week. I believe it is an online sign up. I have spoken to my students about it. It is a great opportunity for them to research something they are really interested in!
**Spring Break begins March 22nd thru March 30th. Let me know if your child needs a TRAVEL JOURNAL for that week. Classes resume on Monday, March 31st.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey presented a lesson on feelings.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer began a unit on superlatives by reading a special story. The students will be doing a project on this topic.
This week:
It was all about Art Start and Bagpipes! First Art Start--Chef Ashley was out of town, but her mom, Ms. Kris spoke to the students about the continuing cold, snowy weather. Something warm is need when you come in from the cold.......Ms. Kris read the story, "Growing Vegetable Soup" by Lois Elhert. In the story the kids grow vegetables which will eventually become their "vegetable soup." The students talked about the types of vegetable they like and some students commented about growing them in their home gardens. Ms. Kris demonstrated how to make a layered soup mix using dried vegetables and spices. All the liquid and/or meat can be done at home. The students worked at measuring
Sunday, March 9, 2014
UPDATES for 3/3-3/7 2014
**Please send a potato of your choice to school on Monday, March 17th for our Super Tuber Activity. Do not cook it! We will learn its history, examine it closely, perform some graphing exercises, measure it and look for its "eyes," take a look at the different varieties and learn about its connections to Ireland. We will also choose one to grow. Thanks to G. Shelton, J. Smyth and H. Lim for helping us out! It's our class salute to St. Patrick's Day.
**Please join our Kindergarten classes on Friday, March 14th from 1:30-2:30 pm for Bagpiper Patrick Lynch. He will visit our class and speak about the history of the instrument, take it apart and show its pieces and play some spectacular music. Siblings welcome!
**Please keep sending snow pants and boots. Hopefully--this will be the last week. Could spring actually be in the air??!!
**Our Green Team rep, Gina did a fantastic job along with other Green Team members in presenting at the PTO Meeting on Thursday. Ms. Parkinson spoke about the mission of green Team and members read a poem and showed a video they made on recycle, re-use and renew. We saw Gina and Reid in the video. Well done!
**Our new Student Council reps--Ally and Colin attended their first meeting of the new trimester. They are working to plan the activities for Spirit Week which is the week before spring break.
**We are now in our final trimester of the school year! Report cards will go home on Friday, March 21st. This year has really flown by!
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will resume next week. It was on hiatus due to staff assisting with the upper grade ISAT testing.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 17th probably first thing in the morning. This is an individual posed picture with a background.
**Look for information on our field trip to Adler Planetarium (Thursday, April 10th) at the end of the week.
**Also at the end of the week, look for information on Irving's Annual Spelling Bee which will be held on Wednesday, April 9th at lunch time. Each classroom is asked to give a "classroom bee" resulting in the top 2 spellers and an alternate attending the K-2 Spelling Bee to represent our class.
**Future event--All School Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest--Wednesday, April 23rd. Do you have something ou are really interested in? Can you make a project out of it? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a third floor window? Think about it!!!!
**School is closed for Spring Break from 3/22-3/30. School resumes on Monday, March 31st.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on the zones of self regulation and strategies for moving from one zone to another.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer completed his lesson on ways to show different number groupings thru illustration.
**We continue getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool things for our upcoming space station projects. You can bring them in after spring break!
This week:
It was all about Art Start and the beginning of our new science unit, "Sunshine, Shadows, the Moon and Space." Let's start with Art Start. In our second lesson of combining literature and cooking, Chef Ashley brought her mom, Ms. Kris to read the Jan Brett story, "The Mitten." The students talked about winter and winter clothing. The students made connections about winter in their own lives. Ms. Kris talked with students about things they could do to be warm when they came in from the cold. Making hot chocolate was mentioned. Chef Ashley chimed in and spoke about the activity of making their own hot chocolate mix. Back at their tables, the student learned about measuring by the cup and half cup and their filled their container with milk crystals, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and marshmallows. Students used their senses to feel the milk crystals, smell the cocoa and see the layering of ingredients. Cool! Next the students made "snowflakes" using pretzels and melted chocolate and colorful sprinkles. Lots of fun!
The students began their science inquiry on "What makes a shadow?" and the beginning of our Space cross curricular theme. We are slowly transforming our class into a space workshop. We began with an inquiry discussion about what they know about space. What is in it? How was the earth and other planets form? What is a universe? Wow! Lots of thinking going on! Station Day activities included Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss masks, counting number addition completion, Dr. Seuss word search, solving the pattern block puzzles and name the picture with word families en and ot.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue working in 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 pictures. After reading the story, the students discussed what the main idea was. They made connections in the story about activities they do in their backyards at different times of the year. They noted certain details in the story. The sight words and and what were introduced. The students continued work with target sounds Bb and Ll. They did an activity where they listened for the targeted sound and told if it was at the beginning or ending of a word. Students reviewed the function of nouns, action words-verbs and what an adjective is and how to use it in a sentence and when speaking. As we have been doing all year, the students worked on the exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book. This oral exercise book contains activities for blending, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes to create a new word or reveal a word family. The students continue to work on the Common Core Standards in language arts. Students express not only verbally, but also in writing their opinion, story elements and asking and answering questions about a story read. They have come so far! Workstations for this week included Leveled reader fluency and comprehension check/discussion, story elements butterfly on the story of their choice, partner read aloud with reader's checklist, contributing to a seasons action and picture chart, finding the sentence that goes with the picture, writing a question from a story read and answering that question, word play activities using addition and deletion skills for creating words and using partner and small group board games and iPad activities to enhance vocabulary development.
Math: The students revisited pattern block shapes and worked at constructing puzzles of various complexity---puzzles with shape outlines and puzzles without. It was interesting to observe the types of strategies the students used---starting with the biggest piece first, starting with edges first, starting with the middle first, using two blocks to create the shape (instead of a hexagon, using 2 trapezoids) Cool! Very fun visual perception and figure ground work! The students are enjoying their work using the rekenreck. They played, "What's my number?" "How far is it from ten," and "Show me." In their math journals, the students are working both on addition and now take away or subtraction using pictures and counters. Some students are forming mental images in their head and some are using the counting on strategy to solve adding problems. We are getting a lot more practice on number writing. Math workstations this week included writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, teen ten frame review, counting on to add activity, pattern block puzzles and rekenreck and iPad activities relating to number quantities, attributes, shapes, number bonds to 10 and adding and taking away.
Writing: The students continued to work on the lowercase letters introduced thus far. They applied what they learned in their orange practice book. All students continue to work on refining their sentence structure. They are using their writer's checklist, re reading their work before they come to journal conference. We continue to use the stars and wishes model where students critique their peers writing. With the addition of encouraging more adjective use to expand their sentences, the students sentences are beginning to become more descriptive. Students are also continue to work on sequencing events in their daily journal entries. Many students are using key words--first, next, then and last in their writing. Their Weather Project will give them more opportunities to show what they know about how to write a sentence or sentences!
Science: The students began their science unit, "Sunshine, Shadows, the Moon and Space." 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 have a shadow occur? I recorded the ideas that students had on the subject. All students agreed we needed some kind of light source. Some students commented that a body or some kind of object blocked the light source. Other students noticed that we needed a place to see the shadow. The "recipe" for the creating a shadow became light source, something to block the light source and a surface to see the shadow on. Wow! commented Reid--"a shadow is blocked light." Students observed other things about shadows--some are really dark (totally black,) while others are were gray or light colored or you could hardly see them. Why is that? Can light pass through an object? Stay tuned for more!
Technology: In reading small group and individual instruction, the apps Montessori Crossword, Magic Reading 2 and iTalk were used to enhance sound blending skills, review sue of consonant blends and digraphs and plurals and emphasize work with word families and particular letter sounds. Students listened to their own reading via iTalk and critique themselves using the Reader's Checklist. In math small group and individual instruction students worked on the apps Geoboard, Math Bug, Top-It Addition, Number Find and Monster Squeeze. Whole group instruction continues to center around the use of the apps The Rack and Number Line for counting, and cardinality as well as addition and subtraction work. BrainPop, weatherunderground and weather.com and PBS Kids were used this week in connection with our science unit.
Literature: "The Cat in the Hat" "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Fox in Socks," "The Eyes Book," "The Universe," "What is a Shadow," "The Mitten," "Children's Atlas of the Universe," "Weather," "When Will It Be Spring," "A Story, A Story."
**Please join our Kindergarten classes on Friday, March 14th from 1:30-2:30 pm for Bagpiper Patrick Lynch. He will visit our class and speak about the history of the instrument, take it apart and show its pieces and play some spectacular music. Siblings welcome!
**Please keep sending snow pants and boots. Hopefully--this will be the last week. Could spring actually be in the air??!!
**Our Green Team rep, Gina did a fantastic job along with other Green Team members in presenting at the PTO Meeting on Thursday. Ms. Parkinson spoke about the mission of green Team and members read a poem and showed a video they made on recycle, re-use and renew. We saw Gina and Reid in the video. Well done!
**Our new Student Council reps--Ally and Colin attended their first meeting of the new trimester. They are working to plan the activities for Spirit Week which is the week before spring break.
**We are now in our final trimester of the school year! Report cards will go home on Friday, March 21st. This year has really flown by!
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will resume next week. It was on hiatus due to staff assisting with the upper grade ISAT testing.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 17th probably first thing in the morning. This is an individual posed picture with a background.
**Look for information on our field trip to Adler Planetarium (Thursday, April 10th) at the end of the week.
**Also at the end of the week, look for information on Irving's Annual Spelling Bee which will be held on Wednesday, April 9th at lunch time. Each classroom is asked to give a "classroom bee" resulting in the top 2 spellers and an alternate attending the K-2 Spelling Bee to represent our class.
**Future event--All School Academic Fair and Egg Drop Contest--Wednesday, April 23rd. Do you have something ou are really interested in? Can you make a project out of it? Can you construct a vehicle that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a third floor window? Think about it!!!!
**School is closed for Spring Break from 3/22-3/30. School resumes on Monday, March 31st.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on the zones of self regulation and strategies for moving from one zone to another.
**In Mr. Packer Math Enrichment this week, Mr. Packer completed his lesson on ways to show different number groupings thru illustration.
**We continue getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool things for our upcoming space station projects. You can bring them in after spring break!
This week:
It was all about Art Start and the beginning of our new science unit, "Sunshine, Shadows, the Moon and Space." Let's start with Art Start. In our second lesson of combining literature and cooking, Chef Ashley brought her mom, Ms. Kris to read the Jan Brett story, "The Mitten." The students talked about winter and winter clothing. The students made connections about winter in their own lives. Ms. Kris talked with students about things they could do to be warm when they came in from the cold. Making hot chocolate was mentioned. Chef Ashley chimed in and spoke about the activity of making their own hot chocolate mix. Back at their tables, the student learned about measuring by the cup and half cup and their filled their container with milk crystals, cocoa powder, powdered sugar and marshmallows. Students used their senses to feel the milk crystals, smell the cocoa and see the layering of ingredients. Cool! Next the students made "snowflakes" using pretzels and melted chocolate and colorful sprinkles. Lots of fun!
The students began their science inquiry on "What makes a shadow?" and the beginning of our Space cross curricular theme. We are slowly transforming our class into a space workshop. We began with an inquiry discussion about what they know about space. What is in it? How was the earth and other planets form? What is a universe? Wow! Lots of thinking going on! Station Day activities included Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss masks, counting number addition completion, Dr. Seuss word search, solving the pattern block puzzles and name the picture with word families en and ot.
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue working in 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 pictures. After reading the story, the students discussed what the main idea was. They made connections in the story about activities they do in their backyards at different times of the year. They noted certain details in the story. The sight words and and what were introduced. The students continued work with target sounds Bb and Ll. They did an activity where they listened for the targeted sound and told if it was at the beginning or ending of a word. Students reviewed the function of nouns, action words-verbs and what an adjective is and how to use it in a sentence and when speaking. As we have been doing all year, the students worked on the exercises in our Haggerty Blue Book. This oral exercise book contains activities for blending, segmenting, adding, deleting and substituting phonemes to create a new word or reveal a word family. The students continue to work on the Common Core Standards in language arts. Students express not only verbally, but also in writing their opinion, story elements and asking and answering questions about a story read. They have come so far! Workstations for this week included Leveled reader fluency and comprehension check/discussion, story elements butterfly on the story of their choice, partner read aloud with reader's checklist, contributing to a seasons action and picture chart, finding the sentence that goes with the picture, writing a question from a story read and answering that question, word play activities using addition and deletion skills for creating words and using partner and small group board games and iPad activities to enhance vocabulary development.
Math: The students revisited pattern block shapes and worked at constructing puzzles of various complexity---puzzles with shape outlines and puzzles without. It was interesting to observe the types of strategies the students used---starting with the biggest piece first, starting with edges first, starting with the middle first, using two blocks to create the shape (instead of a hexagon, using 2 trapezoids) Cool! Very fun visual perception and figure ground work! The students are enjoying their work using the rekenreck. They played, "What's my number?" "How far is it from ten," and "Show me." In their math journals, the students are working both on addition and now take away or subtraction using pictures and counters. Some students are forming mental images in their head and some are using the counting on strategy to solve adding problems. We are getting a lot more practice on number writing. Math workstations this week included writing 2 and 3 digit numbers, teen ten frame review, counting on to add activity, pattern block puzzles and rekenreck and iPad activities relating to number quantities, attributes, shapes, number bonds to 10 and adding and taking away.
Writing: The students continued to work on the lowercase letters introduced thus far. They applied what they learned in their orange practice book. All students continue to work on refining their sentence structure. They are using their writer's checklist, re reading their work before they come to journal conference. We continue to use the stars and wishes model where students critique their peers writing. With the addition of encouraging more adjective use to expand their sentences, the students sentences are beginning to become more descriptive. Students are also continue to work on sequencing events in their daily journal entries. Many students are using key words--first, next, then and last in their writing. Their Weather Project will give them more opportunities to show what they know about how to write a sentence or sentences!
Science: The students began their science unit, "Sunshine, Shadows, the Moon and Space." 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 have a shadow occur? I recorded the ideas that students had on the subject. All students agreed we needed some kind of light source. Some students commented that a body or some kind of object blocked the light source. Other students noticed that we needed a place to see the shadow. The "recipe" for the creating a shadow became light source, something to block the light source and a surface to see the shadow on. Wow! commented Reid--"a shadow is blocked light." Students observed other things about shadows--some are really dark (totally black,) while others are were gray or light colored or you could hardly see them. Why is that? Can light pass through an object? Stay tuned for more!
Technology: In reading small group and individual instruction, the apps Montessori Crossword, Magic Reading 2 and iTalk were used to enhance sound blending skills, review sue of consonant blends and digraphs and plurals and emphasize work with word families and particular letter sounds. Students listened to their own reading via iTalk and critique themselves using the Reader's Checklist. In math small group and individual instruction students worked on the apps Geoboard, Math Bug, Top-It Addition, Number Find and Monster Squeeze. Whole group instruction continues to center around the use of the apps The Rack and Number Line for counting, and cardinality as well as addition and subtraction work. BrainPop, weatherunderground and weather.com and PBS Kids were used this week in connection with our science unit.
Literature: "The Cat in the Hat" "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "Fox in Socks," "The Eyes Book," "The Universe," "What is a Shadow," "The Mitten," "Children's Atlas of the Universe," "Weather," "When Will It Be Spring," "A Story, A Story."
Sunday, March 2, 2014
UPDATES for 2/24-2/28 2014
**The wild weather continues! The students made the best of their indoor lunch time recess with storybook tales and sharing choice time with Ms. Weigel's class. How timely for us that we began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. Looking ahead this week----please keep sending snow pants and boots for lunchtime recess. Our entire class joined Mr. Hodge last Wednesday to say the pledge and the Eagle Essentials over the loud speaker. Our special volunteer readers, Philippe, Ally and Reid read information on Ruby Bridges celebrating African American History. Our whole class chimed in for the final sentence. They sounded great! Hope to get an online version of it for you soon.
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular!! I hope you all had as much fun as I did. There were great games and prizes. Many students danced for desserts. Our class BAKING basket was superb! The silent auction items were the best yet. Thanks to all of you who could attend. Towards the end of the fair came the STAFF talent portion. In the running this year was Hodgepodge, The New Beats and Boy's Rule, Girl's Drool. Very cute and original pieces. Boy's Rule dominated the scene (in more ways than one) and raised the most money to win the PIE in the FACE! If you were the winning bidder for my auction items, I will contact you in the next few weeks. This event truly represents our Irving community at its best! I am so proud to be a part of it!
**The students had their first ART START experience courtesy of Chef Ashley from Constructive Chaos. Chef Ashley spoke about her background as a chef and also talked about her business. She then shared with the students poetry about pizza and read Jack Prelutsky's poem, "The Pizza the Size of the Sun." Chef Ashley had the students use their senses to feel, smell, touch the ingredients in dough. All the ingredients were prepared ahead of time to form a dough. The students got to work with the dough--working the dough into a ball and then creating a bed for their pizza toppings. A personal pizza was created and packaged so the students could take it home to bake. The dough was sticky and the more the students worked with it the stronger it became. It was hilarious to see the students pulling the dough and dough sticking to their hands. The students compared this dough to the gluten free dough I made in the morning. The students had a great time. Can't wait to see what is next on our literature and cooking circuit. We will find out this Wednesday!
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps. I have sent home the information for you to look over. Have your child signed their name and return it on Monday. All papers go into a giant bag and I stick my hand in and pick 2. The first meeting is Tuesday, March 4th at 11:25 am.
**On Thursday, March 6th, GREEN TEAM will give a short presentation about their groups focus this year. Our rep, Gina will be there. Come out and show your support. Their presentation is at 7:00 pm.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 began this week. You should have received notification of your child's current skill level.
**For our salute to St.Patrick's Day----Join us on Friday, March 14th for a presentation by Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch from 1:30-2:30 in the Irving Auditorium. A bit of history, instrument parts and lively music. All kindergarten classes will be in attendance. The students will follow it up with SUPER TUBER DAY on Monday, March 17th from 10-11 am. All students need to bring a potato of their choice (not cooked.) We will learn its history, examine its surface, measure its length, look for the "eyes", take a look at the different varieties and learn of the potato and its connection to Ireland. I will need some volunteers for this. Email me if you are interested.
**Taste of Irving will be held Friday, March 14th at 6:00pm.
**The end of Trimester 2 is March 5th. Report cards will go home on Friday, March 21st.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 17th probably in the morning. This is posed individual picture with a backdrop.
**Future Field Trip----Adler Planetarium on Thursday, April 10th. More info will follow.
**Future Events----I have begun speaking to the students about some cool opportunities that they can participate in--more info will follow soon----Wednesday, April 9th K-2 SPELLING BEE and Wednesday, April 23rd 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 an egg from breaking when dropped out of a third flour window? Think about it!
**We are getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool things for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. Mr. DiPaolo has donated 2 great boxes for our project. You can bring them in after spring break.
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK-March 22-30. Classes resume on Monday, March 31st.
This week:
It was all about the weather. We began tracking the weather in the United States via the site Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our current unit in reading. We do have a fascination with the weather here in Room 110. It has been one for the records! Students are observing weather "fronts" moving in and 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, ice, wind speed. The students have also have become interested in the chance or percentage of a storm occurring. Perhaps we have some budding meteorologists!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began by pondering the question, "What is the weather like today?" They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but in other parts of the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea could be. They made connections about rain in their own daily lives. Sight words this and do were introduced. The target sound for this week is short e. The students used pictures as well as words to make a group Short e web. The students continued to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. They reread the story and created a picture in their minds (visualize) about what it would look like after the rain. The students 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 their paper stories aloud to to a partner for fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUD and WEATHER. The students listened to the Native American tale, "How Thunder and Lightening Came to Be." They also had the chance to listen and reflect on 4 poems related to weather. In the another folktale from the Pueblo Nation, the students listened to the "Frog and the Locust." We discussed the idea of a rain dance or song to bring rain to a dry area. We located on the map where the Pueblo people lived and looked at a surface map to see how the land looked. What did the frog do 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 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. Workstations included leveled readers fluency read aloud using the readers checklist, word building on several levels--short a and e cvc focus, beginning and ending blends, digraphs, favorite story picture--writing a question and an answer, compare and contrast a drawing of your house in summer and in winter and word sort--short e word families.
Math: The students are working more in depth on activities using the rekenreck--an abacus like board with 5 red and 5 white beads in rows of ten---with ten groups of ten. Students played What's My Number? How far is it from 10? from 5? Show Me.......making a random number and ways to say a random number. I also showed the students a random number on the rekenreck and then covered it quickly. Could they remember what the number was? The students continue to work on number writing--2 and 3 digits, creating number bonds to 10 and listening for information in a story problem and showing their work in figuring out the answer.
Writing: The students continue to work on formation of lowercase letters and refining their writing. The students are encouraged to reread their sentences before coming to the journal conference with me--proofing, if you will. The students continue to write using the journal prompts from our reading series.
Science: The students made their final reflections on the subject of water. We traced the path of water and the stages it goes through before it comes into our homes via the faucet. We reviewed the path of the water cycle and saw a video via BrainPop on the water cycle.
Technology: In reading, students worked individually and with partners using the apps Magic Reading 2 to segment and blend, Montessori Crossword word building short a and e words, beginning and ending blends and digraphs. They also used Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller for reinforcement of skills. In the area of math, whole group instruction centered around the apps Number Rack and Number Line. Individual and partners worked on the apps Top it Addition, Number Find, Geo Board, Monster Squeeze and Addition Bug. In Science, whole group instruction centered around the apps Weatherunderground and BrainPop and Sonic Pics for story board and recording of our Ruby Bridges project.
Literature: "Ruby Bridges," "Bake, Mice, Bake," "Turn on the Faucet," "It takes a Village," "Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur," "Hooray for Teeth," "Red Light, Green Light, Momma and Me," "Water Cycle," "The Story of Rosa Parks," "A Walk in the Rain with a Brain," "Jared's Cool-Out Space," "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Sticker Book," "Pete the Cat--the Wheels on the Bus, " "The Story of Wilma Rudolph."
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular!! I hope you all had as much fun as I did. There were great games and prizes. Many students danced for desserts. Our class BAKING basket was superb! The silent auction items were the best yet. Thanks to all of you who could attend. Towards the end of the fair came the STAFF talent portion. In the running this year was Hodgepodge, The New Beats and Boy's Rule, Girl's Drool. Very cute and original pieces. Boy's Rule dominated the scene (in more ways than one) and raised the most money to win the PIE in the FACE! If you were the winning bidder for my auction items, I will contact you in the next few weeks. This event truly represents our Irving community at its best! I am so proud to be a part of it!
**The students had their first ART START experience courtesy of Chef Ashley from Constructive Chaos. Chef Ashley spoke about her background as a chef and also talked about her business. She then shared with the students poetry about pizza and read Jack Prelutsky's poem, "The Pizza the Size of the Sun." Chef Ashley had the students use their senses to feel, smell, touch the ingredients in dough. All the ingredients were prepared ahead of time to form a dough. The students got to work with the dough--working the dough into a ball and then creating a bed for their pizza toppings. A personal pizza was created and packaged so the students could take it home to bake. The dough was sticky and the more the students worked with it the stronger it became. It was hilarious to see the students pulling the dough and dough sticking to their hands. The students compared this dough to the gluten free dough I made in the morning. The students had a great time. Can't wait to see what is next on our literature and cooking circuit. We will find out this Wednesday!
**Student Council is looking for 2 new reps. I have sent home the information for you to look over. Have your child signed their name and return it on Monday. All papers go into a giant bag and I stick my hand in and pick 2. The first meeting is Tuesday, March 4th at 11:25 am.
**On Thursday, March 6th, GREEN TEAM will give a short presentation about their groups focus this year. Our rep, Gina will be there. Come out and show your support. Their presentation is at 7:00 pm.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 began this week. You should have received notification of your child's current skill level.
**For our salute to St.Patrick's Day----Join us on Friday, March 14th for a presentation by Bag Piper, Patrick Lynch from 1:30-2:30 in the Irving Auditorium. A bit of history, instrument parts and lively music. All kindergarten classes will be in attendance. The students will follow it up with SUPER TUBER DAY on Monday, March 17th from 10-11 am. All students need to bring a potato of their choice (not cooked.) We will learn its history, examine its surface, measure its length, look for the "eyes", take a look at the different varieties and learn of the potato and its connection to Ireland. I will need some volunteers for this. Email me if you are interested.
**Taste of Irving will be held Friday, March 14th at 6:00pm.
**The end of Trimester 2 is March 5th. Report cards will go home on Friday, March 21st.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 17th probably in the morning. This is posed individual picture with a backdrop.
**Future Field Trip----Adler Planetarium on Thursday, April 10th. More info will follow.
**Future Events----I have begun speaking to the students about some cool opportunities that they can participate in--more info will follow soon----Wednesday, April 9th K-2 SPELLING BEE and Wednesday, April 23rd 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 an egg from breaking when dropped out of a third flour window? Think about it!
**We are getting closer to collection of GIANT BOXES and other cool things for our upcoming space station projects. Keep saving them. Mr. DiPaolo has donated 2 great boxes for our project. You can bring them in after spring break.
**NO SCHOOL-SPRING BREAK-March 22-30. Classes resume on Monday, March 31st.
This week:
It was all about the weather. We began tracking the weather in the United States via the site Weatherunderground each day as it relates to our current unit in reading. We do have a fascination with the weather here in Room 110. It has been one for the records! Students are observing weather "fronts" moving in and 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, ice, wind speed. The students have also have become interested in the chance or percentage of a storm occurring. Perhaps we have some budding meteorologists!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 7 Weather in our Treasures Reading series. We began by pondering the question, "What is the weather like today?" They accessed prior knowledge about what they understood about weather, not only in their own area but in other parts of the United States. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Rainy Day." They thought about what the main idea could be. They made connections about rain in their own daily lives. Sight words this and do were introduced. The target sound for this week is short e. The students used pictures as well as words to make a group Short e web. The students continued to work on recognizing nouns and verbs in their daily sentence work. They reread the story and created a picture in their minds (visualize) about what it would look like after the rain. The students 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 their paper stories aloud to to a partner for fluency. Our Robust Vocabulary included BLUSTERY, DRIZZLE, CHILLY, CLOUD and WEATHER. The students listened to the Native American tale, "How Thunder and Lightening Came to Be." They also had the chance to listen and reflect on 4 poems related to weather. In the another folktale from the Pueblo Nation, the students listened to the "Frog and the Locust." We discussed the idea of a rain dance or song to bring rain to a dry area. We located on the map where the Pueblo people lived and looked at a surface map to see how the land looked. What did the frog do 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 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. Workstations included leveled readers fluency read aloud using the readers checklist, word building on several levels--short a and e cvc focus, beginning and ending blends, digraphs, favorite story picture--writing a question and an answer, compare and contrast a drawing of your house in summer and in winter and word sort--short e word families.
Math: The students are working more in depth on activities using the rekenreck--an abacus like board with 5 red and 5 white beads in rows of ten---with ten groups of ten. Students played What's My Number? How far is it from 10? from 5? Show Me.......making a random number and ways to say a random number. I also showed the students a random number on the rekenreck and then covered it quickly. Could they remember what the number was? The students continue to work on number writing--2 and 3 digits, creating number bonds to 10 and listening for information in a story problem and showing their work in figuring out the answer.
Writing: The students continue to work on formation of lowercase letters and refining their writing. The students are encouraged to reread their sentences before coming to the journal conference with me--proofing, if you will. The students continue to write using the journal prompts from our reading series.
Science: The students made their final reflections on the subject of water. We traced the path of water and the stages it goes through before it comes into our homes via the faucet. We reviewed the path of the water cycle and saw a video via BrainPop on the water cycle.
Technology: In reading, students worked individually and with partners using the apps Magic Reading 2 to segment and blend, Montessori Crossword word building short a and e words, beginning and ending blends and digraphs. They also used Spelling Bug, Rocket Speller for reinforcement of skills. In the area of math, whole group instruction centered around the apps Number Rack and Number Line. Individual and partners worked on the apps Top it Addition, Number Find, Geo Board, Monster Squeeze and Addition Bug. In Science, whole group instruction centered around the apps Weatherunderground and BrainPop and Sonic Pics for story board and recording of our Ruby Bridges project.
Literature: "Ruby Bridges," "Bake, Mice, Bake," "Turn on the Faucet," "It takes a Village," "Suppose You Meet a Dinosaur," "Hooray for Teeth," "Red Light, Green Light, Momma and Me," "Water Cycle," "The Story of Rosa Parks," "A Walk in the Rain with a Brain," "Jared's Cool-Out Space," "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Sticker Book," "Pete the Cat--the Wheels on the Bus, " "The Story of Wilma Rudolph."
Sunday, February 9, 2014
UPDATES for 2/3-2/7 2014
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was spectacular!!!! The students made a necklace with 100 Fruit Loops with spacers to denote the groups of 10's, stamped 100 hearts with their handmade stampers, turned a "regular" dog into a Dalmation creating 100 spots, created a really cool food grid containing 10 groups of 10 foods, painted a rainbow with 100 hand prints, wrote their numbers from 1-100, began recording 100 words on their papers and passed out Valentines, treats and treasures to their classmates. A HEART felt thanks to our volunteers--B. Ahring, the Flannery family, Reid's Grandma, G. Shelton, T. Smyth, H. Lim, L. Wojcik, L. Nino, L. Pierre and our wonderful assistants, Ms. Jack and Ms. Miller. Our day was really special.
**An awesome teachable moment courtesy of Ben and his Nana---Ben brought in a book called "Recess at 20 Below" about what it was like to go to school is a very cold place and have recess. sound familiar??? No this was not Oak Park....it was in Alaska! Students located Alaska on a map and globe. Many remarked that it was near the North Pole. The story talked about how you prepare yourself to go out and that students do actually go out when it is that cold. The story also described cool things the kids did while outside--sledding on their playground being the coolest. Our students made lots of connections in their own life about snow pants, boots, layers of clothes, red noses, breathing out smoke and feeling like an icicle. We checked Weatherunderground on the computer and compared the temperature in Alaska and Oak Park. Guess what......Oak Park-4 degrees.....Anchorage, Alaska.......25 degrees. What???!! The students were amazed!! What a crazy winter! The students want to ask Mr. Hodge if they could bring sleds to school!
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening on Friday morning.
**Please continue sending your child with boots and snow pants. We may have another opportunity to be outside later on this coming week and want to be prepared.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and the students discussed and shared their feelings on the topic--"What do you care about?" From our families, to our pets and more globally--our school and our earth, our class cares about many things. The students wrote about and decorated an "I Care" tee shirt depicting what they care most about. We turned our "Mitten Tree" into an "I Care" tree and students hung their tee shirts on the tree. Stop by and see them!
**In Mr. Packer, Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer read the students 2 books on ways to say the number 100. By ones, or two's , or five's or ten's.......what about by 20's, or 25's or 50's.....the list goes on. The students enjoyed thinking and talking about it.
**Keep reading those BUSY READERS and recording them on your reading log. The first 10 minutes of our class time will know be spent reading our books to others or independently. Oh, the sound of beginning readers!!!!!!
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!!! The FUN FAIR is coming!!! Coming play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. I also have some special items to bid on at the silent auction! There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts and.......a VERY special attraction--3 groups of Irving employees with 3 different performances. This week the coin containers will be set out with pictures of the participants on them. Students can bring in money (any kind) and place it in the container of the group they would like to see get the PIE IN THE FACE!!!! The containers will be out this week, next week and during the FUN FAIR. The performances will be during the last part of the FUN FAIR culminating with the PIE IN THE FACE for the group who collected the most money. Who will it be???? I hear our beloved Ms. Noonan is in one of the groups......I think I heard Mr. Di Paolo, our custodian is in a group.....Stay tuned!!!!! Students can start bringing in money beginning on Monday. There is still time to donate to our Class Basket--"Cooking and Baking Fun." You can send it in to me or give it to M. Ahring. The class will be decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult apron on Monday. Come on...join in the fun!!!!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day and Monday, February 17th-President's Day.
**Our class will be participating in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**Exciting News--Our class will participate in the Oak Park Education Foundation's Art Start program beginning at the end of this month and for 5 consecutive Wednesdays afternoons. Our program is called "Cooking History," presented by Kris and Ashley Nelson of Constructive Chaos Culinary Arts. All foods used will be nut free, gluten free and free of any other allergens that students in my class may have. We are in the planning stages. I will send all the details when planning is completed.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other COOL STUFF for our space station construction in April. You can send them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, counting to 100, grouping objects in groups of 10 up to 100, writing numbers to 100 and sharing ways we care about others.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listened to the Big Book story, " Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as non fiction. They were reminded to think about the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The target word this week is are. The students added this word to our growing list of sight words. The target sound is Hh. They reviewed all the consonant and vowel sounds covered thus far. Students worked in pairs to create sentences using sight words and pictures. In the second reading of the story, the students talked about what the main idea of the story was and recalled what Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards to summarize events in the story. They used their elkonin boxes to segment 4-5 sound words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats/" They made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read a sentence from the story 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 blend sounds to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to reread the story to. The partners discussed and critique each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion focusing on asking and answering questions about a text, word family fun where you choose a word family--an, at, in, it, ot and add a single consonant, consonant blend or digraph to create a word and record it on paper creating 10 words and using 2 in a sentence, using the app Montessori Crossword for sound blending words with focus on short i, short e and ch, creating a page for a book about neighborhood places with the sentence starter.....I go to a....with an illustration and sentence completion page using CVC words.
Math: Students worked with a partner to group the objects of their choice into ten groups of ten to get to 100. They then labeled each group with the appropriate number. We had 100 cubes, 100 pennies, 100 dinosaurs, 100 straws, 100 sticks, 100 blocks, 100 shells and 100 links. The students continue to work on counting on from a random number, telling what comes before or after a random number, counting quantities, even and odd numbers, number bonding or ways to say a number using numbers 1-6 and using illustrations to tell a number story. They have begun work in their February calendar books.
Writing: The students worked on formal formation of "Magic C" lowercase letters c, o, a, d and slant lowercase letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Our stylus tools are in and the students will begin work next week on writing form practice using the iPad. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the first, next , then and last format. Many students are making the transition from mixed upper and lowercase to lowercase letters in their writing. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Science: The students talked about the experiments they have done thus far. They noted also that the water bottles that once held ice and then water were now lower in water. Students used the word evaporation. The students know that water can be 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 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 come back on Monday!
Technology: The students main app this week continues to be Tan Zen Lite. The students are enjoying working on identifying shapes from the tans and placing them in the correct place to make the picture. Some very challenging work that develops spacial relationships, visual perception and dexterity. Cool! The other math apps used this week by students were Number Find, Math Bug, Top-It Addition and Geoboard. In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword, Sight Words, Reading Magic 3, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used with student small groups. The students continue to locate information on the properties of water thru Brain Pop.
Literature: "The 100th Day of School," "100 Shoes," "Why Does It Snow," "Recess at 20 Below," "Water's Journey," "Water Can Change," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Winter Nap," "One Hundred Angry Ants," "A Drop of Water-Chapter 4-Steam," "Evaporation/Condensation," "Counting Your Way to the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten."
**An awesome teachable moment courtesy of Ben and his Nana---Ben brought in a book called "Recess at 20 Below" about what it was like to go to school is a very cold place and have recess. sound familiar??? No this was not Oak Park....it was in Alaska! Students located Alaska on a map and globe. Many remarked that it was near the North Pole. The story talked about how you prepare yourself to go out and that students do actually go out when it is that cold. The story also described cool things the kids did while outside--sledding on their playground being the coolest. Our students made lots of connections in their own life about snow pants, boots, layers of clothes, red noses, breathing out smoke and feeling like an icicle. We checked Weatherunderground on the computer and compared the temperature in Alaska and Oak Park. Guess what......Oak Park-4 degrees.....Anchorage, Alaska.......25 degrees. What???!! The students were amazed!! What a crazy winter! The students want to ask Mr. Hodge if they could bring sleds to school!
**All students participated in a Hearing Screening on Friday morning.
**Please continue sending your child with boots and snow pants. We may have another opportunity to be outside later on this coming week and want to be prepared.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey and the students discussed and shared their feelings on the topic--"What do you care about?" From our families, to our pets and more globally--our school and our earth, our class cares about many things. The students wrote about and decorated an "I Care" tee shirt depicting what they care most about. We turned our "Mitten Tree" into an "I Care" tree and students hung their tee shirts on the tree. Stop by and see them!
**In Mr. Packer, Math Enrichment, Mr. Packer read the students 2 books on ways to say the number 100. By ones, or two's , or five's or ten's.......what about by 20's, or 25's or 50's.....the list goes on. The students enjoyed thinking and talking about it.
**Keep reading those BUSY READERS and recording them on your reading log. The first 10 minutes of our class time will know be spent reading our books to others or independently. Oh, the sound of beginning readers!!!!!!
**The FUN FAIR is coming!!!! The FUN FAIR is coming!!! Coming play a game with me on Saturday, February 22nd from 11-3 pm. I also have some special items to bid on at the silent auction! There will be games, prizes, food, dancing for desserts and.......a VERY special attraction--3 groups of Irving employees with 3 different performances. This week the coin containers will be set out with pictures of the participants on them. Students can bring in money (any kind) and place it in the container of the group they would like to see get the PIE IN THE FACE!!!! The containers will be out this week, next week and during the FUN FAIR. The performances will be during the last part of the FUN FAIR culminating with the PIE IN THE FACE for the group who collected the most money. Who will it be???? I hear our beloved Ms. Noonan is in one of the groups......I think I heard Mr. Di Paolo, our custodian is in a group.....Stay tuned!!!!! Students can start bringing in money beginning on Monday. There is still time to donate to our Class Basket--"Cooking and Baking Fun." You can send it in to me or give it to M. Ahring. The class will be decorating 2 kids chef aprons and 1 adult apron on Monday. Come on...join in the fun!!!!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, February 14th--Teacher's Institute Day and Monday, February 17th-President's Day.
**Our class will be participating in a program on Dental Health presented by students of the UIC Nursing program. This will take place on Friday morning, February 21st.
**Exciting News--Our class will participate in the Oak Park Education Foundation's Art Start program beginning at the end of this month and for 5 consecutive Wednesdays afternoons. Our program is called "Cooking History," presented by Kris and Ashley Nelson of Constructive Chaos Culinary Arts. All foods used will be nut free, gluten free and free of any other allergens that students in my class may have. We are in the planning stages. I will send all the details when planning is completed.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other COOL STUFF for our space station construction in April. You can send them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about getting ready for our 100th Day Celebration, counting to 100, grouping objects in groups of 10 up to 100, writing numbers to 100 and sharing ways we care about others.
Reading/Social Studies: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what a neighbor is. The students made a group list of places and things a neighborhood has. They listened to the Big Book story, " Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as non fiction. They were reminded to think about the story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The target word this week is are. The students added this word to our growing list of sight words. The target sound is Hh. They reviewed all the consonant and vowel sounds covered thus far. Students worked in pairs to create sentences using sight words and pictures. In the second reading of the story, the students talked about what the main idea of the story was and recalled what Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards to summarize events in the story. They used their elkonin boxes to segment 4-5 sound words. They read the decodable story, "Are Caps Hats/" They made predictions about story content. Each student had the opportunity to read a sentence from the story 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 blend sounds to make words you didn't know? Did your reading sound choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to reread the story to. The partners discussed and critique each other using the Reader's Checklist. Workstations this week included leveled readers discussion focusing on asking and answering questions about a text, word family fun where you choose a word family--an, at, in, it, ot and add a single consonant, consonant blend or digraph to create a word and record it on paper creating 10 words and using 2 in a sentence, using the app Montessori Crossword for sound blending words with focus on short i, short e and ch, creating a page for a book about neighborhood places with the sentence starter.....I go to a....with an illustration and sentence completion page using CVC words.
Math: Students worked with a partner to group the objects of their choice into ten groups of ten to get to 100. They then labeled each group with the appropriate number. We had 100 cubes, 100 pennies, 100 dinosaurs, 100 straws, 100 sticks, 100 blocks, 100 shells and 100 links. The students continue to work on counting on from a random number, telling what comes before or after a random number, counting quantities, even and odd numbers, number bonding or ways to say a number using numbers 1-6 and using illustrations to tell a number story. They have begun work in their February calendar books.
Writing: The students worked on formal formation of "Magic C" lowercase letters c, o, a, d and slant lowercase letters v and w. They practiced on their mini boards and applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. Our stylus tools are in and the students will begin work next week on writing form practice using the iPad. Students continue to work on sentence writing and organizing their writing using the first, next , then and last format. Many students are making the transition from mixed upper and lowercase to lowercase letters in their writing. They continue to work on spacing between words in a sentence and placement of letters on a given line.
Science: The students talked about the experiments they have done thus far. They noted also that the water bottles that once held ice and then water were now lower in water. Students used the word evaporation. The students know that water can be 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 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 come back on Monday!
Technology: The students main app this week continues to be Tan Zen Lite. The students are enjoying working on identifying shapes from the tans and placing them in the correct place to make the picture. Some very challenging work that develops spacial relationships, visual perception and dexterity. Cool! The other math apps used this week by students were Number Find, Math Bug, Top-It Addition and Geoboard. In reading, the apps Montessori Crossword, Sight Words, Reading Magic 3, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used with student small groups. The students continue to locate information on the properties of water thru Brain Pop.
Literature: "The 100th Day of School," "100 Shoes," "Why Does It Snow," "Recess at 20 Below," "Water's Journey," "Water Can Change," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Winter Nap," "One Hundred Angry Ants," "A Drop of Water-Chapter 4-Steam," "Evaporation/Condensation," "Counting Your Way to the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten."
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