**The snow is falling as I update my blog. Once again, please send snow pants and boots all next week. Perhaps we will build a snowman later next week! I will email you for sure.
**Our BUSY READER CLUB is going great! The students are excited to read to you and their peers. At the beginning of each morning, I have set aside time for BUSY READING and sharing stories with peers. Reading Grandma Mary has also noticed a difference in fluency and decoding. Let's keep it going! Remember....students can record their readers on their reading log. Students need to bring their book back in order to choose a new one.
**Our other helping Grandma, Ms. D. spoke to the students about her travels to the country of Peru. She brought many artifacts and spoke about the people and culture. She also read the students a story containing many facts.
**Our visit with Japanese speaking students from Oak Park High School was really cool. The students spoke about Japan, read stories, taught our class origami and wrote the students name in Japanese. They loved it!!
**I was not able to visit Japan Fest on Saturday, but hope some of you got a chance to.
**We had a fabulous time with our Book Buddies. It is so cool to see the positive interactions and learning going on. We have 2 more movie trailers to complete and then I will email your child's "movie" to you. That are absolutely adorable!!
**100th Day-100 Item Projects are due by Wednesday, February 4th. Don't forget.......please bring a picture of a person your think is 100 years old and a picture of someone you think is 100 days old.
**Our 100th DAY/VALENTINE'S DAY celebration is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th beginning at 12:30 until dismissal. Don't forget to send a Valentine card for each child in the class. There are 19 students. Thanks to B. Howell, L. Wojcik, L. Makonnen, C. Cummings, K. Meier, C. Goldbeck, P. Ferrigno and D. Pacelli for volunteering to help. Students can also bring a nut free item or non food item that will be put into a treat bag.
** Don't forget to confirm your Parent Conference Day and Time. I have a few more of you to contact for rescheduling. Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th,) school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**We are excited to have Atessa's dad, Chris come to speak to our class on all things "BONEY," on Monday, February 2nd at 9:30 am. Skeletons, x-rays and the like will be part of the fun.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING!! Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Look for information from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class WINTER theme basket. It will be a great day! Come play a game with me and bid on some silent auction events sponsored by ME.
**If you have a chance.......go see "SEUSSICAL the MUSICAL" put on by Spotlight Children's Theater. Our own Josie's brother, Matthew and our Book Buddy, Olivia are in it! Next weekend will have the final performances. I am going on Sunday. Can't wait!
**Future Author Visit--Author Aaron Reynolds of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come to speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**Future Field Trip--to Dominican University to see the production of "CLICK, CLACK, MOO!" We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
** In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey's lesson focused on what or who we care about in our lives. The students created a tee shirt ornament with the things or the people they care about written on it. We now have turned our "mitten tree" into our "I Care Tree."
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, the students began work on their own page to "The Most in the World Book." Writing, details--the what, how, why or where and an illustration are part of the project.
**We are getting closer-----Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. You can bring them in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Peru and Japan and spending time with our Book Buddies finishing up our getting to know you movie trailers. We also spoke about the upcoming Ground Hog Day. Will it be six more weeks of winter????? Stay tuned. We used our station day time on Friday for working with our Book Buddies on the movie trailers.
Reading/Language Arts: The students are working to complete Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and animal habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they know of. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Animal Offspring ABC'S." We discussed what offsprings were. The students use the story as a springboard to discuss what the name of the animal was and where and what their habitat looked like. The students reviewed the sight words in and play. They partnered up to create sentences using their sight words, pictures and punctuation. We continued working on sentence lifting. The students are becoming quicker in spotting what needs to be done to make the sentence correct. They reviewed target sounds short and long o and Ff. We took time to do a quick review of all of our consonant and vowel sounds, as well as consonant blends and digraphs. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. Students practiced segmenting and blending 3 and 4 phoneme words using their elkonin boxes. Using the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap," the students discussed the terms problem and solution. Students elbow chatted about the what the problem in the story was and how the problem was fixed or solved. I read a selection from our oral vocabulary cards called "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that might not be seen. Are some homes beneath the ground? The students also listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." They had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on sound spelling CVC and CCVC/CVCC words using their dry erase boards. Workstation activities included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, drawing and labeling an animal habitat of their choice, CVC sound page, Rhyme It review and sentence writing, read it and write about the problem and solution, life cycle drawing, write a question about your story....answer your question. We continue our author study on Mo Willems.
Math: The students continued to rote count to 100 and beyond. They worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect certain numbers. How many complete ten frames do we need to make 48? Students also worked with number bonds for ways to say 5 and 10. They showed their work using cubes, markers, bears, pencils. The students continue to work on grouping objects by 10's to get to 100. Math workstations this week centered on writing numbers 0-20, playing adding game- Snowball Fight, sorting objects into greater than 10 less then 10 groups and listening to a story problem and illustrating it and its outcome.
Writing: The students are working on placement of letters on a given line. In their homework folder you will find a sheet that gives some guide lines for short lowercase, tall lowercase and letters that go below the bottom line (diving down.) The students worked on their writing project--writing about their snowman sequence using the words first, next, then and last.
Science: The students made some great discoveries this week about water. The student experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that the water took the shape of the container it was put into. It has no shape of its own. In their sink or float experiment, the students worked with their table mates taking turns first making a guess (what they thought might happen,) dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened. I used some big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass.) Why did one item sink and another item float? Why did the cork keep floating even though students kept trying to push it under? Why did the washer sink straight tot the bottom? Lots of discussion. Their science journals reflected their sketches, thoughts and comments. Besides our water experiments, the students are also exploring the use of force and motion weaving in some Next Generation Science standards. This week the students are exploring incline planes with slanted or sloped surfaces. They are using our giant marble works sets to design ramps that a marble will go down, in some cases using multiple levels. Very fun to observe their discussion and trials. What works? What doesn't work? Next week--We will finish sink and float and start bubbles!!!
Technology: No new apps were used this week. The students really enjoyed working on their movie project using the app iMovie.
Literature: "Go to Sleep Ground Hog," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late," "The Pigeon Needs a Bath!" "Don't Let the Pigeon Finish this Activity Book!" "The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "It's Ground Hog Day,"
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
UPDATES for 1/19-1/23 2015
**It's hard to believe that January is almost over! The students have had a very productive week. Science inquiry experiments on water and starting the BUSY READER CLUB have been the talk of the classroom. I do believe that one male teacher is starting a hair styling trend that appears to interest some of my students!!!! The weather continues to be unpredictable so please keep snow pants and boots as part of the dress for the next week.
**Information on our BUSY READER CLUB is in your child's homework folder along with their book. Read over the information. any questions---email me.
**Our Book Buddies will be coming on Friday, January 30th to complete their favorite things movie trailers with their little buddies. Fun! Fun!
**Please confirm your Parent Conference date and time. I will be contacting those of you who need to reschedule this week. Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th) school will be session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Keep working on your 100th Day-100 Item Project! It is due on February 4th. We have some eager students who have already brought them in! They will be up in our hallways to view.
**Our 100th Day of School is fast approaching! We now have 6 volunteers! Thanks to B. Howell, L. Wojcik, L. Makonnen, C. Cummings, K. Meier and C. Goldbeck for volunteering. We still need 2-3 more volunteers for easy facilitation. Think about it! Our 100th Day Celebration will be held on Thursday, February 5th from 12:30-2:55 pm. We will also have an early Valentine's Day Party too. Don't forget to send a Valentine for each student on February 5th. There are 19 students. Students may also bring a treat to share. It can be a treasure (non food) or small nut free item that will go into a treat bag for home.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th in the morning.
**A Cultural Event will take place in our classroom on Tuesday, January 27th fro 10:25-11:10 am. Japanese Exchange students attending Oak Park High will visit our classroom and give a presentation on Japan.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Tuesday, January 27th. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on at that time.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Look for information soon from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class WINTER theme basket. It will be a great day! Come play a game with me and bid on some silent auction events sponsored by ME!
**We are excited to have Atessa's dad, Chris come to speak to our class on all things "BONEY," on Monday, February 2nd at 9:30 am. Skeletons, x-rays and the like will be part of the fun. Reminder--if you would like to come and speak to our class on a particular subject, tradition, career, anything......email me to set up a time. The students really enjoy having their mom or day come to class and share!
**FUTURE AUTHOR VISIT--Author Aaron Reynold's of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP--to Dominican University to see the production on "CLICK, CLACK, MOO!" We will go on Thursday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did an activity with the students on the art of conversation and how we talk to each other. Do we really listen to each other??!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem solving this week, Mr. Packer finished a story on "The MOST in the World" which the students will use as a springboard for a project next week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) as well as other cool things for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. I cannot store anything now. You can start sending it in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about WATER climbing---WHAT!!?? Check out the science section. They are having so much fun sketching and recording thoughts and insights into their science notebooks. The students had a great time with Josie's Grandpa helping out on Station Day. Station Day activities included creating "climbing water" snowflakes, snow shovel math (reviewing teen numbers,) color by code ending sound activity, count, record, graph winter clothing and an end of the subitize challenge.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know about from other sources like zoo, t.v. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Momma Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content. The students discussed the actions preformed the kittens. Students took turns retelling the story in their own words. We took a look at sentence structure--subject/action---describing words. We did a group Story Elements Butterfly. The students are doing a great job of volunteering to write the answers about characters, setting, main events and main idea. Those students that had pets, shared information about actions their pets performed and compared them to the kittens in the story. Our sight words for this week are is and in. We added them to our current list. Our target sounds is short Oo and long Oo. They continued their study of action words (verbs) by creating a list of action words that a kitten might do. Our Robust vocabulary included ACTION, GENTLE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCE. The students discussed what an OPINION was. They elbow chatted their opinion about which pet they like most--cats or dogs and WHY they liked one or the other. The students worked on asking and answering questions using the folk tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato." they also created a group Venn diagram model to record similarities and differences between mice and cats. They worked on verbally retelling key events in the folk tale using the format--fist--next--then--last. The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 3,4, and 5 phoneme words using the app Oz Phonics projected on screen. They also working on strengthening auditory skills and verbal responses by deleting, adding and substituting sounds to create new words using the words in the Haggerty Blue Book. Workstations this week included writing an opinion statement and explain why on a suggested topic, Lexia Core 5 work, small group animal sort--wild--pets--farm, leveled readers with check for fluency, story elements, asking and answering questions, sound sort, read it and add to it activity, short o find the word to match the picture and I Can...They Can compose and illustrate--human actions and animal actions. We are continuing our author/text study of Mo Willems stories and will use his stories format to work on opinion writing, text clues and speech bubbles to denote the speaker.
Math: The students continue to practice rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping objects by tens to equal 100. The students reviewed the terms addends and sum. The students had great fun with the app Sam Phibian seeing how quickly they could gather the necessary numbers amounts to "feed" Sam. Great visual motor and counting practice! They continue to work on the concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN. Math workstations included using ten frames to illustrate teen numbers, sorting by common attributes, number bonds to 10, listening to a thinking story and deciding if you add or take away, recognizing even and odd numbers and recognizing geometric solids.
Writing: Students begun work on formal lowercase letter formation. The letters c, o, v and s were worked on using their mini boards and chalk. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We began a process called sentence lifting, where I take a sentence from someone's journal and project it so the all students can examine it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? How does it sound? Does it make sense? Does it have spaces between each word? Does it have an ending mark? Does it begin with an uppercase letter? Are the letters where they should be? So much to think about!! The students give their critique in a positive way and make suggestions. We are learning so much from each other!
Science: The students reviewed what they have discovered about water so far. This week in Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towels, paper, sponges, wax paper and kleenex in wiping up water. They discussed at their tables which was best to remove the water. Lots of conversation and OPINIONS about which one did the best job. Most tables agreed that sponges and paper towels did the best job at "sucking up" (their words) the water. But how and why?? As the students used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, some noticed holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. MMMMMmm..... The students then suspended a piece of paper towel onto a dowel rod in a cup. I poured some red water into the cup. What happened?? "It looks like the water is climbing up the paper towel." Discovery.....The water climbs into the holes or spaces....a sponge has large holes. You can also see the holes/spaces in the paper towel. The conversation shifted to other things that water climbs up fast into. The paper didn't really suck up the water. The kleenex got all mushy. We put a piece of celery into the water at the end of the day. Students made their predictions. The next day......students took their magnifying glasses. What did they observe? Some of the leaves of the celery looked red. The top of the celery had red inside. Jeremy spoke about the root system. Are their spaces inside the celery? All these connections!!! Very cool!! The students recorded their findings in science journal and made sketches and wrote about their thoughts and reflections. Next week--sink/float and what is a bubble?
Technology: In reading small group, the apps Lexia Core 5, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Magic Reading 3 were used to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice, fluency, and sound foundation. In math small groups, the apps Sam Phibian, Number Find, Butterfly Math were used to enhance visual motor, counting quantities, place value, addition and subtraction and number order.
Literature: "Have You Filled Your Bucket Today," "The Reasons for Seasons," "Curious George's Snowy Day," "My Friend is Sad," and other Elephant and Piggy stories by Mo Willems.
**Information on our BUSY READER CLUB is in your child's homework folder along with their book. Read over the information. any questions---email me.
**Our Book Buddies will be coming on Friday, January 30th to complete their favorite things movie trailers with their little buddies. Fun! Fun!
**Please confirm your Parent Conference date and time. I will be contacting those of you who need to reschedule this week. Parent/Teacher Conferences are Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. On Thursday and Friday (February 12th and 13th) school will be session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Keep working on your 100th Day-100 Item Project! It is due on February 4th. We have some eager students who have already brought them in! They will be up in our hallways to view.
**Our 100th Day of School is fast approaching! We now have 6 volunteers! Thanks to B. Howell, L. Wojcik, L. Makonnen, C. Cummings, K. Meier and C. Goldbeck for volunteering. We still need 2-3 more volunteers for easy facilitation. Think about it! Our 100th Day Celebration will be held on Thursday, February 5th from 12:30-2:55 pm. We will also have an early Valentine's Day Party too. Don't forget to send a Valentine for each student on February 5th. There are 19 students. Students may also bring a treat to share. It can be a treasure (non food) or small nut free item that will go into a treat bag for home.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th in the morning.
**A Cultural Event will take place in our classroom on Tuesday, January 27th fro 10:25-11:10 am. Japanese Exchange students attending Oak Park High will visit our classroom and give a presentation on Japan.
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Tuesday, January 27th. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on at that time.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 21st from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Look for information soon from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class WINTER theme basket. It will be a great day! Come play a game with me and bid on some silent auction events sponsored by ME!
**We are excited to have Atessa's dad, Chris come to speak to our class on all things "BONEY," on Monday, February 2nd at 9:30 am. Skeletons, x-rays and the like will be part of the fun. Reminder--if you would like to come and speak to our class on a particular subject, tradition, career, anything......email me to set up a time. The students really enjoy having their mom or day come to class and share!
**FUTURE AUTHOR VISIT--Author Aaron Reynold's of "Creepy Carrots" fame will come speak to the students on Thursday, March 5th.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP--to Dominican University to see the production on "CLICK, CLACK, MOO!" We will go on Thursday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey did an activity with the students on the art of conversation and how we talk to each other. Do we really listen to each other??!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem solving this week, Mr. Packer finished a story on "The MOST in the World" which the students will use as a springboard for a project next week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) as well as other cool things for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. I cannot store anything now. You can start sending it in after spring break.
This week:
It was all about WATER climbing---WHAT!!?? Check out the science section. They are having so much fun sketching and recording thoughts and insights into their science notebooks. The students had a great time with Josie's Grandpa helping out on Station Day. Station Day activities included creating "climbing water" snowflakes, snow shovel math (reviewing teen numbers,) color by code ending sound activity, count, record, graph winter clothing and an end of the subitize challenge.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed background knowledge by discussing animals they know as pets and animals they might know about from other sources like zoo, t.v. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Momma Cat has Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content. The students discussed the actions preformed the kittens. Students took turns retelling the story in their own words. We took a look at sentence structure--subject/action---describing words. We did a group Story Elements Butterfly. The students are doing a great job of volunteering to write the answers about characters, setting, main events and main idea. Those students that had pets, shared information about actions their pets performed and compared them to the kittens in the story. Our sight words for this week are is and in. We added them to our current list. Our target sounds is short Oo and long Oo. They continued their study of action words (verbs) by creating a list of action words that a kitten might do. Our Robust vocabulary included ACTION, GENTLE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCE. The students discussed what an OPINION was. They elbow chatted their opinion about which pet they like most--cats or dogs and WHY they liked one or the other. The students worked on asking and answering questions using the folk tale, "Mama Mouse and El Gato." they also created a group Venn diagram model to record similarities and differences between mice and cats. They worked on verbally retelling key events in the folk tale using the format--fist--next--then--last. The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 3,4, and 5 phoneme words using the app Oz Phonics projected on screen. They also working on strengthening auditory skills and verbal responses by deleting, adding and substituting sounds to create new words using the words in the Haggerty Blue Book. Workstations this week included writing an opinion statement and explain why on a suggested topic, Lexia Core 5 work, small group animal sort--wild--pets--farm, leveled readers with check for fluency, story elements, asking and answering questions, sound sort, read it and add to it activity, short o find the word to match the picture and I Can...They Can compose and illustrate--human actions and animal actions. We are continuing our author/text study of Mo Willems stories and will use his stories format to work on opinion writing, text clues and speech bubbles to denote the speaker.
Math: The students continue to practice rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping objects by tens to equal 100. The students reviewed the terms addends and sum. The students had great fun with the app Sam Phibian seeing how quickly they could gather the necessary numbers amounts to "feed" Sam. Great visual motor and counting practice! They continue to work on the concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN. Math workstations included using ten frames to illustrate teen numbers, sorting by common attributes, number bonds to 10, listening to a thinking story and deciding if you add or take away, recognizing even and odd numbers and recognizing geometric solids.
Writing: Students begun work on formal lowercase letter formation. The letters c, o, v and s were worked on using their mini boards and chalk. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We began a process called sentence lifting, where I take a sentence from someone's journal and project it so the all students can examine it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? How does it sound? Does it make sense? Does it have spaces between each word? Does it have an ending mark? Does it begin with an uppercase letter? Are the letters where they should be? So much to think about!! The students give their critique in a positive way and make suggestions. We are learning so much from each other!
Science: The students reviewed what they have discovered about water so far. This week in Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towels, paper, sponges, wax paper and kleenex in wiping up water. They discussed at their tables which was best to remove the water. Lots of conversation and OPINIONS about which one did the best job. Most tables agreed that sponges and paper towels did the best job at "sucking up" (their words) the water. But how and why?? As the students used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, some noticed holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. MMMMMmm..... The students then suspended a piece of paper towel onto a dowel rod in a cup. I poured some red water into the cup. What happened?? "It looks like the water is climbing up the paper towel." Discovery.....The water climbs into the holes or spaces....a sponge has large holes. You can also see the holes/spaces in the paper towel. The conversation shifted to other things that water climbs up fast into. The paper didn't really suck up the water. The kleenex got all mushy. We put a piece of celery into the water at the end of the day. Students made their predictions. The next day......students took their magnifying glasses. What did they observe? Some of the leaves of the celery looked red. The top of the celery had red inside. Jeremy spoke about the root system. Are their spaces inside the celery? All these connections!!! Very cool!! The students recorded their findings in science journal and made sketches and wrote about their thoughts and reflections. Next week--sink/float and what is a bubble?
Technology: In reading small group, the apps Lexia Core 5, iTalk, Rocket Speller and Magic Reading 3 were used to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice, fluency, and sound foundation. In math small groups, the apps Sam Phibian, Number Find, Butterfly Math were used to enhance visual motor, counting quantities, place value, addition and subtraction and number order.
Literature: "Have You Filled Your Bucket Today," "The Reasons for Seasons," "Curious George's Snowy Day," "My Friend is Sad," and other Elephant and Piggy stories by Mo Willems.
Monday, January 19, 2015
UPDATES for 1/12-1/15 2015
**The students are back into the swing of everything! We did have some outside time and it was great to get out into the fresh and chilly air. We have a bit of a snow pants dilemma. Both Tiago and Ethan went home with snow pants that are not theirs. I am asking that you check your child's snow pants to make sure you do not have them. Ethan's and Tiago's are marked with initial or name. Thanks much! While it is a bit warmer......please continue to send boots and snow pants. It will continue to be messy and wet.
**Mid Year assessments are on going and will be completed at the end of this week.
**Notification of date and time for your Parent/Teacher Conference is is in your child's homework folder. Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 19th and Wednesday, February 11th. Please confirm your date and time. Let me know if I need to adjust your date or time. Pleas note: On Thursday, February 12th and Friday, February 13th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Your child also brought home their 100th Day-100 Item Project. Read the directions on the heart. If you have any questions, please email me. Our 100th Day along with an early Valentine's Day Celebration will be held on Thursday, February 5th from 12:30-2:55 pm. On this special afternoon, parents will facilitate learning stations surrounding the number 100, assist in delivery of Valentine cards and treat bags. Fun! Fun! We now have Ms. Cummings, Ms. Makonnen, Ms. Meier, Ms. Howell and Ms. Wojcik volunteering to help. I could use 3-4 more volunteers so please consider helping! It is really fun!!!!
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February, 21st from 11-3pm. throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Each classroom is donating a special theme basket. Look for information from our room parents. It is a great day! Come play a game with me!
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP: to Dominican University to see the production of "Click, Clack, Moo." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) as well as other cool things for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing stuff in after spring break.
This week: It was all about doing something nice for others, Martin Luther King and water. Students turned our "Complimen-Tree" into a mitten tree after reading the inspirational story by Candace Christiansen. The students used what they learned about symmetry from Mr. Packer to design their pair of mittens. The text was also used for working on story main events and retelling a story in sequencial order which are part of our common core standards. We read several stories about Martin Luther King and used our map skills to trace the path of the March on Washington. In the awesome story, "Martin's Big Words," (which we also saw on video) the students were so thankful of the Dr. King's accomplishments and the use of non violence to promote change. There were some very reflective moments in our discussions where students could not believe that there was a time when they would not have been able to go to school together. We love our classmates! We used the projected text to examine words and illustrations. The students began inquiries into the properties of water. Who knew a droplet of water could be so interesting! More in the science section.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading Series. The students reviewed the use of nouns and verbs in sentences. They listened to the Big Book text, "From Strawberry to Strawberry Salad." The student traced the origin of the fruit from plant to the table in a fruit salad. Students discussed what a recipe was and used the format--what you NEED (nouns) and what you DO (verbs) in following a recipe. The students listened to the poems, "Crunch, Crunch, Thanks a Bunch," and "Crusty Corn Bread." We made a group list of the differences and similarities between regular text and poems. The students continue work in the Haggerty Blue Book. They are using their oral skills in isolating initial, medial and final sounds, blending and segmenting 3, 4 and 5 phoneme words, adding, deleting and substituting sounds to create new words and identifying the word that doesn't have the same sound as the others in a sequence of 4 words. Workstations this week included leveled reader story elements discussion and fluency check, writing a question sentence using the word "Can," word search with short o words, writing about your favorite meal and where is came from, small group recipe writing and illustration using the format--what we need....what we do and recording sounds to create short u words using the app Word Wizard. The students used the text "The Snowy Day" to begin recording story elements and events in written form and using illustrations as a choice.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping objects by tens to equal 100. Whole group lessons focused on the terms GREATER THAN and LESS THAN. Small group workstations included playing the game "Nuts and Bolts," (greater than/less than) with 1 and 2 digit numbers, completing number bonds to 10 and reviewing the word SUM, playing Make 5 BINGO and working with a partner to group by 10's and count 100 items and working working with a partner with the app Number Rack and Subitize Tree.
Writing: The students have completed all formal uppercase letter forms and will begin lowercase letter formation next week. The students used their mini boards and chalk to review all forms and then applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. The students completed a writing project on the topic of SNOW. They continue work on beginning with a capital letter, spacing of words in a sentence, placement of words on a given line, naming and telling and now beginning to expand their sentence using words that describe (adjectives.) Many of the students are composing 1-4 sentences independently!
Science: The students began discussion/dictation on what they knew about water. They were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student was given an experiment book as well as a science reflection journal to record the experiments and their own thoughts, questions, comments and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools-spoon, straws, stick and cup. In using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, looks and sounds. In Experiment 2, the discovered that water droplets have their own shape and can "stick" to one another like magnets. Using a pipette, they practice sucking up into it and releasing the water back into their cup. It was fun to watch the students carefully trying to capture one droplet of water and squeeze it on to their wax paper. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another----what happens----it forms a bigger droplet! We talked about the scientific word-cohesion- to describe the sticking together process. Students wrote in their science journals and made sketches of their experiment. Next week--climbing water!
Technology: We are in the process of updating our apps! I will send out a complete list when completed. In reading, student small groups and individuals used the apps Word Wizard for practice in recording beginning, middle and ending sounds to form words, Rocketspeller, Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 to reinforce segmenting, blending and creating words and iTalk used by leveled groups to record and play back reading for fluency. In math, student small groups and individuals used the app Subitize Tree, Number Rack and Number Find and Monster Squeeze to reinforce subitizing skills, problem solving, number bonding and greater than and less than skills.
Literature: "The Snowy Day," "A Drop of Water," "Snow Day for Mouse," "Investigating Water," "Shoveling Snow," "Water's Journey," "Snowman Magic," "I am Snow," "Water," "Martin's Big Words," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin Luther King Jr. Day," "Weather Words," "Deep Snow," "Martin's Dream."
**Mid Year assessments are on going and will be completed at the end of this week.
**Notification of date and time for your Parent/Teacher Conference is is in your child's homework folder. Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 19th and Wednesday, February 11th. Please confirm your date and time. Let me know if I need to adjust your date or time. Pleas note: On Thursday, February 12th and Friday, February 13th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, bus and Magical Minds pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Your child also brought home their 100th Day-100 Item Project. Read the directions on the heart. If you have any questions, please email me. Our 100th Day along with an early Valentine's Day Celebration will be held on Thursday, February 5th from 12:30-2:55 pm. On this special afternoon, parents will facilitate learning stations surrounding the number 100, assist in delivery of Valentine cards and treat bags. Fun! Fun! We now have Ms. Cummings, Ms. Makonnen, Ms. Meier, Ms. Howell and Ms. Wojcik volunteering to help. I could use 3-4 more volunteers so please consider helping! It is really fun!!!!
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 6th.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February, 21st from 11-3pm. throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Each classroom is donating a special theme basket. Look for information from our room parents. It is a great day! Come play a game with me!
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP: to Dominican University to see the production of "Click, Clack, Moo." We will go on Friday, March 6th from 10-12 pm. More info soon.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) as well as other cool things for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our Space Theme. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing stuff in after spring break.
This week: It was all about doing something nice for others, Martin Luther King and water. Students turned our "Complimen-Tree" into a mitten tree after reading the inspirational story by Candace Christiansen. The students used what they learned about symmetry from Mr. Packer to design their pair of mittens. The text was also used for working on story main events and retelling a story in sequencial order which are part of our common core standards. We read several stories about Martin Luther King and used our map skills to trace the path of the March on Washington. In the awesome story, "Martin's Big Words," (which we also saw on video) the students were so thankful of the Dr. King's accomplishments and the use of non violence to promote change. There were some very reflective moments in our discussions where students could not believe that there was a time when they would not have been able to go to school together. We love our classmates! We used the projected text to examine words and illustrations. The students began inquiries into the properties of water. Who knew a droplet of water could be so interesting! More in the science section.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading Series. The students reviewed the use of nouns and verbs in sentences. They listened to the Big Book text, "From Strawberry to Strawberry Salad." The student traced the origin of the fruit from plant to the table in a fruit salad. Students discussed what a recipe was and used the format--what you NEED (nouns) and what you DO (verbs) in following a recipe. The students listened to the poems, "Crunch, Crunch, Thanks a Bunch," and "Crusty Corn Bread." We made a group list of the differences and similarities between regular text and poems. The students continue work in the Haggerty Blue Book. They are using their oral skills in isolating initial, medial and final sounds, blending and segmenting 3, 4 and 5 phoneme words, adding, deleting and substituting sounds to create new words and identifying the word that doesn't have the same sound as the others in a sequence of 4 words. Workstations this week included leveled reader story elements discussion and fluency check, writing a question sentence using the word "Can," word search with short o words, writing about your favorite meal and where is came from, small group recipe writing and illustration using the format--what we need....what we do and recording sounds to create short u words using the app Word Wizard. The students used the text "The Snowy Day" to begin recording story elements and events in written form and using illustrations as a choice.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and grouping objects by tens to equal 100. Whole group lessons focused on the terms GREATER THAN and LESS THAN. Small group workstations included playing the game "Nuts and Bolts," (greater than/less than) with 1 and 2 digit numbers, completing number bonds to 10 and reviewing the word SUM, playing Make 5 BINGO and working with a partner to group by 10's and count 100 items and working working with a partner with the app Number Rack and Subitize Tree.
Writing: The students have completed all formal uppercase letter forms and will begin lowercase letter formation next week. The students used their mini boards and chalk to review all forms and then applied their knowledge in their orange practice books. The students completed a writing project on the topic of SNOW. They continue work on beginning with a capital letter, spacing of words in a sentence, placement of words on a given line, naming and telling and now beginning to expand their sentence using words that describe (adjectives.) Many of the students are composing 1-4 sentences independently!
Science: The students began discussion/dictation on what they knew about water. They were introduced to the word property and what it means. A property is a type of behavior. Each student was given an experiment book as well as a science reflection journal to record the experiments and their own thoughts, questions, comments and sketches. In Experiment 1, the students explored water using a variety of tools-spoon, straws, stick and cup. In using these tools, they described how water feels, smells, looks and sounds. In Experiment 2, the discovered that water droplets have their own shape and can "stick" to one another like magnets. Using a pipette, they practice sucking up into it and releasing the water back into their cup. It was fun to watch the students carefully trying to capture one droplet of water and squeeze it on to their wax paper. The students delighted in pushing one water droplet into another----what happens----it forms a bigger droplet! We talked about the scientific word-cohesion- to describe the sticking together process. Students wrote in their science journals and made sketches of their experiment. Next week--climbing water!
Technology: We are in the process of updating our apps! I will send out a complete list when completed. In reading, student small groups and individuals used the apps Word Wizard for practice in recording beginning, middle and ending sounds to form words, Rocketspeller, Montessori Crossword and Magic Reading 3 to reinforce segmenting, blending and creating words and iTalk used by leveled groups to record and play back reading for fluency. In math, student small groups and individuals used the app Subitize Tree, Number Rack and Number Find and Monster Squeeze to reinforce subitizing skills, problem solving, number bonding and greater than and less than skills.
Literature: "The Snowy Day," "A Drop of Water," "Snow Day for Mouse," "Investigating Water," "Shoveling Snow," "Water's Journey," "Snowman Magic," "I am Snow," "Water," "Martin's Big Words," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin Luther King Jr. Day," "Weather Words," "Deep Snow," "Martin's Dream."
Sunday, January 11, 2015
UPDATES for 1/-1/9 2015
**Happy New Year and welcome back! Our frigid forecast lead to the closing of our school for 2 days. The students were excited to be back, however. We were inside for lunch recess and enjoyed viewing episodes of "Wild Kratts." Great sharing of Travel Journals to New York, Pittsburgh, California, Belleville and Sheboygan. Even though the temperatures will rise next week--please continue to send snow pants and boots. We may go outside for lunch recess and it will be quite messy and wet. I have 4 pair of extra snow pants in case to lend out. It is really the best way to stay dry. Also---don't forget to send gym shoes. Our gym days are Mondays and Wednesdays.
**Eagle Extras begin on Monday. Participating students will be picked up from our classroom at dismissal.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began Tuesday, January 6th. You should have received notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**I will begin Mid Year Assessments next week including DIBELS, Darrell Morris Sound Foundation and mid year assessments in reading, math and writing and some Common Core Formative assessments. I will share all of this with you at Mid Year Conferences.
**You will receive notification on Thursday (1/15) about Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February l0th and Wednesday, February 11th. Please note that Thursday, February 12th and Friday, February 13th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Our 100th Day of School Celebration is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th from 12:30 until dismissal. I have K. Meier, L. Makonnen and C. Cummings signed up to help so far. We need LOTS of volunteers to help with learning station activities that will focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's to 100. Email me if you can help. It is REALLY FUN! The students will also work on a special 100 item project. This will be sent home with instructions on THURSDAY, January 15th.
**Reading Grandma Mary came to class on Friday to begin her 8th year of listening to young readers. Each student will get to spend some time reading with her every Friday morning from 9:30-11:45 am. We are thrilled to have her!
**No Friendship Club this week. Ms. Bell Bey was absent.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer read the student a story about the number 10 and worked on number patterns.
** No School on Friday, January 16th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**No School on Monday, January 19th in observance of M. L. King's Birthday.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP to Dominican University to see the production of "Click, Clack, Moo!" on Friday, March 6th from 10:00 -12:00 pm.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
This week: It was all about frigid temperatures, snow and sharing their winter break stories. Winter is here! Frostbite was a big topic. The students were interested in weather patterns and looked on Weather Underground. They discovered that we were not the only ones experiencing cold weather. It was 16 degrees in Jacksonville, Florida!!! The students began work on a snowman writing project. They also began their inquiry into what they knew about WATER. Our experiments begin next week. We are lucky to have a Snowshoe Hare visiting our Nature Table this month. We will find out more about him and how he adapts to his environment during the winter. Station Day activities included windsock snowmen, snowflake shape and color by code, counting on with snowmen to solve addition problems and working on the first part of their snowman writing project.
Reading/Language Arts: The students used the short week as a review for all skills related to reading. They will finish Unit 4 Food next week. They reviewed their current sight vocabulary and played, "Hands Up, Hands Down. They worked with partners to create sentences using their sight words, pictures and punctuation marks and recorded their sentences on paper. Whole group lesson focused on MAIN EVENTS in a story using the text, "The Mitten Tree." Students also worked on PROBLEM and SOLUTION in a story using the text, "Yoko." We did some work with nouns and verbs in writing a recipe---What you need--(noun) and what you do--(verb). Students worked on leveled readers naming main events, practicing reading to a partner for fluency and asking and answering questions about a text they read. Students worked on making words, finding CVC words and searching for missing vowel sounds using our latest cool app--Oz Phonics 2. Very fun! They continue to use their elkonin boxes to record the order in which they hear sounds in a 3, 4 and 5 letter words. Thee students selected their own groups and games that focused on letter/sound correspondence, creating and sound blending CVC, CCVC and CVCC words, finding and writing words inside of other words, word family work and spelling their sight words.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and counting on from a random number. They began work in their new calendar books. The new skills included writing 3 numbers that come before a target number, ways to say a targeted number thru number bonds, strategies for recognizing even and odd numbers, patterns continuation, using ten frames to illustrate a given number and adding using dominoes and dice. Instant recognition is becoming more apparent when using ten frames, dice and dominoes.
Writing: The students continue to work on "Magic C" starting Center Capitals--this week concentrating on the letters S, A, G, I, T, J. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students are also working on proofing their own writing before they come to journal conference with me. Students are working on 1-4 sentences in their journals. They are really looking at where they place their lowercase letters on a given line.
Science: The students began their inquiry and discussion on WATER and their Next Generation Science connection on waters relationship to weather. Stay tuned!!
Technology: The app Oz Phonics was introduced to enhance sound blending, sound foundation and CVC words as a whole group. Next week, I will be introducing another cool app called Learn to Read. It has some really cool activities--build a word, word scramble, find the word, sentence wheel and sentence builder. Add them to your child's tablet or iPad. They are low cost. In math, the students worked on the apps Number Find and Easy Match. They also chose partners and had a Subitize Tree challenge!.
Literature: "The Mitten Tree," "Yoko," "Water," "There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow," "The Snowy Day," "It's Winter," "Thomas' Snowsuit."
**Eagle Extras begin on Monday. Participating students will be picked up from our classroom at dismissal.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began Tuesday, January 6th. You should have received notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**I will begin Mid Year Assessments next week including DIBELS, Darrell Morris Sound Foundation and mid year assessments in reading, math and writing and some Common Core Formative assessments. I will share all of this with you at Mid Year Conferences.
**You will receive notification on Thursday (1/15) about Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February l0th and Wednesday, February 11th. Please note that Thursday, February 12th and Friday, February 13th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Our 100th Day of School Celebration is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5th from 12:30 until dismissal. I have K. Meier, L. Makonnen and C. Cummings signed up to help so far. We need LOTS of volunteers to help with learning station activities that will focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's to 100. Email me if you can help. It is REALLY FUN! The students will also work on a special 100 item project. This will be sent home with instructions on THURSDAY, January 15th.
**Reading Grandma Mary came to class on Friday to begin her 8th year of listening to young readers. Each student will get to spend some time reading with her every Friday morning from 9:30-11:45 am. We are thrilled to have her!
**No Friendship Club this week. Ms. Bell Bey was absent.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer read the student a story about the number 10 and worked on number patterns.
** No School on Friday, January 16th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**No School on Monday, January 19th in observance of M. L. King's Birthday.
**FUTURE FIELD TRIP to Dominican University to see the production of "Click, Clack, Moo!" on Friday, March 6th from 10:00 -12:00 pm.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
This week: It was all about frigid temperatures, snow and sharing their winter break stories. Winter is here! Frostbite was a big topic. The students were interested in weather patterns and looked on Weather Underground. They discovered that we were not the only ones experiencing cold weather. It was 16 degrees in Jacksonville, Florida!!! The students began work on a snowman writing project. They also began their inquiry into what they knew about WATER. Our experiments begin next week. We are lucky to have a Snowshoe Hare visiting our Nature Table this month. We will find out more about him and how he adapts to his environment during the winter. Station Day activities included windsock snowmen, snowflake shape and color by code, counting on with snowmen to solve addition problems and working on the first part of their snowman writing project.
Reading/Language Arts: The students used the short week as a review for all skills related to reading. They will finish Unit 4 Food next week. They reviewed their current sight vocabulary and played, "Hands Up, Hands Down. They worked with partners to create sentences using their sight words, pictures and punctuation marks and recorded their sentences on paper. Whole group lesson focused on MAIN EVENTS in a story using the text, "The Mitten Tree." Students also worked on PROBLEM and SOLUTION in a story using the text, "Yoko." We did some work with nouns and verbs in writing a recipe---What you need--(noun) and what you do--(verb). Students worked on leveled readers naming main events, practicing reading to a partner for fluency and asking and answering questions about a text they read. Students worked on making words, finding CVC words and searching for missing vowel sounds using our latest cool app--Oz Phonics 2. Very fun! They continue to use their elkonin boxes to record the order in which they hear sounds in a 3, 4 and 5 letter words. Thee students selected their own groups and games that focused on letter/sound correspondence, creating and sound blending CVC, CCVC and CVCC words, finding and writing words inside of other words, word family work and spelling their sight words.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and counting on from a random number. They began work in their new calendar books. The new skills included writing 3 numbers that come before a target number, ways to say a targeted number thru number bonds, strategies for recognizing even and odd numbers, patterns continuation, using ten frames to illustrate a given number and adding using dominoes and dice. Instant recognition is becoming more apparent when using ten frames, dice and dominoes.
Writing: The students continue to work on "Magic C" starting Center Capitals--this week concentrating on the letters S, A, G, I, T, J. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students are also working on proofing their own writing before they come to journal conference with me. Students are working on 1-4 sentences in their journals. They are really looking at where they place their lowercase letters on a given line.
Science: The students began their inquiry and discussion on WATER and their Next Generation Science connection on waters relationship to weather. Stay tuned!!
Technology: The app Oz Phonics was introduced to enhance sound blending, sound foundation and CVC words as a whole group. Next week, I will be introducing another cool app called Learn to Read. It has some really cool activities--build a word, word scramble, find the word, sentence wheel and sentence builder. Add them to your child's tablet or iPad. They are low cost. In math, the students worked on the apps Number Find and Easy Match. They also chose partners and had a Subitize Tree challenge!.
Literature: "The Mitten Tree," "Yoko," "Water," "There was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow," "The Snowy Day," "It's Winter," "Thomas' Snowsuit."
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
UPDATES for 12/15-12/19 2014
**Our week was filled with compliment cards, friendship chains, book buddy projects and song. Our Winter Concert was fabulous! Thanks to Ms. Hiolski and Ms. Freisen for their guidance. Our after the concerts get togethers were full of great treats and crafts. Thanks to our helpers, Ms. Meier and Ms. Pacelli for their organization. The students were delighted to see parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters at the concert.
**Our End of the Year Book Buddy get together was awesome! The students shared treats and worked on a getting to know you movie trailer using iMovie. As the students finish the project, they are emailing the trailers to me and I will hopefully email them to you in the new year. Senorita Zaragoza spoke to the students about the festival of Las Posadas. She shared a story and music about the procession in the streets re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn and the stable that became their room. Evan and his mom presented on the feast of Hanukkah. Evan shared his special menorah and Ms. Frank read a special story. Each student received a Dreidel game. Jeremy and his mom also shared Jeremy's special Noah's Ark menorah. A special thanks to Ms. Frank and Ms. Meier for their time! I presented the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. Students viewed their special candle holder called a kinara. I shared some traditional stories--"The Night Before Christmas", "The Nutcracker" and "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
**Mid Year DIBELS screening will take place the first 2 weeks of January. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 6th.
**Vision Screening for Kindergarten students will be held Friday, January 9th in the morning.
**No School--Friday, January 16th-Teacher's Institute Day.
**Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. You will receive notification of your specific day and time when we return from break.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be returning for her 8th year of hearing budding readers. She will begin coming every Friday morning beginning on Friday, January 9th.
**Classes resume on Monday, January 5th.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing in things after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD IN 2015-----We will begin our next cross curricular theme WINTER. We will continue to introduce Next Generation Science strands within our district science model. We will begin our first formal Science Unit--Investigating Water. In the area of reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting/adding/deleting phonemes in 4, 5 and even 6 phoneme words. We will also work on oral and written comprehension, asking and answering questions about a text, comparing texts, reading fluency, vocabulary building, identifying story elements and identifying the authors message. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. I will be sending out more information about this in the new year. In the area of writing, the students will finish uppercase letter formation and will begin formal training in forming lowercase letters. Students will continue to work on sentence structure, inventive spelling, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentence length to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue to work on rote counting to 100 by ones and tens and beyond, writing numbers, demonstrating knowledge of numbers that are greater then and less than, naming pattern block and geometric solid shapes, representing addition and subtraction with objects and mental images, solving story problems using drawings and number work, number bonding to 10 and more work on teen numbers. In the area of science, the students will weave district science and next generation science in the exploration of water and weather patterns. Socially, the students will continue to work on becoming more responsible and independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. In the area of technology, the students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of their curriculum. WOW! We will be very busy!!
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they have helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated fact from fiction--sweet potatoes are real--but they do not get bigger as they roll down the hill and you CAN make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. They orally asked and answered questions about the story. Students reviewed their sight word, have and walked their words with a partner. They also reviewed target sounds Cc and Nn. They continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their writing. Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students decided what small group activities they would do for their workstations this week. They formed small groups and worked on a story elements project using the pre decodable story, "I Have," worked on a word building Gingerbread Game, Used Montessori Crossword projected on the screen to take turns segmenting and sound blending 3 and 4 phoneme words and worked on a small group story about their gingerbread scenes they created with foam stickers.
Math: Students worked on a variety of of counting and problem solving activities--creating snowflakes-counting the folds to make and where to cut, playing the Dreidel Game adding and subtracting game pieces depending upon the the spin of the dreidel and making Rudolph using problem solving to figure out where each piece goes.
Writing: The students began work on Magic "C" uppercase letters C, O, Q, and G. They worked on creating a gingerbread person and wrote 1-4 sentences about them using words that describe. They continue to work on reading their writing and are beginning to make their own corrections. The students worked on Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset thinking while listening to the story of "Rudolph Shines Again." They worked on writing compliment cards choosing one of their classmates that has demonstrated a Growth Mindset--I Can Learn From My Mistakes--I Keep Trying Until I Can--When Other Kids Do Well, I Am Inspired. All students were written about. They are up on our Compliment Tree board. I was very inspired!
Technology: Both small group and whole group used the apps Montessori Crossword and Rocketspeller and Number Find. Book Buddies helped them explore iMovie.
Literature: "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Las Posadas," "The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "A Kwanzaa Counting Book," "K is for Kwanzaa."
**Our End of the Year Book Buddy get together was awesome! The students shared treats and worked on a getting to know you movie trailer using iMovie. As the students finish the project, they are emailing the trailers to me and I will hopefully email them to you in the new year. Senorita Zaragoza spoke to the students about the festival of Las Posadas. She shared a story and music about the procession in the streets re-enacting Mary and Joseph's search for an inn and the stable that became their room. Evan and his mom presented on the feast of Hanukkah. Evan shared his special menorah and Ms. Frank read a special story. Each student received a Dreidel game. Jeremy and his mom also shared Jeremy's special Noah's Ark menorah. A special thanks to Ms. Frank and Ms. Meier for their time! I presented the origin of Kwanzaa which began in 1966. Students viewed their special candle holder called a kinara. I shared some traditional stories--"The Night Before Christmas", "The Nutcracker" and "The Twelve Days of Christmas."
**Mid Year DIBELS screening will take place the first 2 weeks of January. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 6th.
**Vision Screening for Kindergarten students will be held Friday, January 9th in the morning.
**No School--Friday, January 16th-Teacher's Institute Day.
**Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, February 9th, Tuesday, February 10th and Wednesday, February 11th. You will receive notification of your specific day and time when we return from break.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be returning for her 8th year of hearing budding readers. She will begin coming every Friday morning beginning on Friday, January 9th.
**Classes resume on Monday, January 5th.
**Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL during our SPACE THEME. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing in things after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD IN 2015-----We will begin our next cross curricular theme WINTER. We will continue to introduce Next Generation Science strands within our district science model. We will begin our first formal Science Unit--Investigating Water. In the area of reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting/adding/deleting phonemes in 4, 5 and even 6 phoneme words. We will also work on oral and written comprehension, asking and answering questions about a text, comparing texts, reading fluency, vocabulary building, identifying story elements and identifying the authors message. Our Busy Reader Club will begin. I will be sending out more information about this in the new year. In the area of writing, the students will finish uppercase letter formation and will begin formal training in forming lowercase letters. Students will continue to work on sentence structure, inventive spelling, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentence length to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue to work on rote counting to 100 by ones and tens and beyond, writing numbers, demonstrating knowledge of numbers that are greater then and less than, naming pattern block and geometric solid shapes, representing addition and subtraction with objects and mental images, solving story problems using drawings and number work, number bonding to 10 and more work on teen numbers. In the area of science, the students will weave district science and next generation science in the exploration of water and weather patterns. Socially, the students will continue to work on becoming more responsible and independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. In the area of technology, the students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of their curriculum. WOW! We will be very busy!!
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week centered around types of food you would have for dinner and if you ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about meals they have helped prepare and special meals coming up for the holidays that they will be a part of. The students listened to the Big Book story, "The Special Sweet Potato Pie." They separated fact from fiction--sweet potatoes are real--but they do not get bigger as they roll down the hill and you CAN make a sweet potato pie. They used the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. They orally asked and answered questions about the story. Students reviewed their sight word, have and walked their words with a partner. They also reviewed target sounds Cc and Nn. They continue to work on using verbs in their daily speech and in their writing. Robust Vocabulary this week included APPETITE, FEAST, FLAVOR, SPECIAL. The students decided what small group activities they would do for their workstations this week. They formed small groups and worked on a story elements project using the pre decodable story, "I Have," worked on a word building Gingerbread Game, Used Montessori Crossword projected on the screen to take turns segmenting and sound blending 3 and 4 phoneme words and worked on a small group story about their gingerbread scenes they created with foam stickers.
Math: Students worked on a variety of of counting and problem solving activities--creating snowflakes-counting the folds to make and where to cut, playing the Dreidel Game adding and subtracting game pieces depending upon the the spin of the dreidel and making Rudolph using problem solving to figure out where each piece goes.
Writing: The students began work on Magic "C" uppercase letters C, O, Q, and G. They worked on creating a gingerbread person and wrote 1-4 sentences about them using words that describe. They continue to work on reading their writing and are beginning to make their own corrections. The students worked on Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset thinking while listening to the story of "Rudolph Shines Again." They worked on writing compliment cards choosing one of their classmates that has demonstrated a Growth Mindset--I Can Learn From My Mistakes--I Keep Trying Until I Can--When Other Kids Do Well, I Am Inspired. All students were written about. They are up on our Compliment Tree board. I was very inspired!
Technology: Both small group and whole group used the apps Montessori Crossword and Rocketspeller and Number Find. Book Buddies helped them explore iMovie.
Literature: "Rudolph," "Rudolph Shines Again," "Las Posadas," "The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "A Kwanzaa Counting Book," "K is for Kwanzaa."
Sunday, December 14, 2014
UPDATES for 12/8-12/12 2014
**The flu, fever and coughs visited out classroom this week. By Friday, we had 7 students out! We kept to our schedule as much as we could. The students were busy practicing songs for the Winter Concert and sharing their winter traditions and learning about the traditions and celebrations of others around the world. Our 19th Annual Gingerbread Cookie Baking was a small affair, but quite spectacular!! The smell of gingerbread filled the school! The students created cookies that were works of art. Lots of details and lots of sprinkles!!! The students worked together to create and share some of the cookies with each other. Tis the season!! A HUGE THANKS to our great volunteers--Lily's Grandma, Ms. Peterson and Trinity and Mr. Hellman and Ms. Dennis. With plenty of dough and sprinkles let over, I have made some dough/sprinkles and baking directions bags for those students who were absent. Let me know if you need to borrow cookie cutters--I have plenty of those too!
**The Trimester 1 Report Card is in your child's home work folder. If you have any questions or would like to meet to discuss the standards grading system---please email me1
**Come One, Come All to the Kindergarten/Grade1 Winter Concert on Wednesday, December 17th in the Irving Auditorium. The concert will be held 2 times--First performance is at 8:15 am----the second performance is at 9:45 am. The concerts will begin promptly! Go early and get a good seat, especially if you are attending the 8:15 concert. Please come back to the room after each performance for a refreshment reception and crafts. It will be a great time to get together with other families to share conversation and community.
**The students were treated to a performance by the World's Smallest Circus (2 people!) on Tuesday. There was plate juggling, acrobatics, silly skits and spinning tops. Very fun! Check out our own Jaylen spinning plates----who knew!!!
**Please let me know if your child is traveling over the winter break. I will prepare a travel journal for them to take on their travels.
**Our class has a SECRET SNOWFLAKE!!!! We are making some surprises for them. Shhhhh!
**The Irving Craft Fair and Cookie Crumble grows more spectacular every year!!! There were so many things to look at and lots of great buys. What fun!!
**School is closed December 20th-January 4th. Classes resume on Monday, January 5, 2015!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin later in January. This will give us time at the beginning of January to do midyear DIBELS Assessments.
**This week in Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey conducted voting session where the students got to "vote " for what they wanted to do next Friday. It was MOVIE by a small margin. Ms.Bell Bey and I will be looking over appropriate choices.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued to work with the students on subitizing activities using dots in standard and scattered arrays.
This week:
It continues to be about gingerbread, celebrations and traditions. The students did a little research on how the activity of gingerbread making began and why it is so popular this time of year. Ginger was a valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made of ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, houses and cakes. The students listened to a number of gingerbread stories. They examined characters, setting and main events in the stories. They verbally compared and contrasted the characters and the plot. How did end? (eaten...not eaten.) Who were the characters? (boy, man, baby, girls/boys, fox, wolf, coyote.) What happened in the story? They had loads of fun elbow chatting with each other about their observations. The students read about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah with all its traditions and symbols. They learned how to play the dreidel game. The students also read about Advent and the story of Christmas with all its traditions and symbols. Students are beginning to catch on to the unifying theme of the use of lights in these winter celebrations--candles, strands of lights on trees, the light of the North Star. Station Day activities for this week included creating a candle with glitter and jewels, color by code menorah, working on our number formation books with forms for 6-9 and creating a "geome-tree" using rectangle and triangles to form an evergreen tree.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The unit began with a question about where food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yards in the summer. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." They listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple farmer. Students made connections on their fall theme about apples, types of apples and what you can make with apples. Other students talked about the time they went went a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target words are to and have. We have added these to our growing number of sight words. Our target letter and sound is Nn. The students reviewed the use of nouns and action words or verbs. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 3 and 4 sound words. The students continue their work on recognizing consonant blends and digraphs. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students answered questions about the events in the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the vocabulary story, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza. Some students had never made pizza but said they ordered it from a pizza place. The students learned that the dough comes from wheat grown on a farm, the sauce from tomatoes grown many places and cheese made from cow's milk. Workstations this week included using leveled readers to chat about story elements, creating word pies using CVC patterns, elbow chatting about the main idea of their selected story and about how foods grow, writing a sentence about what you like to do (action word), draw and label a food you like and write a sentence about it, read it and add to it-write about what could happen next, playing Roll, Write and Read and Feeling Foods--reach your hand in the bag....pull out a food....chat about it.....write about it and walking your words.
Math: The students continue to rote count to 85. They also continue to work on number formation rhymes for 6-9. The students are creating a number formation book for practice. We did a group lesson on counting on from a random number between 0-50 and higher between 50-100! We also played a group game about finding the 3 numbers BEFORE and 3 numbers AFTER a given number. In student workshop this week, students counted gingerbread men and recorded the number, learned to play the "Roll a Gingerbread Man," reviewed teen numbers with ten frames, wrote numbers 0-50, discussed and recorded the numbers that completed their number bond 0-5, reinforced recognition of pattern block shapes and worked with partners on the app Starfall Gingerbread--following and continuing a pattern.
Writing: The students finished up formal instruction on Starting Corner Capitals and began work on Magic "C" Capitals. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students began work on a writing project about a gingerbread person. They are creating their own gingerbread person and are going to describe in writing their creation. The students came up with a list of describing words to use. Stay tuned!!
Technology: In the area of reading, student small groups and individual students used the apps, Montessori Crossword, Spelling Bug and Rocket Speller to listen and record letter sounds to create words (3-4-5 phonemes/sounds) recorded reading with iTalk for fluency, The app Sound Sort continues to assist individual students with sound/symbol connections. In the area of math, whole group instruction continued with the apps Subitize Tree and Number Rack. Students small groups used the apps Number Find and Easy Match for counting and cardinality as well as finding number using base ten strategies. The students partnered up to play Monster Squeeze using numbers 1-30.
Literature: "Hanukkah Counting Book," Diane Goode's "American Christmas Poems," "Counting Lions," "A Picture Book of Hanukkah," "Zero is the Leaves on a Tree," "Bake, Mice, Bake," "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Bear," "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Baby," "The Gingerbread Cowboy," "The Gingerbread Kid," "The Gingerbread Boy," "The Gingerbread Pirates," "Gingerbread Friends," "Bad Kitty Christmas, " "This is the Star," "Room for a Little One," "Winter Celebration Around the World."
**The Trimester 1 Report Card is in your child's home work folder. If you have any questions or would like to meet to discuss the standards grading system---please email me1
**Come One, Come All to the Kindergarten/Grade1 Winter Concert on Wednesday, December 17th in the Irving Auditorium. The concert will be held 2 times--First performance is at 8:15 am----the second performance is at 9:45 am. The concerts will begin promptly! Go early and get a good seat, especially if you are attending the 8:15 concert. Please come back to the room after each performance for a refreshment reception and crafts. It will be a great time to get together with other families to share conversation and community.
**The students were treated to a performance by the World's Smallest Circus (2 people!) on Tuesday. There was plate juggling, acrobatics, silly skits and spinning tops. Very fun! Check out our own Jaylen spinning plates----who knew!!!
**Please let me know if your child is traveling over the winter break. I will prepare a travel journal for them to take on their travels.
**Our class has a SECRET SNOWFLAKE!!!! We are making some surprises for them. Shhhhh!
**The Irving Craft Fair and Cookie Crumble grows more spectacular every year!!! There were so many things to look at and lots of great buys. What fun!!
**School is closed December 20th-January 4th. Classes resume on Monday, January 5, 2015!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin later in January. This will give us time at the beginning of January to do midyear DIBELS Assessments.
**This week in Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey conducted voting session where the students got to "vote " for what they wanted to do next Friday. It was MOVIE by a small margin. Ms.Bell Bey and I will be looking over appropriate choices.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer continued to work with the students on subitizing activities using dots in standard and scattered arrays.
This week:
It continues to be about gingerbread, celebrations and traditions. The students did a little research on how the activity of gingerbread making began and why it is so popular this time of year. Ginger was a valuable spice a long time ago traced back to the Greeks and Romans. A cake like treat was made of ginger. As time went on, Europeans began using flour, ginger and other spices to create cookies, houses and cakes. The students listened to a number of gingerbread stories. They examined characters, setting and main events in the stories. They verbally compared and contrasted the characters and the plot. How did end? (eaten...not eaten.) Who were the characters? (boy, man, baby, girls/boys, fox, wolf, coyote.) What happened in the story? They had loads of fun elbow chatting with each other about their observations. The students read about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah with all its traditions and symbols. They learned how to play the dreidel game. The students also read about Advent and the story of Christmas with all its traditions and symbols. Students are beginning to catch on to the unifying theme of the use of lights in these winter celebrations--candles, strands of lights on trees, the light of the North Star. Station Day activities for this week included creating a candle with glitter and jewels, color by code menorah, working on our number formation books with forms for 6-9 and creating a "geome-tree" using rectangle and triangles to form an evergreen tree.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The unit began with a question about where food comes from. The students accessed prior knowledge about stores, farms, markets and orchards as places where food is found. Some students offered that they had gardens in their back yards in the summer. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Apple Farmer Annie." They listened and discussed where Annie lived and her daily activities as an apple farmer. Students made connections on their fall theme about apples, types of apples and what you can make with apples. Other students talked about the time they went went a farmer's market and bought apples and apple cider. Our target words are to and have. We have added these to our growing number of sight words. Our target letter and sound is Nn. The students reviewed the use of nouns and action words or verbs. Our Robust Vocabulary this week included FARMER, MARKET, INGREDIENTS, COMBINE, NUTRITIOUS. The students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 3 and 4 sound words. The students continue their work on recognizing consonant blends and digraphs. The students read their pre decodable story, "Can Nan?" They made predictions about story content. Students answered questions about the events in the story and then practiced reading the story to a partner for fluency development. The students listened to the vocabulary story, "Pizza Please." They had lots of fun activating their own prior knowledge about making their own homemade pizza, comparing and contrasting the ways and ingredients families use to make pizza. Some students had never made pizza but said they ordered it from a pizza place. The students learned that the dough comes from wheat grown on a farm, the sauce from tomatoes grown many places and cheese made from cow's milk. Workstations this week included using leveled readers to chat about story elements, creating word pies using CVC patterns, elbow chatting about the main idea of their selected story and about how foods grow, writing a sentence about what you like to do (action word), draw and label a food you like and write a sentence about it, read it and add to it-write about what could happen next, playing Roll, Write and Read and Feeling Foods--reach your hand in the bag....pull out a food....chat about it.....write about it and walking your words.
Math: The students continue to rote count to 85. They also continue to work on number formation rhymes for 6-9. The students are creating a number formation book for practice. We did a group lesson on counting on from a random number between 0-50 and higher between 50-100! We also played a group game about finding the 3 numbers BEFORE and 3 numbers AFTER a given number. In student workshop this week, students counted gingerbread men and recorded the number, learned to play the "Roll a Gingerbread Man," reviewed teen numbers with ten frames, wrote numbers 0-50, discussed and recorded the numbers that completed their number bond 0-5, reinforced recognition of pattern block shapes and worked with partners on the app Starfall Gingerbread--following and continuing a pattern.
Writing: The students finished up formal instruction on Starting Corner Capitals and began work on Magic "C" Capitals. They applied what they learned in their orange practice books. The students began work on a writing project about a gingerbread person. They are creating their own gingerbread person and are going to describe in writing their creation. The students came up with a list of describing words to use. Stay tuned!!
Technology: In the area of reading, student small groups and individual students used the apps, Montessori Crossword, Spelling Bug and Rocket Speller to listen and record letter sounds to create words (3-4-5 phonemes/sounds) recorded reading with iTalk for fluency, The app Sound Sort continues to assist individual students with sound/symbol connections. In the area of math, whole group instruction continued with the apps Subitize Tree and Number Rack. Students small groups used the apps Number Find and Easy Match for counting and cardinality as well as finding number using base ten strategies. The students partnered up to play Monster Squeeze using numbers 1-30.
Literature: "Hanukkah Counting Book," Diane Goode's "American Christmas Poems," "Counting Lions," "A Picture Book of Hanukkah," "Zero is the Leaves on a Tree," "Bake, Mice, Bake," "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Bear," "The Gingerbread Man," "The Gingerbread Baby," "The Gingerbread Cowboy," "The Gingerbread Kid," "The Gingerbread Boy," "The Gingerbread Pirates," "Gingerbread Friends," "Bad Kitty Christmas, " "This is the Star," "Room for a Little One," "Winter Celebration Around the World."
Sunday, December 7, 2014
UPDATES for 11/24-11/25 and 12/1-12/5 2014
**WOW!! Busy. Busy. I will back track a little to 11/24. The students heard last minute details about their trip to Brookfield Zoo. We read information on other types of Bears. The students chatted about their question for their research project. The students worked on their writing pieces for Polar and Black/Brown Bears. What do we know now? They chose the stories for read aloud and decided what other activities to do in their workstations. In the afternoon, the students had a great time investigating the animal track stamps courtesy of the Field Museum. Each child chose an specific animal track and stamped their paper. They then wrote about where their animal tracks were going. Totally cute!! They are up in our classroom. Come and check them out!
**11/25--FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO!! It was super chilly but we dressed warmly and had an absolutely fabulous time. A HUGE THANKS to Ms. Frank, Ms. Cummings, Ms. Matta and Ms. Connelly for braving the elements to help out. Hamill Play Zoo had face painting, dramatic play at the vet's office, craft, a cool chicken and bunny to pet and plants to water. Students saw bison, penguins, snakes to name a few. We had an indoor lunch and traveled to our Bear Class. Our docent, Jim was the best! The students got to examine black bear and polar bear fur and see how many students it took end to end to equal the size of a grizzly bear. They learned many more interesting facts about bears. We toured the Bear Grotto and saw a sleeping brown bear up close and personal as well as a polar bear fluffing up his bed of straw. It felt so good to get back on the warm bus. Back at school, the students reflected in their journal about their experience and then topped it off with Art Class with our beloved Ms. Tague.
**The Frosty Fun Friday Jam was a hoot!! Lots of students rocking out to the tunes spun by by our own DJ Mick. There were some very cool moves by our own Jaylen and the newest addition to our classroom---Ashton. Room 110 had some great representation. Hope everyone had a blast. I did!
**We are ready for Room 110's Annual GINGERBREAD BAKING!! It's an 18 year tradition! It's Thursday, December 11th form 12:30-2:55 pm. A BIG SHOUT OUT to our volunteers Ms. Frank, Ms. Meier, Ms. Peterson, Ms. Ferrigno, Mr. Hellman, Tate's Grandma and Lily's Grandma. It is a bit messy and dusty so DO NOT come dressed in your best. Students with long hair--please wear a pony tail or up. We will be caring and sharing our cookies with our tablemates. We will get some of our own and get some of theirs too.
**Report Cards go home on Friday, December 12th. Please read the information included to better understand the grading system. Lexia reports will also be included as well as any goal updates by specialists your child may be seeing in the area of speech and language or Tier 3 intervention for reading readiness. The main idea to remember for our report card system is that it is a growth model of progress toward an end of the year goal. If you should have any questions after reviewing it, please email me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 had concluded. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 6, 2015!!
**Our WINTER CONCERT is fast approaching. Please join us for Kindergarten/Grade 1 Concert on Wednesday, December 17th. The students will perform twice--once at 8:15 and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. We will have a reception in our classroom after both concerts. Come join us for some refreshments.
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and Craft Fair is Saturday, December 13th from 9:00-1:00 pm. Stock up on those holiday treasures. Our own Green Team will be selling some nature art.
**Take a look at the cool programs offered by after school Eagle Extras. The brochure is in your child's homework folder.
**We have begun our cross curricular unit on Celebrations and Traditions. If you have a particular holiday or winter tradition you would like to share with the class--email me and we can set it up. Kindergarten students LOVE to have their parents come to the classroom!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey had an awesome and heartfelt sharing and discussion about staying safe at school, at home and in our community and what you can do if you do not feel safe. Being a Social Detective was part of the spotlight. The students remembered that if you do the EXPECTED (pay attention, treat others with respect) others will think nice thoughts about you. If you do the UNEXPECTED (bully, bother, hit) others may not want to be around you.
**In Mr. Packer Problem solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with the students on subitizing skills, symmetry and number recognition using dots. Very cool!!!
**School is closed for Winter Break--December 20th-January 4th. Classes resume on Monday, January 5th.
This week:
It was all about traditions and celebrations. The students talked about what a tradition was--activities that are done routinely at about the same time every year and can be passed down thru generations. I spoke about my family tradition of making ravioli and my school tradition of making gingerbread with my students at this time of year. The students made connections in their own lives and related activities that they do every year at this time. Station day activities included using pattern blocks to build using teen numbers, ten frame activities with teen numbers, writing a caption for their Bear Art Projects made in Ms. Tague's class and taking the subitize challenge with a partner.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students built background knowledge about the different ways wheels are used to move people and things around. They worked on their listening comprehension while listening to David Shannon's story, "Duck on a Bike" read both in English and in Spanish. Students identified the characters and the plot (what is happening in the story.) They took a closer look at the way the story was organized (a beginning, a middle and an end) and responded to the story by discussing the connections that can be made from the story to their daily lives. (I can ride a bike. I see kids riding bikes in my neighborhood.) The students reviewed target sounds Tt and Short i and used their elkonin boxes and cubes to segment and blend 3 and 4 letter words. Lots of discussion on nouns and action words. The students worked with partners to create noun/verb sentences using picture cards. The students were introduced to Consonant Blends and Consonant Digraphs. Do you know the difference? They are learning to. Robust vocabulary for this week included ADVENTURE, WHEE:LS, ATTACH, HAUL, MASSIVE. The students read their pre decodable story, "I See A Truck Go," and made predictions about story content. The students listened to the thinking story, "Timimoto" and discussed the storyteller's message. Workstations this week included recording of level reader reading using iTalk and evaluating how they sounded, creating sentences using words Go and See, read it and add to it activity, sounds match, air, land and water vehicles graph and compare and asking and answering questions about a trip you might like to take.
Math: The students continued work on counting to 75, sequencing what comes before and after a random number, working on teen numbers 11-19 and the idea that a teen number is 1 group of ten (1 complete ten frame) and so many ones (how many on the new ten frame.) The students worked on a shape review project with shapes-circle, oval, trapezoid, hexagon, square, rectangle and triangle counting the side and corners (vertices) using the app Doodle Buddy. The students are working in their new calendar books on recording numbers, sequencing numbers, counting on from a random number, using tally marks to show how many and the idea of number bonds--ways to say a number--ie: 4 and 4 is a way to say 8. Are they other ways to say 8? 3 and 5 6 and 2 etc.
Writing: The students have completed their Starting Corner Capital and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. They continue to work on sentence structure, spacing of words in a sentence, where to put lowercase letters, punctuation and beginning a sentence with a capital letter. The students are working at adding more details to their sentence.
Technology: Students participated in whole group work using the app Montessori Crossword on the projector to strengthen blending and segmenting skills and the app Sound Sort to strengthen automaticity of sound to symbol. Student small groups used iTalk to record and listen to their reading for fluency and clarity. Students are continuing to record their story sentence for our talking book on Sonic Pics. In math, students worked with a partner on the app Subitize Tree to challenge each other to strengthen subitizing/counting skills. Doodle Buddy was used by individual students to create their shape and record their name for the sides and corners project.
Literature: "Duck on a Bike," Poems--"My Bike," "Riding the Subway Train," "Celebrations Around the World," "Which Animals Travel in the Fall?" "Animal Homes," "If You Had Animal Hair," "Adding with Animals," "Animals in Winter."
**11/25--FIELD TRIP to BROOKFIELD ZOO!! It was super chilly but we dressed warmly and had an absolutely fabulous time. A HUGE THANKS to Ms. Frank, Ms. Cummings, Ms. Matta and Ms. Connelly for braving the elements to help out. Hamill Play Zoo had face painting, dramatic play at the vet's office, craft, a cool chicken and bunny to pet and plants to water. Students saw bison, penguins, snakes to name a few. We had an indoor lunch and traveled to our Bear Class. Our docent, Jim was the best! The students got to examine black bear and polar bear fur and see how many students it took end to end to equal the size of a grizzly bear. They learned many more interesting facts about bears. We toured the Bear Grotto and saw a sleeping brown bear up close and personal as well as a polar bear fluffing up his bed of straw. It felt so good to get back on the warm bus. Back at school, the students reflected in their journal about their experience and then topped it off with Art Class with our beloved Ms. Tague.
**The Frosty Fun Friday Jam was a hoot!! Lots of students rocking out to the tunes spun by by our own DJ Mick. There were some very cool moves by our own Jaylen and the newest addition to our classroom---Ashton. Room 110 had some great representation. Hope everyone had a blast. I did!
**We are ready for Room 110's Annual GINGERBREAD BAKING!! It's an 18 year tradition! It's Thursday, December 11th form 12:30-2:55 pm. A BIG SHOUT OUT to our volunteers Ms. Frank, Ms. Meier, Ms. Peterson, Ms. Ferrigno, Mr. Hellman, Tate's Grandma and Lily's Grandma. It is a bit messy and dusty so DO NOT come dressed in your best. Students with long hair--please wear a pony tail or up. We will be caring and sharing our cookies with our tablemates. We will get some of our own and get some of theirs too.
**Report Cards go home on Friday, December 12th. Please read the information included to better understand the grading system. Lexia reports will also be included as well as any goal updates by specialists your child may be seeing in the area of speech and language or Tier 3 intervention for reading readiness. The main idea to remember for our report card system is that it is a growth model of progress toward an end of the year goal. If you should have any questions after reviewing it, please email me.
**Route to Reading Rotation 3 had concluded. Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on Tuesday, January 6, 2015!!
**Our WINTER CONCERT is fast approaching. Please join us for Kindergarten/Grade 1 Concert on Wednesday, December 17th. The students will perform twice--once at 8:15 and again at 9:45 am in the Irving Auditorium. We will have a reception in our classroom after both concerts. Come join us for some refreshments.
**The Irving Cookie Crumble and Craft Fair is Saturday, December 13th from 9:00-1:00 pm. Stock up on those holiday treasures. Our own Green Team will be selling some nature art.
**Take a look at the cool programs offered by after school Eagle Extras. The brochure is in your child's homework folder.
**We have begun our cross curricular unit on Celebrations and Traditions. If you have a particular holiday or winter tradition you would like to share with the class--email me and we can set it up. Kindergarten students LOVE to have their parents come to the classroom!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey had an awesome and heartfelt sharing and discussion about staying safe at school, at home and in our community and what you can do if you do not feel safe. Being a Social Detective was part of the spotlight. The students remembered that if you do the EXPECTED (pay attention, treat others with respect) others will think nice thoughts about you. If you do the UNEXPECTED (bully, bother, hit) others may not want to be around you.
**In Mr. Packer Problem solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with the students on subitizing skills, symmetry and number recognition using dots. Very cool!!!
**School is closed for Winter Break--December 20th-January 4th. Classes resume on Monday, January 5th.
This week:
It was all about traditions and celebrations. The students talked about what a tradition was--activities that are done routinely at about the same time every year and can be passed down thru generations. I spoke about my family tradition of making ravioli and my school tradition of making gingerbread with my students at this time of year. The students made connections in their own lives and related activities that they do every year at this time. Station day activities included using pattern blocks to build using teen numbers, ten frame activities with teen numbers, writing a caption for their Bear Art Projects made in Ms. Tague's class and taking the subitize challenge with a partner.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 3 Transportation in our Treasures Reading series. The students built background knowledge about the different ways wheels are used to move people and things around. They worked on their listening comprehension while listening to David Shannon's story, "Duck on a Bike" read both in English and in Spanish. Students identified the characters and the plot (what is happening in the story.) They took a closer look at the way the story was organized (a beginning, a middle and an end) and responded to the story by discussing the connections that can be made from the story to their daily lives. (I can ride a bike. I see kids riding bikes in my neighborhood.) The students reviewed target sounds Tt and Short i and used their elkonin boxes and cubes to segment and blend 3 and 4 letter words. Lots of discussion on nouns and action words. The students worked with partners to create noun/verb sentences using picture cards. The students were introduced to Consonant Blends and Consonant Digraphs. Do you know the difference? They are learning to. Robust vocabulary for this week included ADVENTURE, WHEE:LS, ATTACH, HAUL, MASSIVE. The students read their pre decodable story, "I See A Truck Go," and made predictions about story content. The students listened to the thinking story, "Timimoto" and discussed the storyteller's message. Workstations this week included recording of level reader reading using iTalk and evaluating how they sounded, creating sentences using words Go and See, read it and add to it activity, sounds match, air, land and water vehicles graph and compare and asking and answering questions about a trip you might like to take.
Math: The students continued work on counting to 75, sequencing what comes before and after a random number, working on teen numbers 11-19 and the idea that a teen number is 1 group of ten (1 complete ten frame) and so many ones (how many on the new ten frame.) The students worked on a shape review project with shapes-circle, oval, trapezoid, hexagon, square, rectangle and triangle counting the side and corners (vertices) using the app Doodle Buddy. The students are working in their new calendar books on recording numbers, sequencing numbers, counting on from a random number, using tally marks to show how many and the idea of number bonds--ways to say a number--ie: 4 and 4 is a way to say 8. Are they other ways to say 8? 3 and 5 6 and 2 etc.
Writing: The students have completed their Starting Corner Capital and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. They continue to work on sentence structure, spacing of words in a sentence, where to put lowercase letters, punctuation and beginning a sentence with a capital letter. The students are working at adding more details to their sentence.
Technology: Students participated in whole group work using the app Montessori Crossword on the projector to strengthen blending and segmenting skills and the app Sound Sort to strengthen automaticity of sound to symbol. Student small groups used iTalk to record and listen to their reading for fluency and clarity. Students are continuing to record their story sentence for our talking book on Sonic Pics. In math, students worked with a partner on the app Subitize Tree to challenge each other to strengthen subitizing/counting skills. Doodle Buddy was used by individual students to create their shape and record their name for the sides and corners project.
Literature: "Duck on a Bike," Poems--"My Bike," "Riding the Subway Train," "Celebrations Around the World," "Which Animals Travel in the Fall?" "Animal Homes," "If You Had Animal Hair," "Adding with Animals," "Animals in Winter."
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