**There is a touch of spring in the air. The students are beginning to feel it! As always, keep monitoring the weather and dressing your child appropriately. We will be trying to get to the playground before dismissal as the weather warms. The students really enjoy playing and demonstrating their skills when they have the playground to themselves!
**The FUN FAIR was spectacular! I hope you all had as much fun as I did. I loved running the new spinning game! Our JUNIOR CHEF"S BASKET was awesome! Thanks to all of you who donated your time or an item. I was thrilled to see former students who are in high school, college or now with families of their own enjoying our fun fair. The teacher acts were very funny. Congratulations to the BLUE TEAM! They got the pie in the face. If you are the recipient of one of my auction items, I will be contacting you in the next few weeks. Once again, this event represents our Irving school community at its best. I am so proud to be a part of it. Go Irving!
**Lynn Allen, director of the Multicultural Center did a fabulous presentation on African American history with very cool artifacts. She spoke about slavery, struggles and the rich culture of Africa. The students experimented with instruments, masks, cloth and looked at pictures and maps. The students really enjoyed it! Thanks, Lynn.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 29th. At that time you will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**Our new Student Council reps, Hattie and Lauren had their first meeting. They are already full of ideas for a new fundraiser to help someone in need. Stay tuned!
**The Kindergarten Team has planned a FIELD TRIP to the FIELD MUSEUM on Thursday, March 24th from 9:30-1:30 pm. The cost is $5.00. ALL students will need a BAG LUNCH with their name on it. Permission slip and info is in your child's homework folder. I will need 5 volunteers to help out on this trip. We will be working on a research and shared writing project that will be connected with this trip. Students will ride the bus. Parent volunteers will carpool. I will provide money for parking.
**The OPERA is coming! The OPERA is coming! This years OPERA for the YOUNG will be a production of "The Magic Flute." It will be Friday, March 4th from 9-10 am in the gym. It is an interactive opera where the students will be singing along in certain parts. Ms. Hiolski has been working on this. Should be great fun!
**If you are interested in purchasing books from author, Jonah Winter, the green sheet is in your child's homework folder. He will be sharing the magic of biography writing with students on Friday, March 11th from 1-1:45 pm.
**Spring Pictures will be taken Monday, March 14th in the morning.
**In a salute to all things Irish, bagpiper, Patrick Lynch will come to Irving on Wednesday, March 16th, from 12:45-2:15 pm. He will give a presentation to the kindergarten classes on the instrument and play some tunes for everyone to enjoy on the blacktop at dismissal.
**In keeping with the theme, we will have SUPER TUBER DAY on Thursday, March 17th from 10:30-11:30 am. It's about all things POTATO. Students need to bring a POTATO (not cooked) It can be any kind. I have E. Meier and G. Lowell signed up to help. Another volunteer would be great. Email me if you can help.
**Please welcome another grandma helper, Ms. Cummings to our class. She will be working with students on Wednesday mornings during our literacy workstation time. She is a former 8th grade teacher and administrator. We love our Grandmas!!!!
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her work on conflict resolution with the class. She asked the questions--Is it safe?? Should I do this???
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer worked with the students on a project called "thinking in shapes." The students were given 5 shapes. Mr. Packer ave them some rules to follow. He told them how many shapes to use and then said a sentence containing the picture he wanted them to make. Check it out in the pics. "I turned on the LAMP in my room." What does your lamp look like?
**No Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week.
**March 11th-- end of Trimester Two. Report cards home on Thursday, March 24th.
**NO SCHOOL--Tuesday, March 15th-Teacher's Institute Day.
**NO SCHOOL--3/25-4/3--Spring Break. Classes resume on Monday, April 4th. Let me know if your child is traveling and I will send a travel journal.
**Future Field Trip--(walking) Maze Branch Library--Thursday, April 28th
**Future Field Trip--Adler Planetarium--Tuesday, May 3rd.
**We are getting closer!!! Keep saving those boxes and cool things!!
This week:
The students continued with our author study on Mo Willems. The students completed summative assessments using his texts. We will finish our author study next week. They were also doing their last experiments on investigating water. Will will be completing our science unit also next week. The students are beginning prep work for our next Treasures Unit Weather and will also begin prep work for our next science unit, Sunshine, Shadows, the Moon and Space. We continued exploring the accomplishments of African Americans. Our favorite story and discussion was on "The Story of Ruby Bridges." The students were so proud to know that even a young child can effect change in our country. Lots of thoughtful insights by students. Station day activities this week included pattern block kite building, reading and illustrating a story problem, writing about a sequence of events, and exploring new choice time activities.
Reading/Language Arts: The students used this week to work on a variety of formative and summative assessments using texts from our author study of Mo Willems. The students responded verbally, thru illustration and thru writing. They worked to answer a variety of questions. Who are the characters is the story? How are they alike? Different? What is the problem? What does the character do to solve the problem? What effect does a repeating phrase have on a text? How does the illustration help you understand the setting? What important job does the author or illustrator have in telling the story? The students did some marvelous group work on problem/solution using the text, "That is not a Good Idea." Using the text "Knuffle Bunny," the students worked with partners to sequence events in the story. Lots of great drawings were done during our "we do" of story elements in the text, "Knuffle Bunny." In the text, "Edwina, the Dinosaur that Didn't Know She Was Extinct," students participated in a word study to best describe the main character. Students are forming OPINIONS about what Mo story they like the best and why. Workstations this week included leveled readers, comprehension check and fluency building, sight word review, sequencing events, word family sort, nonsense/real word activity, CVC puzzles and simple sentences, digraph review, color by word family and working on consonant blends and Silent E.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 130. Focus this week was on subtraction or taking away from the whole (biggest number) or counting down. They began using the number line to assist in the counting down process. Some students are using manipulatives and fingers and even visualizing the answer! Students reviewed their geometric solid identification. They also continue to experiment with incline and plane surfaces and 3 dimensional structures. Math workstations this week included addition cross out, domino number bonds, snowman subtraction and domino number sentences.
Writing: The students continue work on forming lowercase letters. This week the letters k and e were introduced. The students practiced on their mini boards and then applied what they had learned in their orange practice books. They continue to develop their writing stamina by writing on topics in their green journals. We continue to stress beginning with a big letter, spacing between words in a sentence, using an ending mark and placement of letters on a given line. Read it back. Does it make sense? Did you name and tell? Did you use some words to describe what you are writing about? We also took some time to write and draw get well wishes to our classmate, Juliet who has been out sick for a while. Get well soon, Juliet!! We love and miss you!
Science: The students have experimented with water as a liquid and solid and this week experimented with water as a gas in the form of steam. We discussed the freezing temperature of water (32 degrees) and boiling temperature of water (212 degrees.) The students observed "smoke"or steam coming from the water that had been boiled. Where is that gas going? We talked about the word--evaporation. After releasing some steam, I covered the container with plastic wrap. We left the container and went to class. Upon returning, the students noticed water droplets on the top of the plastic wrap inside of the container. How did it get there? Abe remarked, "The water gas cannot evaporate because it is trapped by the plastic and can't get out into the air." The water droplets got bigger and bigger until they dropped back into the container. Mmmm......precipitation! It is raining inside of the container. The students reflected in their science journal. We reviewed our BrainPop video on the water cycle and the idea of evaporation, condensation, precipitation. Cool!
Technology: Whole group learners in Math worked on a new app called Animal Math. It is a paid app but very cool and contains counting, sequences and patterns, basic shapes, classification, addition to 5, addition to 10, subtraction to 5 and 10, greater, less and equal to, even/odd, place value and challenges! Students in small group math work on the app Doodle Buddy to create and illustrate their own story problem, Students are really beginning to look for the pattern when solving the number on the app Number Find. In small group reading, students worked on skill building with the app Build a Sentence. It is great for word order and finding the noun, verb and adjectives. We watched videos via BrainPop about the lives of Harriet Tubman, George Washington Carver and author Eloise Greenfield and took the quizzes.
Literature: "Edwina the Dinosaur That Didn't Know She Was Extinct," "Night on Neighborhood Street," "The Story of Ruby Bridges," "Knuffle Bunny," "Harriet Tubman," "Trains Can Float,' "George Washington Carver," "Five Brave Explorers--Great Black Heroes," "A Drop of Water," "Evaporation/Condensation."
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
UPDATES for 2/8-2/12 and 2/16-2/19 2016
**Thanks so much for your patience at this busy time. I really appreciate it. It was great to chat with all of you and to share your child's progress. Thanks for your continued support. The students surely do shine!!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was a smash! 100 fruit loop necklaces, 100 spots on a dog, 100 food grid. writing 100 words, making 100 Day crowns, and sharing Valentine's with friends were just some of the many activities that filled our morning. A HEART felt THANKS to all of our volunteers--K.Meier, Hattie's Grandma, Lauren's Grandma, Amir's Grandma, K. Harris, G. Lowell, N. Daniel, H. Alvarez, J. Wulff and A. Pillacela. FANTASTIC!!!
**The FUN FAIR IS SATURDAY!!!!! Come one, Come all to the Annual Irving Fun Fair, February 20th from 11-3 pm all over the school. On line bidding for some of the auction items is in process. Students can still bring in their coins to vote for who will get the PIE in the FACE the day of the fair. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, photo booth and other attractions plus the silent auction (bid! bid! bedtime story, lunch at Junction Diner) There are some really cool things to be had. There are 4 teacher teams vying for the Pie in the Face. Teacher Team performances and pie in the face will begin at 2:30 pm. YOU don't want to miss it! All proceeds from the day will go to Irving School. COME PLAY A GAME WITH ME in the gym!!!
**I hear our CHEF'S CLASS BASKET is awesome! Many thanks to those who sent in donations.
**Congratulations to HATTIE and LAUREN our new Student Council Members. They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, February 23rd.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 29th, a little later then originally planned.
**In Friendship Club last week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on screening distractions that might impede out learning. This week, the students created tee shirt designs writing about what matters to them most in their lives. Cool! We will hang them on the "I Care" Tree.
**No Mr. Packer or Mr. Degman both weeks.
**Lynn Allen, director of the Multicultural Center, will speak to our kindergarten students on February, 25th from 9-9:45 about contributions to African American History.
**Opera for the Young is coming!!! On Friday, March 4th at 9:00 am, students will see a production of the opera, "The Magic Flute." It is an interactive opera where the students can sing certain parts. Ms. Hiolski is working with the students on this. It will be great fun!!
**Children's author, Jonah Winter will visit Irving on Friday, March 11th from 1-1:45 pm. Mr. Winter is the author of children's picture book biographies.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 14th.
**Teacher's Institute Day is Tuesday, March 15th. No school for students.
**SUPER TUBER DAY is Thursday, March 17th. We will examine and study the potato. I will need 3 volunteers from 10:30-11:30 am. Email if you are interested.
**Future Field Trip (walking) Maze Library--Thursday, April 28th.
**Future Field Trip --Adler Planetarium--May 3rd from 9:00-1:30 pm.
**Keep saving GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. You can bring it in after spring break.
The past two week:
It was all about our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration, working on our writing stamina in our green journals, continuing our author study of Mo Willems and observing and experimenting with water as ice in science. We took a look at the contributions of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington thru stories and videos and pondered what makes a good president.
Reading/Language Arts: The students worked on and completed Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about places in and around their neighborhood and who you can find there. We had a great discussion about types of community workers. The students listened to the Big Book story, " Bus Stops." They made predictions about story content and listened for what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. They also made connections about places in the story and how they relate to their own community. The students reviewed target words for, you, are and target sounds Hh, Dd and Rr. Students worked in small groups to create sentences using words and pictures. They also used their elkonin boxes in an activity that worked on sound blending 4-5 sound words. Robust Vocabulary for the past two weeks included ADMIRE, DELIVER, CELEBRATION, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY, ALERT, JOB, PRECISE, REPAIR. Our author study on the work of Mo Willems is lots of fun! The students verbally recalled the problem and solution is the stories, "That is Not a Good Idea" and "My Friend is Sad." They then set to write in their own words about the problem and the solution. When listening to the story, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," and "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," the students took a look at repetitive phrases and thought about why the illustrations can be important to the story. We did some formative assessing using our Blueprint Workmats. We will continue next week with more selections from Mo. The students have enjoyed taking a look at the Mo Willems website too. Check it out if you like! Workstations for the past two weeks included leveled readers with comprehension check and fluency building, writing about what job we would like to do and why, box it up CVC activity, playing "STING" busy bee blends, cut and paste blends, written retelling of the story "We Work for You," building CCVC and CVCC words, making new short i words, word family activity and read and color.
Math: The students continue to work on counting in sequence using numbers 1-120. We continue work on addition story problems--reading the story, setting up the part/whole on ten frames and writing their number sentence. The students are beginning to think about the process of subtraction, counting down, one fewer, 2 fewer etc. They also continue to work on counting on from a random number. Math workstations for the past two weeks have included make 10 Bingo, writing 2 digit numbers, what's my number?? color by code addition problems, geometric solid review, working with incline planes and ramps and creating 3 dimensional structures.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters u, i and l were taught this week. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange books. Our green journals continue to be a source of joy as the students build their writing stamina and work to strengthen their sentence writing. Writing topics for the past two weeks have included snow, friends, animals, myself, the 100th Day, water.
Science: The students reviewed their investigation of water thus far. What do they know now? What was surprising to them? The next experiment pondered the question--What is ice? The students worked in their groups to chat about what ice was....how it is formed...... how does it turn back into water? We discussed the freezing point (32 degree and lower) and that it is cold. Ice is really hard water that has become very cold or frozen. A liquid turned into a solid as one student put it. We discussed the idea of temperature for something to freeze and also to melt. In our experiment, each group of 4 students had a baggie with ice cubes in it. The challenge was to work with your group to melt the ice in the baggie the fastest way you can think of. All groups chatted and came up with a strategy. Interesting thinkers!! I started the timer and each group tried out their strategy. So fun to watch!! The strategies were--sit on it, pound it and squeeze it, shake it and rub it, put it in hot water. The results were--at 8 minutes--the group who put their baggie in hot water from the sink had a baggie full of water. (shortest time) At 23 minutes--sitting on it produced water. (longest time) At 17 and 19 minutes shaking and rubbing and pounding and squeezing produced a baggie full of water. In reflections, the students chatted about what strategy worked the best, what strategy did not work as well, why did some strategies take a long time. In our final week of water investigation, we will look at water as a gas. (steam)
Technology: Student whole group used BrainPop to seek out information on Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, the Presidency, the Water Cycle and we worked with Mo Willems website. In reading small group, the apps OZ Phonics, Spelling Bug and Montessori Crosswords enhanced sound spelling, word order, CVC words and blends/digraphs. In math small groups, the apps Doodle Buddy, Educreations and Math Bug enhanced addition and subtraction practice using story problems, creating their own story problem, illustrating part/whole and writing the number sentence and how many more are needed to complete the ten frame.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," "My Friend is Sad," "That is Not a Good Idea," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "Abe Lincoln's Hat," "Love, Splat," "The Story of George Washington," "If You Lived in the Time of Abraham Lincoln," "Will You Be My Valentine," "Celebrate the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten,"
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration was a smash! 100 fruit loop necklaces, 100 spots on a dog, 100 food grid. writing 100 words, making 100 Day crowns, and sharing Valentine's with friends were just some of the many activities that filled our morning. A HEART felt THANKS to all of our volunteers--K.Meier, Hattie's Grandma, Lauren's Grandma, Amir's Grandma, K. Harris, G. Lowell, N. Daniel, H. Alvarez, J. Wulff and A. Pillacela. FANTASTIC!!!
**The FUN FAIR IS SATURDAY!!!!! Come one, Come all to the Annual Irving Fun Fair, February 20th from 11-3 pm all over the school. On line bidding for some of the auction items is in process. Students can still bring in their coins to vote for who will get the PIE in the FACE the day of the fair. There will be games, prizes, dancing for desserts, photo booth and other attractions plus the silent auction (bid! bid! bedtime story, lunch at Junction Diner) There are some really cool things to be had. There are 4 teacher teams vying for the Pie in the Face. Teacher Team performances and pie in the face will begin at 2:30 pm. YOU don't want to miss it! All proceeds from the day will go to Irving School. COME PLAY A GAME WITH ME in the gym!!!
**I hear our CHEF'S CLASS BASKET is awesome! Many thanks to those who sent in donations.
**Congratulations to HATTIE and LAUREN our new Student Council Members. They will attend their first meeting on Tuesday, February 23rd.
**Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 29th, a little later then originally planned.
**In Friendship Club last week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on screening distractions that might impede out learning. This week, the students created tee shirt designs writing about what matters to them most in their lives. Cool! We will hang them on the "I Care" Tree.
**No Mr. Packer or Mr. Degman both weeks.
**Lynn Allen, director of the Multicultural Center, will speak to our kindergarten students on February, 25th from 9-9:45 about contributions to African American History.
**Opera for the Young is coming!!! On Friday, March 4th at 9:00 am, students will see a production of the opera, "The Magic Flute." It is an interactive opera where the students can sing certain parts. Ms. Hiolski is working with the students on this. It will be great fun!!
**Children's author, Jonah Winter will visit Irving on Friday, March 11th from 1-1:45 pm. Mr. Winter is the author of children's picture book biographies.
**Spring Pictures will be taken on Monday, March 14th.
**Teacher's Institute Day is Tuesday, March 15th. No school for students.
**SUPER TUBER DAY is Thursday, March 17th. We will examine and study the potato. I will need 3 volunteers from 10:30-11:30 am. Email if you are interested.
**Future Field Trip (walking) Maze Library--Thursday, April 28th.
**Future Field Trip --Adler Planetarium--May 3rd from 9:00-1:30 pm.
**Keep saving GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. You can bring it in after spring break.
The past two week:
It was all about our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration, working on our writing stamina in our green journals, continuing our author study of Mo Willems and observing and experimenting with water as ice in science. We took a look at the contributions of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington thru stories and videos and pondered what makes a good president.
Reading/Language Arts: The students worked on and completed Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about places in and around their neighborhood and who you can find there. We had a great discussion about types of community workers. The students listened to the Big Book story, " Bus Stops." They made predictions about story content and listened for what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the story. They also made connections about places in the story and how they relate to their own community. The students reviewed target words for, you, are and target sounds Hh, Dd and Rr. Students worked in small groups to create sentences using words and pictures. They also used their elkonin boxes in an activity that worked on sound blending 4-5 sound words. Robust Vocabulary for the past two weeks included ADMIRE, DELIVER, CELEBRATION, SCHEDULE, COMMUNITY, ALERT, JOB, PRECISE, REPAIR. Our author study on the work of Mo Willems is lots of fun! The students verbally recalled the problem and solution is the stories, "That is Not a Good Idea" and "My Friend is Sad." They then set to write in their own words about the problem and the solution. When listening to the story, "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," and "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," the students took a look at repetitive phrases and thought about why the illustrations can be important to the story. We did some formative assessing using our Blueprint Workmats. We will continue next week with more selections from Mo. The students have enjoyed taking a look at the Mo Willems website too. Check it out if you like! Workstations for the past two weeks included leveled readers with comprehension check and fluency building, writing about what job we would like to do and why, box it up CVC activity, playing "STING" busy bee blends, cut and paste blends, written retelling of the story "We Work for You," building CCVC and CVCC words, making new short i words, word family activity and read and color.
Math: The students continue to work on counting in sequence using numbers 1-120. We continue work on addition story problems--reading the story, setting up the part/whole on ten frames and writing their number sentence. The students are beginning to think about the process of subtraction, counting down, one fewer, 2 fewer etc. They also continue to work on counting on from a random number. Math workstations for the past two weeks have included make 10 Bingo, writing 2 digit numbers, what's my number?? color by code addition problems, geometric solid review, working with incline planes and ramps and creating 3 dimensional structures.
Writing: The students continue to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters u, i and l were taught this week. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange books. Our green journals continue to be a source of joy as the students build their writing stamina and work to strengthen their sentence writing. Writing topics for the past two weeks have included snow, friends, animals, myself, the 100th Day, water.
Science: The students reviewed their investigation of water thus far. What do they know now? What was surprising to them? The next experiment pondered the question--What is ice? The students worked in their groups to chat about what ice was....how it is formed...... how does it turn back into water? We discussed the freezing point (32 degree and lower) and that it is cold. Ice is really hard water that has become very cold or frozen. A liquid turned into a solid as one student put it. We discussed the idea of temperature for something to freeze and also to melt. In our experiment, each group of 4 students had a baggie with ice cubes in it. The challenge was to work with your group to melt the ice in the baggie the fastest way you can think of. All groups chatted and came up with a strategy. Interesting thinkers!! I started the timer and each group tried out their strategy. So fun to watch!! The strategies were--sit on it, pound it and squeeze it, shake it and rub it, put it in hot water. The results were--at 8 minutes--the group who put their baggie in hot water from the sink had a baggie full of water. (shortest time) At 23 minutes--sitting on it produced water. (longest time) At 17 and 19 minutes shaking and rubbing and pounding and squeezing produced a baggie full of water. In reflections, the students chatted about what strategy worked the best, what strategy did not work as well, why did some strategies take a long time. In our final week of water investigation, we will look at water as a gas. (steam)
Technology: Student whole group used BrainPop to seek out information on Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, the Presidency, the Water Cycle and we worked with Mo Willems website. In reading small group, the apps OZ Phonics, Spelling Bug and Montessori Crosswords enhanced sound spelling, word order, CVC words and blends/digraphs. In math small groups, the apps Doodle Buddy, Educreations and Math Bug enhanced addition and subtraction practice using story problems, creating their own story problem, illustrating part/whole and writing the number sentence and how many more are needed to complete the ten frame.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Leonardo the Terrible Monster," "My Friend is Sad," "That is Not a Good Idea," "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," "Abe Lincoln's Hat," "Love, Splat," "The Story of George Washington," "If You Lived in the Time of Abraham Lincoln," "Will You Be My Valentine," "Celebrate the 100th Day," "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten,"
Sunday, February 7, 2016
UPDATES for 2/1-2/5 2016
**The whole school came out to wish Mr. Hodge a Happy Birthday. What better way then to be Mr. Hodge all day! The students wore their Mr. Hodge masks whenever they went to the office. That's around 500 or so Mr. Hodges!!!! Check out the photo!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude this week. You will be receiving notification on your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 16th.
**The BUSY READER CLUB is in full swing! Don't forget to listen to your child read each day. They bring the book back and get a new reader. At the beginning of each morning, the students have an opportunity to read to their peers. "Share a story--share a page" is going great. The students love to read to their peers and practice their decoding and fluency. Let's keep this going!! Be sure to record the time you read on your Reading Log. Don't forget to bring back your book!!
**We are getting ready for our 100th Day/Valentine's Day festivities. Stop by school to check out all the 100 item hearts. They are really cool!! Don't forget to bring in your picture of a 100 day old person and a 100 year old person. Also--on Wednesday, bring a Valentine for each member of our class (18 students.) If you like---you can also bring a treat (nut/dairy free) or a treasure to put into our treat bags. Those bags will be sent home. We are having a double celebration!!!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell, Amir's Grandma, J. Wulff and P. Jordan helping out. YEAH!!! It will be great!
**Parent/Teacher Conferences are next week. (2/8, 2/9 and 2/10) Looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you. Please confirm your day and time. Don't forget--School in only in session in the MORNING on Thursday and Friday (2/11 and 2/12) Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District school bus and Club House pick up is at 11:00 am.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING! THE FUN FAIR IS COMING!! The Annual Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, food, dancing for desserts and much more!! Who will get the PIE in the FACE!!?? The students will be voting by putting coins or other money into the jug with a picture of their favorite person on the front. Students can begin bringing in their coins/money on Tuesday. There will continue to be opportunities for students to vote during the Fun Fair too. What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??!! (silent auction items--BID! BID! I will be taking 4 lucky winners to lunch at Junction Diner. I will also be reading a bedtime story to 2 lucky winners in their home) Make a contribution to our class CHEF BASKET. You can send your contribution with your child to school.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey introduced the character BODY SNATCHER who tries to distract you from the group. Super Flex to the rescue! Let's not be distracted from learning!!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, Mr. Packer continued his project on looking for details and retelling using the process of elimination.
**No Mr. Degman this week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool for our our space station design and construction in April. Keep everything at home until after spring break.
This week:
It was all about Mr. Hodge's Birthday, getting ready for the 100th Day of School and Bubble mania!! What is a bubble made of? Why does it pop? More in the science section. Station day activities this week included build a stairway, count and compare, blizzard bubble paintings and making bubbles using different wands and chasing bubbles from the bubble machine.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what is included in a neighborhood. The students worked together to create a HUGE word web of places and things that describe a neighborhood. They listened to the Big Book story, "Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as nonfiction. The students elbow chatted about story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The students also retold the story in their own words sequencing main events. Target words for this week were are and for. They added these words to their growing list of sight words. Target sounds for the week were Hh and short and long u. They reviewed all consonant and vowel sounds. Students worked with a partner and practiced asking a WH question about the story and having their partner answer it. In the second reading of the story, the students discussed the main idea of the story and created a list of the jobs that Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards and summarized the events. They used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4 sound words using consonant blends. They read the decodable book, "Are Caps Hats?" The students made predictions about story content. Each student had an opportunity to read aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Were you able to blend the sounds together to make a word you didn't know? Was your reading choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to read to. The partner listened, discussed and critiqued using the Reader's Checklist. Peers evaluating peers!! We completed our final Blueprint workmat on Martin's Big Words. Next week, we will be taking a look at the life of Jackie Robinson. It will be the text for our next Blueprint. Workstations this week included leveled readers with comprehension check, asking and answering question about a given text, creating a page for our neighborhood book, short vowel written cloze, writing about a neighborhood place/illustrate, word work with blends and digraphs, short vowel work, sentence completion.
Math: The students partnered up and chose an item that they could group by tens to show 100. After their counting and grouping, they labeled each group--10, 20, 30 etc. The photos are up in our hallway. Check them out! The students continued to count and group by tens to 100. Some students even tried to group 2's and 5's. Cool! We continued to work on the process of subtraction using using drawing and objects to show the process. We played game of number find where students search their paper for the numbers called out by the caller. We are also working on writing our numbers from 1-100. The students are exploring building 3 dimensional structures or solid shapes using a variety of straws/pipe cleaners, connects straws, magnetos and mini magnetos. Fun! Fun! We will begin chatting about geometric solids vocabulary next week. Math workstations this week included addition color by code, ten frames count, number bonds to 10, make 5 Bingo and subtraction story problems.
Writing: The students are working on increasing their writing stamina!! They have begun working in their GREEN writing journals. Their green journals have an illustration space and room for 5 sentences. It also has all the kindergarten sight words in ABC order in the front. The students are topic writing each day and taking special care to notice that they begin with a capital letter, space between words in a sentence, forming letters correctly and placing letters (tall lowercase, lowercase, underground letters) in the appropriate spot on the line. Read your sentences? Does is name and tell? Can you add some details to your sentences? Can you tell more? We have just started to work on words that describe. (adjectives) Their goal is to write 4 sentences independently on a given topic. I will be sharing these with you at conferences. It is exciting!!
Science: What is a bubble? The students discussed and made some observations and shared their thoughts. The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by a air (gas) The outside layer is like a skin or as one student said, "It is like their jacket." We took a look at utube videos depicting bubble blowing (fill the surrounding soapy water with air) We also saw lots of types of bubble wands and creating a bubble without blowing air. Why do bubbles pop? The students went outside and created bubbles using different types of wands. Some students blew air into the soapy water, others waved or ran with the wand to create the bubbles. Students observed bubbles sticking together (water can stick together) and bubbles floating in the air. Other students saw a bubble stay on the wand and not move. They noted that no matter what shape the wand was the bubble was a sphere. As the bubble popped, students got the idea that the water around the bubble evaporates. The students had a ball chasing the bubbles from the bubble machine. The students continued their exploration on building incline planes. I introduced the vocabulary force (a push or a pull), gravity, weight and motion (changing direction) and speed. They have built some really cool structures!
Technology: The students watched a BrainPop video on the water cycle and loved viewing videos of babies learning to blow bubbles. Mr. Bubble Man and a bubble popping in slow motion courtesy of utube. In reading student partners used the app Spelling Bug and Magnetic Letters HD to working on sound spelling and sentence structure/word order. In math student partners used the app Educreations to write about and illustrate a simple addition story problem.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water Cycle," "Water," "Why Does It Float," "Turn on the Faucet," "One Hundred Shoes," "I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words," "Jackie Robinson," "Math-The M and M Way,""Some Things Float."
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will conclude this week. You will be receiving notification on your child's skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 6 will begin on Monday, February 16th.
**The BUSY READER CLUB is in full swing! Don't forget to listen to your child read each day. They bring the book back and get a new reader. At the beginning of each morning, the students have an opportunity to read to their peers. "Share a story--share a page" is going great. The students love to read to their peers and practice their decoding and fluency. Let's keep this going!! Be sure to record the time you read on your Reading Log. Don't forget to bring back your book!!
**We are getting ready for our 100th Day/Valentine's Day festivities. Stop by school to check out all the 100 item hearts. They are really cool!! Don't forget to bring in your picture of a 100 day old person and a 100 year old person. Also--on Wednesday, bring a Valentine for each member of our class (18 students.) If you like---you can also bring a treat (nut/dairy free) or a treasure to put into our treat bags. Those bags will be sent home. We are having a double celebration!!!
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell, Amir's Grandma, J. Wulff and P. Jordan helping out. YEAH!!! It will be great!
**Parent/Teacher Conferences are next week. (2/8, 2/9 and 2/10) Looking forward to sharing your child's progress with you. Please confirm your day and time. Don't forget--School in only in session in the MORNING on Thursday and Friday (2/11 and 2/12) Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District school bus and Club House pick up is at 11:00 am.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING! THE FUN FAIR IS COMING!! The Annual Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, food, dancing for desserts and much more!! Who will get the PIE in the FACE!!?? The students will be voting by putting coins or other money into the jug with a picture of their favorite person on the front. Students can begin bringing in their coins/money on Tuesday. There will continue to be opportunities for students to vote during the Fun Fair too. What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??!! (silent auction items--BID! BID! I will be taking 4 lucky winners to lunch at Junction Diner. I will also be reading a bedtime story to 2 lucky winners in their home) Make a contribution to our class CHEF BASKET. You can send your contribution with your child to school.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey introduced the character BODY SNATCHER who tries to distract you from the group. Super Flex to the rescue! Let's not be distracted from learning!!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving, Mr. Packer continued his project on looking for details and retelling using the process of elimination.
**No Mr. Degman this week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool for our our space station design and construction in April. Keep everything at home until after spring break.
This week:
It was all about Mr. Hodge's Birthday, getting ready for the 100th Day of School and Bubble mania!! What is a bubble made of? Why does it pop? More in the science section. Station day activities this week included build a stairway, count and compare, blizzard bubble paintings and making bubbles using different wands and chasing bubbles from the bubble machine.
Reading/Language Arts: The students began Unit 6 Neighborhoods in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed prior knowledge about what a neighborhood is and what is included in a neighborhood. The students worked together to create a HUGE word web of places and things that describe a neighborhood. They listened to the Big Book story, "Russ and the Firehouse." The students recognized this story as nonfiction. The students elbow chatted about story elements--Who is Russ? Why is he at the firehouse? What does he do there? The students also retold the story in their own words sequencing main events. Target words for this week were are and for. They added these words to their growing list of sight words. Target sounds for the week were Hh and short and long u. They reviewed all consonant and vowel sounds. Students worked with a partner and practiced asking a WH question about the story and having their partner answer it. In the second reading of the story, the students discussed the main idea of the story and created a list of the jobs that Russ did at the firehouse. Students took turns using the retelling cards and summarized the events. They used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4 sound words using consonant blends. They read the decodable book, "Are Caps Hats?" The students made predictions about story content. Each student had an opportunity to read aloud. Some questions to ponder--Could the group hear you? Did you stop at each ending mark? Did you pause at the comma? Were you able to blend the sounds together to make a word you didn't know? Was your reading choppy or smooth? The students chose a partner to read to. The partner listened, discussed and critiqued using the Reader's Checklist. Peers evaluating peers!! We completed our final Blueprint workmat on Martin's Big Words. Next week, we will be taking a look at the life of Jackie Robinson. It will be the text for our next Blueprint. Workstations this week included leveled readers with comprehension check, asking and answering question about a given text, creating a page for our neighborhood book, short vowel written cloze, writing about a neighborhood place/illustrate, word work with blends and digraphs, short vowel work, sentence completion.
Math: The students partnered up and chose an item that they could group by tens to show 100. After their counting and grouping, they labeled each group--10, 20, 30 etc. The photos are up in our hallway. Check them out! The students continued to count and group by tens to 100. Some students even tried to group 2's and 5's. Cool! We continued to work on the process of subtraction using using drawing and objects to show the process. We played game of number find where students search their paper for the numbers called out by the caller. We are also working on writing our numbers from 1-100. The students are exploring building 3 dimensional structures or solid shapes using a variety of straws/pipe cleaners, connects straws, magnetos and mini magnetos. Fun! Fun! We will begin chatting about geometric solids vocabulary next week. Math workstations this week included addition color by code, ten frames count, number bonds to 10, make 5 Bingo and subtraction story problems.
Writing: The students are working on increasing their writing stamina!! They have begun working in their GREEN writing journals. Their green journals have an illustration space and room for 5 sentences. It also has all the kindergarten sight words in ABC order in the front. The students are topic writing each day and taking special care to notice that they begin with a capital letter, space between words in a sentence, forming letters correctly and placing letters (tall lowercase, lowercase, underground letters) in the appropriate spot on the line. Read your sentences? Does is name and tell? Can you add some details to your sentences? Can you tell more? We have just started to work on words that describe. (adjectives) Their goal is to write 4 sentences independently on a given topic. I will be sharing these with you at conferences. It is exciting!!
Science: What is a bubble? The students discussed and made some observations and shared their thoughts. The students learned that a bubble is a thin layer of liquid (soapy water) that is surrounded by a air (gas) The outside layer is like a skin or as one student said, "It is like their jacket." We took a look at utube videos depicting bubble blowing (fill the surrounding soapy water with air) We also saw lots of types of bubble wands and creating a bubble without blowing air. Why do bubbles pop? The students went outside and created bubbles using different types of wands. Some students blew air into the soapy water, others waved or ran with the wand to create the bubbles. Students observed bubbles sticking together (water can stick together) and bubbles floating in the air. Other students saw a bubble stay on the wand and not move. They noted that no matter what shape the wand was the bubble was a sphere. As the bubble popped, students got the idea that the water around the bubble evaporates. The students had a ball chasing the bubbles from the bubble machine. The students continued their exploration on building incline planes. I introduced the vocabulary force (a push or a pull), gravity, weight and motion (changing direction) and speed. They have built some really cool structures!
Technology: The students watched a BrainPop video on the water cycle and loved viewing videos of babies learning to blow bubbles. Mr. Bubble Man and a bubble popping in slow motion courtesy of utube. In reading student partners used the app Spelling Bug and Magnetic Letters HD to working on sound spelling and sentence structure/word order. In math student partners used the app Educreations to write about and illustrate a simple addition story problem.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water Cycle," "Water," "Why Does It Float," "Turn on the Faucet," "One Hundred Shoes," "I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words," "Jackie Robinson," "Math-The M and M Way,""Some Things Float."
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
UPDATES for 1/25-1/29 2016
**We are up and running again......the world of modern technology!!!! It has its advantages and its stresses!!
**The students had a blast with the visiting students from Japan. We had map skills, stories, origami and writing your name in Japanese. Great fun and learning.
** Please read the information on our BUSY READER CLUB! It is in your child's homework folder. The students are really excited to practice their sound blending skills and beginning reading fluency by reading to you each night a book that they have selected. The students will record the number of books they read on a special sticker chart. In about 3 weeks time, I will send you a feedback sheet to get your reactions/thoughts. Happy listening!!
**You also received information on a reading program called RAZ-KIDS. This program provides ebooks, comprehension checks and incentives for students to work on their reading fluency and reading for meaning. Sign up and try it! Email me with any questions.
**100 item hearts are due February 4th. The ones that have come in are awesome! They will be displayed in our hallway and in the front of the school by the office. Don't forget to bring a picture of a 100 day old person and a 100 year old person to add to our board. We also need students to bring their Valentine cards for our combined celebration. We have 18 students. (11 girls/17 boys) Students can also bring a treat (nut/dairy free) or a treasure that will be put into a treat bag to take home.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We now have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell, Amir's Grandma, J. Wulff helping out! The more the merrier!! Email if you would like to volunteer!
**If you haven't already, please confirm your day and time for Parent/Teacher Conference.
Mid Year Conferences are Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that school is in session in the MORNING ONLY on Thursday and Friday, February 11th and 12th. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House, District school bus will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 5th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Annual Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Who will get the PIE in the FACE this year??? What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??? (silent auction items--I will be taking 4 lucky winners to lunch at Junction Diner. I will also be reading a bed time story to 2 lucky winners in their home.) Bid! Bid! Sign up to make a contribution to our class basket. You can send your contribution with your child if you like.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued lessons on getting to calm.
**In Mr. Packer continued his project on looking for details and retelling.
**No Mr. Degman this week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. Keep everything at home until after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Japan. Students from Japan and students studying Japanese at OPRF were so great with our kinders! The students had so much fun creating origami and learning how to spell their name in Japanese. We looked up the country of Japan on our world map. Students learned what an island is. The students listened as the teens spoke Japanese. "It does not sound at all like how we talk!" they all exclaimed. ABC's versus character writing. Very cool! Station Day activities included building with animal with cubes, graph, record compare animals in winter, playing Snowman Bump, It's Geometric color by code and exploring slanted and sloped surfaces using Marble Works, Magnetos and Contraption.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they knew about. They listened to the text, "Mole and Baby Bird." The particular focus of the story was how it was organized with a beginning, middle and end. The students looked to identify story structure and identify main events in the story. After listening, students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students reviewed all consonant and vowel sounds. They also reviewed all sight words presented thus far. I read a selection from our vocabulary cards called, "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that you cannot see. The students listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." We had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on spelling CVC, CCVC and CVCC words using their dry erase boards. They also completed a summative assessment on a Blueprint Workmat relating to what the author might be thinking and why and how the author words and pictures are connected. Workstation activities for this week included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, vowel review, substituting sounds sheet, noun/verb sort, blend find, writing and illustrating about and animal habitat.
Math: The students continue work on rote counting to 100 by ones and tens. They also worked on the process of subtraction. Workstations this week included number bond activities using numbers 1-10, 10 frame activities, greater than and less than game, work on subtraction using objects, drawings and mental images and writing numbers to 100. They are really enjoying their story problem journal where they read a story problem, illustrate on ten frames and write their number sentence.
Writing: The students worked on lowercase formation of letters a, d, and g. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We will be getting our new green journals next week and will build our writing stamina by working on writing 2-4 sentences about a given topic.
Science: The students made some great discoveries about water this week. They experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that water takes the shape of the container it is in.
It has no shape of its own. In Experiment 5, the students worked with their tablemates taking turns--first making a guess (what they think might happen) and then dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened--SINK/FLOAT? I used some really big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass) Why did one item sink and the other item float? Lots of discussion! In our next experiment, we added a little engineering to the mix. The students each constructed a boat out of tin foil. All students had the same size piece. They could construct their boat any way they chose. While they made their boat, they thought about these questions--How many marbles do you think it would take to sink your boat? How would you build it to hold the greatest number of marbles? It was really interesting to observe how each child approached construction. Some modeled after a boat they saw, sides up, back up, front pitched like a triangle, shaped into a circle. The students sketched their boat and then wrote down a guess of how many marble it would take to sink it. Then the fun began!!! Each student took a turn placing their boat in the water and filling it up with marbles. Such fun! Some were very surprised at the outcome. Who's boat took on the most marbles? Ask your child about the experiment! Next week--What is a bubble?
Technology: In reading small groups, the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, iWrite Words and Magic Reading 3 were used to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice and beginning fluency. In math small groups, the apps Number Find, Butterfly Math, 100's Board and Subitize Tree were used to enhance place value, adding, number order, and visual memory.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Floating and Sinking," "All About Water," "I am Snow," "Punctuation."
**The students had a blast with the visiting students from Japan. We had map skills, stories, origami and writing your name in Japanese. Great fun and learning.
** Please read the information on our BUSY READER CLUB! It is in your child's homework folder. The students are really excited to practice their sound blending skills and beginning reading fluency by reading to you each night a book that they have selected. The students will record the number of books they read on a special sticker chart. In about 3 weeks time, I will send you a feedback sheet to get your reactions/thoughts. Happy listening!!
**You also received information on a reading program called RAZ-KIDS. This program provides ebooks, comprehension checks and incentives for students to work on their reading fluency and reading for meaning. Sign up and try it! Email me with any questions.
**100 item hearts are due February 4th. The ones that have come in are awesome! They will be displayed in our hallway and in the front of the school by the office. Don't forget to bring a picture of a 100 day old person and a 100 year old person to add to our board. We also need students to bring their Valentine cards for our combined celebration. We have 18 students. (11 girls/17 boys) Students can also bring a treat (nut/dairy free) or a treasure that will be put into a treat bag to take home.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We now have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell, Amir's Grandma, J. Wulff helping out! The more the merrier!! Email if you would like to volunteer!
**If you haven't already, please confirm your day and time for Parent/Teacher Conference.
Mid Year Conferences are Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that school is in session in the MORNING ONLY on Thursday and Friday, February 11th and 12th. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House, District school bus will pick up at 11:00 am.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten students will be held on Friday, February 5th in the morning.
**The FUN FAIR is COMING! The FUN FAIR is COMING!! The Annual Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Who will get the PIE in the FACE this year??? What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??? (silent auction items--I will be taking 4 lucky winners to lunch at Junction Diner. I will also be reading a bed time story to 2 lucky winners in their home.) Bid! Bid! Sign up to make a contribution to our class basket. You can send your contribution with your child if you like.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued lessons on getting to calm.
**In Mr. Packer continued his project on looking for details and retelling.
**No Mr. Degman this week.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. Keep everything at home until after spring break.
This week:
It was all about the culture of Japan. Students from Japan and students studying Japanese at OPRF were so great with our kinders! The students had so much fun creating origami and learning how to spell their name in Japanese. We looked up the country of Japan on our world map. Students learned what an island is. The students listened as the teens spoke Japanese. "It does not sound at all like how we talk!" they all exclaimed. ABC's versus character writing. Very cool! Station Day activities included building with animal with cubes, graph, record compare animals in winter, playing Snowman Bump, It's Geometric color by code and exploring slanted and sloped surfaces using Marble Works, Magnetos and Contraption.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they knew about. They listened to the text, "Mole and Baby Bird." The particular focus of the story was how it was organized with a beginning, middle and end. The students looked to identify story structure and identify main events in the story. After listening, students took turns using the retelling cards to retell the story in their own words. The students reviewed all consonant and vowel sounds. They also reviewed all sight words presented thus far. I read a selection from our vocabulary cards called, "Hidden Homes." The students discussed what kind of animals might live in habitats that you cannot see. The students listened to the informational text, "At Home in the Rain Forest." We had an interesting discussion on Wild vs. Domestic animals and how some animals could be both depending upon their situation. The students worked on spelling CVC, CCVC and CVCC words using their dry erase boards. They also completed a summative assessment on a Blueprint Workmat relating to what the author might be thinking and why and how the author words and pictures are connected. Workstation activities for this week included leveled reader story elements, fluency check, vowel review, substituting sounds sheet, noun/verb sort, blend find, writing and illustrating about and animal habitat.
Math: The students continue work on rote counting to 100 by ones and tens. They also worked on the process of subtraction. Workstations this week included number bond activities using numbers 1-10, 10 frame activities, greater than and less than game, work on subtraction using objects, drawings and mental images and writing numbers to 100. They are really enjoying their story problem journal where they read a story problem, illustrate on ten frames and write their number sentence.
Writing: The students worked on lowercase formation of letters a, d, and g. They practiced on their mini boards and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. We will be getting our new green journals next week and will build our writing stamina by working on writing 2-4 sentences about a given topic.
Science: The students made some great discoveries about water this week. They experimented with pouring water into different containers. Question: Did the water remain the same shape from container to container? The students discovered that water takes the shape of the container it is in.
It has no shape of its own. In Experiment 5, the students worked with their tablemates taking turns--first making a guess (what they think might happen) and then dropping the item into the water--observing and then recording what actually happened--SINK/FLOAT? I used some really big words--displacement (making room, pushing away) and density (measure of mass) Why did one item sink and the other item float? Lots of discussion! In our next experiment, we added a little engineering to the mix. The students each constructed a boat out of tin foil. All students had the same size piece. They could construct their boat any way they chose. While they made their boat, they thought about these questions--How many marbles do you think it would take to sink your boat? How would you build it to hold the greatest number of marbles? It was really interesting to observe how each child approached construction. Some modeled after a boat they saw, sides up, back up, front pitched like a triangle, shaped into a circle. The students sketched their boat and then wrote down a guess of how many marble it would take to sink it. Then the fun began!!! Each student took a turn placing their boat in the water and filling it up with marbles. Such fun! Some were very surprised at the outcome. Who's boat took on the most marbles? Ask your child about the experiment! Next week--What is a bubble?
Technology: In reading small groups, the apps iTalk, Rocket Speller, Sight Words, iWrite Words and Magic Reading 3 were used to enhance segmenting and blending, word practice and beginning fluency. In math small groups, the apps Number Find, Butterfly Math, 100's Board and Subitize Tree were used to enhance place value, adding, number order, and visual memory.
Literature: "Force and Motion," "Water's Journey," "Floating and Sinking," "All About Water," "I am Snow," "Punctuation."
Sunday, January 24, 2016
UPDATES for 1/19-1/22 2016
**Once again, thanks for sending our little kinders prepared for the elements. Next week, it looks like we will be outside for recess. Please keep sending snow pants and boots. ALSO.....While we are very comfortable in our classroom, it is very dry in the room. We are getting frequent drinks of water but you can feel free to send a water bottle and a small chap stick or small vaseline for dry lips that will remain in their backpacks. Along with water break we have been having a "chap stick" break too.
**I am holding off on our BUSY READER Club info until this coming Friday. Look for it in your child's homework folder.
**The Friday Night Disco Dance Party was super fun. Mr. DiPaolo was the DJ. There was smoke, glow in the dark sticks and lots of dancing!!!! Thanks to all who could attend.
**Swap, Shop and Read was great. Many students selected 10 or more new books. The milk and cookies were yummy too!
**Reading Grandma Mary came to class on Thursday. She was very impressed with the students reading and comprehension. She will be with us every Thursday until the end of the year. We love her!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Monday, January 25th. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on and the teacher teaching it.
**The 100th Day is coming!!! Keep working on your 100 item heart. Students are beginning to bring them in. So creative!!! They will be displayed in our hallway. The project is due on February 4th.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration in Wednesday, February, 10th from 9-11 am. We now have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell helping out. 2 more volunteers would be absolutely great!!!!!! Think about it!!!. On February 10th, we will also have an early Valentine's Day celebration. The students can bring in Valentine's for the class. We have 18 students total. (11 girls and 7 boys) Students can also bring in a treat (nut free/dairy free) or treasure that will be put in to a treat bag and sent home. Don't forget to bring in a picture of a person you think is 100 days old and a person you think is 100 years old. You can look in magazines, the internet or if you have a family member or know someone who is near 100, you can bring a real photo in.
**Please confirm your day and time for Parent Conference. Parent/Teacher Conferences for Mid Year are Monday, February, 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February10th. Please note that on Thursday and Friday (February 11th and 12th) school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District school bus and Club House pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Japanese Exchange Students will be visiting Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING!! THE FUN FAIR IS COMING!! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Come play a game with me! Who will get the PIE IN THE FACE this year??? What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??? (silent auction items--I will be taking 4 special winners to lunch at the Junction Dinner. I will also be reading bedtime stories to 2 lucky students in their homes) Bid! Bid! Look for information soon from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class basket. They are currently working on a theme.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on remaining calm or calming yourself down in frustrating situations. Be a Cool Cucumber!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began a project on being a detective and looking for details.
** In Mr. Degman, Math/Tech, Mr. Degman worked with groups of students on number bounding.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in April. Keep everything at home until after spring break. Thanks!
This week:
It was all about WATER climbing---WHAT!? Check out the science section. Our Water Table will be opening up next week. The students also enjoyed tracking the snow storm heading to the east coast via weatherundeground. Station Day activities included creating climbing water snowflakes, graphing/recording/comparing winter clothing, building from an outline using pattern blocks, snowman sequence and write, snowflake color by code, build a snowman game. (sums to ten)
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. Much of this week was spent on mid year phonemic and literacy assessments. The students continued to work on the same workstations as last week so all students could finish all workstations. Students reviewed all sight vocabulary. They worked with partners to create sentences with words, pictures and punctuation and then recorded them on paper. Students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 sound words. They worked on previous activities relating to short and long o words and consonant blends and digraphs. They listened to the trade book, "The Mitten" and used the Main Events quilt to record the key details in the story. The students did a summative Blueprint Workmat using the text, "Martin's Big Words." The students described the relationship between one of the illustrations and how is helps you to understand the story. We continue to use the "I Do," "We Do," and "You Do" format.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and now trying to write their numbers from 1-100. They are also working with groups of ten objects to count to 100. The students worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect certain numbers. ie-How many complete ten frames to we need to make 48? They began work in their new Story Problem Journals.
The page is projected on the screen. The students read the story and then decide what to do. We are beginning with adding story problems. They record the numbers on their ten frames, illustrate the problem (show their thinking) and then write the number sentence. The students continue to work with number bonds to ten this time using grouping objects of their choice to show a way. Workstations this week included writing numbers to 50, greater/less than "Nuts and Bolts" game, "Build a Snowman" (dice game sums to 10) working on geometric solids recognition.
Writing: Students continued to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters v,w, and t were reviewed. Students used their mini boards to practice and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. They continued to work on their writing project---snowman sequence from their station day.
Science: The students reviewed what they have discovered about water so far. This week, in Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towel, sponges, wax paper, regular paper and kleenex in wiping up water. They discussed at their table what would be the best to remove water. Lots of conversation and OPINIONS about which one did the best job. Most of the tables agreed that the paper towels and sponges did the best job of "sucking up" (their words) the water. But How and Why???? As the student used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, they noticed holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. Mmmmmmmm. The students then suspended a piece of paper towel on to a dowel rod in a cup. I poured red water into the cup. What Happened? "It looks like the water is going up the paper towel." Discovery.....The water climbs into the holes/spaces....a sponge has large holes. You can also see the holes/spaces in the paper towel. The conversation shifted to other things that the water climbs fast up into. The paper didn't really suck up the water fast. The kleenex got mushy but both got soaked. Each student put a piece of celery in their water at the end of the day. What will happen? The next day......the students took their magnifying glasses and looked very carefully. What did they observe? Some of the leaves of the celery looked red and so did the stem. The top of the celery had red inside. Hattie started the ball rolling by making the connection that when you water plants, the water goes up through the root system. Ahh......could there be spaces inside the celery too? Do all plants have holes/spaces where water can travel? The connections continued with students mentioning trees, plants in your garden must have spaces where water can climb into. What about the veins in leaves? Lots of connections!!! The students recorded their thoughts in their science journals and made sketches of their findings.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups, students used the apps Montessori Crosswords and Reading Magic 3 to enhance segmenting and blending 3-4 sound words, Spelling Bug to sequence sounds in cvc words and Oz Phonics to reinforce sentence word order. In math whole and small groups students used the apps Monster Squeeze, Sam Phibian, Butterfly Math, Number Find and Subitize Tree to enhance visual motor, addition/subtraction, number order/place value, and counting quantities.
Literature: "Martin's Big Words," "The Mitten," "The First Illustrated Science Dictionary," "Snowzilla," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Snowy Day."
**I am holding off on our BUSY READER Club info until this coming Friday. Look for it in your child's homework folder.
**The Friday Night Disco Dance Party was super fun. Mr. DiPaolo was the DJ. There was smoke, glow in the dark sticks and lots of dancing!!!! Thanks to all who could attend.
**Swap, Shop and Read was great. Many students selected 10 or more new books. The milk and cookies were yummy too!
**Reading Grandma Mary came to class on Thursday. She was very impressed with the students reading and comprehension. She will be with us every Thursday until the end of the year. We love her!
**Route to Reading Rotation 5 will begin on Monday, January 25th. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on and the teacher teaching it.
**The 100th Day is coming!!! Keep working on your 100 item heart. Students are beginning to bring them in. So creative!!! They will be displayed in our hallway. The project is due on February 4th.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration in Wednesday, February, 10th from 9-11 am. We now have K. Meier, N. Massett, N. Daniel, K. Harris, H. Alvarez, G. Lowell helping out. 2 more volunteers would be absolutely great!!!!!! Think about it!!!. On February 10th, we will also have an early Valentine's Day celebration. The students can bring in Valentine's for the class. We have 18 students total. (11 girls and 7 boys) Students can also bring in a treat (nut free/dairy free) or treasure that will be put in to a treat bag and sent home. Don't forget to bring in a picture of a person you think is 100 days old and a person you think is 100 years old. You can look in magazines, the internet or if you have a family member or know someone who is near 100, you can bring a real photo in.
**Please confirm your day and time for Parent Conference. Parent/Teacher Conferences for Mid Year are Monday, February, 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February10th. Please note that on Thursday and Friday (February 11th and 12th) school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, District school bus and Club House pick up will be at 11:00 am.
**Japanese Exchange Students will be visiting Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**The FUN FAIR IS COMING!! THE FUN FAIR IS COMING!! The Irving School Fun Fair is Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm throughout the school. There will be games, prizes, silent auction, dancing for desserts and much more. Come play a game with me! Who will get the PIE IN THE FACE this year??? What special performances do the teachers have up their sleeves??? (silent auction items--I will be taking 4 special winners to lunch at the Junction Dinner. I will also be reading bedtime stories to 2 lucky students in their homes) Bid! Bid! Look for information soon from our Room Parents on making a contribution to our class basket. They are currently working on a theme.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson on remaining calm or calming yourself down in frustrating situations. Be a Cool Cucumber!!
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began a project on being a detective and looking for details.
** In Mr. Degman, Math/Tech, Mr. Degman worked with groups of students on number bounding.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in April. Keep everything at home until after spring break. Thanks!
This week:
It was all about WATER climbing---WHAT!? Check out the science section. Our Water Table will be opening up next week. The students also enjoyed tracking the snow storm heading to the east coast via weatherundeground. Station Day activities included creating climbing water snowflakes, graphing/recording/comparing winter clothing, building from an outline using pattern blocks, snowman sequence and write, snowflake color by code, build a snowman game. (sums to ten)
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. Much of this week was spent on mid year phonemic and literacy assessments. The students continued to work on the same workstations as last week so all students could finish all workstations. Students reviewed all sight vocabulary. They worked with partners to create sentences with words, pictures and punctuation and then recorded them on paper. Students used their elkonin boxes to segment and blend 4-5 sound words. They worked on previous activities relating to short and long o words and consonant blends and digraphs. They listened to the trade book, "The Mitten" and used the Main Events quilt to record the key details in the story. The students did a summative Blueprint Workmat using the text, "Martin's Big Words." The students described the relationship between one of the illustrations and how is helps you to understand the story. We continue to use the "I Do," "We Do," and "You Do" format.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond and now trying to write their numbers from 1-100. They are also working with groups of ten objects to count to 100. The students worked with partners to set up their ten frames to reflect certain numbers. ie-How many complete ten frames to we need to make 48? They began work in their new Story Problem Journals.
The page is projected on the screen. The students read the story and then decide what to do. We are beginning with adding story problems. They record the numbers on their ten frames, illustrate the problem (show their thinking) and then write the number sentence. The students continue to work with number bonds to ten this time using grouping objects of their choice to show a way. Workstations this week included writing numbers to 50, greater/less than "Nuts and Bolts" game, "Build a Snowman" (dice game sums to 10) working on geometric solids recognition.
Writing: Students continued to work on lowercase letter formation. The letters v,w, and t were reviewed. Students used their mini boards to practice and applied what they learned in their orange practice books. They continued to work on their writing project---snowman sequence from their station day.
Science: The students reviewed what they have discovered about water so far. This week, in Experiment 3, the students experimented with paper towel, sponges, wax paper, regular paper and kleenex in wiping up water. They discussed at their table what would be the best to remove water. Lots of conversation and OPINIONS about which one did the best job. Most of the tables agreed that the paper towels and sponges did the best job of "sucking up" (their words) the water. But How and Why???? As the student used their magnifying glasses to take a closer look, they noticed holes or spaces in the sponge and paper towel. Mmmmmmmm. The students then suspended a piece of paper towel on to a dowel rod in a cup. I poured red water into the cup. What Happened? "It looks like the water is going up the paper towel." Discovery.....The water climbs into the holes/spaces....a sponge has large holes. You can also see the holes/spaces in the paper towel. The conversation shifted to other things that the water climbs fast up into. The paper didn't really suck up the water fast. The kleenex got mushy but both got soaked. Each student put a piece of celery in their water at the end of the day. What will happen? The next day......the students took their magnifying glasses and looked very carefully. What did they observe? Some of the leaves of the celery looked red and so did the stem. The top of the celery had red inside. Hattie started the ball rolling by making the connection that when you water plants, the water goes up through the root system. Ahh......could there be spaces inside the celery too? Do all plants have holes/spaces where water can travel? The connections continued with students mentioning trees, plants in your garden must have spaces where water can climb into. What about the veins in leaves? Lots of connections!!! The students recorded their thoughts in their science journals and made sketches of their findings.
Technology: In reading whole and small groups, students used the apps Montessori Crosswords and Reading Magic 3 to enhance segmenting and blending 3-4 sound words, Spelling Bug to sequence sounds in cvc words and Oz Phonics to reinforce sentence word order. In math whole and small groups students used the apps Monster Squeeze, Sam Phibian, Butterfly Math, Number Find and Subitize Tree to enhance visual motor, addition/subtraction, number order/place value, and counting quantities.
Literature: "Martin's Big Words," "The Mitten," "The First Illustrated Science Dictionary," "Snowzilla," "Water's Way," "Curious George's Snowy Day."
Sunday, January 17, 2016
UPDATES for 1/11-1/14 2016
**The weather was frigid, but we did get to go out on Thursday. Thanks for dong such a great job of having your child prepared for the elements! Please keep this up as we will have another round of very cold weather next week. Don't forget gym shoes on gym days. (Wednesday and Thursday) Science inquiry experiments and beginning discussion on our BUSY READER CLUB have been the talk of the classroom. Information on our BUSY READER CLUB will be in your child's homework folder this Friday.
**The 100th Day is coming!!!! The students received their 100 Item Project. They are excited to put their creativity to work. The project is due on February 4th. Email me with any questions.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We have Ms. Meier, Ms. Massett and Ms. Daniel helping out so far but need at least 5 more so we can do some cool activities. Please email me if you are interested. On February 10th, we will also have an early Valentine Celebration. The students can bring a valentine for the class. We have 18 students total. (11 girls and 7 boys) Students can also bring a treat or treasure for the class that will be put into a treat bag and sent home.
**Parent/Teacher Conference for Mid Year notifications were stapled to the heart project. Please confirm your day and time. Let me know if you need a different day or time. Conferences will be held on Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that on Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th, school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House and district bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin hearing readers this Thursday, January 21st from 9-11. We are so lucky to have her every Thursday.
**Our other helping Grandma, Mrs. D. will begin again every Tuesday morning. Want more Grandma love??!! You got it! I am in the process of scheduling another Grandma of a former student who wishes to volunteer some time.
**Want some new books and to donate books you have already read----come to SWAP, SHOP and READ on Thursday, January 21st from 6-7:30 pm in the Kindergarten Hallway.
**Friday Night DISCO DANCE PARTY to benefit the 5th grade Outdoor Education will be held Friday, January 22nd from 6-8 pm in the gym. Admission is $1.00. All students must be accompanied by an adult.
**Japanese Exchange students will visit Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**NO SCHOOL--Monday, January 18th in observance of ML King.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey taught a lesson on how to remain and become calm and centered. She showed breathing techniques and video clips with some meditative music and actions.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. I cannot store anything now. I will ave you bring it in after spring break.
This week:
The students began a mini unit on the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King. One of the texts, "Martin's Big Words," will be used for 3 of our Blueprint Workmats on text features, illustrations and author's message. We used our map skills to trace the path of the march on Washington. The students saw a BrainPop video on Dr. King's life and work. They were very thankful for Dr. King's work to use nonviolence 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 attend school together. We love our classmates!! We used selected texts to examine quotes, speeches and word choices. The students also began the inquiry into the properties of water. Who knew a drop of water could be so interesting! More in the science section.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they knew about. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Animal Offspring ABC's." We discussed what an offspring was. The students used 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 play, is, in. They partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and punctuation. We continued work on sentence lifting. They are becoming quicker at spotting what needs to be done to "fix" a sentence. They reviewed the target sounds short and long o and Ff. We took time to review all of our consonant and vowel sounds as well as consonant blends and digraph combinations. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. Students practiced segmenting and blending 3 and 4 sound words using their elkonin boxes. Using the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap," the students revisited the words problem and solution and how they relate to a story. They then elbow chatted with a partner about what the problem was in the story and how it was fixed or solved. The students worked on sound spelling cvc and ccvc/cvcc words using their dry erase boards. They also worked on a formative Blueprint workmat for sequencing events in a story using the text "The Snow Day." Workstations included leveled readers with fluency, story elements and main idea check, reading a story and writing about the problem and solution, writing an opinion piece on which you like better--cats or dogs and supporting your answer, I Can, They Can sentences and illustrations, short o word work, reading short o word sentences, playing CHOMP--substituting sound game.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond by ones and tens. They are also illustrating teen numbers on a ten frame as 1 group of ten and the number that is left over on the next ten frame. They continue to listen for information in a story problem. Next week, we will begin our math story problem journals. Math workstations this week included writing numbers 2 digit numbers, greater/less than "Nuts and Bolts" game, "Build a Snowman," (addition to 10) Make 5 Bingo, Is it even or odd activity and number bonds to 10 activity.
Writing: The students continue to work on sentence structure, placement of letters on a given line, punctuation, spacing between words and reading their sentences. Writing is taking place not only in their journals, but during their reading, math, science workstations.
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 behavior. Each student was given and experiment notebook 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--hands, spoons, straws, stick, cup. In using the tools, they described how water feels, smells, looks, sounds. In Experiment 2, they discovered that water droplets have their shape and can "stick" to one another like magnets. Using a pipette, they practiced sucking up the water 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 onto 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. They recorded their findings into their science notebooks. Next week--climbing water.
Technology: No new apps were introduced this week. The students continue to use the iPad to enhanced learning and work on skill building.
Literature: "The Snowy Day," "A Drop of Water," "Water," "Investigating Water," "I Am Snow," "Martin's Big Words," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin's Dream," "Deep Snow," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "The Biggest Snowball Fight Ever," "A Perfect Day."
**The 100th Day is coming!!!! The students received their 100 Item Project. They are excited to put their creativity to work. The project is due on February 4th. Email me with any questions.
**Our 100th Day/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th from 9-11 am. We have Ms. Meier, Ms. Massett and Ms. Daniel helping out so far but need at least 5 more so we can do some cool activities. Please email me if you are interested. On February 10th, we will also have an early Valentine Celebration. The students can bring a valentine for the class. We have 18 students total. (11 girls and 7 boys) Students can also bring a treat or treasure for the class that will be put into a treat bag and sent home.
**Parent/Teacher Conference for Mid Year notifications were stapled to the heart project. Please confirm your day and time. Let me know if you need a different day or time. Conferences will be held on Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that on Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th, school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House and district bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin hearing readers this Thursday, January 21st from 9-11. We are so lucky to have her every Thursday.
**Our other helping Grandma, Mrs. D. will begin again every Tuesday morning. Want more Grandma love??!! You got it! I am in the process of scheduling another Grandma of a former student who wishes to volunteer some time.
**Want some new books and to donate books you have already read----come to SWAP, SHOP and READ on Thursday, January 21st from 6-7:30 pm in the Kindergarten Hallway.
**Friday Night DISCO DANCE PARTY to benefit the 5th grade Outdoor Education will be held Friday, January 22nd from 6-8 pm in the gym. Admission is $1.00. All students must be accompanied by an adult.
**Japanese Exchange students will visit Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**NO SCHOOL--Monday, January 18th in observance of ML King.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey taught a lesson on how to remain and become calm and centered. She showed breathing techniques and video clips with some meditative music and actions.
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. I cannot store anything now. I will ave you bring it in after spring break.
This week:
The students began a mini unit on the life and accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King. One of the texts, "Martin's Big Words," will be used for 3 of our Blueprint Workmats on text features, illustrations and author's message. We used our map skills to trace the path of the march on Washington. The students saw a BrainPop video on Dr. King's life and work. They were very thankful for Dr. King's work to use nonviolence 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 attend school together. We love our classmates!! We used selected texts to examine quotes, speeches and word choices. The students also began the inquiry into the properties of water. Who knew a drop of water could be so interesting! More in the science section.
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work in Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. The students discussed animal babies and habitats. They accessed prior knowledge about animal habitats they knew about. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Animal Offspring ABC's." We discussed what an offspring was. The students used 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 play, is, in. They partnered up to create sentences using their sight words and punctuation. We continued work on sentence lifting. They are becoming quicker at spotting what needs to be done to "fix" a sentence. They reviewed the target sounds short and long o and Ff. We took time to review all of our consonant and vowel sounds as well as consonant blends and digraph combinations. Our Robust Vocabulary included HABITAT, RESPONSIBILITY, BENEATH, RAISE, ENTER. Students practiced segmenting and blending 3 and 4 sound words using their elkonin boxes. Using the decodable story, "Tap, Tap, Tap," the students revisited the words problem and solution and how they relate to a story. They then elbow chatted with a partner about what the problem was in the story and how it was fixed or solved. The students worked on sound spelling cvc and ccvc/cvcc words using their dry erase boards. They also worked on a formative Blueprint workmat for sequencing events in a story using the text "The Snow Day." Workstations included leveled readers with fluency, story elements and main idea check, reading a story and writing about the problem and solution, writing an opinion piece on which you like better--cats or dogs and supporting your answer, I Can, They Can sentences and illustrations, short o word work, reading short o word sentences, playing CHOMP--substituting sound game.
Math: The students continue to work on rote counting to 100 and beyond by ones and tens. They are also illustrating teen numbers on a ten frame as 1 group of ten and the number that is left over on the next ten frame. They continue to listen for information in a story problem. Next week, we will begin our math story problem journals. Math workstations this week included writing numbers 2 digit numbers, greater/less than "Nuts and Bolts" game, "Build a Snowman," (addition to 10) Make 5 Bingo, Is it even or odd activity and number bonds to 10 activity.
Writing: The students continue to work on sentence structure, placement of letters on a given line, punctuation, spacing between words and reading their sentences. Writing is taking place not only in their journals, but during their reading, math, science workstations.
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 behavior. Each student was given and experiment notebook 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--hands, spoons, straws, stick, cup. In using the tools, they described how water feels, smells, looks, sounds. In Experiment 2, they discovered that water droplets have their shape and can "stick" to one another like magnets. Using a pipette, they practiced sucking up the water 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 onto 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. They recorded their findings into their science notebooks. Next week--climbing water.
Technology: No new apps were introduced this week. The students continue to use the iPad to enhanced learning and work on skill building.
Literature: "The Snowy Day," "A Drop of Water," "Water," "Investigating Water," "I Am Snow," "Martin's Big Words," "A Picture Book of Martin Luther King," "Martin's Dream," "Deep Snow," "50 Degrees Below Zero," "The Biggest Snowball Fight Ever," "A Perfect Day."
Sunday, January 10, 2016
UPDATES for 1/4-1/8 2016
**Happy New Year and welcome back! The students appeared well rested and excited to be back to our routine. Looks like we will be experiencing "real" winter next week. Please continue to send snow pants, boots, gloves and scarves for warmth. Going out for lunchtime recess is determined by Mr. Hodge and the windchill factor. It could be 24 degrees and no windchill and that might mean we will be outside. It pays to be prepared! Our classroom has been very temperate. Some students have chosen to keep a sweater in school in case other classrooms are not so temperate. As always, don't forget to send gym shoes on gym days. (Wednesdays and Thursdays)
**Eagle Extras and World Language will begin on Monday. I will be getting a list of our participants.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began last Tuesday. Email me if you did not receive notification of the skill and teacher your child is working with.
**Mid Year DIBELS and AIMSWEB Math assessments will begin on Monday along with Darrell Morris Sound Foundation and mid year assessments in math, reading, writing, social/emotional growth and formative and summative Blueprint assessments. I will be sharing all of these with you are our Mid Year parent conference.
**You will receive notification on Thursday (1/14) about Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that on Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House and district bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Our 100th Day of School/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th. I will let you know Thursday if we will celebrate in the morning or afternoon. We need lots of helpers to man learning station activities that will focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's to 100. Please email me if you can help. Right now, I have K. Meier signed up. I meed LOTS MORE!!. The students will also be working on a special 100 item project. This will be sent home with instructions on Thursday, January 14th.
**The students will see a special Dental Presentation on Monday, January 11th at 10:25 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 9th year of volunteering in our class hearing our budding readers! Each student will get to spend private time with her working on fluency and comprehension. She will come to our classroom beginning Thursday, January 21st from 9-11 am and continue every Thursday at that time. We are thrilled to have her!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, January 15th--Teacher's Institute Day
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 18th--ML King Day observance.
**Japanese Exchange students will visit Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**Swap, Shop and Read will be held on Thursday, January 21st from 6-7:30 pm in the Kindergarten Hallway. It is a great way to add new books to your home library.
**Friday Night Disco Dance Party to benefit 5th grade outdoor education trip will be held on Friday, January 22nd from 6-8 pm in the gym. Admission is $1.00. All students must be accompanied by an adult.
**No Friendship club this week.
**No Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began a new thinking project using the text, "Tomorrow's Alphabet" by George Shannon. Stay tuned!
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
This week:
The students were definitely getting back into the swing of all things related to learning. They shared their winter break stories of travels, presents and family fun. Our PTO has funded the continuation of the app Brain Pop and the students showed their appreciation by working on one of our common core standards--writing an opinion and supporting statements about why they like Brain Pop. We sent them off with Mr. Hodge to share at the PTO meeting. The students have also started their inquiry into what they know about WATER. We will begin our science unit on Monday with our first experiment. We do have a cool furry visitor from the Field Museum! I just pick him up so the students will see him on Monday. Station Day activities this week included snowmen wind socks, writing and illustrating using the sentence starter....In the winter...... construct a structure with pattern blocks using the teen number assigned and complete the ten frame, count the snowballs and glue them to the same number shovel and partner work viewing the Brain Pop video on Winter and taking the quiz.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 4 Food and began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed background knowledge by discussing where animals might live. House, zoo, outside, forest, jungle, trees, caves were just some of their thoughtful answers. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat and Her Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content. The elbow chatted with a partner about the actions the kittens were performing. The students took turns retelling the story in their own words to their partner. We took a look at sentence structure in the story--subject/action. We did a group Story Elements Butterfly, The students are doing a great job of volunteering to write characters, setting and main events. Our sight words for this week are is and in. Our target sounds are short o and long o. They continued their student of action words by creating a group list of action words (verbs ) that a kitten can do. Our robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, GENTILE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCE. The students continued work on sequencing events in a story using the words--first, next, then and last. They worked with a partner verbally retelling the story, "Bears Snores On." We worked on our Blueprint workmat with me first presenting the format (I do) then students helping me (we do) and finally the students completing their formative Blueprint workmat on their own. We also discussed what an OPINION is. They verbally discussed the question--Do you like cats or dogs? Why? They are learning to give supporting details to back up their claim. They used the question--Why do you like Brain Pop? The students then wrote a sentence or sentences to support their opinion. Cool! The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 3. 4 and 5 phoneme words using the app OZ Phonics projected on the screen. They also continue to work on strengthening auditory skills and verbal responses by deleting, adding and substituting sounds to create new words using the Haggerty Bluebook exercises. We are also doing an exercise where they see how fast they can say or sound out a nonsense word in preparation for our DIBELS testing. Workstations this week included Lexia Core 5 work, leveled readers with concentration on sequencing events, finding main topic and reading fluency, short o and short e word sort, ch/sh digraph sort, real or nonsense word find, using the app Spelling Bug to sequence sounds to make the word.
Math: The students continue to practice counting to 100 and beyond by 1's and 10's. They continued to work on teen numbers as one group of tens and what is left over or one complete ten frame and what is on the other ten frame. The students began work on formal number sentence writing now they have learned the process of addition. I showed examples of vertical and horizontal addition problems and the signs needed to create them--plus sign, equal sign. The students are beginning to listen as I read a story problem to decide what is being added together and how they arrive at an answer. There is not just one way! The students also continued to work on the concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN in speaking about numbers from 1-100. Workstations this week included sorting by common attribute review, let's make ten, number bonds to 10, even or odd number activity, recognizing geometric solids review.
Writing: Students began formal lowercase letter formation. The letters c, o, s were introduced with practice on their mini boards and application in their orange books. They worked on their opinion pieces and sentences relating to winter. We also began a process called sentence lifting, where I take a sentence from somebody's journal and project it so all students can examine it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? Does it make sense? Does it have spaces between words? 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 positive feedback and make suggestions. We are learning from each other!!
Technology: In reading small groups, the apps Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used to work on letter sequencing in a word. The students also used Oz Phonics to work on consonant blends and digraphs in words as well as short vowel sounds in a whole group setting. In math small group, students used the app Butterfly Math to work on vertical and horizontal addition facts to 10. In whole group, students used Number Find to continue work on recognizing a pattern to find the target number as quickly as they can. Partners used Brain Pop to view a video on the subject of Winter and to take the quiz.
Literature: "Bear Snores On," "10 Little Dinosaurs," "It's Winter," "Mam Cat and Her Three Kittens," "I Have To," "Hello Snow," "Snowmen at Christmas," "In the Snow--Who's Been Here?"
**Eagle Extras and World Language will begin on Monday. I will be getting a list of our participants.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 began last Tuesday. Email me if you did not receive notification of the skill and teacher your child is working with.
**Mid Year DIBELS and AIMSWEB Math assessments will begin on Monday along with Darrell Morris Sound Foundation and mid year assessments in math, reading, writing, social/emotional growth and formative and summative Blueprint assessments. I will be sharing all of these with you are our Mid Year parent conference.
**You will receive notification on Thursday (1/14) about Mid Year Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Please note that on Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th school will be in session in the MORNING ONLY. Dismissal will be at 11:00 am. Hephzibah, Club House and district bus pick up will also be at 11:00 am.
**Our 100th Day of School/Valentine's Day Celebration is Wednesday, February 10th. I will let you know Thursday if we will celebrate in the morning or afternoon. We need lots of helpers to man learning station activities that will focus on the number 100 and counting by 10's to 100. Please email me if you can help. Right now, I have K. Meier signed up. I meed LOTS MORE!!. The students will also be working on a special 100 item project. This will be sent home with instructions on Thursday, January 14th.
**The students will see a special Dental Presentation on Monday, January 11th at 10:25 am.
**Reading Grandma Mary will begin her 9th year of volunteering in our class hearing our budding readers! Each student will get to spend private time with her working on fluency and comprehension. She will come to our classroom beginning Thursday, January 21st from 9-11 am and continue every Thursday at that time. We are thrilled to have her!
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, January 15th--Teacher's Institute Day
**NO SCHOOL on Monday, January 18th--ML King Day observance.
**Japanese Exchange students will visit Irving School and come and chat with our students on Thursday, January 28th at 8:25 am. Japan Fest is Saturday, January 30th from 12-4 pm at OPRF.
**Swap, Shop and Read will be held on Thursday, January 21st from 6-7:30 pm in the Kindergarten Hallway. It is a great way to add new books to your home library.
**Friday Night Disco Dance Party to benefit 5th grade outdoor education trip will be held on Friday, January 22nd from 6-8 pm in the gym. Admission is $1.00. All students must be accompanied by an adult.
**No Friendship club this week.
**No Mr. Degman Math/Tech this week.
**In Mr. Packer Problem Solving this week, Mr. Packer began a new thinking project using the text, "Tomorrow's Alphabet" by George Shannon. Stay tuned!
**Keep saving those GIANT BOXES (the ones you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing things in after spring break.
This week:
The students were definitely getting back into the swing of all things related to learning. They shared their winter break stories of travels, presents and family fun. Our PTO has funded the continuation of the app Brain Pop and the students showed their appreciation by working on one of our common core standards--writing an opinion and supporting statements about why they like Brain Pop. We sent them off with Mr. Hodge to share at the PTO meeting. The students have also started their inquiry into what they know about WATER. We will begin our science unit on Monday with our first experiment. We do have a cool furry visitor from the Field Museum! I just pick him up so the students will see him on Monday. Station Day activities this week included snowmen wind socks, writing and illustrating using the sentence starter....In the winter...... construct a structure with pattern blocks using the teen number assigned and complete the ten frame, count the snowballs and glue them to the same number shovel and partner work viewing the Brain Pop video on Winter and taking the quiz.
Reading/Language Arts: The students completed Unit 4 Food and began Unit 5 Animals in our Treasures Reading series. They accessed background knowledge by discussing where animals might live. House, zoo, outside, forest, jungle, trees, caves were just some of their thoughtful answers. The students listened to the Big Book story, "Mama Cat and Her Three Kittens." They made predictions about story content. The elbow chatted with a partner about the actions the kittens were performing. The students took turns retelling the story in their own words to their partner. We took a look at sentence structure in the story--subject/action. We did a group Story Elements Butterfly, The students are doing a great job of volunteering to write characters, setting and main events. Our sight words for this week are is and in. Our target sounds are short o and long o. They continued their student of action words by creating a group list of action words (verbs ) that a kitten can do. Our robust vocabulary for this week included ACTION, GENTILE, COMPARE, CONTENT, POUNCE. The students continued work on sequencing events in a story using the words--first, next, then and last. They worked with a partner verbally retelling the story, "Bears Snores On." We worked on our Blueprint workmat with me first presenting the format (I do) then students helping me (we do) and finally the students completing their formative Blueprint workmat on their own. We also discussed what an OPINION is. They verbally discussed the question--Do you like cats or dogs? Why? They are learning to give supporting details to back up their claim. They used the question--Why do you like Brain Pop? The students then wrote a sentence or sentences to support their opinion. Cool! The students continue to work on segmenting and blending 3. 4 and 5 phoneme words using the app OZ Phonics projected on the screen. They also continue to work on strengthening auditory skills and verbal responses by deleting, adding and substituting sounds to create new words using the Haggerty Bluebook exercises. We are also doing an exercise where they see how fast they can say or sound out a nonsense word in preparation for our DIBELS testing. Workstations this week included Lexia Core 5 work, leveled readers with concentration on sequencing events, finding main topic and reading fluency, short o and short e word sort, ch/sh digraph sort, real or nonsense word find, using the app Spelling Bug to sequence sounds to make the word.
Math: The students continue to practice counting to 100 and beyond by 1's and 10's. They continued to work on teen numbers as one group of tens and what is left over or one complete ten frame and what is on the other ten frame. The students began work on formal number sentence writing now they have learned the process of addition. I showed examples of vertical and horizontal addition problems and the signs needed to create them--plus sign, equal sign. The students are beginning to listen as I read a story problem to decide what is being added together and how they arrive at an answer. There is not just one way! The students also continued to work on the concepts GREATER THAN/LESS THAN in speaking about numbers from 1-100. Workstations this week included sorting by common attribute review, let's make ten, number bonds to 10, even or odd number activity, recognizing geometric solids review.
Writing: Students began formal lowercase letter formation. The letters c, o, s were introduced with practice on their mini boards and application in their orange books. They worked on their opinion pieces and sentences relating to winter. We also began a process called sentence lifting, where I take a sentence from somebody's journal and project it so all students can examine it. How does the sentence look? Can you read it? Does it make sense? Does it have spaces between words? 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 positive feedback and make suggestions. We are learning from each other!!
Technology: In reading small groups, the apps Rocket Speller and Spelling Bug were used to work on letter sequencing in a word. The students also used Oz Phonics to work on consonant blends and digraphs in words as well as short vowel sounds in a whole group setting. In math small group, students used the app Butterfly Math to work on vertical and horizontal addition facts to 10. In whole group, students used Number Find to continue work on recognizing a pattern to find the target number as quickly as they can. Partners used Brain Pop to view a video on the subject of Winter and to take the quiz.
Literature: "Bear Snores On," "10 Little Dinosaurs," "It's Winter," "Mam Cat and Her Three Kittens," "I Have To," "Hello Snow," "Snowmen at Christmas," "In the Snow--Who's Been Here?"
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