**Fall is in the air. The students are commenting on the falling leaves, leaf colors, animals looking for food in their neighborhood, cooler weather and having to wear jackets and even gloves and hats.
**The students have a marvelous leaf collection ongoing! They continue to sort all types of leaves. Currently they have sorted by color, characteristic (dots) and shape (pointed). Stay tuned--our sorting and labeling will conclude next week.
**Our walking field trip to the Maze Library was great. We had a very pleasant walk there and back. Maze librarian, Ms. Pulliam was fantastic! The students had tour of the library, learned where certain types of books (fiction and nonfiction, readers, chapter books) dvds, cds are located. In our classroom experience downstairs, Ms. Pulliam used a variety of songs, poetry, stories and movement. The students favorite story was called, "Press Here." A big Thanks to Amare's Dad, Cobie's Mom and Grandma, Ellie's Mom, Isabella's Mom and Will's Mom for volunteering to help. All students who filled out their applications received their library cards. They are in their backpacks. Let's go to the library!!
**The students listened to the very animated story teller, Chris Fascione. He was part of our Million Minutes Reading pep rally. Let's keep reading! More Minutes!! More Minutes!!
**Reminder--Wednesday, October 31st our Halloween Parade and Celebration. We will have a semi-regular morning. The students will bring their costumes and accessories in a bag. At 10:00 am, our class will do our bat origami project. I have some parent volunteers for this, but the more the merrier! Emma's Mom has donated a leaf scraping activity too! Cool! We will have regular lunch hour. After lunch, all parent volunteers are needed to assist in the students changing into their costumes. We will have a story time and then get ready to line up for the parade. Our all school parade begins at 1:00 pm. We will parade around the block and then into the playground to form a spiral. After the parade, our room parents have provided a treat of juice boxes and popcorn. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or handcuffs. Students may bring a treat for the class if they wish. We will be making treat bags in our classroom. Everyone is invited to attend!
**Thursday, November, 1st is our 50th day of school! We will be half way to 100!! On Monday, the students will learn a little about what is was like to live in the 1950's. On Thursday, the students can dress up like the 50"s. It can be as simple as a white tee shirt and jeans, slick back hair for the boys and pony tails for the girls. If you should have a poodle skirt--WOW! Our math workstations on Thursday afternoon will center on activities and games that feature the number 50.
**Our student council reps, Isabella and Angus spoke to us about an event the student council is planning called ROCK THE PANTRY. Kindergarten students bring in CANNED FRUIT, APPLESAUCE and DRIED FRUIT for the food drive. Student council has provided 2 boxes for us to put our goods in. If you can bring in one of these items--you are a rock star and can wear your sunglasses to school on Friday, November 2nd!
**Our Helping Grandma, Ms. D has returned from her trip to China. She shared with the students bits of her travels including books that kindergarten students use, a picture of the Great Wall, pointing out areas on our world map where she visited, a Chinese coin and a special gift to all the students of a piece of Chinese candy and a pencil. These items are in your child's back pack.
**Information including a permission slip for our future field trip to the Brookfield Zoo will be sent out next Friday. We need many parent volunteers. Our trip is Monday, November 19th for 9:00-2:00 pm.
**There is a very important board meeting concerning the Irving Schoolyard Project which will be held on Tuesday, October 30th at 7:30 pm. in the District 97 Board Room. Please attend if you can.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lessons on Feelings and Personal Safety.
**Mr. Packer continues to work on his unit on Probability and Chance with small student groups.
**The Wellness Committee had a Taste Test to get kids interested in trying new foods. The only clue that was given was that the food was orange. Some of the students did try the food. Many thought it was sweet potatoes but in fact it was SQUASH! Next taste test is in two weeks!
This week:
It was all about spiders and our growing leaf collection! Those spiders are not so spooky. They are really very helpful to our earth. The students learned the difference between spiders and insects and viewed some spider specimens. The students learned the term--arachnid. The students learned that spiders live almost everywhere on earth and that they hatch from eggs. Little babies are called spiderlings. Spiders can be very colorful. Students listened to fiction and nonfiction stories about spiders. We accessed information on the internet on spiders of interest like tarantulas and black widows. Many spiders eat pesty insects and bugs that bother humans and plants. Our station day activities included creating a marble painted spider web, coloring their special spider and sorting and counting "treats," in greater than 10 and less than 10 columns. Next week--skeletons!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series, They built background knowledge about how friends in different parts of the word share activities, The students listened to the Big Book story, "Friends Around Us." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where the friends lived. We located the countries on the map so students could get an idea of where they lived in relation to the friends in the story. The sight word a was added to our sight word list. We reviewed all other sight words and played "Hands Up, Hands Down." Our letter in isolation this week was Pp. The brainstormed words that began with the sound of Pp. Our Robust Vocabulary words included WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST and HONEST. The students worked on listening comprehension skills using our big book story. We also used the photos on our retelling cards to tell the order of events. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy, assisted the students in practicing the blending of letter sounds to make 3 letter words. The students used their sound boxes to isolate where they heard the Pp sound--at the beginning or the ending of a word. We read our pre decodable story, "I am a Doctor." The students tracking skills are really developing! They also read their pre decodable story, "I Am." The students practiced reading to a partner to practice their beginning fluency development. Workstations this week included choosing a puppet too read to, drawing a picture of your puppet and you and writing a sentence retelling and event in the story, Using the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling your sight words, recording the reading of the sight words and beginning to learn how to email your work to the teacher, sound picture sort with beginning sounds--M, S, P, A, blending sounds to create 3 letter words. What is a phoneme?
Math: The students continue to work on counting sequence from 0-50, what number comes before or after a random number, the concept of greater than and less than and beginning place value. The students began experimenting with creating 2-3 dimensional shapes using straws and pipe cleaners. We talked about flat shapes and shapes that have depth. The students used vocabulary words--corners, sides and angles as they built their structures. Magneetos and Connects were also included in their experimentation and creation. We are also beginning to work with geometric solids.
Writing: The students continue to use writing prompts from our Treasures series. This week, they wrote about bats. We reviewed all of our Frog Jump letters and began talking about our Starting Corner Capitals.
Technology: In reading this week, students used the app Word Wizard to work on CVC word practice, small group work focused on the the app Montessori Crossword and short a words. Students are beginning to use the camera function to take pictures of their work. Small groups of students used the apps Magic Reading, Spelling Bug and iWrite Words to work on spelling, blending and letter formation. In math, student used the app Dot to Dot Lite, Sam Phibian and Monster Squeeze to work on sequencial order, greater than and less than and counting quantities. The students are learning how to email their completed work to me.
Literature: "Diary of a Spider," "Three Hungry Spiders and 1 Fat Fly," "Book of Spiders," "The World of Spiders," "Fly Guy, Fly Girl," "Cock a Doodle HOOOOO," "Spiders of the Midwest," "The Halloweener."
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
UPDATES for 10/15-10/19 2012
**Thank you so much for your attendance at Parent/Teacher Conferences. I enjoyed chatting with you about your child's progress. We are working hard in Kindergarten!
**The Irving Book Fair was very busy! There were many great book choices. I did purchase some great titles for our classroom. A BIG THANKS to families who also purchased books from our classroom wish list. Reading is the way to go!
**FIELD TRIP REMINDER--Friday, October 26th is our walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library. We will begin walking at 8:30 am. Our tour of the library and classroom experience will be from 9-10 and we will be back at Irving by 10:30 am. It looks like it will be chillier weather. Please have your child dressed accordingly. We have field trip volunteers--D. Bovio, N. Smith and A. Struckmeyer to assist our class.
**Halloween will soon be here! I have been in contact with our room parents and they have been in contact with you. We have 8 volunteers also signed up. Wednesday, October 31st is an early dismissal day. We will have a regular morning, but from 10:00-11:00 am, I would like to do our culminating craft from our study of bats. We will have no time to do this in the afternoon. Our room parents will contact our volunteers to see if we can get some assistance with our craft. The rest of the schedule is as follows: We will have a regular lunch hour. All volunteers please come to school at noon. The students will be bringing their costumes in a bag to change into after lunch. You can help assist with this and any make up or hair props. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or hand cuffs to school. Thanks! The students will line up for the parade around 12:40 and the parade will begin around 1:00 pm. The all school parade will be around the block and then continue into the playground in a spiral form. We will then return to the classroom for our party. Our room parents will provide a juice boxes and a snack for our us. The students will be making treat bags. Students can bring a treat for their classmates that will go in their bags. All parents and sibs are invited to come and hang out with us!
**The FUN RUN was great! Our school raised over $15,000!!! Our class raised $1,300. Way to Go!!!
Everybody ran. The proceeds from the run will go to our Schoolyard Project. Many thanks to our participants.
**Ms. Howell reports that our class has read 9,500 minutes. Keep reading and recording those minutes!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 has concluded. You should have a received information on skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 2 begins on Tuesday, October 23rd. You will receive information on your child's current skill level at that time.
**Our wonderful art teacher, Ms Tague sent each student their screen name and security code to view their art work on ARTSONIA. It is in your child's homework folder.
**Future Field Trip--Our next cross curricular theme is Bears. The students will be taking a field trip to the Brookfield Zoo for a classroom experience and tour of the Bear Grotto on Monday, November 19th. The permission slips and info for this trip will be sent out next week. We will need lots of volunteers. We will leave at 9:00 am and be back by 2:00 pm. Students need to bring a bag lunch. Students and teachers will ride a school bus. Parent volunteers will car pool. We will pay for your parking.
**In Friendship club this week, Ms. Bell Bey worked with the students on the topic of FEELINGS.
**We have E. Hagedorn and E. Cummings as Station Day volunteers for Friday, October 26th.
This week:
It was all about bats!! We took the fright out of these amazing creatures. The students listened to informational texts as well as fiction texts on bats. They viewed a bat skeleton, a Brown Bat and an Indian Flying Fox courtesy of the Field Museum. Ellie was our student bat expert and amazed her classmates and teacher!) with knowledge of bat habitats, bat physiology and bat diets. The students learned that humans and bats have something in common--they are both mammals. Ask your child what a mammal is. The students sought information about bat types, diet, characteristics (super long fingers and a tiny thumb) and bat baby facts (pink pups.) The students counted bats, wrote about them in their journals and read about them. They are in the process of learning to play BAT GAMES in reading and math. Those games will come home next week. Next week: spiders!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading Series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. We listened to the song, "The More We Get Together." Many students recalled this song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about different activities they do with their friends. The sight word LIKE was introduced. We reviewed our previous words and created sentences with them. Our sound in isolation this week is Ss. We used our sound toys and sounds cards to guide us. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound. The students made the sound/symbol connection by writing the letter Ss. They reviewed what a noun was and looked for examples throughout the room. We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIENDS, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPLETE to our list. The students worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills. They reviewed their color words. Our puppet, Mr. Happy helped the students work on blending sounds to form 3 letter words. The students read their pre decodable story, We Like," and made predictions about story content. The student shared their story with a partner. The students listened and responded to the informational text, "Friends Follow Rules." They read their story, "I Like," and discussed what a speech balloon or bubble was. Workstation activities this week included working on a mural about friendship and using the sentence starter--We can.....to tell about the pictures they selected, reading a story and creating their own retelling cards, picture sort with sounds A, M, S and vocabulary review--saying and using the app Magnetic Letters to practice their spelling.
Math: The students worked on a variety of math concepts this week. They are up to numbers 1-30 in our MONSTER SQUEEZE game. The students continue to review number recognition 0-20, counting quantities and telling what number comes before or after a random number. They continued their exploration of symmetry by dripping paint and folding the paper to create two symmetrical sides. What does it look like to you? The students recorded their responses. The students continue work using tally marks to count by 5's and straws and rubber bands to count by 10's.
Writing: The students completed their Frog Jump Capitals. They continue to work on starting at the top of the page to make a letter. The students are working on their writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil and the other holding down the paper. They use writing prompts from our Treasures Series. Beginning sentence structure is stressed-- an uppercase letter starts the sentence, space between words in a sentence and some type of mark is needed at the end. Our sentences name and tell!
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad as a tool for enhancement of skills taught. This week the students are learning how to take a picture of their work. They are practicing a steady aim! Our app Monster Squeeze is now using numbers 1-30. The apps Number Find, Dot to Dot and Sam Phibian are assisting with recognition, sequencing and counting. Some students are experimenting with the app Hundred's Board and Patterns. In reading the students continue to enjoy the apps Montessori Crossword, Sound Sort, Magnetic ABC's and Word Find.
Literature: "Little Red Bat," "Bats," "Bats Big Game," "Boo To You," "Pumpkin Soup," "Stellaluna," "Blackout! Animals That Live in the Dark," "Night Creatures," "Extremely Weird Bats."
**The Irving Book Fair was very busy! There were many great book choices. I did purchase some great titles for our classroom. A BIG THANKS to families who also purchased books from our classroom wish list. Reading is the way to go!
**FIELD TRIP REMINDER--Friday, October 26th is our walking field trip to the Maze Branch Library. We will begin walking at 8:30 am. Our tour of the library and classroom experience will be from 9-10 and we will be back at Irving by 10:30 am. It looks like it will be chillier weather. Please have your child dressed accordingly. We have field trip volunteers--D. Bovio, N. Smith and A. Struckmeyer to assist our class.
**Halloween will soon be here! I have been in contact with our room parents and they have been in contact with you. We have 8 volunteers also signed up. Wednesday, October 31st is an early dismissal day. We will have a regular morning, but from 10:00-11:00 am, I would like to do our culminating craft from our study of bats. We will have no time to do this in the afternoon. Our room parents will contact our volunteers to see if we can get some assistance with our craft. The rest of the schedule is as follows: We will have a regular lunch hour. All volunteers please come to school at noon. The students will be bringing their costumes in a bag to change into after lunch. You can help assist with this and any make up or hair props. In keeping with our non violent classroom atmosphere, please do not send toy guns, swords, hooks, light sabers, poles, knives, brooms or hand cuffs to school. Thanks! The students will line up for the parade around 12:40 and the parade will begin around 1:00 pm. The all school parade will be around the block and then continue into the playground in a spiral form. We will then return to the classroom for our party. Our room parents will provide a juice boxes and a snack for our us. The students will be making treat bags. Students can bring a treat for their classmates that will go in their bags. All parents and sibs are invited to come and hang out with us!
**The FUN RUN was great! Our school raised over $15,000!!! Our class raised $1,300. Way to Go!!!
Everybody ran. The proceeds from the run will go to our Schoolyard Project. Many thanks to our participants.
**Ms. Howell reports that our class has read 9,500 minutes. Keep reading and recording those minutes!!
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 has concluded. You should have a received information on skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 2 begins on Tuesday, October 23rd. You will receive information on your child's current skill level at that time.
**Our wonderful art teacher, Ms Tague sent each student their screen name and security code to view their art work on ARTSONIA. It is in your child's homework folder.
**Future Field Trip--Our next cross curricular theme is Bears. The students will be taking a field trip to the Brookfield Zoo for a classroom experience and tour of the Bear Grotto on Monday, November 19th. The permission slips and info for this trip will be sent out next week. We will need lots of volunteers. We will leave at 9:00 am and be back by 2:00 pm. Students need to bring a bag lunch. Students and teachers will ride a school bus. Parent volunteers will car pool. We will pay for your parking.
**In Friendship club this week, Ms. Bell Bey worked with the students on the topic of FEELINGS.
**We have E. Hagedorn and E. Cummings as Station Day volunteers for Friday, October 26th.
This week:
It was all about bats!! We took the fright out of these amazing creatures. The students listened to informational texts as well as fiction texts on bats. They viewed a bat skeleton, a Brown Bat and an Indian Flying Fox courtesy of the Field Museum. Ellie was our student bat expert and amazed her classmates and teacher!) with knowledge of bat habitats, bat physiology and bat diets. The students learned that humans and bats have something in common--they are both mammals. Ask your child what a mammal is. The students sought information about bat types, diet, characteristics (super long fingers and a tiny thumb) and bat baby facts (pink pups.) The students counted bats, wrote about them in their journals and read about them. They are in the process of learning to play BAT GAMES in reading and math. Those games will come home next week. Next week: spiders!
Reading/Social Studies: The students began work in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures Reading Series. They built background knowledge about what a friend is and what types of activities you can do with a friend. We listened to the song, "The More We Get Together." Many students recalled this song from their time in preschool. The students listened to the Big Book story, "What Do You Like?" They responded and made connections about different activities they do with their friends. The sight word LIKE was introduced. We reviewed our previous words and created sentences with them. Our sound in isolation this week is Ss. We used our sound toys and sounds cards to guide us. The students used chants and rhymes to reinforce the sound. The students made the sound/symbol connection by writing the letter Ss. They reviewed what a noun was and looked for examples throughout the room. We added the Robust Vocabulary words FAVORITE, FRIENDS, PARTNER, HOBBY and COMPLETE to our list. The students worked on listening comprehension and retelling skills. They reviewed their color words. Our puppet, Mr. Happy helped the students work on blending sounds to form 3 letter words. The students read their pre decodable story, We Like," and made predictions about story content. The student shared their story with a partner. The students listened and responded to the informational text, "Friends Follow Rules." They read their story, "I Like," and discussed what a speech balloon or bubble was. Workstation activities this week included working on a mural about friendship and using the sentence starter--We can.....to tell about the pictures they selected, reading a story and creating their own retelling cards, picture sort with sounds A, M, S and vocabulary review--saying and using the app Magnetic Letters to practice their spelling.
Math: The students worked on a variety of math concepts this week. They are up to numbers 1-30 in our MONSTER SQUEEZE game. The students continue to review number recognition 0-20, counting quantities and telling what number comes before or after a random number. They continued their exploration of symmetry by dripping paint and folding the paper to create two symmetrical sides. What does it look like to you? The students recorded their responses. The students continue work using tally marks to count by 5's and straws and rubber bands to count by 10's.
Writing: The students completed their Frog Jump Capitals. They continue to work on starting at the top of the page to make a letter. The students are working on their writing posture--sitting up straight, one hand holding the pencil and the other holding down the paper. They use writing prompts from our Treasures Series. Beginning sentence structure is stressed-- an uppercase letter starts the sentence, space between words in a sentence and some type of mark is needed at the end. Our sentences name and tell!
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad as a tool for enhancement of skills taught. This week the students are learning how to take a picture of their work. They are practicing a steady aim! Our app Monster Squeeze is now using numbers 1-30. The apps Number Find, Dot to Dot and Sam Phibian are assisting with recognition, sequencing and counting. Some students are experimenting with the app Hundred's Board and Patterns. In reading the students continue to enjoy the apps Montessori Crossword, Sound Sort, Magnetic ABC's and Word Find.
Literature: "Little Red Bat," "Bats," "Bats Big Game," "Boo To You," "Pumpkin Soup," "Stellaluna," "Blackout! Animals That Live in the Dark," "Night Creatures," "Extremely Weird Bats."
Friday, October 12, 2012
UPDATES for 10/1-10/5 and 10/9-10/12 2012
**These last 2 weeks have gone by so quickly. It is hard to believe we are in the middle of October! The students continue to learn to work together and also independently. They are learning valuable lessons about themselves and others. I have seen some nice growth in their skill acquisition. Hats off to their successes!
**WOW! Our class has raised over $900 in pledges for the RUN FUN!!! We have 11 students from our class participating. Come out and cheer on Tuesday, October 16th. We are running at 8:30 am. Kindergarten runners are wearing BLUE. Let's all wear BLUE to show our support!!!!
**WALKING FIELD TRIP to the MAZE BRANCH LIBRARY on Friday, October 26th from 8:30-10:30 am. All applications for new cards needed to be in today! Please send back permission slip ASAP. I will contact parents who are interested in walking with us.
**Ms. Howell has recorded 4,200 minutes for our class in the Million Minutes Reading Challenge so far. Keep reading and recording those minutes!
**Picture Day was successful. We had our group picture taken outside. Great smiles! A big thanks to C. Mims, M. Shwager and L. Pointer for their help!
**All students participated in Walk to School Day. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school, walked at lunch time with Mr. Hancock. All students received a hand stamp and colored their shoe. Mr. Hancock will decorate the gym with them.
**Don't forget to send back your Parent Conference response forms. I have finished up my fall assessments in preparation. I am looking forward to meeting with you to share your child's progress.
**Please Note that school is in session only in the morning on Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and Magical Minds pick up at 11:00 am. as well the district school bus.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Thursday, October 17th. At that time you will receive information on skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on Tuesday, October 23rd.
**Congratulations to our Student Council Reps--Isabella and Angus! That had their first meeting on Tuesday. In their report they indicated the they will sponsor a food drive.
**Green Team Reps Ivy and Amare reported that their team discussed ways to be "green" in the classroom. We talked about it as a class.
**Our Parent Helper Station Day began today. K. Jones was on hand to assist with a learning station. Look on the left side of my blog for the schedule. If you still would like to sign up....just email me!
**The October Book Order is due October 16th. You may order on line or through the magazine.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey has begun a unit on safety which includes lessons from Second Step and Talking about Touching (personal safety curriculum.)
**Mr. Packer is beginning a unit of study on Chance and Probability in math enrichment.
The past 2 weeks:
It continues to be about apples. We explored types of apples and apple names and how they are alike and different. The students learned how to diagram and created a diagram of an apple including its parts. They took a look under the microscope at skin from a Red Delicious and Golden Delicious. Way Cool!
The students participated in a taste test and graphed their results. You can check out their choices at conference time. The students counted apple seeds. We made apple sauce as our culminating treat! The students discussed the sequence of events in making apple sauce. They observed the apple peeling machine work its magic! We discussed the cooking process. The students sorted the apple stars, tops, bottoms with the left over flower or blossom and skin that came out like a ribbon. After cooking, the students watched the immersion blender spin and make very smooth apple sauce. Lots of language and conversation! Many students sampled the fresh apple sauce. The students read both fiction and nonfiction books about apples. Our station day activities included creating an Apple Book, making apple print trees, printing with the apple star, writing and illustrating about the change in the season (fall,) turning pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, sorting by exclusion short a pictures and coloring by code. Next week we will begin mini units on bats, spiders and skeletons. Yes, we do have 2 bats in our room! Oh, and 4 spiders!!! They will be visiting until Halloween. Did I mention there is a leg bone in our room????!!
Reading/Social Studies: These past 2 weeks the students worked on completing Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading Series. Our first reading assessment is Monday. Our phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and letter Mm. The students completed their lists of people, places, animals and things and learned the formal word NOUN. The students worked on listening comprehension using the big book stories, "Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animals" and "Family Fun." They identified where the stories took place (setting) and made predictions on what would happen next. The students responded and retold events in a story sequence. We discussed how the story structure can help provide evidence for our predictions. The students worked on concept words--same, different. We began the process of phoneme blending or putting sounds together to form a word. We used A and M and A and T. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy helped us. He is way more fun than Ms. Gullo when he sounds things out!! Robust Vocabulary for the past 2 weeks included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER, CELEBRATE, CHANGE, EAGER, OCCASION and RELATIVE. Please ask your child about these words. Our thinking stories were "The Squeaky Bed" and "Jennifer Bing Why Won't You Sing?" The students thought and responded about the cultural perspective (taking place in Puerto Rico and music and dance in other cultures.) The students review all their sight vocabulary thus far. They practiced spelling their words on their dry erase boards. Students worked on reading aloud and shared their pre-decodable stories with a partner. The students had great fun during their workstation time. Their workstations for the past 2 weeks included creating sentences from sight words and pictures, reading a story and adding a new page to the end (what could happen next?) Writing a sentence about themselves and reading it to a partner, reading a story and filling out a Reader's Response sheet, drawing a picture of themselves as a baby and then as a 5 or 6 year old and writing a sentence about what did then and what they can do now, working with word families and using the iPad to create a sentence using 3 of their sight words and taking a picture of it.
Math: We are counting everything in sight!! How high can we go? 20? 30? 50? higher?? The students are working on the concept of place value using straws in groups of ten. We review the word DIGIT. The students learned how to play "Monster Squeeze" as a floor game and on their iPad using concepts of greater and less than to find a mystery number. It's a great partner game. We are "feeling" number by using our sand paper numbers. The students continue to work on number recognition 0-20. They began the introduction and exploration of symmetry. What is symmetry? What makes something symmetrical? We took a look at symmetry in nature (leaves, rocks, flowers,) symmetry in our body (what if we drew a line down the middle of our bodies?) The students experimented with cutting out a circle and creating a symmetrical design on each side. Cool!!! Students reviewed common and pattern block shape names and are beginning to recognize geometric solids.
Writing: The students continue to work on adding more details to their drawings and having their drawings reflect the words they use to describe them. They continue to use the prompts from our Treasures Reading series. They are working on forming a simple sentence (naming and telling) and to leave a space between each word. We always begin each sentence with a capital letter and use an end mark (period.) The students continue to work on their Frog Jump Letters. They have learned the formation for F, E, D, P, B, R and N.
Technology: The iPad continues to be a valuable tool to enhance our learning! In reading and writing the apps Intro to Letters, My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort are assisting with letter recognition and sound foundation. The students are using the apps Montessori Crossword to assist sound/symbol development and Alphabet Magic to assist with sentence formation and illustration. In Math, the students are using the apps Intro to Math, Number Find and Numbers to assist in number recognition and patterns. This week the app Monster Squeeze and Sam Phibian were introduced. The students work independently or with a partner on these apps.
Literature: "The Best Class Picture Ever," "The Pumpkin Patch," "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin," "Johnny Appleseed," "The Four Seasons," "A Book About Christopher Columbus," "Let's Read About Christopher Columbus," "If you Give a Cat a Cupcake," "Autumn Days," "Autumn," "Colorful Leaves," "The Big Apple Mystery," "Picking Apples," "Let's Go Apple Picking."
**WOW! Our class has raised over $900 in pledges for the RUN FUN!!! We have 11 students from our class participating. Come out and cheer on Tuesday, October 16th. We are running at 8:30 am. Kindergarten runners are wearing BLUE. Let's all wear BLUE to show our support!!!!
**WALKING FIELD TRIP to the MAZE BRANCH LIBRARY on Friday, October 26th from 8:30-10:30 am. All applications for new cards needed to be in today! Please send back permission slip ASAP. I will contact parents who are interested in walking with us.
**Ms. Howell has recorded 4,200 minutes for our class in the Million Minutes Reading Challenge so far. Keep reading and recording those minutes!
**Picture Day was successful. We had our group picture taken outside. Great smiles! A big thanks to C. Mims, M. Shwager and L. Pointer for their help!
**All students participated in Walk to School Day. Students who did not have a chance to walk to school, walked at lunch time with Mr. Hancock. All students received a hand stamp and colored their shoe. Mr. Hancock will decorate the gym with them.
**Don't forget to send back your Parent Conference response forms. I have finished up my fall assessments in preparation. I am looking forward to meeting with you to share your child's progress.
**Please Note that school is in session only in the morning on Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. Hephzibah and Magical Minds pick up at 11:00 am. as well the district school bus.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will conclude on Thursday, October 17th. At that time you will receive information on skill mastery. Route to Reading Rotation 2 will begin on Tuesday, October 23rd.
**Congratulations to our Student Council Reps--Isabella and Angus! That had their first meeting on Tuesday. In their report they indicated the they will sponsor a food drive.
**Green Team Reps Ivy and Amare reported that their team discussed ways to be "green" in the classroom. We talked about it as a class.
**Our Parent Helper Station Day began today. K. Jones was on hand to assist with a learning station. Look on the left side of my blog for the schedule. If you still would like to sign up....just email me!
**The October Book Order is due October 16th. You may order on line or through the magazine.
**In Friendship Club, Ms. Bell Bey has begun a unit on safety which includes lessons from Second Step and Talking about Touching (personal safety curriculum.)
**Mr. Packer is beginning a unit of study on Chance and Probability in math enrichment.
The past 2 weeks:
It continues to be about apples. We explored types of apples and apple names and how they are alike and different. The students learned how to diagram and created a diagram of an apple including its parts. They took a look under the microscope at skin from a Red Delicious and Golden Delicious. Way Cool!
The students participated in a taste test and graphed their results. You can check out their choices at conference time. The students counted apple seeds. We made apple sauce as our culminating treat! The students discussed the sequence of events in making apple sauce. They observed the apple peeling machine work its magic! We discussed the cooking process. The students sorted the apple stars, tops, bottoms with the left over flower or blossom and skin that came out like a ribbon. After cooking, the students watched the immersion blender spin and make very smooth apple sauce. Lots of language and conversation! Many students sampled the fresh apple sauce. The students read both fiction and nonfiction books about apples. Our station day activities included creating an Apple Book, making apple print trees, printing with the apple star, writing and illustrating about the change in the season (fall,) turning pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, sorting by exclusion short a pictures and coloring by code. Next week we will begin mini units on bats, spiders and skeletons. Yes, we do have 2 bats in our room! Oh, and 4 spiders!!! They will be visiting until Halloween. Did I mention there is a leg bone in our room????!!
Reading/Social Studies: These past 2 weeks the students worked on completing Unit 1 Families in our Treasures Reading Series. Our first reading assessment is Monday. Our phonics portion keyed in on target sounds short a and letter Mm. The students completed their lists of people, places, animals and things and learned the formal word NOUN. The students worked on listening comprehension using the big book stories, "Picnic at Apple Park," "Night Animals" and "Family Fun." They identified where the stories took place (setting) and made predictions on what would happen next. The students responded and retold events in a story sequence. We discussed how the story structure can help provide evidence for our predictions. The students worked on concept words--same, different. We began the process of phoneme blending or putting sounds together to form a word. We used A and M and A and T. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy helped us. He is way more fun than Ms. Gullo when he sounds things out!! Robust Vocabulary for the past 2 weeks included ACTIVITY, COOPERATE, EXCITING, EXHAUSTED, GATHER, CELEBRATE, CHANGE, EAGER, OCCASION and RELATIVE. Please ask your child about these words. Our thinking stories were "The Squeaky Bed" and "Jennifer Bing Why Won't You Sing?" The students thought and responded about the cultural perspective (taking place in Puerto Rico and music and dance in other cultures.) The students review all their sight vocabulary thus far. They practiced spelling their words on their dry erase boards. Students worked on reading aloud and shared their pre-decodable stories with a partner. The students had great fun during their workstation time. Their workstations for the past 2 weeks included creating sentences from sight words and pictures, reading a story and adding a new page to the end (what could happen next?) Writing a sentence about themselves and reading it to a partner, reading a story and filling out a Reader's Response sheet, drawing a picture of themselves as a baby and then as a 5 or 6 year old and writing a sentence about what did then and what they can do now, working with word families and using the iPad to create a sentence using 3 of their sight words and taking a picture of it.
Math: We are counting everything in sight!! How high can we go? 20? 30? 50? higher?? The students are working on the concept of place value using straws in groups of ten. We review the word DIGIT. The students learned how to play "Monster Squeeze" as a floor game and on their iPad using concepts of greater and less than to find a mystery number. It's a great partner game. We are "feeling" number by using our sand paper numbers. The students continue to work on number recognition 0-20. They began the introduction and exploration of symmetry. What is symmetry? What makes something symmetrical? We took a look at symmetry in nature (leaves, rocks, flowers,) symmetry in our body (what if we drew a line down the middle of our bodies?) The students experimented with cutting out a circle and creating a symmetrical design on each side. Cool!!! Students reviewed common and pattern block shape names and are beginning to recognize geometric solids.
Writing: The students continue to work on adding more details to their drawings and having their drawings reflect the words they use to describe them. They continue to use the prompts from our Treasures Reading series. They are working on forming a simple sentence (naming and telling) and to leave a space between each word. We always begin each sentence with a capital letter and use an end mark (period.) The students continue to work on their Frog Jump Letters. They have learned the formation for F, E, D, P, B, R and N.
Technology: The iPad continues to be a valuable tool to enhance our learning! In reading and writing the apps Intro to Letters, My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort are assisting with letter recognition and sound foundation. The students are using the apps Montessori Crossword to assist sound/symbol development and Alphabet Magic to assist with sentence formation and illustration. In Math, the students are using the apps Intro to Math, Number Find and Numbers to assist in number recognition and patterns. This week the app Monster Squeeze and Sam Phibian were introduced. The students work independently or with a partner on these apps.
Literature: "The Best Class Picture Ever," "The Pumpkin Patch," "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin," "Johnny Appleseed," "The Four Seasons," "A Book About Christopher Columbus," "Let's Read About Christopher Columbus," "If you Give a Cat a Cupcake," "Autumn Days," "Autumn," "Colorful Leaves," "The Big Apple Mystery," "Picking Apples," "Let's Go Apple Picking."
Saturday, September 29, 2012
UPDATES for 9/24-9/28 2012
**It was a busy and productive week! The students continue to respond to our Eagle Essentials Guidelines and are beginning to be very much a part of shaping their own behavior. The students continue to work on fostering positive peer relationships both in and out of our classroom.
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 2nd. Our class will have their picture taken at 8:30 am. If the weather is agreeable, we will have our class picture taken outside. Volunteers, M.Schwager and L. Pointer will lend a hand and perhaps a comb!
**WALK to SCHOOL DAY is Wednesday, October 3rd. Everyone who walks to school that day will receive a cool shoe to color and hand stamp. Mr. Hancock will display all the shoes in the gym. If your child is unable to walk that day, Mr. Hancock will lead a walk around the school grounds at lunch time and students will receive their shoe to color and stamp.
**Congratulations to AMARE and IVY--our GREEN TEAM REPS for this year! They will attend bi monthly meetings and keep our class up to date with ideas and projects that make our school GREENER! This year the focus will be on recycling in the lunchroom. Their first meeting is Tuesday during lunch recess.
**Don't forget to sign your child up for the RUN FUN FUNDRAISER. Our class will be running/walking on Tuesday October 16th at 8:30 am. We have 4 students signed up with pledges. Let's have some more!!!
**NO SCHOOL--Monday, October 8th in observance of Columbus Day.
**Formal letters and reminders for Parent/Teacher Conferences will go out on Tuesday. Check your child's backpack. Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held Tuesday, October 16th, Wednesday, October 17th, Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th. Please Note: Thursday and Friday, October 18th and 19th, school is in session in the morning only. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will begin on Tuesday, October 2nd. Your child will be bringing home information on the skill they will be working on and the teacher who is teaching it. Route to Reading Skill Specific Groups meet 3 times a week for 40 minutes.
**The students brought home some information about Student Council. Each class will choose 2 students to represent their class. Check out the criteria. Your child can sign up if interested. We will choose our reps on Thursday.
**Thanks for sending back the MILLION MINUTES SHEETS! B. Howell will begin the recording next weekend. The next sheet is in your child's backpack. READ! READ! READ!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our project. The photo will be displayed all year and it will be returned to you at the end of the school year. We will do the project on October 15th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson and activities on Tattling vs. Reporting.
**In Mr. Packer Math this week, Mr. Packer did a group activity where he read a cool story about present and future and challenged the students to see if they could predict what would happen. Great higher level thinking skills involved!
**FINAL CALL for Parent Volunteers for Friday Station Day. I am in the process of creating a rotating list of helpers. I will post it on my blog as well as send a hard copy. Our first station day is Friday, October 12th.
This week:
It was all about the new season of Fall and changes that are already beginning to occur. Also, APPLE MANIA has hit our classroom! We have begun our APPLE cross curricular theme. The students participated in a initial inquiry to determine what they knew about apples. They had great fun using their magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. We learned what a blossom was. The apples were cut on their sides to reveal the flower or the star. We have begun to read informational (non fiction) books on the subject. More next week. We are integrating our study of Apples into our math, reading, science, art and writing activities. Stay tuned!! Our station day activities this week included hidden picture color (reading color words,) creating and naming a pattern using apple stickers, "pinky" painting seeds on your apple. (Each apple had a number on it.)
Reading/Social Studies: We have begun UNIT 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading Series. The students built background knowledge on types of families they knew about. We discussed animal families and human families. We all shared experiences about our families. The students listened to a Big Book story called, "Whose Baby Am I?" The students made predictions about story content and observed patterns in the text. They examined the cover, title page, front and back parts and page numbers. We reviewed our previous sight words and added the new words WE and THE. We spelled and wrote them and used them in our journal. Our target sound in isolation this week was the letter Mm. The students worked on additional vocabulary this week while listening to the fable, "The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary is referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Ask your child about the words ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER and RESEMBLE. We defined each word and gave an example sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. The students worked on story words CUB, JOEY and PUP in the baby animal world. We read aloud our pre-decodable story, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking words and pictures in a sentence using their famous pointing finger. The students worked on responding and retelling parts of our read aloud story, "The Bundle of Sticks." We read our other pre-decodable story, "We Can" and focused on our sight words and comprehension. The students continue their work on nouns. They brainstormed lists of people, places and animals. The students enjoyed their workstations this week. While I worked with small groups, the students also worked in rotating small groups creating an Mm mural looking for and cutting out Mm pictures and labeling them, playing an uppercase/lowercase match game with Ms. Dennis, creating a family sizes graph using paper dolls and sharing a story with a partner and retelling it. Our table managers are beginning to take more responsibility setting up, controlling noise and helping to resolve conflicts in the table group. There were also several opportunities for movement.
Math: The students continue work on PENNY POWER. They reviewed how much a penny is worth and had fun playing "Heads or Tails Tally," "Penny Grab," and "Spin a Number" in English and in Spanish. They continue to work on reinforcing number recognition 0-20 and counting quantities. The students reviewed analogue and digital clock parts and understanding time by the hour. We played the digit game---How many digits does the number 5 have? 26? 124? We worked on the concepts first, middle, last, same and different and greater than/less than. The students used their number cards to count in sequence, match numbers with a partner and tell which number is bigger. The students continue to work on forming simple and more complex patterns using stickers, cubes, pattern blocks and bears.
Writing: The students continue to work on using their writing prompts from our Treasures series. We continue to reinforce our Frog Jump Letters--F, E, D, P. The students are using their mini boards with mini chalk and sponges. They are also working on beginning sentence structure---Name----Tell about it. Subject---Action. Do their drawings describe their picture? Students are at a variety of levels---recording beginning letter for a word that describes their picture, recording one word including beginning and ending sound, writing a sentence that includes inventive spelling for their subject and action and recording short three word sentences.
Technology: The students used a variety of activities on the iPad to reinforce their curriculum. In reading, the students continue to use the apps My ABC and ABC Touch which contain activities on ordering abc's, patterns, finding letters and matching letters and their initial sound. The app Montessori Crossword was used to assist students in listening for letter sounds and dragging them in the correct sequence to form the word. The focus this week was on the vowel short A. ie--bat, cat etc. The students used the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling their sight words. Students continue to use the apps Intro to Math and Numbers to assist in number recognition, counting and patterns.
Literature: "Clifford's Family," "We Share Everything," "Apples," "How Do Apples Grow," "It Wasn't My Fault," "My Family," "Apples, Apples, Apples."
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 2nd. Our class will have their picture taken at 8:30 am. If the weather is agreeable, we will have our class picture taken outside. Volunteers, M.Schwager and L. Pointer will lend a hand and perhaps a comb!
**WALK to SCHOOL DAY is Wednesday, October 3rd. Everyone who walks to school that day will receive a cool shoe to color and hand stamp. Mr. Hancock will display all the shoes in the gym. If your child is unable to walk that day, Mr. Hancock will lead a walk around the school grounds at lunch time and students will receive their shoe to color and stamp.
**Congratulations to AMARE and IVY--our GREEN TEAM REPS for this year! They will attend bi monthly meetings and keep our class up to date with ideas and projects that make our school GREENER! This year the focus will be on recycling in the lunchroom. Their first meeting is Tuesday during lunch recess.
**Don't forget to sign your child up for the RUN FUN FUNDRAISER. Our class will be running/walking on Tuesday October 16th at 8:30 am. We have 4 students signed up with pledges. Let's have some more!!!
**NO SCHOOL--Monday, October 8th in observance of Columbus Day.
**Formal letters and reminders for Parent/Teacher Conferences will go out on Tuesday. Check your child's backpack. Parent/Teacher Conferences will be held Tuesday, October 16th, Wednesday, October 17th, Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th. Please Note: Thursday and Friday, October 18th and 19th, school is in session in the morning only. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session.
**Route to Reading Rotation 1 will begin on Tuesday, October 2nd. Your child will be bringing home information on the skill they will be working on and the teacher who is teaching it. Route to Reading Skill Specific Groups meet 3 times a week for 40 minutes.
**The students brought home some information about Student Council. Each class will choose 2 students to represent their class. Check out the criteria. Your child can sign up if interested. We will choose our reps on Thursday.
**Thanks for sending back the MILLION MINUTES SHEETS! B. Howell will begin the recording next weekend. The next sheet is in your child's backpack. READ! READ! READ!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our project. The photo will be displayed all year and it will be returned to you at the end of the school year. We will do the project on October 15th.
**In Friendship Club this week, Ms. Bell Bey continued her lesson and activities on Tattling vs. Reporting.
**In Mr. Packer Math this week, Mr. Packer did a group activity where he read a cool story about present and future and challenged the students to see if they could predict what would happen. Great higher level thinking skills involved!
**FINAL CALL for Parent Volunteers for Friday Station Day. I am in the process of creating a rotating list of helpers. I will post it on my blog as well as send a hard copy. Our first station day is Friday, October 12th.
This week:
It was all about the new season of Fall and changes that are already beginning to occur. Also, APPLE MANIA has hit our classroom! We have begun our APPLE cross curricular theme. The students participated in a initial inquiry to determine what they knew about apples. They had great fun using their magnifiers and microscope to observe the flower, seeds, flesh, skin and core. We learned what a blossom was. The apples were cut on their sides to reveal the flower or the star. We have begun to read informational (non fiction) books on the subject. More next week. We are integrating our study of Apples into our math, reading, science, art and writing activities. Stay tuned!! Our station day activities this week included hidden picture color (reading color words,) creating and naming a pattern using apple stickers, "pinky" painting seeds on your apple. (Each apple had a number on it.)
Reading/Social Studies: We have begun UNIT 1 FAMILIES in our Treasures Reading Series. The students built background knowledge on types of families they knew about. We discussed animal families and human families. We all shared experiences about our families. The students listened to a Big Book story called, "Whose Baby Am I?" The students made predictions about story content and observed patterns in the text. They examined the cover, title page, front and back parts and page numbers. We reviewed our previous sight words and added the new words WE and THE. We spelled and wrote them and used them in our journal. Our target sound in isolation this week was the letter Mm. The students worked on additional vocabulary this week while listening to the fable, "The Lioness and the Ostrich." This vocabulary is referred to as ROBUST VOCABULARY. Ask your child about the words ANIMAL, PROTECT, TOGETHER and RESEMBLE. We defined each word and gave an example sentence. We used them frequently in our discussions. The students worked on story words CUB, JOEY and PUP in the baby animal world. We read aloud our pre-decodable story, "I Can, We Can." The students continue to work on tracking words and pictures in a sentence using their famous pointing finger. The students worked on responding and retelling parts of our read aloud story, "The Bundle of Sticks." We read our other pre-decodable story, "We Can" and focused on our sight words and comprehension. The students continue their work on nouns. They brainstormed lists of people, places and animals. The students enjoyed their workstations this week. While I worked with small groups, the students also worked in rotating small groups creating an Mm mural looking for and cutting out Mm pictures and labeling them, playing an uppercase/lowercase match game with Ms. Dennis, creating a family sizes graph using paper dolls and sharing a story with a partner and retelling it. Our table managers are beginning to take more responsibility setting up, controlling noise and helping to resolve conflicts in the table group. There were also several opportunities for movement.
Math: The students continue work on PENNY POWER. They reviewed how much a penny is worth and had fun playing "Heads or Tails Tally," "Penny Grab," and "Spin a Number" in English and in Spanish. They continue to work on reinforcing number recognition 0-20 and counting quantities. The students reviewed analogue and digital clock parts and understanding time by the hour. We played the digit game---How many digits does the number 5 have? 26? 124? We worked on the concepts first, middle, last, same and different and greater than/less than. The students used their number cards to count in sequence, match numbers with a partner and tell which number is bigger. The students continue to work on forming simple and more complex patterns using stickers, cubes, pattern blocks and bears.
Writing: The students continue to work on using their writing prompts from our Treasures series. We continue to reinforce our Frog Jump Letters--F, E, D, P. The students are using their mini boards with mini chalk and sponges. They are also working on beginning sentence structure---Name----Tell about it. Subject---Action. Do their drawings describe their picture? Students are at a variety of levels---recording beginning letter for a word that describes their picture, recording one word including beginning and ending sound, writing a sentence that includes inventive spelling for their subject and action and recording short three word sentences.
Technology: The students used a variety of activities on the iPad to reinforce their curriculum. In reading, the students continue to use the apps My ABC and ABC Touch which contain activities on ordering abc's, patterns, finding letters and matching letters and their initial sound. The app Montessori Crossword was used to assist students in listening for letter sounds and dragging them in the correct sequence to form the word. The focus this week was on the vowel short A. ie--bat, cat etc. The students used the app Magnetic Letters to practice spelling their sight words. Students continue to use the apps Intro to Math and Numbers to assist in number recognition, counting and patterns.
Literature: "Clifford's Family," "We Share Everything," "Apples," "How Do Apples Grow," "It Wasn't My Fault," "My Family," "Apples, Apples, Apples."
Saturday, September 22, 2012
UPDATES for 9/17-9/21 2012
**Thanks to all of you who attended our Kindergarten Curriculum Night. I hope you found it to be beneficial. Kindergarten does have lots of curriculum and I was glad that you could view it. If you did not attend, all the information about what was shared is in your child's backpack. Please take a look at it. If you have any questions or would like to set up a time to see everything, just email me. I am here most days until 5:30 pm. I live a short distance and can also come back in the evening too.
**Don't forget to sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Tuesday, October 16th, Wednesday, October 17th, Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th in my classroom. Please Note: Thursday and Friday, October 18th and 19th--school will only be in session in the morning. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session for students.
**Our school wide PACERS walking /running club began Friday. Students can use their lunch recess to run/walk around the school grounds 3 times (1 mile) and receive a special chain with a little foot on it. PACERS will be every Friday at lunch recess until November and will pick up again in the spring. Each week, they have the opportunity to earn another foot. Our whole class is participating! Most students ran and some walked with me. The students decorated a pouch to hold their foot bracelet. We will keep all bracelets in our pouches and add our feet each week. Let's say YES to exercise!!!!
**Our Eagle Wing Pajama Day was great! Lots of cute p.j.'s, some fuzzy slippers and bedtime stuffed animals and pillow pets. We snuggled up for some great stories and had our pets with us during our writing and reading time. We also took an extra 15 minute recess outside on Friday afternoon for another over the top Eagle Wing week!
**Our assembly for the FUN RUN fundraiser featured the Get Movin' Cheetah and a super pep talk. The students brought their pledge sheets home with all the information this past Tuesday. Our FUN RUN time is 8:30 am on Tuesday, October 16th!!!! Come cheer us on. Any questions--just email me.
**Information on our school wide MILLION MINUTES CHALLENGE went home on Friday. Even though it doesn't officially start until October, our class is getting a head start. Please read the information and begin recording minutes on the reading log. Students did ask if they could read more than 20 minutes---Of course!!! If you need additional recording logs, let me know. Our first log is due on Friday, September 28th. Happy Reading!!
**Picture Day is Tuesday, October 2nd. I will try to book an early morning slot for us. Thanks to M. Schwager and L. Pointer for their assistance. Stay tuned for more info.
**All DIBELS and PHONIC SCREENER assessments are now completed. I will be sharing all the information with you at our conference. Route to Reading Rotation 1 will begin on Tuesday, October 2nd. At that time, you will receive information on the skill your child will be working on as well as the teacher who will be teaching it. The rotations are 3 weeks long.
**Don't forget to hand in your HELPFUL PARENTS SIGN UP sheet. If you are interested in helping with our Station Day Activities each Friday afternoon, check it off. I will be compiling a rotating list of volunteers that I will post. I am looking to start on Friday, October 12th! Join in the fun if you can. If you have a specific Friday in mind.....let me know. There are usually 2 parents per week. Think about taking an afternoon off of work. It is a great way to see your child in action as well as observe the dynamics of the class. We love dads, grandmas and grandpas too!
**Our School has a GREEN TEAM! Each class has 2 reps that meet with Green Team Leader, Ms. Tague, 2 times a month during lunch recess. They plan projects, discuss how to create a "greener" environment for our school and relay information to our class. This years focus will be on RECYCLING. I will be asking for 2 volunteers next week to represent our class. Talk it up!
**In Friendship Club this week, the topic was Tattle vs. Report. Ms. Bell Bey read the students a story about the difference between tattling and reporting information. After the story, she moderated a discussion and did an activity with the students on this topic. My question for the week: Are you tattling or reporting information????
**Mr. Packer Math focused on Mr. Packer getting to know the students in the class. He did an activity where each student performed an action (how timely!) and we went around the circle performing our action while Mr.Packer put our name to our action. The activity worked our memory and sequencing skills. The actions were fun and wacky!!!
**As the weather begins to change---please remember, we will be going out each day. Please see that your child dresses for the weather. Thanks!
**As we begin our Route to Reading rotations--please remember that our classroom is a NO NUT/NUT PRODUCT class as are ALL the kindergarten classes. Students with life threatening nut allergies will be moving through our classroom. Let's keep them safe!!! Thanks!
This week:
It was all about letters and numbers! The students found letters around our classroom and school. They also located numbers in our classroom and school. What is the difference between a letter and number? The students began a conversation about Consonants (letters that have 1 or 2 sounds) and Vowels (letters that can have many different sounds) Wow! The students looked at their names and located the consonants and vowels. They compared their name with a friends name. Some students went home and came back the next day with vowels circled from their first, middle and last names!!!! We are counting everything. They
counted markers, chairs, books, feet, noses.....Station Day activities this week included water color painting, creating a specific pattern block design and counting how many of each shape was used and reading their "I Can" story to a partner.
Reading/Social Studies: The students have completed the intro to our Treasures Reading series called Start Smart and spent this week reviewing letter recognition A-Z, beginning consonant sounds, matching uppercase letters and lowercase letters and sequencing letters A-Z. The students brainstormed words that name animals and words that name actions. We now have a list words that name people, places and animals (nouns) as well as a list of words that name actions (verbs.) The students are working on using complete sentences--subject/action when speaking. During our read aloud time, students read the paper story, "I Can." We continue to work on locating the title of our story. The students are now locating the page number, where the sentence starts (left side) and what ends the sentence (period or exclamation mark.) We continue to examine the contents of each page. What do you see in the big picture? Let's finger point and read each word and little picture (rebus reading). Do you recall your sight words? Before we turn the page, what do you think will happen next? Can you find an action word in this sentence? How many words are in this sentence? Who is in this story? (characters) What do you think the story is about? Where does this story take place? (setting) Wow! Lots going on! Students are sharing their story reading with a partner. The partner is observing finger pointing and voice quality (Can I hear my partner read?) Workstations this week included "Rhyme Time Game," (creating a rhyming word by using the spinner,) "Sound Toy Bag" Game, Letters Cards for sequencing uppercase letters, partner work with iPad apps-ABC Touch, My ABC's and Sound Sort, and "Can you write the sound down" activity. The students continue work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises. They are becoming much more focused as a group on letter recognition, rhyming distinction, segmenting and substituting sounds, deleting sounds, adding sounds and counting syllables. We will begin UNIT 1-Families, on Monday.
Math: The students worked on random counting (0-25.) They worked on sequencing numbers (0-12.) Students worked with partners to quiz each other on numbers 0-12. The students reviewed pattern block shape names and comparing shapes (3 sided, 4 sided, 5 sided.) They continue to explore tally marks as a way to count by 5"s. The students worked on random numbers that come before or after. Students also found patterns around the classroom. This week, the students began exploring the penny. We used our magnifiers and real pennies to examine what is on the front of the penny (Abraham Lincoln,) what is on the back of the penny (the Lincoln Memorial building.) The students located and read the number on the front to see how old their penny was. We read 2 stories about pennies--what they are made out of (copper,) where they are made (Washington D. C. at the U.S. Mint) and how much they are worth (1 cent.) We also learned that Abraham Lincoln was President number 16. Students worked on the activities, "Penny Power" and "Penny Grab."
Writing: The students reviewed Frog Jump Capitals--F, E, D and P. They used their wooden pieces to create the letters. They participated in a clay activity---rolling it into a ball, smashing it to make a pancake, rolling it into 3 "snakes" to make the letter F, 4 "snakes" to make the letter E and curving their "snake" to make letters D and P. Fun and work! The students worked in their orange books really beginning to think about the quality of their letter formation. They continue to use activities from the hand/finger activity box to strengthen their tri pod grasp. This week the students worked on drawing a picture and labeling one part with a word that described it----picture of a tree--using their inventive spelling to spell tree. Some students are writing a three word sentence, some a word with a beginning and ending sound, some with a beginning sound and some experimenting with vowel use. Students are using their letter sound picture cards to assist them in seeing how to write a letter if they only remember the sound. The idea here is that all students are feeling more comfortable about writing.
Technology: The students continue to use iPad apps--My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort to enhance their learning of the alphabet, alphabet sequence, beginning and ending sounds, rhyming words, sound/letter imprinting and language development during our reading language/ arts times. The iPad app-Intro to Math is used to strengthen number recognition through musical patterning, sequencing number order, find the missing number, touching number, number scatter and tracing number forms. The students are enjoying using our iPad tool as they learn to work with a partner--taking turns and sharpening their verbal skills as they interact with one another.
Literature: "My School's a Zoo," "The Fleas Sneeze," "The Colors of Us," "Feelings," "Bullies Never Win," "Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth," "A Hippo Ate the Teacher," "Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully," "Mean Jean the Recess Queen." A rereading of "The Alphabet Adventure," "The Alphabet Mystery," and "The Alphabet Rescue," was done for our Common Core Assessment of a specific author. Our class has chosen authors Audrey and Bruce Wood.
**Don't forget to sign up for Parent/Teacher Conferences. They will be held on Tuesday, October 16th, Wednesday, October 17th, Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th in my classroom. Please Note: Thursday and Friday, October 18th and 19th--school will only be in session in the morning. Dismissal is at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session for students.
**Our school wide PACERS walking /running club began Friday. Students can use their lunch recess to run/walk around the school grounds 3 times (1 mile) and receive a special chain with a little foot on it. PACERS will be every Friday at lunch recess until November and will pick up again in the spring. Each week, they have the opportunity to earn another foot. Our whole class is participating! Most students ran and some walked with me. The students decorated a pouch to hold their foot bracelet. We will keep all bracelets in our pouches and add our feet each week. Let's say YES to exercise!!!!
**Our Eagle Wing Pajama Day was great! Lots of cute p.j.'s, some fuzzy slippers and bedtime stuffed animals and pillow pets. We snuggled up for some great stories and had our pets with us during our writing and reading time. We also took an extra 15 minute recess outside on Friday afternoon for another over the top Eagle Wing week!
**Our assembly for the FUN RUN fundraiser featured the Get Movin' Cheetah and a super pep talk. The students brought their pledge sheets home with all the information this past Tuesday. Our FUN RUN time is 8:30 am on Tuesday, October 16th!!!! Come cheer us on. Any questions--just email me.
**Information on our school wide MILLION MINUTES CHALLENGE went home on Friday. Even though it doesn't officially start until October, our class is getting a head start. Please read the information and begin recording minutes on the reading log. Students did ask if they could read more than 20 minutes---Of course!!! If you need additional recording logs, let me know. Our first log is due on Friday, September 28th. Happy Reading!!
**Picture Day is Tuesday, October 2nd. I will try to book an early morning slot for us. Thanks to M. Schwager and L. Pointer for their assistance. Stay tuned for more info.
**All DIBELS and PHONIC SCREENER assessments are now completed. I will be sharing all the information with you at our conference. Route to Reading Rotation 1 will begin on Tuesday, October 2nd. At that time, you will receive information on the skill your child will be working on as well as the teacher who will be teaching it. The rotations are 3 weeks long.
**Don't forget to hand in your HELPFUL PARENTS SIGN UP sheet. If you are interested in helping with our Station Day Activities each Friday afternoon, check it off. I will be compiling a rotating list of volunteers that I will post. I am looking to start on Friday, October 12th! Join in the fun if you can. If you have a specific Friday in mind.....let me know. There are usually 2 parents per week. Think about taking an afternoon off of work. It is a great way to see your child in action as well as observe the dynamics of the class. We love dads, grandmas and grandpas too!
**Our School has a GREEN TEAM! Each class has 2 reps that meet with Green Team Leader, Ms. Tague, 2 times a month during lunch recess. They plan projects, discuss how to create a "greener" environment for our school and relay information to our class. This years focus will be on RECYCLING. I will be asking for 2 volunteers next week to represent our class. Talk it up!
**In Friendship Club this week, the topic was Tattle vs. Report. Ms. Bell Bey read the students a story about the difference between tattling and reporting information. After the story, she moderated a discussion and did an activity with the students on this topic. My question for the week: Are you tattling or reporting information????
**Mr. Packer Math focused on Mr. Packer getting to know the students in the class. He did an activity where each student performed an action (how timely!) and we went around the circle performing our action while Mr.Packer put our name to our action. The activity worked our memory and sequencing skills. The actions were fun and wacky!!!
**As the weather begins to change---please remember, we will be going out each day. Please see that your child dresses for the weather. Thanks!
**As we begin our Route to Reading rotations--please remember that our classroom is a NO NUT/NUT PRODUCT class as are ALL the kindergarten classes. Students with life threatening nut allergies will be moving through our classroom. Let's keep them safe!!! Thanks!
This week:
It was all about letters and numbers! The students found letters around our classroom and school. They also located numbers in our classroom and school. What is the difference between a letter and number? The students began a conversation about Consonants (letters that have 1 or 2 sounds) and Vowels (letters that can have many different sounds) Wow! The students looked at their names and located the consonants and vowels. They compared their name with a friends name. Some students went home and came back the next day with vowels circled from their first, middle and last names!!!! We are counting everything. They
counted markers, chairs, books, feet, noses.....Station Day activities this week included water color painting, creating a specific pattern block design and counting how many of each shape was used and reading their "I Can" story to a partner.
Reading/Social Studies: The students have completed the intro to our Treasures Reading series called Start Smart and spent this week reviewing letter recognition A-Z, beginning consonant sounds, matching uppercase letters and lowercase letters and sequencing letters A-Z. The students brainstormed words that name animals and words that name actions. We now have a list words that name people, places and animals (nouns) as well as a list of words that name actions (verbs.) The students are working on using complete sentences--subject/action when speaking. During our read aloud time, students read the paper story, "I Can." We continue to work on locating the title of our story. The students are now locating the page number, where the sentence starts (left side) and what ends the sentence (period or exclamation mark.) We continue to examine the contents of each page. What do you see in the big picture? Let's finger point and read each word and little picture (rebus reading). Do you recall your sight words? Before we turn the page, what do you think will happen next? Can you find an action word in this sentence? How many words are in this sentence? Who is in this story? (characters) What do you think the story is about? Where does this story take place? (setting) Wow! Lots going on! Students are sharing their story reading with a partner. The partner is observing finger pointing and voice quality (Can I hear my partner read?) Workstations this week included "Rhyme Time Game," (creating a rhyming word by using the spinner,) "Sound Toy Bag" Game, Letters Cards for sequencing uppercase letters, partner work with iPad apps-ABC Touch, My ABC's and Sound Sort, and "Can you write the sound down" activity. The students continue work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises. They are becoming much more focused as a group on letter recognition, rhyming distinction, segmenting and substituting sounds, deleting sounds, adding sounds and counting syllables. We will begin UNIT 1-Families, on Monday.
Math: The students worked on random counting (0-25.) They worked on sequencing numbers (0-12.) Students worked with partners to quiz each other on numbers 0-12. The students reviewed pattern block shape names and comparing shapes (3 sided, 4 sided, 5 sided.) They continue to explore tally marks as a way to count by 5"s. The students worked on random numbers that come before or after. Students also found patterns around the classroom. This week, the students began exploring the penny. We used our magnifiers and real pennies to examine what is on the front of the penny (Abraham Lincoln,) what is on the back of the penny (the Lincoln Memorial building.) The students located and read the number on the front to see how old their penny was. We read 2 stories about pennies--what they are made out of (copper,) where they are made (Washington D. C. at the U.S. Mint) and how much they are worth (1 cent.) We also learned that Abraham Lincoln was President number 16. Students worked on the activities, "Penny Power" and "Penny Grab."
Writing: The students reviewed Frog Jump Capitals--F, E, D and P. They used their wooden pieces to create the letters. They participated in a clay activity---rolling it into a ball, smashing it to make a pancake, rolling it into 3 "snakes" to make the letter F, 4 "snakes" to make the letter E and curving their "snake" to make letters D and P. Fun and work! The students worked in their orange books really beginning to think about the quality of their letter formation. They continue to use activities from the hand/finger activity box to strengthen their tri pod grasp. This week the students worked on drawing a picture and labeling one part with a word that described it----picture of a tree--using their inventive spelling to spell tree. Some students are writing a three word sentence, some a word with a beginning and ending sound, some with a beginning sound and some experimenting with vowel use. Students are using their letter sound picture cards to assist them in seeing how to write a letter if they only remember the sound. The idea here is that all students are feeling more comfortable about writing.
Technology: The students continue to use iPad apps--My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort to enhance their learning of the alphabet, alphabet sequence, beginning and ending sounds, rhyming words, sound/letter imprinting and language development during our reading language/ arts times. The iPad app-Intro to Math is used to strengthen number recognition through musical patterning, sequencing number order, find the missing number, touching number, number scatter and tracing number forms. The students are enjoying using our iPad tool as they learn to work with a partner--taking turns and sharpening their verbal skills as they interact with one another.
Literature: "My School's a Zoo," "The Fleas Sneeze," "The Colors of Us," "Feelings," "Bullies Never Win," "Two Eyes, a Nose and a Mouth," "A Hippo Ate the Teacher," "Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully," "Mean Jean the Recess Queen." A rereading of "The Alphabet Adventure," "The Alphabet Mystery," and "The Alphabet Rescue," was done for our Common Core Assessment of a specific author. Our class has chosen authors Audrey and Bruce Wood.
Friday, September 14, 2012
UPDATES for 9/10-9/14 2012
**Open House was spectacular! The students had so much fun being your tour guides! I enjoyed seeing all the families! The students are still chatting about the cool Doodle Buddy slideshow! Many of you signed up for a Conference Time. If you did not have a chance...don't worry, I will sending out a formal letter. Parent/Teacher Conferences for my class will be held on Tuesday, October 16th, Wednesday, October 17th, Thursday, October 18th and Friday, October 19th in our classroom. At that time, I will be sharing any assessments, student progress in all academic areas, participation and social/emotional reflections.
**Our class has earned enough EAGLE WINGS and have voted to have a PAJAMA PARTY on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th. The students can come in their pajamas or bring them to change into. They may also bring a bedtime stuff animal if they choose. Fluffy slippers can be worn in the classroom only so send gym shoes to change into.
**MILLION MINUTES READING CHALLENGE is beginning soon in October! Your child will get a recording log each week and we are asking that each child read/be read to for 20 minutes each day. I am looking for a volunteer who would be willing to collect our weekly reading logs and record the number of minutes on a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will be provided for you. It is a School Wide goal to read 1,000,000 minutes by April. We can do it!! We need your help. Email me if interested.
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 2nd. I try to book an early slot. Thanks to M. Schwager and L. Pointer for their assistance. Stay tuned for more info.
**KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM NIGHT is this coming Thursday, September 20th from 6:30-7:30 pm. (half hour later then previously mentioned) in the Irving Auditorium. This adult only event will provide you will absolutely everything you need to know about the tools used to educate your child. Hope to see you there. Please bring any questions you may have.
**I am in the last week of assessing students using the PHONIC SCREENERS. We will be discussing their use in creating our skill specific groups for Route to Reading at curriculum night.
**Don't forget--Library books can remain out 1 week and then must be brought back so your child can choose new ones. This week, Ms. Noonan spoke to the students about books being FICTION and NON-FICTION. Each child selected a fiction and non-fiction book.
**Ms. Bell Bey began Friendship Club today. She spoke about the topics that the students will be working on and introduced the students to her puppet friends. A note about her goals is in your child's folder.
**Mr. Packer will absolutely begin Math Enrichment next Tuesday. He was out of the building on Tuesday afternoon at a meeting.
**Students received their usernames and passwords for the at home program, READING EGGS today. They can click on the reading eggs name at the side of the blog. If they are reading and have a reading vocabulary of 50 words then they can click top selection. Most of my students will be clicking the bottom selection that will review letters and letter sounds. Experiment with it. This is just another option for practice. Parents set the amount of time and number of days. I can check in remotely through my computer.
**Travel Journals were shared by Kanohi (Eagle, Wisconsin) and Emerson (St. Louis, Missouri.) The students love locating the places on the our giant map and noting the distance between destinations.
**We will have a student assembly for the FUN RUN PTO Fundraiser on Monday, September 17th. Families will get the information sent home that day. Stay tuned for more info!
**Our 24th student will start class on Monday. Our class is now closed!
This week:
It was all about getting ready for open house. The students worked hard on projects to be displayed on our hallway wall. They thought about the future in their writing and illustrations of what they wanted to be when they grew up. They worked cooperatively with a partner on their border patterns and worked independently to create their pattern block design. What masterpieces!!! The most fun of all was working on their Doodle Buddy Project and seeing it in slideshow form. They are recognizing their classmates names and chatting with them about the stickers and drawings each used to personalize their photo. The students had such a great time playing 'Heads or Tails," that I postponed their Station Day activities until next Friday! More about that in the Math section!
Reading/Social Studies: The students finished week 3 of our prep for Treasures Reading Series called Start Smart. The students worked on letter names A-Z and letter sounds for letters A-P. They used their mirrors to observe where each letter sound came from....open/closed mouth?.....puff of air.....vibrations?...where is your tongue? The students continued work on on their sight vocabulary. We did some work with naming the letters (spelling) each word. In our interactive read aloud story, the students listened to a folktale from South America. They located the continent of South America on our world map. In the folktale, "The Clever Turtle," a man wants to make turtle soup. The turtle is very clever. The class discussed what that meant. (smart) The turtle plays the flute. The students recognized that this story was fiction. The students talked about what makes the turtle clever. (He does not become turtle soup!) and also thought about what the lesson might be in the story. Once again, the students created a picture in their mind as the story was being read. The students reviewed the trade book, "Jazz Baby." They used the retelling cards to tell the story. Students volunteered to write a sentence under each card. I said the letters and students recorded them. Some student volunteers knew how to spell and wrote the words on their own. The students compared the fiction story, "Jazz Baby," to the informational (non-fiction) story, "Made From Clay." They noted the real from the make believe, photos vs. illustrations and what each story was about (making music vs. clay.) The position words, under, on, in and over were reviewed. During our read aloud time, students re-read their paper story, "I Can." They concentrated on finger pointing each word and picture and noting that each sentence begins with a capital letter and has an ending mark at the end. Students took turns reading aloud while the other students followed along with their finger. Our workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy, Where's your Home," (upper/lowercase match) Sound Toy Bag Game, "Broken Egg" letter match, "Go Fish" for letters and iPad apps My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort. The students continue to work on Haggerty Blue Book exercises which include, letter recognition and sounds, rhyming, segmenting, substituting sounds, deleting sounds, adding sounds and counting syllables.
Math: The students continued their study of pattern block shapes. They reviewed the name of each shape. They students experimented with shape, design and visual perception. Each student created a design all their own. Marvelous! The students worked on counting quantities and counting down and counting on from a random number (0-25.) We discussed the terms greater than and less than. The students reviewed naming and finding basic shapes throughout the classroom. The students explored the penny and what it is worth. We took a look at the "Head" side--Abraham Lincoln and the "Tail" side--the Lincoln Memorial building. The students were introduced to tally marks which is a way of counting by 5's. The students played the game, "Heads or Tails" with a partner. It is in their homework folder.
Writing: Now that the students are aware that different types of lines form our letters, they began work on formal letter formation. In our Handwriting Without Tears series, students learn to form the letters using rhymes and cues. They have begun work on the FROG JUMP CAPITALS. Letters F, E and D were introduced. We used our wooden pieces to form the letters and worked on our mini boards with 'baby" chalk and "baby" sponges. Students are reinforcing their tripod grasp using these tools. The students located "Mr. Smiley" on their mini board to help guide them to start at the top left. An example--for letter F---starting up at the top----straight line down.....Frog Jump UP...(lift hand back to the top)...straight line across....(go to the center)....straight line across. The students continue using the writing prompts from our Treasures series. We continue to work on what a sentence is (NAMES and TELLS), beginning with a capital letter, putting a space between every word and seeing if we can write our words by recording the first and last sound we hear and even recording any middle sounds we hear (inventive spelling.)
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad apps My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort for as a tool to strengthen upper/lowercase recognition, sound/letter imprinting and language development during our reading/language arts times. The iPad app Intro to Math, was introduced this week to enhance number recognition and sequence. The activities contained in this app include musical counting sequence, sequencing number order, number tracing and recognition, touching number and number scatter.
Literature: "Countdown to Kindergarten," "Alphabet Rescue," "My Friends," "Words Are Not For Hurting," "What Will the Fat Cat Sit On?" "Me I Am," "Good Boy, Fergus," "New Bear at School," "No, No and No"-no, no, y no (English/Spanish,) "Leo, the Late Bloomer."
**Our class has earned enough EAGLE WINGS and have voted to have a PAJAMA PARTY on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th. The students can come in their pajamas or bring them to change into. They may also bring a bedtime stuff animal if they choose. Fluffy slippers can be worn in the classroom only so send gym shoes to change into.
**MILLION MINUTES READING CHALLENGE is beginning soon in October! Your child will get a recording log each week and we are asking that each child read/be read to for 20 minutes each day. I am looking for a volunteer who would be willing to collect our weekly reading logs and record the number of minutes on a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will be provided for you. It is a School Wide goal to read 1,000,000 minutes by April. We can do it!! We need your help. Email me if interested.
**PICTURE DAY is Tuesday, October 2nd. I try to book an early slot. Thanks to M. Schwager and L. Pointer for their assistance. Stay tuned for more info.
**KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM NIGHT is this coming Thursday, September 20th from 6:30-7:30 pm. (half hour later then previously mentioned) in the Irving Auditorium. This adult only event will provide you will absolutely everything you need to know about the tools used to educate your child. Hope to see you there. Please bring any questions you may have.
**I am in the last week of assessing students using the PHONIC SCREENERS. We will be discussing their use in creating our skill specific groups for Route to Reading at curriculum night.
**Don't forget--Library books can remain out 1 week and then must be brought back so your child can choose new ones. This week, Ms. Noonan spoke to the students about books being FICTION and NON-FICTION. Each child selected a fiction and non-fiction book.
**Ms. Bell Bey began Friendship Club today. She spoke about the topics that the students will be working on and introduced the students to her puppet friends. A note about her goals is in your child's folder.
**Mr. Packer will absolutely begin Math Enrichment next Tuesday. He was out of the building on Tuesday afternoon at a meeting.
**Students received their usernames and passwords for the at home program, READING EGGS today. They can click on the reading eggs name at the side of the blog. If they are reading and have a reading vocabulary of 50 words then they can click top selection. Most of my students will be clicking the bottom selection that will review letters and letter sounds. Experiment with it. This is just another option for practice. Parents set the amount of time and number of days. I can check in remotely through my computer.
**Travel Journals were shared by Kanohi (Eagle, Wisconsin) and Emerson (St. Louis, Missouri.) The students love locating the places on the our giant map and noting the distance between destinations.
**We will have a student assembly for the FUN RUN PTO Fundraiser on Monday, September 17th. Families will get the information sent home that day. Stay tuned for more info!
**Our 24th student will start class on Monday. Our class is now closed!
This week:
It was all about getting ready for open house. The students worked hard on projects to be displayed on our hallway wall. They thought about the future in their writing and illustrations of what they wanted to be when they grew up. They worked cooperatively with a partner on their border patterns and worked independently to create their pattern block design. What masterpieces!!! The most fun of all was working on their Doodle Buddy Project and seeing it in slideshow form. They are recognizing their classmates names and chatting with them about the stickers and drawings each used to personalize their photo. The students had such a great time playing 'Heads or Tails," that I postponed their Station Day activities until next Friday! More about that in the Math section!
Reading/Social Studies: The students finished week 3 of our prep for Treasures Reading Series called Start Smart. The students worked on letter names A-Z and letter sounds for letters A-P. They used their mirrors to observe where each letter sound came from....open/closed mouth?.....puff of air.....vibrations?...where is your tongue? The students continued work on on their sight vocabulary. We did some work with naming the letters (spelling) each word. In our interactive read aloud story, the students listened to a folktale from South America. They located the continent of South America on our world map. In the folktale, "The Clever Turtle," a man wants to make turtle soup. The turtle is very clever. The class discussed what that meant. (smart) The turtle plays the flute. The students recognized that this story was fiction. The students talked about what makes the turtle clever. (He does not become turtle soup!) and also thought about what the lesson might be in the story. Once again, the students created a picture in their mind as the story was being read. The students reviewed the trade book, "Jazz Baby." They used the retelling cards to tell the story. Students volunteered to write a sentence under each card. I said the letters and students recorded them. Some student volunteers knew how to spell and wrote the words on their own. The students compared the fiction story, "Jazz Baby," to the informational (non-fiction) story, "Made From Clay." They noted the real from the make believe, photos vs. illustrations and what each story was about (making music vs. clay.) The position words, under, on, in and over were reviewed. During our read aloud time, students re-read their paper story, "I Can." They concentrated on finger pointing each word and picture and noting that each sentence begins with a capital letter and has an ending mark at the end. Students took turns reading aloud while the other students followed along with their finger. Our workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy, Where's your Home," (upper/lowercase match) Sound Toy Bag Game, "Broken Egg" letter match, "Go Fish" for letters and iPad apps My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort. The students continue to work on Haggerty Blue Book exercises which include, letter recognition and sounds, rhyming, segmenting, substituting sounds, deleting sounds, adding sounds and counting syllables.
Math: The students continued their study of pattern block shapes. They reviewed the name of each shape. They students experimented with shape, design and visual perception. Each student created a design all their own. Marvelous! The students worked on counting quantities and counting down and counting on from a random number (0-25.) We discussed the terms greater than and less than. The students reviewed naming and finding basic shapes throughout the classroom. The students explored the penny and what it is worth. We took a look at the "Head" side--Abraham Lincoln and the "Tail" side--the Lincoln Memorial building. The students were introduced to tally marks which is a way of counting by 5's. The students played the game, "Heads or Tails" with a partner. It is in their homework folder.
Writing: Now that the students are aware that different types of lines form our letters, they began work on formal letter formation. In our Handwriting Without Tears series, students learn to form the letters using rhymes and cues. They have begun work on the FROG JUMP CAPITALS. Letters F, E and D were introduced. We used our wooden pieces to form the letters and worked on our mini boards with 'baby" chalk and "baby" sponges. Students are reinforcing their tripod grasp using these tools. The students located "Mr. Smiley" on their mini board to help guide them to start at the top left. An example--for letter F---starting up at the top----straight line down.....Frog Jump UP...(lift hand back to the top)...straight line across....(go to the center)....straight line across. The students continue using the writing prompts from our Treasures series. We continue to work on what a sentence is (NAMES and TELLS), beginning with a capital letter, putting a space between every word and seeing if we can write our words by recording the first and last sound we hear and even recording any middle sounds we hear (inventive spelling.)
Technology: The students continue to use the iPad apps My ABC's, ABC Touch and Sound Sort for as a tool to strengthen upper/lowercase recognition, sound/letter imprinting and language development during our reading/language arts times. The iPad app Intro to Math, was introduced this week to enhance number recognition and sequence. The activities contained in this app include musical counting sequence, sequencing number order, number tracing and recognition, touching number and number scatter.
Literature: "Countdown to Kindergarten," "Alphabet Rescue," "My Friends," "Words Are Not For Hurting," "What Will the Fat Cat Sit On?" "Me I Am," "Good Boy, Fergus," "New Bear at School," "No, No and No"-no, no, y no (English/Spanish,) "Leo, the Late Bloomer."
Saturday, September 8, 2012
UPDATES for 9/4-9/7 2012
**The students shared many Labor Day stories about family and friends. We all enjoyed our long weekend. I enjoyed spending time with family in Arizona. The students enjoyed a book I brought back called "Cactus Hotel," about all the desert creatures who take advantage of the marvelous cactus plant. They sampled cactus candy to mixed reviews (too sweet, too sticky, pretty good , very good.)
**Thanks to all of our parent volunteers for their help at lunch. The students are used to the lunch routine. They are still getting used to the school lunch menu. Many times the food does not look like what mom makes at home! Next week, we will be on our own. I will continue to work lunch Monday thru Thursday. On Fridays, Ms. Creehan will take over for me. Ms. Dennis will be working all five days. Once again, thanks for sending great home lunches and snacks!
**Zaria shared with the class the first Travel Journal. She traveled to Aurora, Illinois. The students helped me locate it on our map. She shared some experiences from her weekend.
**COME ONE, COME ALL to IRVING SCHOOL'S OPEN HOUSE this coming Thursday, September 13th from 6:30-7:30 pm. Stop by our classroom first to sign in and sign up for parent conferences and other cool volunteer stuff. Your child will be your tour guide! See the room and student work and then move on to meet all the teachers involved in your child's learning at Irving. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM NIGHT is Thursday, September 20th from 6:00-7:00 pm in the Irving Auditorium. This adult only event will provide you with absolutely everything you really need to know about the tools used to educate your child. Hope to see you there. Bring your questions.
**I am currently in the process of assessing students with the DIBELS test and PHONIC SCREENERS. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific Route to Reading Groups. You will hear much more about this at Curriculum Night. This week all KRT (Kindergarten Readiness Test) were given to students who did not take them prior to the beginning of kindergarten. The score is in your child's backpack. Any questions...email me.
**The students chose their first library book this week. They keep it for 1 week, bring it back and then can check out 2 books. They must return the book to check out more. Make sure to keep the book in your child's back pack when not reading it to keep it from getting lost.
**Friendship Club and Mr. Packer Math Enrichment will begin next week.
**MILLION MINUTES READING CHALLENGE will begin in October. You will be receiving more info on it soon. The whole school is taking part! I will need a parent volunteer to help co-ordinate the weekly minutes.
**Magical Minds after school Program could use a few more students. See me if interested.
**For this school year, I will not be posting any student projects or pictures of students on the web. I have parents who have signed to not have their child's picture out there. I do respect this. Any projects or student work will be directly emailed to each of you. I will also show projects in our classroom via slideshow.
**The students are earning their EAGLE WINGS and individual EAGLE SLIPS!!! Let's hear it for great following of the EAGLE ESSENTIALS!!!! (Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe, Be Peaceful Everywhere and Have Fun) A special shout out to our first Eagle Slip winner--WILL. His EAGLE SLIP was pick out of the big box by Mr. Hodge!!!!! Our whole class earned enough EAGLE WINGS to choose a special activity. Way to go!!!!
This week:
It was all about getting to know ourselves, our classmates and teachers. What do we look like? What activities do we like to do? Where do we like to go? Have we made any new friends? Who is in our family? What do we like best about school? The students have begun to share many aspects of their lives with me and each other. The students looked in the giant mirror to see what they look like. They used MAT MAN as a guide to include body parts when drawing their self portrait. They made a paper doll of themselves. (totally adorable!) and we looked at their "HEADS" to see the commonalities in our hobbies, favorite foods, family members, favorite activities and books. We had our first Station Day where the students are responsible for completing 4 activities before snack and choice. They are learning to follow directions, manage time and produce quality work. Our Station Day activities included creating a number board using numbers 0-10, sticker pattern charts, stamping your name and building a dog out of pattern blocks. (great for spacial awareness and visual discrimination development)
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in week 2 of our prep for Treasures called START SMART. They reviewed their sound foundation for letters A-H. We used our mirrors to help imprint how the sound looks. The students listened to a read aloud story, "The Gingerbread Man." The students are beginning to learn terms such as genre-type of story and folktale-a story from long ago that has been told many times and sometimes changes. They created a picture in their minds about what was happening in the story. We discussed the story and students then retold it in their own words. Students worked on letter recognition with letters J-P. They played letter match up and pop for letters. Students read their pre-decodable story "I Can." They located the front and back cover, the title and title picture and where to begin to read the words. (from the left to the right) We practiced finger pointing each word and picture and found out that all sentences begin with a big letter and have some ending mark. The students took turns reading the sentence and the others followed along with their finger. I shared the trade book, "Jazz Baby." The students made predictions about story content and made connections in their daily lives about the instruments mentioned. They used the retelling cards to sequence the instruments mentioned. The students reviewed sight words using the games, "Hands Up, Hands Down" and "Walk your Words." They are getting quicker at recognizing these words. We created a word web about how we dance. They recited rhymes they learned in their early childhood like "Little Boy Blue" and "Humpty Dumpty," They have begun to listen to the parts or syllables of words such as hor-ses (2 parts or syllables.) Our workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy Where's your Home," sound matching game, "The Three Pigs," Sound Toy Bag Game and iPad app activities ABC Touch, Sound Sort, ABC Magic and ABC Lite. The students also continue work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises.
Math: The students worked on pattern block shape recognition. We even did the Shape Hokey Pokey!! Did you know that a diamond can also be called a rhombus?!! They also worked on basic patterning skills and the idea that a pattern repeats or starts over again. The students chose a partner for their boarder pattern project. They will be on display at Open House. Nice job, great taking turns and good encouragement from each other. The students worked on recognizing numbers 0-12. We used egg carton math, counting and building number boards and "What's My Number" to reinforce skills. The students listened to tell how many pennies they heard drop into the Listening Jar. We began a discussion about what tally marks are. The students are also creating patterns using unifix cubes.
Writing: The students reviewed the types of lines used in making letters. They were introduced to the format used in teaching how to form their letters. The first set in our Handwriting Without Tears Series in our FROG JUMP LETTERS. To get our hands and fingers ready they explored the HAND STRENGTHENING BOX filled with activities to strengthen grip and tripod grasp. These items will also be on display at Open House. Fun! Fun! Fun! We worked on the letters F and E. Our new mantra--Where do you start your letters----At the top!!!!! The students also continue to use our great smelling clay to work all the muscles and joints in their fingers and hands. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series in their journals. They continue to experiment with drawing their picture and recording the sounds they hear in a word that describes their picture. They are working on starting their sentence with a big letter and that a sentence NAMES and TELLS.
Technology: The students continue to learn about the operation and care of the iPad. We are currently using apps about the ABC's and Sounds. Next week apps on math/numbers and more on language arts will be introduced.
Literature: "The Best Teacher in the World," "Smile If Your'e Human," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "The Cactus Hotel," "Yes We Can," "The Pout Pout Fish," "Hedgies Surprise," "How Do Dinosaurs Go to School," "The Alphabet Adventure," "The Pout Pout Fish in the Big Big Dark," "Fox in Socks," "Silly Sally."
**Thanks to all of our parent volunteers for their help at lunch. The students are used to the lunch routine. They are still getting used to the school lunch menu. Many times the food does not look like what mom makes at home! Next week, we will be on our own. I will continue to work lunch Monday thru Thursday. On Fridays, Ms. Creehan will take over for me. Ms. Dennis will be working all five days. Once again, thanks for sending great home lunches and snacks!
**Zaria shared with the class the first Travel Journal. She traveled to Aurora, Illinois. The students helped me locate it on our map. She shared some experiences from her weekend.
**COME ONE, COME ALL to IRVING SCHOOL'S OPEN HOUSE this coming Thursday, September 13th from 6:30-7:30 pm. Stop by our classroom first to sign in and sign up for parent conferences and other cool volunteer stuff. Your child will be your tour guide! See the room and student work and then move on to meet all the teachers involved in your child's learning at Irving. Fun! Fun! Fun!
**KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM NIGHT is Thursday, September 20th from 6:00-7:00 pm in the Irving Auditorium. This adult only event will provide you with absolutely everything you really need to know about the tools used to educate your child. Hope to see you there. Bring your questions.
**I am currently in the process of assessing students with the DIBELS test and PHONIC SCREENERS. These assessments will help in determining each students placement in our skill specific Route to Reading Groups. You will hear much more about this at Curriculum Night. This week all KRT (Kindergarten Readiness Test) were given to students who did not take them prior to the beginning of kindergarten. The score is in your child's backpack. Any questions...email me.
**The students chose their first library book this week. They keep it for 1 week, bring it back and then can check out 2 books. They must return the book to check out more. Make sure to keep the book in your child's back pack when not reading it to keep it from getting lost.
**Friendship Club and Mr. Packer Math Enrichment will begin next week.
**MILLION MINUTES READING CHALLENGE will begin in October. You will be receiving more info on it soon. The whole school is taking part! I will need a parent volunteer to help co-ordinate the weekly minutes.
**Magical Minds after school Program could use a few more students. See me if interested.
**For this school year, I will not be posting any student projects or pictures of students on the web. I have parents who have signed to not have their child's picture out there. I do respect this. Any projects or student work will be directly emailed to each of you. I will also show projects in our classroom via slideshow.
**The students are earning their EAGLE WINGS and individual EAGLE SLIPS!!! Let's hear it for great following of the EAGLE ESSENTIALS!!!! (Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe, Be Peaceful Everywhere and Have Fun) A special shout out to our first Eagle Slip winner--WILL. His EAGLE SLIP was pick out of the big box by Mr. Hodge!!!!! Our whole class earned enough EAGLE WINGS to choose a special activity. Way to go!!!!
This week:
It was all about getting to know ourselves, our classmates and teachers. What do we look like? What activities do we like to do? Where do we like to go? Have we made any new friends? Who is in our family? What do we like best about school? The students have begun to share many aspects of their lives with me and each other. The students looked in the giant mirror to see what they look like. They used MAT MAN as a guide to include body parts when drawing their self portrait. They made a paper doll of themselves. (totally adorable!) and we looked at their "HEADS" to see the commonalities in our hobbies, favorite foods, family members, favorite activities and books. We had our first Station Day where the students are responsible for completing 4 activities before snack and choice. They are learning to follow directions, manage time and produce quality work. Our Station Day activities included creating a number board using numbers 0-10, sticker pattern charts, stamping your name and building a dog out of pattern blocks. (great for spacial awareness and visual discrimination development)
Reading/Social Studies: The students continue to work in week 2 of our prep for Treasures called START SMART. They reviewed their sound foundation for letters A-H. We used our mirrors to help imprint how the sound looks. The students listened to a read aloud story, "The Gingerbread Man." The students are beginning to learn terms such as genre-type of story and folktale-a story from long ago that has been told many times and sometimes changes. They created a picture in their minds about what was happening in the story. We discussed the story and students then retold it in their own words. Students worked on letter recognition with letters J-P. They played letter match up and pop for letters. Students read their pre-decodable story "I Can." They located the front and back cover, the title and title picture and where to begin to read the words. (from the left to the right) We practiced finger pointing each word and picture and found out that all sentences begin with a big letter and have some ending mark. The students took turns reading the sentence and the others followed along with their finger. I shared the trade book, "Jazz Baby." The students made predictions about story content and made connections in their daily lives about the instruments mentioned. They used the retelling cards to sequence the instruments mentioned. The students reviewed sight words using the games, "Hands Up, Hands Down" and "Walk your Words." They are getting quicker at recognizing these words. We created a word web about how we dance. They recited rhymes they learned in their early childhood like "Little Boy Blue" and "Humpty Dumpty," They have begun to listen to the parts or syllables of words such as hor-ses (2 parts or syllables.) Our workstations this week included "Froggy, Froggy Where's your Home," sound matching game, "The Three Pigs," Sound Toy Bag Game and iPad app activities ABC Touch, Sound Sort, ABC Magic and ABC Lite. The students also continue work on the Haggerty Blue Book exercises.
Math: The students worked on pattern block shape recognition. We even did the Shape Hokey Pokey!! Did you know that a diamond can also be called a rhombus?!! They also worked on basic patterning skills and the idea that a pattern repeats or starts over again. The students chose a partner for their boarder pattern project. They will be on display at Open House. Nice job, great taking turns and good encouragement from each other. The students worked on recognizing numbers 0-12. We used egg carton math, counting and building number boards and "What's My Number" to reinforce skills. The students listened to tell how many pennies they heard drop into the Listening Jar. We began a discussion about what tally marks are. The students are also creating patterns using unifix cubes.
Writing: The students reviewed the types of lines used in making letters. They were introduced to the format used in teaching how to form their letters. The first set in our Handwriting Without Tears Series in our FROG JUMP LETTERS. To get our hands and fingers ready they explored the HAND STRENGTHENING BOX filled with activities to strengthen grip and tripod grasp. These items will also be on display at Open House. Fun! Fun! Fun! We worked on the letters F and E. Our new mantra--Where do you start your letters----At the top!!!!! The students also continue to use our great smelling clay to work all the muscles and joints in their fingers and hands. The students continue to use the writing prompts from our Treasures series in their journals. They continue to experiment with drawing their picture and recording the sounds they hear in a word that describes their picture. They are working on starting their sentence with a big letter and that a sentence NAMES and TELLS.
Technology: The students continue to learn about the operation and care of the iPad. We are currently using apps about the ABC's and Sounds. Next week apps on math/numbers and more on language arts will be introduced.
Literature: "The Best Teacher in the World," "Smile If Your'e Human," "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," "The Cactus Hotel," "Yes We Can," "The Pout Pout Fish," "Hedgies Surprise," "How Do Dinosaurs Go to School," "The Alphabet Adventure," "The Pout Pout Fish in the Big Big Dark," "Fox in Socks," "Silly Sally."
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