21st Century Learning in the classroom
This week started our new i-touch station during the Daily 5. In this station, students practice their sight words by looking at a sight word and predicting what it might be. Then, after making their prediction, they use the QR scanner on the i-touch to scan the QR code which connects them to fun learning video that tells them what the sight word says. Ask your child what they liked best about our new Daily 5 station.
Interim reports
Interim reports will be going home to any student who is NOT meeting quarter 2 benchmarks in reading, math, or writing this Friday. Please feel free to call and/or email should you have any questions. If your child does not have an interim in their Friday folder, this means your child is performing on grade level for each subject area.
Donations needed
Please go to www.signupgenius.com to see donations that are needed for upcoming events, including our winter celebration on 12/20.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
This and that...
Social Studies
As part of our social studies curriculum, we have been talking talking about 'then' and 'now'. Using the story, 'Celebrating Thanksgiving' by Joel Kupperstien, we talked about the many ways we are similar to the pilgrims in that we are thankful for our freedom and people who help us. We also talked about how we are different from the pilgrims in how we dress, the toys we play with, and how we make/cook our food. We discussed how the Pilgrims could not just pick up a turkey and some mashed potatoes at Walmart. Instead, they had to grow/make everything that they ate. To culminate the discussion, we made butter out of heavy whipping cream, that we then spread on Saltine crackers. The kiddos LOVED this, especially when they got to shake (and shake and shake...and shake some more) their plastic containers of cream and watch it turn into butter. Try giving it a try at home (You Tube has tons of videos) as the butter is surprisingly good. Even if you don't like butter, it is a fun activity for the kids to do while you are trying to get Thanksgiving dinner together. lol.
No Friday folders on Wednesday
As with track outs and other long weekends, Friday folders will not go home tomorrow. Instead, we will staple their take home work and place it in the kids' backpacks.
Homework
Just in case you didn't get the note, there will be NO HOMEWORK this week. New homework will go home next Friday, November 30th to be returned December 7th.
Mystery Readers
Be on the lookout for the 'Mystery Readers' sign up on www.signupgenius.com coming soon. This is where a parent, grandparent, uncle/aunt may sign up to read to our class. The kids won't know who it is until that person comes into read. I will give hints throughout the week for the kids to guess who the mystery person is.
Winter Celebration
Be on the look out for our 'Winter Celebration' sign up form on www.signupgenius.com. I will be asking for donations of hot chocolate, candy canes, volunteers, and other goodies for our 12/20 celebration.
As part of our social studies curriculum, we have been talking talking about 'then' and 'now'. Using the story, 'Celebrating Thanksgiving' by Joel Kupperstien, we talked about the many ways we are similar to the pilgrims in that we are thankful for our freedom and people who help us. We also talked about how we are different from the pilgrims in how we dress, the toys we play with, and how we make/cook our food. We discussed how the Pilgrims could not just pick up a turkey and some mashed potatoes at Walmart. Instead, they had to grow/make everything that they ate. To culminate the discussion, we made butter out of heavy whipping cream, that we then spread on Saltine crackers. The kiddos LOVED this, especially when they got to shake (and shake and shake...and shake some more) their plastic containers of cream and watch it turn into butter. Try giving it a try at home (You Tube has tons of videos) as the butter is surprisingly good. Even if you don't like butter, it is a fun activity for the kids to do while you are trying to get Thanksgiving dinner together. lol.
No Friday folders on Wednesday
As with track outs and other long weekends, Friday folders will not go home tomorrow. Instead, we will staple their take home work and place it in the kids' backpacks.
Homework
Just in case you didn't get the note, there will be NO HOMEWORK this week. New homework will go home next Friday, November 30th to be returned December 7th.
Mystery Readers
Be on the lookout for the 'Mystery Readers' sign up on www.signupgenius.com coming soon. This is where a parent, grandparent, uncle/aunt may sign up to read to our class. The kids won't know who it is until that person comes into read. I will give hints throughout the week for the kids to guess who the mystery person is.
Winter Celebration
Be on the look out for our 'Winter Celebration' sign up form on www.signupgenius.com. I will be asking for donations of hot chocolate, candy canes, volunteers, and other goodies for our 12/20 celebration.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Our bag of tricks!!
The kiddos have been learning and using soooo many tricks to learn how to read. They include...
-understanding our sight words and using the gestures
-looking at the picture when we don't understand a word
-looking at the first letter/sound of the word we don't know
-using sentence segmentation (counting the number of words in a sentence) to help us read a sentence.
For example, if the sentence says, "I like to jump" and by using the picture and first letter sounds, I think the sentence says, 'I like to jump high', I can use the number of words in the sentence to (4), to determine that, "I like to jump high" with 5 words could not be it.
Ask your child about these strategies. I told them how impressed you would be with them saying, 'sentence segmentation' (which happens to be our strategy of the week), so make sure to make a HUGE deal when they say/explain it.
Remember, it is important that when reading to your child at home, parents model both fluent reading (reading smoothly and with expression) and reading by modeling the above strategies.
In addition to our 'how to read' strategies, we have also been focusing on our comprehension strategies that include:
-making predictions about what the story will be about BEFORE we read (I wonder who the characters, setting, will be...)
-making connections while we read (That reminds me of...)
-identifying the character
-identifying the setting
-identifying the main idea
In math, we are working on counting with 5-groups (or fast 5s) and counting with 10-groups (or fast 10s). For example, instead of counting to 12 by 1's, we would say 10 (and put up 10 fingers), 11, 12.
OOOOO (The 2 rows are a fast 10)
OOOOO
OO
Or if we wanted to count to 9, we would start with 5 (and put up 5 fingers), 6, 7, 8, 9.
OOOOO (fast 5)
OOOO
We also have been working on understanding, identifying, and writing numbers in the teens. We have talked about how each number in the teens has a 1 before it, including those sneaky 11 and 12 numbers (even though they don't have the word 'teen' in it).
-understanding our sight words and using the gestures
-looking at the picture when we don't understand a word
-looking at the first letter/sound of the word we don't know
-using sentence segmentation (counting the number of words in a sentence) to help us read a sentence.
For example, if the sentence says, "I like to jump" and by using the picture and first letter sounds, I think the sentence says, 'I like to jump high', I can use the number of words in the sentence to (4), to determine that, "I like to jump high" with 5 words could not be it.
Ask your child about these strategies. I told them how impressed you would be with them saying, 'sentence segmentation' (which happens to be our strategy of the week), so make sure to make a HUGE deal when they say/explain it.
Remember, it is important that when reading to your child at home, parents model both fluent reading (reading smoothly and with expression) and reading by modeling the above strategies.
In addition to our 'how to read' strategies, we have also been focusing on our comprehension strategies that include:
-making predictions about what the story will be about BEFORE we read (I wonder who the characters, setting, will be...)
-making connections while we read (That reminds me of...)
-identifying the character
-identifying the setting
-identifying the main idea
In math, we are working on counting with 5-groups (or fast 5s) and counting with 10-groups (or fast 10s). For example, instead of counting to 12 by 1's, we would say 10 (and put up 10 fingers), 11, 12.
OOOOO (The 2 rows are a fast 10)
OOOOO
OO
Or if we wanted to count to 9, we would start with 5 (and put up 5 fingers), 6, 7, 8, 9.
OOOOO (fast 5)
OOOO
We also have been working on understanding, identifying, and writing numbers in the teens. We have talked about how each number in the teens has a 1 before it, including those sneaky 11 and 12 numbers (even though they don't have the word 'teen' in it).
Friday, November 9, 2012
We are learning more and more everyday!
Our focus in reading this week is being able to identify the characters (WHO the story is about), setting (WHERE the story happens), and main idea (WHAT happens in the story).
In "Fundations' our phonics program, we continue to focus on letter identification/letter sounds/letter formation. This week, our letters were 'v' and 'w'.
In writing, we are continuing to focus on using a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to convey our thoughts and events. Many of the kiddos are beginning to use our sight words, as well as beginning & ending sounds to create one or more sentences about their drawings. Speaking of sight words, we have added the words 'we' and 'will' to our list. Ask your child to share with you the gestures for these words.
In math, our focus has been using a '5 group' to count numbers AND represent them visually, as well as on our hands. For example, if we were going to count to 8, we would put our '5 group' up (5 fingers on one hand) and count, "5, 6, 7, 8" and put 3 fingers up on our other hand. We would represent 8 with the '5 group' and 3 fingers with a picture such as:
O O O O O (5 group)
O O O (3 fingers)
We also started to work on writing and representing numbers 11-20.
All of these objectives are easy to tie in at home in those 'teachable moments' when the kids don't even know they are learning.
Thank you to those of you who donated money for our JRDF run on Thursday. Although I was absent, I heard the kiddos had a fun time helping to raise money for children with diabetes.
In "Fundations' our phonics program, we continue to focus on letter identification/letter sounds/letter formation. This week, our letters were 'v' and 'w'.
In writing, we are continuing to focus on using a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to convey our thoughts and events. Many of the kiddos are beginning to use our sight words, as well as beginning & ending sounds to create one or more sentences about their drawings. Speaking of sight words, we have added the words 'we' and 'will' to our list. Ask your child to share with you the gestures for these words.
In math, our focus has been using a '5 group' to count numbers AND represent them visually, as well as on our hands. For example, if we were going to count to 8, we would put our '5 group' up (5 fingers on one hand) and count, "5, 6, 7, 8" and put 3 fingers up on our other hand. We would represent 8 with the '5 group' and 3 fingers with a picture such as:
O O O O O (5 group)
O O O (3 fingers)
We also started to work on writing and representing numbers 11-20.
All of these objectives are easy to tie in at home in those 'teachable moments' when the kids don't even know they are learning.
Thank you to those of you who donated money for our JRDF run on Thursday. Although I was absent, I heard the kiddos had a fun time helping to raise money for children with diabetes.
Friday, November 2, 2012
What a day!
And another week down. I can't believe how quickly this week went.
I usually don't post a day after I have already done so, but I wanted to share something so GREAT that the kids 'taught' me today.
We were reading over new our sight word book, "Bedtime". Each page started with the words, "This is my...". Of course the kiddos knew the first three words because we have been working on them all week, but when it got to the last word, they 'taught me' an excellent reading strategy. First, in order to figure out the last word on the page, we looked at the picture. For example, one of the pictures could have been a sheet, a quilt, or a blanket. Then, we looked at the first letter of the word. The first letter of the word was a b. We thought about which word started with the 'b' sound....sheet? quilt? blanket? Finally, we agreed that the sentence must be, "This is my blanket." We then used this strategy to read the entire book and agreed that using the picture, as well as the first letter of the word we don't know, definitely helps us when we are reading a book. Try modeling this at home when you read and encourage your child to do the same. They will be so surprised and excited about how much they can read!
Book Buddies and the Library
We did not go last Friday as a result of the field trip, but the kiddos were able to check out books today at the library. We also met with our book buddies from Ms. Stover's class and were able to read outside without sweating. Ask your child about the interview they did with their book buddies today!
Snack
I wanted to let you know that we were sooo busy, we did not get to snack today! I apologize for any, "Mom! I'm starving!!" comments you will receive today.
Homework
New homework went home in your child's Friday folder. It is due next Friday, November 9th!
Tuesday, November 6th
Don't forget! There is a 2-hour delay due to the election on Tuesday. School will start at 10:45am.
I usually don't post a day after I have already done so, but I wanted to share something so GREAT that the kids 'taught' me today.
We were reading over new our sight word book, "Bedtime". Each page started with the words, "This is my...". Of course the kiddos knew the first three words because we have been working on them all week, but when it got to the last word, they 'taught me' an excellent reading strategy. First, in order to figure out the last word on the page, we looked at the picture. For example, one of the pictures could have been a sheet, a quilt, or a blanket. Then, we looked at the first letter of the word. The first letter of the word was a b. We thought about which word started with the 'b' sound....sheet? quilt? blanket? Finally, we agreed that the sentence must be, "This is my blanket." We then used this strategy to read the entire book and agreed that using the picture, as well as the first letter of the word we don't know, definitely helps us when we are reading a book. Try modeling this at home when you read and encourage your child to do the same. They will be so surprised and excited about how much they can read!
Book Buddies and the Library
We did not go last Friday as a result of the field trip, but the kiddos were able to check out books today at the library. We also met with our book buddies from Ms. Stover's class and were able to read outside without sweating. Ask your child about the interview they did with their book buddies today!
Snack
I wanted to let you know that we were sooo busy, we did not get to snack today! I apologize for any, "Mom! I'm starving!!" comments you will receive today.
Homework
New homework went home in your child's Friday folder. It is due next Friday, November 9th!
Tuesday, November 6th
Don't forget! There is a 2-hour delay due to the election on Tuesday. School will start at 10:45am.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Pumpkin Day and the rest of the week!
What a fun day! Thank you to everyone who volunteered and/or donated items to make today so much fun! Through our learning experience today, we were able to:
-refine our fine motor skills and create paper candy corns
-learn about the life cycle sequence of pumpkins and create flip books
-practice our one-to-one correspondence and play candy corn math games
-practice our positional words and emergent reading skills and create a spider book using our fingerprints
-enjoy listening to the book, "Go Away, Monster" by Robert Embry and created our own 'cupcake monsters'!
What are we learning this week?
In reading this week, our focus is on making connections as we read. That is when what you are reading about, reminds you of something you have done and/or read about. In class, we have practiced this by saying, "That reminds me of..."
Our letters of the week are "Pp" and "Jj". Our sight word this week is "my". This will be added to our other sight words including, "I", "me", "see", "a", "are", "the", "this", and "is". You can reinforce these concepts by having a contest with your child to see how many sight words/letters they can identify at home.
In math, we are focusing on the concept of one more and one less. For example, "We have 2 cubes. How can we make 3? That's right, we can add one more." You can reinforce this at home using Halloween candy and say, "I have 3 pieces of candy, but I want 4. How many more pieces of candy do I need to get 4?"
Thank you again for all of your help this week with Pumpkin Day. Be on the lookout for NEW homework in your child's Friday folder.
-refine our fine motor skills and create paper candy corns
-learn about the life cycle sequence of pumpkins and create flip books
-practice our one-to-one correspondence and play candy corn math games
-practice our positional words and emergent reading skills and create a spider book using our fingerprints
-enjoy listening to the book, "Go Away, Monster" by Robert Embry and created our own 'cupcake monsters'!
What are we learning this week?
In reading this week, our focus is on making connections as we read. That is when what you are reading about, reminds you of something you have done and/or read about. In class, we have practiced this by saying, "That reminds me of..."
Our letters of the week are "Pp" and "Jj". Our sight word this week is "my". This will be added to our other sight words including, "I", "me", "see", "a", "are", "the", "this", and "is". You can reinforce these concepts by having a contest with your child to see how many sight words/letters they can identify at home.
In math, we are focusing on the concept of one more and one less. For example, "We have 2 cubes. How can we make 3? That's right, we can add one more." You can reinforce this at home using Halloween candy and say, "I have 3 pieces of candy, but I want 4. How many more pieces of candy do I need to get 4?"
Thank you again for all of your help this week with Pumpkin Day. Be on the lookout for NEW homework in your child's Friday folder.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Updates and changes....
Friday folders...TODAY!
Due to tomorrow's field trip, students will bring their Friday folders home today. In it, you will find a classroom directory form. Simply fill it out and return by Friday, November 2nd. On that same note, I am looking for a parent who would be willing to compile the directory information into a handy-dandy sheet . Please email me if you are interested.
Field Trip
Send a bagged lunch (paper or plastic, no lunchboxes please) with your child to school tomorrow, unless you ordered a bagged lunch from the cafeteria. Make sure the has your child's name on it. Also, make sure to send your child in shoes that are comfortable, as we will be doing a fair amount of walking. This applies to chaperones, too. Don't forget a lunch and comfortable shoes for you, too!
*No backpacks tomorrow.
*A BIG thank you to Ms. Sosa and Ms. Hood for lending us their coolers to store our lunches in.
'Specials' Schedule
Our specials schedule has changed. Make sure to take a gander on the lower right hand side of this blog to check what special we have each day. No longer do we have a specific special on specific day. Instead, we now have a 6-day rotation. The * indicates what special we have on Monday, so you will know what we have for the rest of the week. Please email me should you have any questions.
Barnes and Nobel Bookfair Invite
Our Barnes and Nobel bookfair will be on Thursday, November 15th. Please click on the following link for more details Open your invitation .
Thanks for a great first week back! I will see most of you tomorrow ;-)
Due to tomorrow's field trip, students will bring their Friday folders home today. In it, you will find a classroom directory form. Simply fill it out and return by Friday, November 2nd. On that same note, I am looking for a parent who would be willing to compile the directory information into a handy-dandy sheet . Please email me if you are interested.
Field Trip
Send a bagged lunch (paper or plastic, no lunchboxes please) with your child to school tomorrow, unless you ordered a bagged lunch from the cafeteria. Make sure the has your child's name on it. Also, make sure to send your child in shoes that are comfortable, as we will be doing a fair amount of walking. This applies to chaperones, too. Don't forget a lunch and comfortable shoes for you, too!
*No backpacks tomorrow.
*A BIG thank you to Ms. Sosa and Ms. Hood for lending us their coolers to store our lunches in.
'Specials' Schedule
Our specials schedule has changed. Make sure to take a gander on the lower right hand side of this blog to check what special we have each day. No longer do we have a specific special on specific day. Instead, we now have a 6-day rotation. The * indicates what special we have on Monday, so you will know what we have for the rest of the week. Please email me should you have any questions.
Barnes and Nobel Bookfair Invite
Our Barnes and Nobel bookfair will be on Thursday, November 15th. Please click on the following link for more details Open your invitation .
Thanks for a great first week back! I will see most of you tomorrow ;-)
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