What a beautiful day! Let's hope the April showers will give way to May flowers!!!!!
Language Arts: Last week we finished our egg theme with the following books: Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, The Easter Egg Farm, and The Egg Book. We enjoyed creating an egg design and describing our eggs with adjectives and learning about the different animals that come from eggs. We even went on a color egg hunt. Our sight word for this week was "for" and our letter was Y. We read Yes Day! and created our own books that asked the questions that WE would like to be answered by YES! We read Yikes! were inspired to write about animals that we would react to with words like "Yikes" "Oh, no!" "Yow!" and "Ooops!" We wrote a TTQA (Turn that questions around) about what we liked to do in rain and focused on spaces. Mrs. Peterson wrote a smushed up sentence and SPACEMAN had to come to her rescue!
Math: We continue to work hard on addition and subtraction. It is important for student to UNDERSTAND what is happening when we add or subtract so we use manipulatives to CREATE the action and THEN write it down symbolically. We played The Plus or Minus Game (what is the action?), The Bean Game (fact families), the Domino Game, and created addition stories with given number problems. Addition Games will be in our morning Math Boxes for the next few weeks.
Social Studies: Our Cool Tool for the week was I Can Problem Solve. We continued to review the process of solving a problem through using words, cooling off, using I Messages and working towards a Win-Win solution.
Science: Last week was all about ecology. We celebrated Earth Day by instilling that every day is Earth Day! We focused on the responsibilities that we have to look after our environment, saving energy, reusing and recycling, and saving water. It all culminated with a school wide picture of "Earth" on the hill!
Notes: Continue to check folders every night. A lot of important papers are coming home for next year. We will have KinderPress on Friday, May 13. I am still working on narrowing down the time for those new volunteers who said they wanted to help. If you could email me if you signed up, I'd love to know who is coming that day.
We welcome Ariel to our class!
Thank you to Dr. Dozier for coming in as a Guest Reader this week!
I have four volunteers for the Thurs., May 19th field trip to DuPage Children's Museum. Those parents will be Dr. Platt, Mrs. Marron, Mrs. McHale, and Mrs. Parrilli. Thank you for volunteering!
Check out the upcoming events for May!
Have a great weekend
Friday, April 29, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
April 4 - 15
We have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks! Thanks for your patience as you waited for the latest blog update!
Language Arts: Our letters of study were J and E. Our sight words were "see," "me," "look," and "little." We read Peanut Butter and Jelly and created our own "How To" sequence. We read many different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk and compared a few using a Venn Diagram. We read elephants books like Elmer and Tuscanini and focused on beginning, middle and end. We read non fiction books about elephants and jellyfish. We recalled facts by writing an non fiction page and a four square.
Math: Fractions were introduced! We read a few different books about fractions and have had lively discussions about them. We will be manipulating math materials to create different kinds of fractions. The quarter was introduced. We read about the quarter and used magnifying glasses to study its features. We played a trivia game about all the coins that have been introduced: penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. The students need to recognize each coin and state its worth. We continue to practice sorting, more and less, addition and subtraction stories, and estimation. We will be practicing grouping items in sets of tens. Any extra help at home would be appreciated
Social Studies: Our Cool Tools for the past two weeks have been reviewing playground expectations and the I Can Problem Solve approach. This includes talking it out using I Messages, crating a win win situation, and remembering how to cool off when angry.
Notes: Thank you to Mrs. Marron, Mr. McHale, Dr. Platt, and Mr. Parrilli for running our Literacy Centers last week. The kids had a blast. We will have just one more center day (We are cancelling the week of May 11 due to Kinderpress.) so our last one will be Wednesday April 27th. I hope we can have four volunteers that day.
Welcome Pranav Manur to our class! We will also have a new student coming next week. Her name is Ariel Schultz.
We have a new author study. Our author this month is Mem Fox. She was born in Austrailia, grew up in Africa, and now lives back in Austrailia. She loves to use different kinds of animals in her stories. She addresses gender racial, and age equity beautifully in her books. She likes to write with her family in mind.
Earth Day is this week, April 22nd! Happy Earth Day!
Language Arts: Our letters of study were J and E. Our sight words were "see," "me," "look," and "little." We read Peanut Butter and Jelly and created our own "How To" sequence. We read many different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk and compared a few using a Venn Diagram. We read elephants books like Elmer and Tuscanini and focused on beginning, middle and end. We read non fiction books about elephants and jellyfish. We recalled facts by writing an non fiction page and a four square.
Math: Fractions were introduced! We read a few different books about fractions and have had lively discussions about them. We will be manipulating math materials to create different kinds of fractions. The quarter was introduced. We read about the quarter and used magnifying glasses to study its features. We played a trivia game about all the coins that have been introduced: penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. The students need to recognize each coin and state its worth. We continue to practice sorting, more and less, addition and subtraction stories, and estimation. We will be practicing grouping items in sets of tens. Any extra help at home would be appreciated
Social Studies: Our Cool Tools for the past two weeks have been reviewing playground expectations and the I Can Problem Solve approach. This includes talking it out using I Messages, crating a win win situation, and remembering how to cool off when angry.
Notes: Thank you to Mrs. Marron, Mr. McHale, Dr. Platt, and Mr. Parrilli for running our Literacy Centers last week. The kids had a blast. We will have just one more center day (We are cancelling the week of May 11 due to Kinderpress.) so our last one will be Wednesday April 27th. I hope we can have four volunteers that day.
Welcome Pranav Manur to our class! We will also have a new student coming next week. Her name is Ariel Schultz.
We have a new author study. Our author this month is Mem Fox. She was born in Austrailia, grew up in Africa, and now lives back in Austrailia. She loves to use different kinds of animals in her stories. She addresses gender racial, and age equity beautifully in her books. She likes to write with her family in mind.
Earth Day is this week, April 22nd! Happy Earth Day!