Human Body Voice Thread

Here's the final VoiceThread showcasing some of the facts the class learned about the human body!

Week of December 17, 2012

Dear Parents:

First, I want to say thank you to everyone for your wonderful participation in the gift drive. Our bins (and there were many) ended up overflowing! You were all so very generous! You helped your child to "see" and "feel" the true meaning of giving. Even though the load was heavy, the children had such joy in carrying the gifts to the athletic center Friday! What an awesome sight to see piles and piles of gifts for all of the families! Thank you for making the holidays of our adoptive families brighter!

In case you haven't heard about our class elf, Buster, I've included a couple of pictures of the ways we have found him when we get to school in the mornings! He is quite the character as you can see! The children are excited each morning to find out what he has been up to!

On Wednesday, we will be making gingerbread houses after lunch with Dr. Hosseini, Mobi Pennock, and Mary Hind. How exciting!

Our holiday party is this Thursday! Remember that your child should come to school in jammies ready for our Pajama Breakfast Party! You can come in your jammies, too! All parents are welcome! Remember that the children will be having PE that morning, so if your child prefers not to stay in their jammies, please send in a change of clothes for after the party They will need sockd and sneakers either way! We also have our lower school holiday sing-along in the theater at 11:00. Again, you are welcome to join us if you like! Dismissal is at noon.

Volunteers this week:

• Wednesday - Library Check-out - 2:00 - Kim Gross and Mary Hind or Deborah Shipley 

Reading/Language Arts: As readers we continue to think and talk about what we read with our partners as well as with ourselves. When your child reads with you at home, please take the time to let them talk about what they have read. Sharing ideas is an important part of understanding what we read. Retelling bookmarks came home last week. They can be used to help your child with retelling a book after reading it.

Math:  Please continue to practice the basic addition and subtraction facts with your child for automaticity. Fact Power cards came home on Monday this week. Please return them on Wednesday! They must be returned before the holiday break. Several children did not return them to school from last week. Please help instill in your child,  the responsibility for practicing and returning the cards to school. This week, the children are making up and solving number stories involving relation symbols (<, >, and =), addition, and subtraction. We'll also be working on addition of 2-digit numbers, with the children using several different strategies for solving these problems.

The children played Animal Weight Top-it, some using base-10 blocks to help figure out the animal that weighs the most.

Ryan, Matthew, Avery, and Natalie play the game, "Tens and Ones Trading" with Mrs . Gross.

Daven, Carson, Kaja, and Leni work on a time matching activity.

Writer's Workshop: We are finishing up our realistic fiction stories and getting them ready for publishing. We plan to celebrate our writing with you on Thursday after our pajama party! The plan is to get comfortable with our pillows that we make at the party, and enjoy reading our stories with you! Who doesn't love to settle in a comfy spot and read a good book?

Science: As our solar system unit continues, this week we continue to learn about stars and constellations and the galaxy that we are a part of... the Milky Way!

Can you believe this is our last week together in the 2012 school year? The time is flying by! I wish you all a wonderful Christmas or Hanukkah with your family! The break from school is a great time to read, play games, and just enjoy your time together!

I hope to see you on Thursday at our Pajama Breakfast Party!
Susan

Week of December 10, 2012

Dear Parents: 

Please read to the very end of this blog. There is a lot of important information for you and a survey at the end. 

I'm sure you've heard about the new member of our class... Buster! What a great addition he is proving to be... wink, wink!

Our gift drive bins are starting to fill up in the hallway outside our classroom!  Thank you so much! Remember that the gift drive ends at 8:00 this Friday! So, please have your wrapped and labeled gifts here by then! The children will carry the gifts to the athletic center Friday morning. It is always so much fun to see the gym filled with gifts for those children so less fortunate than us. I thank you so much for your generosity and helping our children feel the joy and blessing of giving.

If you wanted to place a Scholastic book order but forgot to send in the order forms today, you may still go online and place your order. Today is the deadline, however. Our class code for ordering online is on the letter attached to the order forms that came home. There are many other books available online as well. Books will be in before we leave for the holidays.

This week I will be sending home flyers from Highlights, a magazine for children. If you are interested in ordering, they are offering it a great price! I know my children always loved Highlights. Even if you are not interested, please sign and return the yellow flyer to school by next Monday. Our class will receive a free gift just for returning all 14 flyers - whether orders are placed or not! 

Now, a look at what is going on in our classroom this week: 

Word Work: This week as we continue working on the long vowel/silent e rule with cvce patterns, we are focusing on long o words. Remember that you can give your child some FUN extra practice with this skill by clicking on the Starfall link on the right side of this blog, then click Learn to Read, and then #6 Jake's Tale. Please remember that your child should be practicing reading and spelling the word card words on the ring each night. Having your child compose and write sentences using these words is excellent practice. Remind your child to write "strong" sentences. We will continue to work on homophones and contractions all year.

  

Reading Workshop: We are learning that comprehension means understanding what we read and that remains our focus. As we learn new strategies, we don't throw out the old ones! We are always practicing the new strategies along with the ones we have already learned. Therefore, continue to use the "stop and think" markers and stickies as you read at home with your child. Retelling is a huge help in understanding what we read! We have been practicing retelling our books to ourselves and now are retelling with our reading partners. We've learned that retelling is more meaningful and helps us to understand more when we retell using the character names and details. We're also learning to share ideas and ask questions of each other to help us think about what we read. When your child reads with you at home, please take the time to let them "retell" and talk about what they have read. The children will be bringing home "retelling" bookmarks to help practice this skill when reading at home. 

Writing Workshop:  After comparing realistic fiction versus other types of fiction books, we used our imaginations and wrote our own innovations of a book we read called “Snowmen at Night”. The imaginative stories (and their beautiful q-tip painted illustrations) are posted in our hallway. We have now begun to focus on writing a realistic fiction story. We mapped out story elements such as character, plot, and setting and now are continuing to develop our stories by thinking of a problem or problems for the character to face and then possible solutions.

Math:  We continue working on telling time to the quarter hour. As this is a difficult concept, your child would benefit from repetitive practice. I am sending home a baggie with Time Match cards in it for you to use to play games at home with your child. Many variations can be played. Use your imagination. So far, we have played a regular matching game and Go Fish with it. Games are a great way to help children understand, practice, and master difficult math concepts. Please play often! Also, the "Fact Power" cards will again come home on Tuesday to be practiced each day and then returned to school on Friday. Spending just 5 - 10 minutes with these each day will be a tremendous help to your child in developing automaticity (or FACT POWER) of these facts. Today we are beginning Unit 5 in math. It will be a BIG and important unit covering many new skills. This week we will focus on place value with tens and ones and the relation symbols of greater than, less than, and equal to.

Science: As our solar system unit continues, we will focus on the stars this week. We’ll learn about their characteristics and about the pictures they make in the sky… the constellations. Our next field trip will be to the Science Center/Planetarium on February 5 where we will get to see the night sky in all of its glory! It will be a great culminating experience to our solar system unit!

Keep an eye out for another post this week of our culminating project work that the children completed after our human body unit. We have completed a voice thread showing a sampling of what they learned during the unit. I just need to learn how to post it!

Sleep in! Skip breakfast! What an easy morning we have in store for you! Come to school in your PJs on Thursday, December 20th. We're having a "come as you are pajama party" beginning at 8:30 that morning! We'll have a breakfast buffet so no need to make breakfast at home that morning! The children may stay in their PJs the rest of the morning or you may send in a change of clothes for them. If your child is wearing slippers with the PJs, please be sure to send in sneakers and socks to change into as we will be having PE that morning. We will also be going to the Lower School Holiday Sing in the theater at 11:00. All parents are welcome to join us for the pajama party (you may come in your PJ's too) as well as the holiday sing. Dismissal will be at noon that day!

Other Important Dates to Mark on Your Calendar:

January 2 will be a Professional Development Day for teachers. No school for students.

School resumes for children on Thursday, January 3. 

School is closed on Monday, January 21 for Martin Luther King Day.

Grandparents/Special Friends Day is Friday, January 25. Noon dismissal that day!

Field Trip to the Science Center/Planetarium will be Tuesday, February 5. We will eat lunch at school at 11:00 that day! Parents are welcome to join us by meeting us at the Science Center or following the bus. We will leave school at 11:30. Our tour begins at 12:00 and we will leave to return to school at 2:00.

Spring Conference Day will be Thursday, February 7. There will be no school for the children that day. A schedule will be coming home in January. If you need a specific time, please email me now. 

Friday, February 15 will be a Professional Development Day for teachers. No school for students. 

School is closed on Monday, February 18, for Presidents' Day.

Volunteers this week:

• Wednesday - Library checkout - Lorraine Thorpe and David nguyen - 2:10
• Thursday - Math Game - Kim Gross - 10:30
• Friday - Art - Heidi Joswig or David Richarson - 9:15
• Friday - Parent Reader - Lorraine Thorpe - 2:15

Finally, I am conducting an independent survey... please let me know if you read this blog. That's it... that's the survey! 

Have a great week!

Susan

Week of December 3, 2012

Dear Parents:

First of all, I would like to thank Mary Hind, Mobi (Jane) Pennock, and Lorraine Thorpe for the fantastic compliment party they hosted for us last week! Check out the beautiful cake! The children worked hard to earn enough compliments to have the party. Way to go, boys and girls! We are already well on our way to a second party. Keep up the great behavior!

"Never settle for less than your best! You are responsible for you!" This is our class motto that we recite each morning and talk about frequently. The children and I have agreed that these aren't just words to recite but words that we live by in our class. Therefore, the children and I have agreed that sloppy work will no longer be acceptable, whether done in the classroom or on homework. If the child and I agree that they did less than their best in terms of neatness, the assignment will need to be redone. I anticipate that the "neat writer of the day" award will become very competitive and that is a good thing!

The gift drive bins are in the hallway outside our classroom and need filling! What a great way to make the holidays brighter for families in need and, at the same time, reinforce the life skill of generosity with our children. Don't forget the gift drive ends on Friday, the 14th.  The children will be carrying the gifts to the athletic center that morning. The joy of giving will never be so evident! Here's a great big THANK YOU to Mobi (Jane) Pennock and Mary Hind for spear-heading this gift drive for our class. You should have received an email from Mobi (Jane) detailing the gift drive. Please let me know if you did not receive it.

The children are also getting excited about our upcoming pajama party! It will be on Thursday, December 20th, beginning at 8:30 a.m. with a breakfast buffet! Your child may wear his/her pajamas to school that morning. They may stay in their PJs the rest of the morning or you may send in a change of clothes for them. If your child is wearing slippers with the PJs, please be sure to send in sneakers and socks to change into as we will be having PE that morning. We will be going to the Lower School Holiday Sing in the theater at 11:00. All parents are welcome to join us for the pajama party (you may come in your PJ's too) as well as the holiday sing. Dismissal will be at noon that day!

Even with all of the excitement of the season, we are still working very hard in our classroom. Here is a glimpse of what is going on this week:

Word Work: This week we continue working on the long vowel/silent e rule, focusing on long i words. Ask your child about that shy, silent e and how he causes the other vowel to stand up and say its name! Our high frequency words (word card words) are very, could, have, make, and any.  Please remember that your child should be practicing reading and spelling these words each night. Having your child compose sentences using these words is excellent practice. Ask your child what my rule is about writing sentences. Hint - it has to do with your child's age.

Matthew, Ben, Cyrus, and Ryan practice making words during Word Work.

Reader's Workshop: Comprehension is our focus. We continue to use our "stop and think" markers, and are learning to hold on to our thoughts as we read by using sticky notes to mark places in our books that make us think. When reading at home, your child should be using the "stop and think" marker brought home last week. We'll also work on "retelling" to help build our reading muscles and understand what we read. Smart readers retell by using character names and details so that retelling makes sense. Please practice retelling with your child when reading at home. A special "retelling bookmark" will be coming home soon to help you and your child practice this important comprehension skill when reading at home.

Writer's Workshop: We have begun our realistic fiction unit. We began by defining realistic fiction (made up stories that could really happen), reading stories to decide whether or not they are realistic fiction, and talking about characteristics of realistic fiction. During this unit, we will focus on characters that are true to life (yet drawn from the writer's imagination) and behave in realistic ways, vivid and detailed settings (place and time) that are possible, plots that engage the reader and spark a sequence of events, and problems and solutions that are central to the plot.

Math: Ask your child about "FACT POWER" as we are working on many different strategies for addition and subtraction. "Fact Power" cards will begin coming home in a baggie every Tuesday. They are to be practiced daily and returned to school on Friday. Beginning in January, your child will have to mentally solve an addition (or subtraction) fact to enter the classroom each morning! We will also continue working on telling time to the quarter hour. Telling time is a skill that requires lots of practice. Please practice this often with your child throughout the year. We will be taking the unit 4 assessment this week. Look for it and the family letter for unit 5 to be coming home at the end of the week.

Science: We are into our unit on the solar system! Ask your child about earth's closest star. We are learning a lot about it! If you have not brought the 4 inch styrofoam ball and empty toilet paper tube, please do so as soon as possible. Thank you to those of you that have sent in extras! If anyone has anything that you would like to share with us about the solar system, please let me know! Our next field trip will be to the Science Center/Planetarium on February 5. It will be a great culminating experience!

Volunteers this week:

• Wednesday - Library checkout - Sharon Cannella and David Richardson - 2:10
• Thursday - Math Game - David Richardson - 10:30
• Friday - Art - Charlene Hosseini - 9:15
• Friday - Parent Reader - Kristen Danielson - 2:15

We celebrated Cyrus turning 7 years old last week!

Check out our class shutterfly site. Pictures are being added all the time! Parents, don't forget that you can add pictures as well.

Have a terrific week!
Susan

Week of November 12, 2012

Dear Parents:

What a  fabulous day Poetry in the Park was on Thursday! The weather was perfect! Such a beautiful day to be outside! I was so proud of the children. Even though we had a little glitch, they continued on and finished with a bang! True performers! The show must go on! If anyone has any pictures to share, please send them to me or post them on our shutterfly site! Here are a few from my camera.

On Wednesday, we will be going to the SPCA for a tour and to take our bins full of donated items for the animals. The children are so excited and so are the teachers! There are also farm animals so the children are allowed to bring carrots and apples to feed them if they like. We will eat lunch at the SPCA. Sage will provide a sack lunch for the children who returned the green form marked that they needed a lunch. Those bringing lunch from home need to bring a COMPLETELY DISPOSABLE lunch. No lunchboxes, please. We would love to have parents join us, but you will need to either meet us at the SPCA or follow the bus from school. We will leave school promptly at 10:45.

I am so thankful for my wonderful class this year AND you wonderful parents! That is my "thankful thought" for this season. Now, it is your child's turn to come up with a "thankful thought" to bring to our Thanksgiving celebration on Thursday afternoon. We will begin our celebration at 1:45 on Thursday. A letter went home last week asking your child to bring in a specific ingredient to add to our cornucopia snack mix. Please be sure to send it in by tomorrow. At the party, each child will tell us their thankful thought when they add their ingredient to our snack mix. You may have your child write the thought down if it will help in remembering what he/she wants to say. It is so sweet to hear what the children are thankful for. As always, everyone is welcome to join us for our Thanksgiving celebration. We will also be making a fun and useful Thanksgiving decoration so parent helpers are especially appreciated!

Now, for what is going on in our class this week:

Reading Workshop/Word Work: This week we are reviewing all of the short vowels and all of the word families that we have covered so far this year. Please continue to review these with your child at home.  We'll practice blends and the digraph sounds ch, th, sh, and wh. We will also do some work with compound words. We'll continue to practice reading fluency. When you read with your child at home, model appropriate voice inflection and fluency. Read a page and have your child echo back the way you read. Engage in conversation with your child about the books they are reading at home. Talk about the sequence or order of events in the story, the setting, and the characters. Ask your child about his/her favorite parts of the story and why. The children know that my favorite word is because. That is my favorite word because I love for them to tell me the "why" of things. Encourage "thinking" in response to  your child's reading to help deepen comprehension. This will help the children learn the power of talking and thinking in response to the stories they read.

Using iPads during word work is fun!

Writing Workshop: We will finish up our poetry unit and work on several birthday books for our classmates!

Math: We are working on nonstandard and standard units of measure. The children will be having fun measuring with different parts of their bodies, rulers, tape measures, and even candy corn! M-m-m-m!

Ben and Phoebe measure the length of the classroom using a non-standard unit of measure...
arm-spans.

Sydney and Natalie work together to measure the length of the classroom using arm-spans, too.

Please send in an empty paper towel tube and an empty, CLEAN Pringles can (large - not snack size). Please send them in this WEEK if possible. If you have any extras, we would appreciate them, too! We will begin using them in a special on-going math activity right after Thanksgiving break.

Kaja and Leni work together to record their findings while measuring many different things in and outside of  the classroom using various non-standard units of measure.

Science: We are working on our Human Body voice thread this week. I hope to have it posted for you soon! The human body "pocket books" containing the work of your children during our human body unit came home today. Please go through it with your child and celebrate all of their hard work and learning! We will begin a new unit on the solar system when we return from Thanksgiving break. I know the children will enjoy it, too!

Things to remember:

• Word card rings are due every Thursday! This is considered part of the homework responsibility for your child.
• Thanksgiving celebration will be at 1:45 Thursday. All are welcome to join us!
• Thanksgiving break next week - November 19 - 23.
• Holiday Gift Drive begins December 3 and ends December 14. Information regarding the family our class will be providing gifts for will come home soon. A container will be placed in our classroom by December 3rd to collect the gifts for the family. On Friday, December 14, the children will carry the gifts to the gym to be sorted. Then, they will be taken to the family so they may enjoy a happy holiday! 

Volunteers this week:

• Wednesday - Library Check-out - 2:10- David Nguyen and 
• Thursday - Math Game - 10:30 - Kim Gross
• Friday - Art - 9:15 - Lorraine Thorpe
• Friday - Parent Reader - 2:15 - Twila Davis

I hope you all have a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING with your loved ones!
Susan