Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Beautiful Voices
I approached the door to the music room to pick my students up and was greeted with their beautiful voices. They were practicing their vocal exercises they learned for the day.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Weekly Update
We officially reach 100 days of school on Wednesday. We are SO excited! I have so many fun activities planned to celebrate being 100 days smarter! Stay tuned for pictures from our exciting day.
Permission slips are starting to come back for our field trip to the Aquarium on February 15th. Please remember that all permission slips and money are due no later than Wednesday, February 13th. The cost of the trip is $10 and bagged lunches will be provided by the school unless you want to send a lunch with your child.
On Thursday, February 14th - Valentine's Day - we will have our very first school dance. The dance will be held from 6 pm - 8 pm in the cafeteria. Thank you to the PTO for planning this event for all of the students and staff.
Newsletters went home last week updating everyone on future events and announcements. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me or the school.
Have a wonderful week!
Permission slips are starting to come back for our field trip to the Aquarium on February 15th. Please remember that all permission slips and money are due no later than Wednesday, February 13th. The cost of the trip is $10 and bagged lunches will be provided by the school unless you want to send a lunch with your child.
On Thursday, February 14th - Valentine's Day - we will have our very first school dance. The dance will be held from 6 pm - 8 pm in the cafeteria. Thank you to the PTO for planning this event for all of the students and staff.
Newsletters went home last week updating everyone on future events and announcements. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me or the school.
Have a wonderful week!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Take A Look
We began last week talking about why we had Monday off from school. One of the kids said, "We were celebrating that guy's birthday." So I began our discussion by explaining to the kids who that guy was and why we now have a federal holiday in his honor.
We watched a short video that gave us background on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and all of his accomplishments. It explained his significant role in the Civil Rights Movement and what his hopes and dreams were for our country. We completed a chart to reflect on what we learned from the video...
We also read a printable book so we would have something to take home to share with our parents.
We concluded our lesson discussing what dreams we had that would better our world or our country - just like the dreams Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous speech about. We wrote down our dreams and displayed them in the hallway for all to see. Here are a few...
We continued our "By the Sea" unit last week venturing into the world of sharks. Hands down, the shark draws the most attention from our class. We could've done an entire unit just on sharks and the kids would've been thrilled! But instead, we read a few books that taught us about different kinds of sharks - big ones, small ones, fast ones, slow ones, nice ones, mean ones - we learned about them all. We labeled the parts of a shark as well.
Afterwards, we created little sharks of our own to display in our sea world out in the hallway.
To update you on our Daily Five - we have finally introduced Ipads as a center and we officially begin reading groups on Monday. The kids work so well independently and have really shown progress working on their skills during this time.
We are all looking forward to Wednesday as we celebrate being 100 DAYS SMARTER! I will have a lot of fun things to share from our special day!
We watched a short video that gave us background on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and all of his accomplishments. It explained his significant role in the Civil Rights Movement and what his hopes and dreams were for our country. We completed a chart to reflect on what we learned from the video...
We also read a printable book so we would have something to take home to share with our parents.
We concluded our lesson discussing what dreams we had that would better our world or our country - just like the dreams Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous speech about. We wrote down our dreams and displayed them in the hallway for all to see. Here are a few...
We continued our "By the Sea" unit last week venturing into the world of sharks. Hands down, the shark draws the most attention from our class. We could've done an entire unit just on sharks and the kids would've been thrilled! But instead, we read a few books that taught us about different kinds of sharks - big ones, small ones, fast ones, slow ones, nice ones, mean ones - we learned about them all. We labeled the parts of a shark as well.
Afterwards, we created little sharks of our own to display in our sea world out in the hallway.
To update you on our Daily Five - we have finally introduced Ipads as a center and we officially begin reading groups on Monday. The kids work so well independently and have really shown progress working on their skills during this time.
 |
| Ipads |
 |
| Read to Self |
 |
| Word Work |
 |
| Read to Someone |
 |
| Word Work |
 |
| Work on Writing |
Sunday, January 20, 2013
By the Sea
All kids have a love for animals - and it seems that most kids have a fascination with sea animals. Well, as you can probably imagine, our "By the Sea" theme has been a huge hit the past couple of weeks. We have read numerous books about the ocean and things we may find in the ocean, such as fish, crabs, whales, sharks, jellyfish - just to name a few.
We took a few days this week to concentrate on fish, crabs and jellyfish. We assembled and read mini books that provided facts about each of these sea creatures (and of course we highlighted our sight words).
To share our new found knowledge, we painted beautiful pictures and included a fact in our best possible handwriting.
We created colorful jellyfish to complete our "By the Sea" scene in the hallway outside of our classroom. Every time I walk past it it makes we want to head to the beach!
The kids don't know it yet, but all of these facts they've been learning about sea animals are gonna come in handy in a few weeks...we're taking a field trip to the AQUARIUM!!! Shhhh...don't tell. We finish up our unit on Friday and will make the announcement then. But this is a courtesy shout out to you - detailed letters/permission slips will go home next week.
Have a wonderful holiday (for those that get it off)! See everyone Tuesday!
We took a few days this week to concentrate on fish, crabs and jellyfish. We assembled and read mini books that provided facts about each of these sea creatures (and of course we highlighted our sight words).
To share our new found knowledge, we painted beautiful pictures and included a fact in our best possible handwriting.
We created colorful jellyfish to complete our "By the Sea" scene in the hallway outside of our classroom. Every time I walk past it it makes we want to head to the beach!
The kids don't know it yet, but all of these facts they've been learning about sea animals are gonna come in handy in a few weeks...we're taking a field trip to the AQUARIUM!!! Shhhh...don't tell. We finish up our unit on Friday and will make the announcement then. But this is a courtesy shout out to you - detailed letters/permission slips will go home next week.
Have a wonderful holiday (for those that get it off)! See everyone Tuesday!
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Resolutions and Our Bodies
Interesting combination, huh?
Well, we started off the week brainstorming what our New Year's resolutions were going to be. Bettering ourselves was the goal and I was impressed by many of the resolutions chosen. Let's just say there should be cleaner rooms at home and less fighting between siblings :)
We also learned about the body this week. We concentrated on the lungs, heart, stomach and bones. We learned where each organ was located as well as the function of each organ. After reading several books about the body, we completed a cutting and pasting activity where we pasted each organ into the body correctly. We labeled each body part to become familiar with the words and their spellings.
The most exciting part of the mini unit was putting together our "Buddy Bodies." The kids loved assembling the bodies and flipping up their faces to reveal the skull and the brain.
I predict future doctors out of this bunch! Anatomy seems to be a class favorite.
Well, we started off the week brainstorming what our New Year's resolutions were going to be. Bettering ourselves was the goal and I was impressed by many of the resolutions chosen. Let's just say there should be cleaner rooms at home and less fighting between siblings :)
We also learned about the body this week. We concentrated on the lungs, heart, stomach and bones. We learned where each organ was located as well as the function of each organ. After reading several books about the body, we completed a cutting and pasting activity where we pasted each organ into the body correctly. We labeled each body part to become familiar with the words and their spellings.
The most exciting part of the mini unit was putting together our "Buddy Bodies." The kids loved assembling the bodies and flipping up their faces to reveal the skull and the brain.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
And...We're Back
Welcome back!
What a nice, long break to refuel and get refocused on the second half of the year. I hope everyone enjoyed their beautiful Christmas ornaments that the kids made as gifts. They were so excited to get those home and give them to all of you.
We are hitting the ground running this week. We will have MAPS (math) testing tomorrow as well as DIBELS (ELA) which will follow in the next couple of weeks. Please make sure your child is well rested and has a hearty breakfast. We will begin MAPS testing first thing tomorrow morning.
Time flies around here, so we are already thinking about our spring field trip. As we begin the planning stages, I'd like to get any suggestions from you for possible field trip destinations. If you have any ideas, please let me know.
I hope you all have a great week!
What a nice, long break to refuel and get refocused on the second half of the year. I hope everyone enjoyed their beautiful Christmas ornaments that the kids made as gifts. They were so excited to get those home and give them to all of you.
We are hitting the ground running this week. We will have MAPS (math) testing tomorrow as well as DIBELS (ELA) which will follow in the next couple of weeks. Please make sure your child is well rested and has a hearty breakfast. We will begin MAPS testing first thing tomorrow morning.
Time flies around here, so we are already thinking about our spring field trip. As we begin the planning stages, I'd like to get any suggestions from you for possible field trip destinations. If you have any ideas, please let me know.
I hope you all have a great week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)