Hello, families and friends! This week we had a great time learning about penguins!
But first, we wanted to finish up one more insect activity. We read the story Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg. This is a funny book about size and the BIG world. We drew pictures of everyday objects like a teacup and showed how it would look from an ant’s perspective.
Centers-
Tuesday-
Guest Reader-
Today we read Tacky the Penguin and drew pictures of penguins. We started with the number 8 and followed directions to create these little guys…
Centers/Free Choice-
Wednesday-
Today we read Penguins by Gail Gibbons and made a chart of facts we learned from the book…
Guest Reader-
Centers-
Journaling-
How do kids learn to be kind?
We hope you all have a wonderful four day weekend! We’ll see you on Tuesday!
Hello, families and friends! We had a fun week studying insects! Coincidentally, the Pre-K class came into ours to talk about their service learning project: Give Bees a Chance. The goal of their presentation was to encourage people to plant more pollinator-friendly plants and to raise awareness about bees as an endangered species. Their class is preparing a beekeeper shop that will take place on Tuesday, April 30. All classes have an opportunity to shop or donate money to help save the bees! Please send a few dollars with your child next Tuesday so they may shop or donate to this important cause. 🙂 All donations and proceeds will be sent to the organization, Environment America.
Monday-
Journaling…
Center Time…
Life Cycle of a Butterfly…
Tuesday…
Silent, Sustained Reading-
Centers…
Math
Image of the Week From Multiplicity Lab
How many tiles are missing?
How do you see them?
How do you know?
Wednesday–
The Year Of Billy Miller is our new read-aloud novel.
When Billy Miller has a mishap at the statue of the Jolly Green Giant at the end of summer vacation, he ends up with a big lump on his head. What a way to start second grade, with a lump on your head! As the year goes by, though, Billy figures out how to navigate elementary school, how to appreciate his little sister, and how to be a more grown up and responsible member of the family and a help to his busy working mom and stay-at-home dad.
Newbery Honor author and Caldecott Medalist Kevin Henkes delivers a short, satisfying, laugh-out-loud-funny school and family story that features a diorama homework assignment, a school poetry slam, cancelled sleepovers, and epic sibling temper tantrums. This is a perfect short novel for the early elementary grades.
We also read How to Build an Insect. Written by an entomologist, this fun picture book showed us all of the parts of the insect anatomy. Tomorrow we will use what we learned from this book to make insect models. We will be sure to include the head, thorax, abdomen, antennae, exoskeleton, 6 legs, feet, wings, 5 eyes, ears, mouth, and spiracles.
Thursday–
Building insects with clay-
Practicing our Beach Boys song by highlighting one paragraph at a time…
Hello Families and Friends! This week we are excited to be learning about birds! We are reading facts about them and doing art projects related to them. Based on our reading, ask your child, “What is the one thing that makes a bird a bird?” (They have feathers). 🙂
Books we read this week- Our favorite of these was the book about chickens. There are over 100 varieties of chickens and the children find them fascinating and hilarious.
Monday-
Making Bird Nests to house our birds that we will create in a few days…
Centers…
Tuesday-
Today we read a few of our bird books and made these adorable creations…
Jump 1 Math Game
Drawing scenes from our Wild Robot read-aloud
This year the theme for our end-of-the-year program is The Beach Boys! Our two songs are Surfin’ Safari and Surfing USA. Here is a picture of the student practicing their dance with Ms. Barbara in theater class…
Wednesday-
One of the bird books we read this week showed pictures of “The World’s Weirdest Birds”. We all decided that the bird below wins the prize…
The students practiced following directions, cutting and drawing while creating these adorable bird pictures…
In math this week, each child had an opportunity to learn a new math game called, Jump 1. The students really enjoyed this fast paced game. The students also continued their daily Number of the Day challenges where the practice filling in missing numbers on a one hundred chart, adding and subtracting, comparing numbers using greater than and less than, and more…
Our Mystery Science video this week explained where trash goes in honor of Earth Week next week…
We are finished with our read-aloud, The Wild Robot Protects. It is the third installment of the Wild Robot series and we have now read all three. During center time the students were to choose a favorite scene from the three books and draw an illustration. The children have truly loved listening about the adventures of Roz the robot. Here is a synopsis if you would like to discuss the book at home with your child…
Life for Roz and the animals on their island is perfect: wild, natural, harmonious. Her son Brightbill has even found a mate! But then, one day an injured seal washes ashore and warns of dangerous, cloudy waters that are flowing toward the island—and soon the animals are forced inland to fight over dwindling resources.
Roz calms and organizes the animals, but the poison tide takes a terrible toll on the island. And when the robot discovers that her new body is waterproof, she marches into the waves and sets out across the ocean, determined to stop the poison tide.
During her undersea journey, Roz encounters amazing geological formations and incredible creatures, and she sees the devastation caused by the toxic waters. Creatures she meets along the way direct her to a mysterious character known as the Ancient Shark, who explains that the poison tide is caused by a huge station that floats on the waves; a station operated by humans and by robots. To stop them, the Ancient Shark is prepared to attack with an army of sea creatures. However, Roz hopes to find a peaceful solution, instead. Can the wild robot save the ocean and her island and everything she loves?
This thrilling third installment of the Wild Robot series takes readers on a new adventure under the ocean and to the frigid northern waters where Roz may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Thursday-
Today we had a guest student shadowing our class. I was so proud of how the children made him feel at home by asking him to play Lego, Checkers, soccer, and to sit with them at lunch. Every student in our class did a great job making him feel welcome.
Another fun event happened today! Ms. Marina helped to clean out a storage room inside of our classroom, opening up a whole new room for the students to work and play. Right now the students are calling it “The Everything Room” where they play ‘The Floor is Lava” but I’m sure we’ll find a purpose for it very soon.
Monday– To begin our week we watched two Mystery Science videos… “Why does it get dark during a solar eclipse?” and “How dangerous is it to look at the sun?” I hope everyone had a chance to view the eclipse!
We journaled about a boy who only ate oranges and shared our entries…
Tuesday-
This week we are studying our skeletal system and bones. We are learning about the names of the bones in our body and have been comparing our skeletal system to that of various animals. These are the books we read…
Meet Herman, our class skeleton. He is here to help us memorize the names of our bones…
Wednesday-
We had a great time playing at the park on this lovely day…
Ms. Stephanie from the Des Plaines Public Library came to read to us. She even brought an adorable craft to do with us. She read, Avocado Asks What am I? Avocado is feeling just fine in the fruit and veg aisle at the supermarket – until a young customer asks a difficult question: “Is an avocado a fruit or a vegetable?” Avocado doesn’t know the answer either – and the question won’t seem to go away! A brilliantly funny book about identity and being confident in your own skin – featuring the world’s most popular superfood!
We then made our own pet avocados with rocks…
Making up dances at recess…
Center and Free Choice Time…
Thursday…
Guest Reader-
We watched two short Mystery Science videos about bones…
Why do our skeletons have so many bones?
How do broken bones heal?
Buddy Reading Books about Bones and our Skeletal System…
Tomorrow we will continue studying about bones and will take a walk to the public library to check out some books.
I hope you enjoyed your Spring Break and have a lovely weekend!
This week we are working on practicing for our student-assisted conferences and drawing portraits of characters from our novel, Sideways Stories from Wayside School. We are continuing with our math theme– practicing counting money, and graphing. We are also working on identifying fractions through Fraction Bingo and by reading the Hershey’s Chocolate Fraction Book.
Guest Reader-
Portraits of characters from our novel, Sideways Stories from Wayside School…
At Free Choice time some students played school and some opened a hair salon and spa-
We played soccer and tag across the hall in the multipurpose room…
Some children made up a dance at recess to share with the class…
For Math, along with our Number of the Day challenge, we read a book about different types of graphs and graphed whether we like elephants or gorillas better after studying each a couple weeks ago…
Wednesday…
Guest Reader-
Prepping for Conferences…
Getting Ready for the Book Fair…
Playing in the sunshine…
Math-
We talked about supply and demand. This book makes these concepts simple with clear explanations and colorful art and graphics.
We discussed the following-
How prices are set by supply and demand; Supply is how much of an item is available for sale and Demand is how much of the item people want to buy. Using an example of a lemonade stand, we talked about how the total cost of the table, tablecloth, and pitcher is your fixed cost. The cost stays the same no matter how many drinks you sell. The variable cost is the cost of lemons, sugar, water, and cups. The variable cost per drink changes as you make more drinks. The revenue is the money you take in. The variable profit is the money left over after your variable costs have been subtracted. We also read about the basic laws of supply and demand. We had a good discussion and the students seemed to understand the examples the book gave in instances where prices increase and demand decreases and vice versa.
St. Baldrick’s Day Photos! We had such a great time cheering on our two shavees from our class…
We also had a fun morning playing games such as basketball, volleyball, soccer, and Simon Says with Ms. Bea’s class…
Monday…
This week we are studying Math! We are diving into fractions, graphing, measurement, money, time, adding, subtraction, and multiplication!
Today we read Math Curse and listed all of the different types of math we could think of…
Our list included Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry, Calculus, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Measurement, Time, Story Problems, Calendar, and Counting.
This week our center activities include Lego room, Bananagrams, Mystery Science- Why are four leaf clovers so rare?, Mazes, Headbanz, and reading stamps.
Centers…
Tuesday…
Today we read the story, How Big is a Foot?
The perfect book to understand standing six feet apart!
Follow the story about the King who wants to give the Queen something special for her birthday. The Queen has everything, everything except a bed. The trouble is that no one in the Kingdom knows the answer to a very important How Big is a Bed? because beds at the time had not yet been invented. The Queen’s birthday is only a few days away.
How can they figure out what size the bed should be? How can the people figure out how to measure? Readers will learn it’s not that difficult and that everyone can learn to do it.
Our Challenge: We took these foam feet, each measuring one foot, and measured our friends to find out how many feet long and how many feet wide our beds would need to be in order for them to fit comfortably.
We then drew our bed and labeled how many feet tall and how many feet wide our beds would need to be to fit us comfortably…
Wednesday…
This morning we went to the Des Plaines Theater and practiced our poem, dance and song for the program on Friday. The children have been working very hard and we are excited for you to see the show!
After lunch we journaled about what we would do if a spaceship landed in our backyards…
Thursday…
This morning we went to the theater to see the play Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. It was very cute and the children really enjoyed it…
When we returned, we we spent some time going over naming and counting coins for math and read a book about saving money. We talked about how people save money for items they need and want. We talked about how sometimes you have to save longer for more expensive things.
We can’t wait for you to see the show tomorrow! Have a wonderful weekend!
Gorillas are on the agenda again this week, but we are adding elephants to our list of animals to learn more about. During journaling time we wrote 5 facts that we’ve learned about gorillas…
Monday…
During Center time, we imagined what Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephants new habitat might look like at the zoo…
We took some time to read our books we checked out from the Des Plaines Public Library. There is a benefit to practicing reading silently rather than reading aloud. Silently reading a book improves the student’s understanding of the text as they are concentrating on reading rather than pronunciation.
Our centers this week include playing War, Connect 4, building our Friends Lego set, drawing a zoo habitat for an elephant and gorilla, and Mystery Science- Why do we have Daylight Savings?
Tuesday…
Guest Reader
What we Know, Want to know, and Learned about elephants after reading some nonfiction books about them…
Reinforcing Number Sense with our Number of the Day Challenge…
Practicing our dance for the Greek Program next Friday!
Centers and Free Choice Time…
Wednesday…
Guest Reader…
Ms. Stephanie, the librarian from the Des Plaines Public Library, came to our classroom to read a story and do a craft with our students! She read a picture book called Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o.
From Academy Award–winning actress Lupita Nyong’o comes a powerful, moving picture book about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within.
Sulwe has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.
In this stunning debut picture book, actress Lupita Nyong’o creates a whimsical and heartwarming story to inspire children to see their own unique beauty.
Ms. Ela’s Kindergarten class came in to do their Community Service Learning Project on 1focus.org. The students presented posters they made, informing us about this important cause. 1Focus is an eye charity whose mission is to mentor, train, equip, and provide eye care in underprivileged locations around the world. They will be having a sale tomorrow to raise money. Their goal is to raise $300 for a sight-saving surgery for a premature baby.
In Math today we imagined we went to a toy store to buy stuffies, but we only had a dollar. The following are the prices of the stuffed animals and we could only buy two. We had to decide which two animals we could buy without going over a dollar.
We also used base ten blocks and units to reinforce our skills in understanding place value…
Thursday…
Today we read Elephants of Africa by our favorite nonfiction author, Gail Gibbons. We then wrote a list of facts on our chart paper and each child wrote 5 facts about elephants in their journals.
Zoo Habitat for Ivan the Gorilla and Ruby the Elephant
We shopped at the sale Ms. Ela’s class held for 1Focus…
Some children purchased these cool sunglasses…
We began a new novel today as we finished The One and Only Ivan…
The students find Sideways Stories From Wayside School wildly funny. It’s so much fun to hear them laugh so hard.
Here is a blurb from Goodreads…
There was a terrible mistake – Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that’s why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor.
Stay tuned for more about this fun book by Louis Sachar next week along with photos from St. Baldrick’s Day!
Dear families and friends! This week we are studying facts about gorillas to compliment our novel about a gorilla named Ivan. We are reading books and articles to learn about these fascinating creatures.
Journal-
The best vacation in the world would be…
India
Punta Cana
Great Wolf Lodge
France and Italy
Tuesday…
Guest Reader-
Math- Image of the Week from Multiplicity Lab
Question- What is Missing?
Coloring during Literature time-
Completing Puzzles-
Drawing pictures during Free Choice Time-
Read Aloud-
Our novel, The One and Only Ivan has a picture book that accompanies it telling the true backstory of our main character, the gorilla, Ivan! Captured as a baby, Ivan was brought to a Tacoma, Washington, mall to attract shoppers. Gradually, public pressure built until a better way of life for Ivan was found at Zoo Atlanta. From the Congo to America, and from a local business attraction to a national symbol of animal welfare, Ivan the Shopping Mall Gorilla traveled an astonishing distance in miles and in impact.
Wednesday…
First Class Smiles came to talk to us about dental health today. One of our classmates was chosen to demonstrate how to brush teeth. Each student was given a dental hygiene kit including a timer so that the students will be motivated to brush their teeth for two minutes.
We learned more facts about gorillas today…
In Reading we practiced writing sight words and in Math we learned key words that cue us in on when to add or subtract.
Even though the air was frigid today, the students got out to run around and enjoy some sunshine…
Thursday…
Happy Leap Day! We talked about all the different ways the number 29 can be represented…
For another Math challenge we read a graph and answered questions based on the information it provided.
Guest Reader…
Making cards for Ms. Maria! Happy Birthday, Ms. Maria! Thanks for all you do for us!
Making rainbow art to celebrate March and Springtime…
Centers this week include- Watercolor painting, Uno, Sorry, Stamping digraphs (two letters representing one sound), Space Puzzle, and Checkers…
These students had a great time putting together the Lego set I won in the raffle at the Glendi. Next up- the Friends Lego set!
This week we are finishing up Tale of Despereaux and beginning a new novel, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.
Here is a synopsis of the novel from Goodreads…
Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.
Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.
Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.
Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first-person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.
Guest Reader- Last Friday
Wonderful Guest Reader for her son’s birthday celebration-
Feeding Cornflake the Snake-
Every two weeks a mouse is defrosted for Cornflake to eat. (He eats two times a month). Our class got the chance to watch Ms. Maria feed Cornflake. We then watched a Mystery Science video about snakes to learn more about them!
Photos from the Glendi! Thanks to all came out. It was such a fun night.
Tuesday…
Guest Reader-
Journaling-
What is one thing you do to relax? Most students said they like to relax in the pool.
Centers… This week our center activities included Mystery Science- Why do snakes shed their skin and Why do woodpeckers peck wood? Reading/Spelling- stamping beginning blend sounds, Uno, Playdough, putting together a 100 piece puzzle, and Math- creating patterns with shapes.
Wednesday…
Guest Reader-
Today we took a walk to the Des Plaines Library with Ms. Lisa’s class to learn the necessary procedures in order to begin our weekly visits. I will be issued a library card and students can check out books under my name. We will ask the students to keep their books at school and they will be given a bit of time each day to read them. Today each of our students were paired with a friend from Ms. Lisa’s class who showed our students the ropes…
Thursday…
Math- Today we used an image from Multiplicity lab to learn more about parallel and intersecting lines. We searched the room for examples of each.
Today we wrote in our journals about what we would do if we were given 1,000 dollars. Quite a few students said they would give the money to a homeless shelter, one said they’d get a puppy, two said that they’d put it toward buying an RV, and one said they’d put it toward opening up a dance studio.
In Math we practiced regrouping two digit by two digit addition problems, we put several numbers in order from least to greatest, and answered a story problem based on information from a graph.
In Writing/Language Arts we played a game where students needed to come up with adjectives to describe a word I gave them such as baseball, puppy, ice cream, frog, and fish. They did a great job coming up with descriptive words for each.
Guest Reader…
Reading… Each student is reading a book that they are able to read independently but still has a couple of words per page that they may not be able to pronounce correctly or that give them some trouble sounding out, so they can learn new words while they read.
Friday…
Guest Reader-
Today we were thrilled to have another Plato teacher and her husband come to read for her daughter’s 8th birthday. They read two funny books that the children loved…
I have even more photos from today, but will share them next week ! 🙂
We hope you have a wonderful and peaceful weekend!
Happy Valentine’s Day! The children had a super week discussing the outcome of the Superbowl and celebrating Valentine’s Day! We continued to read The Tale of Despereaux and answered comprehension questions about the novel. We also learned new vocabulary words from the story. We worked on adding question marks and exclamation points at the end of sentences. In math we added three digit numbers together, told time to the half hour and worked on pattens in our Valentine’s Day art project.
Guest Reader-
Valentine’s Day Art
Centers…
Our centers this week included playing the card game War, Play Dough, Checkers, Lego and Magnatiles, Memory, and Mystery Science- How does your heart pump blood?
Tuesday…
Guest Reader-
Despereaux Vocabulary Words-
Wednesday…
Today we spent the morning adding three digit by three digit math problems, practicing handwriting, making valentines for parents, decorating bags, passing out valentines, and eating heart-shaped pizza. 🙂 We also played a game of Heads Up Seven Up in the afternoon, played at the park, and enjoyed a birthday celebration where a student’s parents came in to read two great picture books. We had a fantastic Valentine’s Day!
Guest Reader
Making Valentines…
Thursday…
Today in Math we solved story problems using graphing, ad I listened to each student read literature at their grade level. We read Tale of Despereaux and answered comprehension questions about the story. We played at the park and had centers in the afternoon.
