Photos from our program last Friday…

Tuesday…

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.

Thursday…

Guest Reader-

Checkers-

Playing School-

Fraction Bingo-

Magic Hat Stories-

Enjoy your Spring Break!!

Ms. Melissa

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!

Ms. Melissa

Dear Families and Friends,

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!

Have a wonderful weekend! 🙂

Ms. Melissa

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!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Ms. Melissa