Tuesday, May 6

  
  Tuesday, May 6

Word Work with Manipulative Letters  

cap to cape to came to tame to tape to tap to map to mat to mate to late to plate to slate to skate  

 Irregular Words: could, would, should, or, for, there, where  NEW: who

    Read: There are no waves in the lake.

   Nate and Blake should skate there.

        Who said they would be at the game? 

Spell: The vase was on sale! 

                                             Where can we bake the cake?
                                             Kate has the same last name as Jane. 

KinderLiteracy: Frogs

We will focus these vocabulary words within the story (croak, gills, habitat,  poison) and answer these questions:

1) Who is the author? What is their job?

        2) What is one fact we heard from the book?

 Literacy Jobs 

Writer's Workshop: Memory Book Title Page

The kids will write some facts to put in their memory book:
School: Maple Lake Elementary
Teacher: Mrs. Tongen 
Principal: Mrs. Harlan & Mr. Dockendorf
Year: 2024-2025

 KinderMath: Sort by an Unknown Rule

We will look closer at how things can be sorted by more than one rule and "unknown" attributes. For instance, without telling the kids what the rule is (wearing shoe laces or not), I will put them in two groups to see if they figure out what the rule is. We will do this same activity with animals that fly and those that don't. Sometimes things have more than one way it can be sorted so we'll use overlapping hula hoops (like the picture below) to demonstrate how it works. For instance, if we want to sort blocks that are red into one group and triangles in another, we might find a block that is red AND a triangle. What do we do?

   Project: Mother's Day Gift
That's all I will tell you. 💚😄

Phy Ed Today

                                                                   

~~If you haven't done so, please return the requested info for Track & Field Day. It is due tomorrow. Thank you!

Monday, May 5

 Monday, May 5

 Phonemic Awareness 
Blend: made, same, lake, state
 Segment: bake, late, cake, came
Visual Drill
      Graphemes: nk, ng, wh, ph, ch, th, sh, ck, ff, ll, ss, zz, s (s, z) u, e, i, o, a
Auditory Drill
 Phonemes: nk, ng, ch, th (voiced/unvoiced) sh, k (c, k, ck), u, e, i, o, a
BlendingDrill 
string to strings to stings to sings to rings to ring to rink to shrink to shrunk to 
shrank to rank to rack to rash to thrash to thrush to rush
New Concept   
 Reading and spelling words with the A_E pattern.

KinderLiteracy: Frogs
The kids will listen to Frogs by Elizabeth Carney to build an interest in the topic for this week: Frogs
The comprehension strategy this week is Retell.

 Literacy Jobs 

Handwriting: Upper/Lowercase A & Words that rhyme with dice.

 KinderMath: Sort and Classify

We begin a new unit on graphing data. To begin today's lesson on sorting, the kids will hear the story, Elmer by David McKee, to see how we could sort the elephants in the story. Next, they will find a couple of items in our classroom to bring back to the whole group for sorting by color. Lastly, they will sort and then glue colorful tissue paper squares on an elephant shape.

In this lesson, the kids make observations of plants in order to identify their needs and that they are, in fact, living things. In the activity, Plant Dance, the kids will engage in a kinesthetic activity in which they observe and then model the appearance of plants when their needs are and aren’t met.

Music Today

~ No extra news for today.

Friday, May 2

   
Friday, May 2

 

The UFLI Kite Rule, also known as the Cat-Kite Rule, helps students distinguish between using "c" and "k" at the beginning of words. The rule states that if the vowel in a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word is "a," "o," or "u," use "c." If the vowel is "i" or "e," use "k"

Literacy Jobs  

Math: Differences to 10

In today's lesson we will continue to work on subtraction within 10. We will do a couple of activities to establish a solid foundation in subtraction. 

First, we will read The Action of Subtraction by Brian Cleary and stop to discuss the subtraction scenarios on each page. 
Next, the kids will play a game called Take it Away!
Each pair will need 10 counters,1 Take it Away mat, the take it away cards, and a small Dixie cup. Partners will take turns pulling a card and place that amount of counters on the ten frame, remove those being taking away, and write the number sentence. 
Quiz, Quiz! 

  For this activity each pair will need one set of Quiz, Quiz cards. Partner A will be the “teacher” as they quiz Partner B with the quiz cards. The partner being quizzed will be using their fingers to subtract. 

 

Thunderstorm in a Cup

The kids will love this experiment!
Fill a cup half full of water to represent the sky then add shaving cream on the water for clouds. Next, add a few drops of blue food coloring onto the top of the cloud to represent water droplets. As a cloud gets full and heavy the water starts to fall from the sky as rain. I'll simplify the concept of lightning by explaining the frozen water in the cloud bumps into each other and causes an electrical charge. That electrical charge can turn into lightning. We'll use bent paperclips to represent lightning in the cup.

Project: Puffy Paint Thunderstorm

Phy Ed Today
 Writer's Workshop: We are Authors!

~Please return the Track & Field Day info ASAP.
~UFLI homework will be due on our graduation day: June 3.

Have a nice weekend!

Thursday, May 1

   
 Thursday, April 24

Word Work with Manipulative Letters  

string to sting to sing to ring to rink to shrink to shrank to shrunk to shrub to 

 rub to rush to rash to rack to tack to stack 

 to stick

 Irregular Words: could, would, should, or, for, there, where  

    Read: I could not just shrug it off!

   Should I toss the scraps in the trash?

         Your pants should not have shrunk this much.

Spell: Where is this rash from?  

What a thrill it was to be there. 

Your cat should not be in the shrubs. 

    KinderLiteracy: Storms
We'll review the vocabulary words...

 Writer's Workshop: Let's Celebrate!
Today we will celebrate all the hard work your child put into the narrative story they created. They will read their story to a few friends, decorate a crown, and have a dance party with a disco ball! Their story will come home for you to enjoy!

 Literacy Jobs 
Math: Subtract with a Picture
Today’s lesson will start by reviewing the two previous subtraction strategies we learned: subtracting with fingers and with objects. The kids will work with 10 snap cubes and 1 ten frame to solve problems like this:
There were 8 horses at the farm. Put 8 snap cubes down on your ten frame. 2 horses ran away. Take away 2 snap cubes. How many horses are left?  Next, they will use their fingers to solve problems like this:
There were 10 goats in the pasture. Show me your 10 goats. 6 goats left the pasture. Take away 6 fingers. How many goats are left? Lastly, the kids will use the strategy of drawing pictures to solve subtraction problems like this:
  There were 8 ducks in the pond. 6 ducks flew away. How can I show my ducks flying away? I am going to cross them out. Now, how many ducks are left? I am going to circle the ducks that are left so I can easily see that 2 are left. The kids will illustrate the problem using circles and crossing out the 'take away' part.
Music Today

Project: Happy May Day!
The kids will be making a May Day basket to bring home today. 

                                                                   

~ Have your child wear their new Irish Acres playground shirt tomorrow or something green if you didn't purchase one. We are taking a photo on the playground right away in the morning.

Wednesday, April 30

Wednesday, April 30

 

 Phonemic Awareness 
Blend: shrug, thrill, splash, shrunk
 Segment: chunk, throb, shred, struck
Visual Drill
      Graphemes: nk, ng, wh, ph, ch, th (voiced/unvoiced), sh, ck, u, e, i, o, a, ff, ll, ss, zz
Auditory Drill
 Phonemes: wh, ph, ch, th (voiced/unvoiced), sh, ck, u, e, i, o, a, ff, ll, ss, zz
BlendingDrill 
ban to band to bland to blend to bend to bent to best to bet to bat to bam to bump to
pump to plump to lump to limp
New Concept   
 Reading and spelling longer words with digraphs.

    
KinderLiteracy: Storms
The kids are answering these questions today...

Literacy Jobs  

 Writer's Workshop: Edit Sentences 
We are close to publishing our very first book as writers as this will be our last day of 
editing/revising our book. Today I will teach the children that good writers reread their sentences to make sure they have a capital letter, finger spaces, punctuation and that their words are in a straight line. They will use the Writer's Checklist (see photo) to check their work.

    Library Today

Math: Subtracting One

Today, the kids will focus on subtracting one with the use of a vertical number line. Using the Ten in a Bed poem, the kids will raise 10 fingers and subtract one-by-one to notice that the number is getting less by one each time. The goal is to have the kids continue to notice the connection between less and subtraction. We will continue to use the vertical number line to demonstrate a subtraction problem like this: 5 birds were in a tree. 3 birds flew away. How many birds are left? We will find the number 5 and swoop down 3 spots to see there are 2 birds left.       

   Phy Ed Today  

Computer Class Today

~Class picture day is tomorrow.

~In case you don't receive a May lunch menu in today's Wednesday envelope, these are the options for Thursday and Friday:

Thursday (5/1)

Breakfast:  Whole Grain Donut Ring

                   Cereal Choice: Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios

                   String Cheese

                   Fresh Apple

Lunch:  Main Entree: Hot Ham and Cheese

                                  Chicken Patty Sandwich

             Newton Meal:  Blueberry Muffin

                                     String Cheest

                                     Trix Raspberry Rainbow Yogurt

Friday (5/2)

Breakfast:  Blueberry Waffles/Syrup

                  Cereal Choice:  Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms

                  String Cheese

                  Fresh Orange

Lunch:  Main Entree:  Cheese Pizza

                                   Chicken Patty Sandwich

               Newton Meal:  Blueberry Muffin

                                       String Cheese

                                      Trix Raspberry Rainbow Yogurt