Monday, May 4

Monday, May 4 

White Day (No computer class or library.) 

Happy Birthday, Davis! 

 

 Irish Pride Celebration Today at 8:30 

 Students of the month for April will be recognized as well as new students to our school. The new character word for the month will be introduced: courage. We will end the celebration by singing our Irish Pride song.  

Big Book: Plants Feed Me By: Lizzy Rockwell Genre: Informational Text

Connect and Teach: Steps in a Sequence

  

Big Book: Planting Seeds  By: Kathryn Clay 

Connect and Teach: Make and Check Predictions  

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Blending Phonemes, Segmenting Phonemes

Phonics Focus Skill: Initial l-Blends

Irregular Words: Review
 WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Review Pronouns

 Literacy Jobs 

 

Buddy Reading: Students from Mrs. Sutter's Creative Writing class from the high school made children's books and will be visiting our classroom today and tomorrow to read the story they wrote and illustrated.

 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?

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     
We now have a flower shop play area for the children to be creative in!

~ If you haven't done so, please sign and return the Track & Field Day form.
~ An important list of details will be in your child's folder today regarding our field trip on Wednesday.

Friday, May 1

 

Friday, May 1

Big Book: Plants Feed Me By: Lizzy Rockwell Genre: Informational Text

Power Words: bloom, root, seed

Connect and Teach: Make and Check Predictions

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Blending Phonemes, Segmenting Phonemes

Phonics Focus Skill: Initial s-Blends

Irregular Words: Review
 WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Review Possessive Pronouns

 Literacy Jobs 

 Handwriting: Down the Steps Uppercase A

 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. 

Phy Ed Today

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

Project: Ant

~ If you haven't done so, please sign and return the Track & Field Day form.
~ Monday is Irish Pride Day. Have your child wear their Irish Pride shirt!
Have a nice weekend!

Thursday, April 30

  

Thursday, April 30  

Green Day: Library  

Big Book: Plants Feed Me By: Lizzy Rockwell Genre: Informational Text

Science Connection: Plants: Basic Needs and Life Cycle

In this informational text, children learn about the plants we eat and that

we eat different plant parts. They learn that plants grow in different ways and are made into different foods. 

Connect and Teach: Make and Check Predictions

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Blending Onset and Rime, Isolating Phonemes

Phonics Focus Skill: Initial s-Blends

Irregular Words: Review
 WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Review Pronouns

 Literacy Jobs 

 Handwriting: U Turn Uppercase Letter U

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, one 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. 

Music Today 

~ Class picture day is tomorrow...we are scheduled to have our picture taken shortly after school begins.

Wednesday, April 29

 

Wednesday, April 29
Orange Day: Technology
Technology class at 8:20.  

Big Book: Ants By: Lisa J. Amstutz Genre: Informational Text

Review Power Words: sunshine, cocoon, colony

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Isolating Phonemes (initial), Blending Onset and Rime (s-uch, p-ing), Blending Phonemes, Segmenting Phonemes, Substituting Phonemes (such change /ch/ to /ng/: sung)

Phonics Focus Skill: Review Digraphs

Irregular Words: Review
 WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Complete Sentences Review

Social Studies Connection: Perseverance

In this fiction text, children meet a young girl named Mei Mei and her grandpa, Gong Gong. Gong Gong teaches Mei Mei how to do tai chi, and she works hard to figure out the complex hand, arm, and leg movements. Mei Mei teaches Gong Gong how to do yoga, and he works hard to learn the different poses. Even though they both struggle to learn new things, they persevere.

Social Studies Connection: Perseverance

In this fiction text, children meet a young girl named Mei Mei and her grandpa, Gong Gong. Gong Gong teaches Mei Mei how to do tai chi, and she works hard to figure out the complex hand, arm, and leg movements. Mei Mei teaches Gong Gong how to do yoga, and he works hard to learn the different poses. Even though they both struggle to  

 Literacy Jobs 
Math: Differences to 10
For today’s lesson the kids will be working on equations within 10 by using the book, Elevator Magic by Stuart Murphy. We will use the vertical number line we used yesterday as it will directly resemble the elevator display from the story. 
There are 10 floors and we are going down 2. What is 10 take away 2?
 We are on the 8^th floor and are going down 3 floors. What is 8 take away 3?
After the read aloud, each kid will have an elevator card, whiteboard and dry-erase marker. I will lead the kids in problems like these and they will record the equation on their whiteboard. 
We are on the 9^th floor and are going down 3 floors. What floor will be on? 
The kids  write 9-3=6 
We are on the 10^th floor and going down 7 floors. 
The kids will write 10-7=3.

Pushes & Pulls: Why do builders need so many big machines?
In this Read-Along lesson, Vivian watches a house being built and wonders why the builders need so many big machines. The lesson includes a short exercise where the kids act out the “work words” of their favorite machine. If time allows, the kids will watch short videos of construction equipment and practice using work words to describe what the machines are doing.

Time for Kids: Global Games

   Phy Ed Today  

 
~Tomorrow is library day.

Tuesday, April 28

      

Tuesday, April 28 

Gold Day (No computer class or library.) 

Big Book: Ants By: Lisa J. Amstutz Genre: Informational Text Print Concepts: End Punctuation

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Blending Phonemes, Segmenting Phonemes

Phonics Focus Skill: Review Digraphs

Irregular Words: Review
 WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Complete Sentences Review

 Literacy Jobs 

 Handwriting: ez Across Uppercase Z

Pushes & Pulls: What's the Biggest Excavator?

  In this lesson, the children discover that there are pushes and pulls involved in any kind of work, including the work done by machines. In the activity, Be a Digging Machine, they pretend to use shovels and excavators to dig a hole for a swimming pool.

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.  

Music Today 

~ Class picture day is Friday. We are scheduled to have our picture taken shortly after school begins.