Friday, December 18

Friday, December 18

Reindeer Games!

Let the fun begin!
Reindeer Songs, reindeer movement activities, and making Reindeer Bread will take up our morning. The children will see Mrs. Jost and Mrs. Schrupp for some of the activities.

 It looks like we may be given the green light to do reindeer races throughout the halls of the elementary and high school cafeteria.

 Music today

Projects: Reindeer headband for our Reindeer Run and Rudy the Reindeer picture 

Writer's Workshop: Reindeer Report (We may have to finish this on Monday.)

 Math: Reindeer Dice Roll
Character Education:  Mrs. Weninger will focus on the Unthinkables: Destroyer of Fun and Topic Twister. Your child will bring a descriptor home of each today.
Computer class today.

~The book for the exchange is due Monday.
~Rosie adds so much color to this season...

~The storybook reader we had yesterday brought so much life to the story!

What would be the best ending to a morning of reindeer fun? Seeing Santa! He is coming to our classroom at 12:30 today! 

Thursday, December 17

Thursday, December 17

Letter Study: Zz

 Sight Word Focus: by

Reading Workshop: The children will be practicing their parts for the Reader's Theater book We Like Fruit.

Handwriting: Z
 Writer's Workshop: The kids will continue to work on "zooming in" on a writing piece and then share their work with a partner. The job of the partner who is listening will be to tell the other what they notice about their writing.
 A storybook reader is scheduled for 9:30 to read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell & Bear Stays Up. 
Math:

New Concept: Here is another way to think about part/part/whole. Listen to this...   There were 7 bats in a cave. Some were hanging upside down, but 2 were not. How many bats were hanging upside down? As you tell the story, start to build on your whole/part/part mat. Provide several examples. 
Whole Group Explore: Now you will work with a partner but let’s sit together while I tell you some stories and you build it on your mat. •There were 8 potatoes in the basket.  Some would be used for baked potatoes, but 3 were going to be use to make mashed potatoes. How many are going to be baked? •We are having 6 friends over for dinner. Some of them are family and 2 are just friends. How many are part of our family? •We found 5 pinecones on the ground. Some of them were already open, but 4 were closed up tight! How many were already opened? Ask a few students to tell addition stories. These are harder to tell so additional support may be needed.
Student Application: Students will practice completing their whole/part/part frame

DAILY 5

SMART Room 
PhyEd Today
~Looks like Rosie went shopping for a skirt and boots...

~The ABC poetry folder that came home with your child is theirs to keep.
~Have your child wear as much brown as possible tomorrow as we are going to do some reindeer games in the morning. 

Wednesday, December 16

Wednesday, December 16

Letter Study: Zz
 Popcorn Word: by

Reading Workshop: Introducing Inflection/Intonation using the familiar song Are You Sleeping, Brother John?Inflection/Intonation—Pitch
Explain: When we talk, we do not say every word the same. We use different kinds of inflection and intonation. We say some words louder and some words softer. This is called volume. We emphasize some words. This is called stress. We also say some words at a higher pitch (model) and some words at a lower pitch (model). In reading, the ending punctuation helps us know when to change our pitch. We make our voices rise when we see a question mark and fall when we see a period. When we see an exclamation point, our voices may rise or fall depending on what we are reading.

Display “Are You Sleeping, Brother John?” and read aloud the title. 

Say: This is a song about bells that ring in the morning that let Brother John know it is time to get up. The author uses a question mark to let us know when to raise our voices and a period to let us know when to lower them. Changing the pitch helps the sentences sound right and make sense.

Point to each word as you sing the song aloud, making your voice rise when you come to a question mark and fall when you come to a period. For example:

Let your voice rise at the end of the lines:

Brother John?

Brother John?

Let your voice fall at the end of the lines:

Ding, ding, dong.

Ding, ding, dong.

Next say: Now I will sing the song again. This time, I will not change the pitch.

Sing the entire song with a monotone pitch and constant speed.

Ask: Which way makes the song sound better and easier to enjoy and understand? Why?

  Writer's Workshop: We will continue to work on "zooming in" in an attempt to add more words to our writing.
  DAILY 5

Math: Whole/ Part-Part
New Concept:  We have been working on putting numbers together and breaking them apart. I want to try it a different way. I am going to give you a whole number and one of the parts. You have to figure out the other part. "I had 5 pumpkins. 3 of them were tall. Some were not tall. How many were not tall?"
  Several examples will be provided using the whole/ part-part mat. 
Whole Group Explore: Now you will work with a partner but let’s sit together while I tell you some stories and you build it on your mat. • I saw 7 bats.  3 of them were brown. The rest were black.  How many were black? • There were 8 scarecrows in a field. 5 of them had red shirts. The rest had blue shirts. How many had blue shirts? • In the field there were 9 deer. 5 of them were bucks and the rest were does. How many were does?  Student Application: Students will practice completing their whole/part/part frames. 

Smart Room Highlight: Crawling under Santa's Forest

~Rosie found her way to the top of the projector!

Music Today

~The book for our exchange is due next Monday.
~The Club's Choice fundraiser pick-up is tonight from 3-6 in the high school cafeteria.
~Again, did you notice that your child has a purple star coming home on their work? This signifies that a teacher/grown-up has checked their paper and it's ready for home.

Tuesday, December 15

Tuesday, December 15

Popcorn Word: at
 Handwriting: Y
 Language Arts: Reader's Theater We Like Fruit
The children will Echo Read to build fluency and work on retelling the script.

 Writer's Workshop: Today's lesson is about "zooming in" and looking closer at what we are drawing. The goal is to write more words rather than just labeling.

SMART Room
DAILY 5
 Math: Part-Part/Whole
New Concept:  I want to keep working on putting parts together or adding parts to make another number. I am going to roll the dice twice and put those cubes on my mat.  Then I will think of a story to talk about my cubes. Example: "I came in this morning there were 5 cars in the parking lot. Then Mrs. Smith came in behind me.  How many cars were in the lot now?"  
Ask students to help you think of some stories that you can model on your board. 
Whole Group Explore: Now you are going to work with your partner. One partner will roll the dice and count out the cubes. The other partner will need to think of a story that will go with these cubes and tell it. Then you will put together the whole cubes.   Don’t forget to use your math talk cards. 
Student Application: Students will practice putting together their parts into whole while writing their numbers. They will also write the number combinations.
PhyEd Today

~The candy canes have bloomed!

~Oh no! Rosie took a little part of someone's candy cane!

~The Club's Choice delivery is tomorrow from 3-6 pm in the high school cafeteria. Once again, a BIG thank you to all of you who were able to help in this fundraising effort. It was a HUGE success!