Dear parents, this Thursday is picture day! Please make sure that your child’s form is all filled out BEFORE school begins on Thursday. We do not have a time yet, so make sure students are wearing comfortable shoes for gym class because we will go there on Thursday morning!
Author Archives: Margaret Ross
Week of 10-16-2017
- Greetings room 106 Families, I hope this message finds you well rested and DRY! It has been such a wet and windy weekend. My family had a block party in the rain Saturday
Funny thing is that the children had a BLAST and didn’t care at all about the rain lol! I am hoping for better weather this week so that our darlings can enjoy some down time and free time OUTSIDE on the playground! As we head into week 6 here is what you need to know so get your pencils and paper and mark your calendars! - Important Info:
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- We will be going on a FIELD TRIP on November 6th to the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum! Yay!!! Look for the permission slip to come home Monday afternoon and please have them filled out completely and sent back to Mrs. Ross by Friday , 10-20-2017 at the latest. Chaperones: we have room for 6 chaperones to ride the bus and those names will be drawn on Friday the 20th. I’ll try to videotape my son Benjamin pulling the names out of a “hat” and post the video online on the blog Friday night. Ben is SO proud and excited to play such an important role in our field trip
Remember to have ichat forms completed in the office ASAP! We are not allowed parent volunteers by law who do not have these completed! It’s great to do them now, they are good for several years! Thank you in advance for all your help, understanding, and timeliness as we organize our trip.
- Our BOOK ORDER IS IN!!! Your child will be bringing home new books Monday afternoon! Thank you for helping your child build up a personal library at home they are going to be thrilled!
- Wednesday October 18th, 2017 we have our first LATE START! All students will arrive one hour later to school while teachers have a staff meeting. I will see all my darlings at 9:35 am on Wednesday! I hope you get to sleep in
- *Math KDG: In KDG this week we will continue Unit 2 and compare numbers and groups of objects by attributes. Firsties will continue studying tally marks, addition and subtraction facts, story problems and base ten numbers. First grade parents PLEASE have your children use the site Xtra math to practice math facts. This week I will be assessing first grade students on the CCSS: tally marks, addition fluency to 10, numbers before and after any given number to 100, and base ten. I will send home some study guides to help
- Science: 5 Senses Unit Finish this week…
- This week we will finish our Unit on the 5 Senses and then be moving on to “Force and Motion” next week! We will study pushes and pulls and prepare to use our knowledge on the field trip to the Hands on Museum!
- Social Studies-This week we will talk about sharing and taking turns and complete a friendship craft (we will be making our own “rainbow fish” and have already started writing about how we can be “good friends”
- *Writer’s Workshop- This week we will continue writing through illustrations. However, in Social studies we are writing to answer the prompt, “I Can Be A Good Friend”…….
- Language Arts-This week we will enjoy comparing the similarities and differences between the two narrative trade books “Where’s My Mummy?” Carolyn Crimi and “Are You My Mother?” P.D. Eastman
- in addition, students will be introduced to the “short o and i, we will work on identifying beginning consonant sounds and rhymes (ex. /c/ and then /ot/)
- –POEM: Mummy! We will continue to hear and identify rhymes this week, and now we will identify which “two” words in a series of three rhyme (ex. hat, book, bat)
- Spelling-
- First Graders: Week 5: -ar word family controlled “r” (far, jar, are, art, start, bark, yard, arm, farm, card)
- -KDG: Please continue to work on individual spelling words from the green card and unknown letters in the alphabet!
- We will be going on a FIELD TRIP on November 6th to the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum! Yay!!! Look for the permission slip to come home Monday afternoon and please have them filled out completely and sent back to Mrs. Ross by Friday , 10-20-2017 at the latest. Chaperones: we have room for 6 chaperones to ride the bus and those names will be drawn on Friday the 20th. I’ll try to videotape my son Benjamin pulling the names out of a “hat” and post the video online on the blog Friday night. Ben is SO proud and excited to play such an important role in our field trip
I hope you all have a wonderful week! I will be sure to add and update any and all information as the week progresses if there are any changes to this information! See you all Monday morning!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross
Homework week of 10-9-2017
Hello parents and families of 106!
This week we will be doing a fun math assignment for homework! You have until Monday to turn it in, however you may feel free to turn it in early!
We will be making a “number sense” quilt! Your child will be responsible for only 1 square of the quilt! So, if they have the number 5 they will place the number 5 somewhere in the upper left corner and then glue FIVE pictures of anything they want to on the number 5 page! We have 24 students in the class, so when we are all done we will have 24 squares with different amounts on each square. Good luck and have fun! Your child may draw or find pictures in a magazine or download pictures from the internet. In addition, your child may want to use stickers! Make it as cool as your want but very clear in the background so that we can tell what the objects are. THANK YOU in advance for your support as always, and you can look for the piece of card stock to come home today.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross and Class
Week of 10-9-2017
Hello room 106 families!
I hope this message finds you well! I hope your kiddos enjoyed a relaxing three day weekend they deserve it I have spent most of this weekend celebrating my 10 year anniversary, attending Benjamin’s soccer tournament and his last kid-pitch baseball game! WOW I need a weekend to recover from my weekend I am excited to begin a new week with your darlings, and here is what you can expect!
*Important info
Monday 10/9-Red Wings assembly (students can wear red wings jerseys and t-shirts or red and white to show support to the Detroit Red Wings!
Friday– ½ day for students
Monday: LAST DAY to hand in or online order book orders! Mrs. Ross will place the order by 8:00pm Monday
*Math: Students will begin Unit 2 which is about comparing numbers, alike and different, sorting and grouping based on attributes of numbers
*Science: 5 Senses Unit Continue…this week we will continue finishing up the unit on the 5 senses!
*Writer’s Workshop- THis week we will continue working on our goal of “labeling” parts of our very detailed pictures! We will use our new tool that was introduced last week called the “pencil”! We will also work on showing and “retelling” our stories! This is a HUGE skill that should be worked on whever reading or writign stories! This is something you could help your child do at home each night as you read for pleasure. Ask your child to “retell” the story aloud. This helps with comprehension.
*Please make sure to check your child’s “grip” at all times as they are writing at home. Your child should be gripping with three fingers in a tripod grip and not with a whole hand, or any form of a grasped hand.
*Language Arts– Week 5 Transportation is our theme! We will be talking about what vehicles we use to transport us from here to there, how we get to school and home, what the different vehicles are used for and comparing our narrative story to the informational one! We will also continue to work on the CCSS: environmental sounds, beginning and ending sounds, words in a sentence, hearing rhymes.
-Trade Books: “Transportation in my Neighborhood” by Shelly Lyons and “Planes, Trucks, Trains”
–POEM:GO!GO!GO!
*Spelling– First grade spelling assessment will be this Friday
First: Week 5: -ed and -en families (sled, bed, red, fed, ten, then, men, hen) *can, see
-kdg: introduce: can, see
Have a wonderful week! If there is anything I forgot I’ll be sure to update it as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross
REMINDERS…NO SCHOOL FOR KDG/BOOK ORDERS!
Kindergarten Families have no school tomorrow! First graders best of luck on your spelling test tomorrow!
Have a great weekend everyone Since we will not be there tomorrow take your time looking at the first book order I’ll wait until Monday afternoon to place the first order! Those of you who placed them online already they’ll just wait there until Monday in my account
Happy Friday!
Mrs. Ross and Class
First Book Order! Due 10-6-2017
Monday evening your child will be bringing home a book order! Please take a look and have them completed by Friday 10-6-2017! Thank you!
Mrs. Ross
Week of 10-2-2016…Hello October!
Dear Families of 106,
Happy October! I can not believe September is over. I am also so HAPPY we made it through the HOT weather! THANK YOU again for all the provisions you helped us with last week. We are SO truly grateful for your help! We may be ok with our two fans now, so if you miss your fans and coolers at home we may be able to part with them this week As we head into October, here is what you can expect for this week in our K/1 world:
*Reminders:
*Tuesday is library checkout! Please make sure to place books into your child’s backpack Monday night! Thank you for your help in becoming responsible with DuVall materials! I hope you and your child enjoyed reading together this week! Remember those library books count towards the 10-15 minutes you read every night!
Kinder families your child does NOT have school this Friday (Mrs. Ross has her second kindergarten PD with the district. First graders, you will report as usual and be with Ms. Kerby the first grade teacher next door!
*Spelling:
–First Grade: Week 4: ug and un family (slug, sun, run, bun, bug, fun, mug, plug, can, see) Please visit spelling city at least twice this week to help you learn your word family words along with the green list sight words
-KDG: introducing: can, see (kinders are welcome to play Spelling city at their leisure to learn their sight words
*Language Arts: Please log onto Raz-Kids to read at night! Remember as your child receives a reading pack (first graders already have) these books count for the 10-15 minutes a night of reading total! If you’d like to read 20-30 go for it!
-Trade Books: Main: “A Tree for All Seasons” and “Tap the Magic Tree”
–POEM: All Leaves are Falling Down
*Mini Lessons: Poetry, rhyming words/providing rhyme, how many words are in the oral sentence I provide? Beginning sound and ending sound in a word I provide orally
*Writing Workshop: Continue Writing through Illustrations Unit 1. This week our lessons will add to writing and sharing our picture story to adding labels in the pictures to stand for beginning sounds of the illustrations, introducing the “pencil” as a tool in addition to crayons and markers, and labeling for “detail”. I can’t wait until you see the progression of this first unit when they bring these home at the end of the unit! Last week we also introduced the concept of “goal setting” which is so essential to writer’s workshop and Daily 5. Our goals will vary in the future, however we are all starting with the goals of detailed pictures.
*Social Studies: This week we will further our discussions of “what is a good citizen” by working on the topics “Good and Bad Choices” and “Being a Good friend”.
*Science: This week we will continue working on our 5 Senses Unit. We will continue learning and experimenting with a new sense every day this week (Hearing, Sight, Smell, Touch). Let us know if you’d like to come in and help during one of these experiments! We had a blast on Friday experimenting with color! We mixed food together in clear cups of water and predicted what we thought would happen and what color it would make! We discuss how scientists: Ask questions, Make predictions or hypothesis’s, observe and measure, write observations down and talk about their findings! Ask your little scientist to share what they learned and remembered with you!
*Math: This week we will finish Unit 1 working with number 0-5 and 0-10. We have been working so hard to understand number recognition, number order, comparing numbers 0-5, writing numbers, counting and cardinality (counting objects one at a time and saying one number for each object while doing so), and subitizing. This week we will finish with lessons that include: ordering numbers 0-5, understanding quantities 0-5 and read and write 0-5. This week I will also do another assessment one on one to recheck the basic skills I asked your child to perform during the first week of school! You can help them prepare by playing the games we send home every week (I suggest putting them in sheet protectors and clipping them into a 3 ring binder at home so your child will have a large resource to use! Sheet protectors are also great for using with the dry erase markers because the markers wipe off SO easily!)
*Skills to be reassessed this week: counting by 1s (how far can I go?), writing my numbers from 0-5, reading my numbers from 0-5, counting objects 1:1 up to five objects
PBIS: This week your child will take our “behavior program” a step further and help communicate further each day from school to home about our wonderful manners and if we have any challenges we need to work on during the day We have spent the month of September learning expectations, however by NO MEANS are we perfect! If your child comes home with a color other than green, PLEASE do not be too upset with them! It takes the young child a very long time to learn social graces. At this point they are still in the “egocentric” stages of life and their personal needs are very important and often do not see the “group” they are in. I have VERY high expectations for my students as far as learners and contributors to our classroom environment. HOWEVER, as a mother and an educator with my masters in early childhood I know the time and patience it takes to become “ready to learn”. I want you to know that I love ALL your children and although I must use the PBIS system, I look at it in a positive way. We can communicate daily about behavior and I ask you to look at it and “discuss” how the day went with your child. If your child is on a color other than blue please ask them “how do you think the day went today? Is there anything you think you could work on as a “goal” tomorrow? I usually do not like to discuss colors at the end of the day in front of other families (as a mother I feel this is very personal and private and I would NOT like it if my son’s teacher was discussing his manners outside in front of others!) however, I am always available after people leave, by email or personal meeting Having said all that, I assure you there is no real mystery to a blue lol and I have seen it all Remember they are 5 and not perfect! I do not move students down quickly, so if your child is on blue know that if was after several redirecting lessons and over the period of the day. I tend to choose the color based on the “whole day” rather than an event or two The behavior sheet I send home this month for October will live in the BACK of the red Homework folder! This is perfect so that it doesn’t get lost and I have also written all the late start, vacation days etc. on the calendars. Simply look and discuss your child’s behavior at night and praise/discuss a game plan for the next day Kindly initial it once a week so we can partner together in their success! THANK YOU in advance for your help! Every month your child will receive a new one. remember: Every week they spend all 5 days on green they will be able to pick from the treasure box on Fridays! Every month if your child has enough greens they can attend the PBIS celebrations when they begin
*Students that are trying SO hard to correct behavior that may have been against classroom policies will have the opportunity to “clip back up” if they are showing the teacher effort yay! However, if a child is clipped down for verbal or physical violence this is NOT a behavior I clip back for. DuVall has a ZERO tolerance for bullying and physical/verbal aggression. In addition, if you child is exhibiting exemplary behavior as a student, friend, DuVall Upstander (and I do not mean just being “nice” or “quiet” they will be recognized for being a “proud penguin” and clipped up to the color pink! This is not given out often, so children should not expect it just for having a great day and being “ready to learn” that is green and what we should ALL strive for!
Have a WONDERFUL week and I will update you with any news I may have not included in this post!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross and Class
9-29-2017 Apples!
Dear parents,
This week our theme was “apples” in language arts. We read two books. The first was “Ten Red Apples” by Pat Hutchins and an informational book about apples. We chose and learned about key vocabulary words from the text such as: dribble, rotten, bud, seed, bloom. We discussed what an informational book is and what a narrative book is and how they are different. We introduced the “table of contents” and looked at the parts of an informational book and read it out of order! The students were shocked lol! Then, on Friday, we used our creativity and sense of touch and sight to explore apples that were cut into slices. With forks, we stuck them into the apples and stamped our own apple trees! It was SOOOOO much fun Next week, we will increase the rigor of this activity by writing to the prompt, “I can see __________ red/green apples in/by the tree.” In addition, we will use bingo dabbers to dot out the amount of apples on a ten frame! Come on by and check them out! we are oh so proud of our work today! Here are some pictures we snapped of our budding artists this afternoon during the project. enjoy!
Mrs. Ross and Class
THANK YOU!!!
On behalf of room 106 I just wanted to say THANK YOU to you for your generosity this week helping us get through these last few HOT DAYS! Thanks to Ramy’s mom for the cooler full of waters and the AMAZING fan I wish I had at my house lol! Thank you to Malynn’s mom and family for the cooler full of waters and fan as well! We have water to spare for tomorrow and are so grateful! Thank you to Marco’s mom who will be bringing the kiddos Popsicles tomorrow THANK YOU in advance! The kids are already excited to have them!
Despite the HOT weather, I have been lucky to have this wonderful classroom full of HARD workers and kind hearts. we have been through many smiles, tears, boo-boos, and laughs in only 14 days, but we are definitely doing it together. We are already a family!
With Gratitude,
Mrs. Ross and Class
Week of 9-25-2017
Dear Families,
I hope this post finds you well and enjoying a much deserved rest! We’re almost out of the hot weather thank goodness We have been working so hard despite the heat and I am SO proud of our class! I’d like to take this time to introduce and welcome Yasir, our new kindergarten student who started last week with us! We now have 23 students in our class
This week, we will finish taking our first NWEA asessments in LA and Math. I will be going over all your child’s data with you at the first conference in November and give you a copy to take along with our first report card. Please see me if you have a specific date and time to request, otherwise this week I’ll be sending you home a scheduled conference time if you have not been able to sign up yet! Can’t wait to show you how WELL your children have been doing already! Have I mentioned that I LOVE this class lately?
Here is what you need to know for this week!
Writing Workshop: We will continue building our routines and procedures and stamina writing as well as continue Unit 1 Writing though pictures! We are doing SO well developing rich illustrations, drawing shapes, labeling pictures and telling the stories orally.
Daily 5/Reading: This week we will finish testing, continue to build stamina for “read to self” and work on procedures and expectations for reading. In addition, this wednesday bothe kdg classes will begin incorporating a literacy intervention program with Mrs. Pelaccio during Daily 5. I am excited to dig in more to Daily 5 as we rock and roll our way to reading! Keep having fun working on Raz-kids every night for 10-20 minutes depending what grade you’re in and your child’s stamina at this point may be more like 5-10. That’s ok just build on it throughout the year! Remember, if you record a book I can listen to it and play it for the CLASS in school! This is SO fun and the kiddos are SO proud to hear their voice through the speakers!
THANK YOU to Mrs. Sullivan, who continues to support us during writing workshop and helps as a spelling mom on Fridays with the first grade students! We’re so lucky to have this help.
Math Workshop: *Thank you to James’s mom (Mrs. Freitag ) for coming in to help run stations during math workshop on Thursday! It was SOOOOO hot, but we made it through somehow!
Kinders: This week we will continue working on our number sense with numbers 0-5 kdg, 0-10 firsties, counting orally to 100 by 1s and 10s
*first graders in Unit 1 will be working within the range of 20 (counting objects and representing with the written numeral), compare two two digit numbers based on the meaning of the tens and ones digits, relate counting to addition and subtraction, organize, and organize and represent and interpret data on a graph, read and write tally marks)
Spelling: kinders will keep working on sight words in class and letter ID with the teacher in our individualized spelling program. If you have received a “green card” Mrs. Sullivan will begin asking you on Friday’s if you can read your “word of the week” you were given to MEMORIZE. Remember these sight words can NOT be stretched out! All students will progress at different rates, some are still working on names and letters so PLEASE don’t stress out if your kdg child has not received a sight word/reading pack yet. If your child is still working on letters, then each Friday, they will be assessed on the remaining letters they are working on to see which new ones they have committed to memory! The more they know the better, but each child will progress at their individual speed The lists are on spelling city.com for your children to “play with” and I recommend at least twice a week for first graders to help you get ready for weekly assessments.
*First Grade Spelling list Week 3: od, op family (cod, rod, pod, sod, drop, rod, pop, stop, top, I, you)
*Spelling city has the new word family list for games and the sight words list for k/1 are also up to practice new sight words!
*If your child likes to sing and dance, try practicing sight words on “Youtube”! You can google any sight word and look for sing along songs which are FABULOUS for committing sight words to memory! If this sounds like your child’s style check out my recommended sight words pages or the spelling program page for online resources to help! My daughter Antonia LOVES the letter songs by “Heidi Songs” that I rented for my classroom for the year. It’s only $7 for the YEAR and she rocks out to the videos and has learned her letters!!! Your child is familiar with Vimeo already!
Science: This week we will begin a unit on the 5 Senses and What is a scientist before we move into the push and pull unit. This year, we will be working on a mixture of kinder and first grade science units and will be the most amazing scientists in the world! I can’t wait to experiment using our 5 senses!
Social Studies: We will continue Unit 1 on being a good citizen and this week move into “good and bad choices” that people make!
*Important Dates: Conferences on November:
*Reminders: Please send in a family picture for social studies this week! We will be decorating a picture frame!
*Please return any emergency cards of lunch forms etc. that the office sent back to you to Mrs. Ross as soon as possible! Thank you for your help.
Have a wonderful week and I will let you know of any updates in the schedules or if there is anything I have left out!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ross