Check out how we are “bowling” in Math.  Grab some 10 golf tees and a small ball at the Dollar Store and you can play this game at home.

We have been learning a lot about Ocean Animals, Plants, and Fish.   The students have made individual packets about different fish, plants, and animals.  From those Information Packets they wrote 3 sentences about an Ocean Fish and 3 more sentences about an Ocean Animal.  Today they put everything together and we published their writing.  It was a lot of hard work but very rewarding!

Here’s a look at the authors writing an Informational piece about Ocean Fish and Animals.

For the next 3 weeks we will be having a can/bottle drive for our school.  If you would like to donate any empty pop cans or bottles, please send them in with your child for our school collection.  The money that we receive from turning in the bottles will be used to purchase flowers for the front of our school.

Thank you.

We have had a wonderful 2 weeks exploring the Ocean.   The students are quite knowledgeable about ocean fish, ocean plants, and ocean animals.  Today, my class looked like a high school English class!  They used their notes from this week to write 3 sentences about an ocean fish or animal.  their writing is fantastic!  They had to write about where the fish/animal lives, what the fish/animal eats, and is it a fish or an animal.  As they used their notes, they looked like they were writing a term paper.  Lots of thought and independent work.  Not every student is writing about the same fish/animal.   Then there are the mechanics of writing…capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation at the end of sentences.  Whew..there is a lot going on in here.

We are now creating a chart that shows the 4 different depths of ocean waters and the animals that live in each zone. More to come on that next week.  why do certain fish/animals live in the Sunlight Zone and not the Twilight Zone?  Why the Midnight Zone and not the Abyss Zone?  Stay tuned…

READING COMPREHENSION-Rereading (We have to do a lot of Rereading to understand some of this information.)

READING SKILL-Using Illustrations (We are using lots of illustrations to help us understand all of this Ocean information!)

SPELLING WORDS-  with  my   pen   den   hen   men   then   when

MATH-ADDENDS    Missing numbers  11 + 6= 17     11 & 6 are addends

-We also will work with fluency in Subtraction up to 10.  You can work with this at home.

SCIENCE-The Ocean

-our Plants

This week the students will also be taking the District Writing Prompt.  You can help by having them eat a good breakfast and to school on time.

That’s our week.  Happy Earth Day today!

Mrs. Smith

Shhh…I think Spring is finally here!  It’s lovely to be outside without wearing heavy coats and hearing the birds sing and smelling the flowers after a rain. I hope you can enjoy some of this sunshine and goodness this weekend.

READING-ANIMALS NOW AND THEN will be our week’s theme.  We’ll focus on the dinosaurs.

READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGY-Ask Questions

READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS- Distinguish between Fantasy and Reality and Using Text Features

WRITING-We will continue to write good, descriptive sentences, using an informational source.  (You remember writing like this when you were in Kindergarten, right??!!)  My students are doing a fantastic job with their writing!  I tell them to “write 3 sentences about something that a fish has” and they play a game with me as to how many sentences, more than 3, that they write.  The sentences are good, too!!

SPELLING-Wow…another area of great success!  Almost all of the students are scoring 100% on the weekly spelling tests!  Way to go parents!  The kids benefit from your home involvement and support.

This week’s words are:    rap  tap  cap clap  help  earth  has  she + 2 “cold words.”

SCIENCE-Dinosaurs and Earth Day

Looking ahead…

Week of April 25   District Wide Writing Assessment  This will be an Informational Piece of Writing to be completed over 3 days.  Please help your child be well rested, eat a good breakfast, and be at school on time.

Week of May 2     NWEA testing

Thank you for all you are doing on the home front.  I notice your “handiwork” and they students benefit.

Enjoy your weekend.

Mrs. Smith

I’m sorry about last week’s post…I must have forgotten to hit “Publish” after I finished writing it so it never got to you.  So sorry about that!

Unit 9 of AMAZING CREATURES is up for next week.  Our theme is The Amazing Ocean.  We’ll discuss what kind of animals live in the ocean, what kind of animal has fins, a shell, claws, tentacles…

WRITING-Descriptive Sentences   Students will be writing about different fish and using descriptive words.  Students should be writing at least 3 sentences by now on a given topic.

For example, “Whales are huge animals that live in the ocean.

Whales have gills.

Whales have a blow hole.”

If you have any books that you would like to share on this topic, please send them in with your child.

WORDS- has  look  fish  pot  cot  hot  got  plot     

***Please note*** Kindergarten Spelling words will now be 8 practiced words (HOT WORDS) and 2 unknown words (COLD WORDS-from the word chunk family of the week.)  As you can see, we will be working with the “ot” word chunk family next week.  To get ready for the “COLD WORDS”, use the “ot” chunk and form new words.  Have your student spell the words.  This will help solidify the word chunk family for the week.

LETTERS-X  x  V  v

SCIENCE-We will continue with our Plant Observations and recording our findings.  We are Scientists!

We also will begin discussing Earth Day.  Look for a project to come home about Earth Day.

  We went “Buggy” this week!

Look who is 6 years old!  Emily Montierth-April 4th

Enjoy your weekend!

Mrs. Smith

      Scientists at work

Look who’s 6 years old…

Ameer Fakhoury                                           Eman Abdullah

Derek Mincey           Hussein Sobh

Hooray for Easter and Spring Break!!! I wish everyone a safe travel to Florida (and other places that the kids have been mentioning to me) and to Grandparents, friends, and family homes.

When we return, here’s what will be happening…

READING-Unit 9  AMAZING CREATURES   Our theme for Week 1 is Interesting Insects.

COMPREHENSION STRATEGY-Asking Questions

COMPREHENSION SKILL-Classifying and Categorize

SPELLING WORDS-he  she  yes  no  insects  wig  rig  big  jig  twig  (10 words this week)

WRITING-We will be generating questions and researching for answers.   Of course, we will do our regular routine of…

Mon., -Introduce

Tues-whole group writing,

Wed.-Prewrite

Thurs.-Revise and Edit

Fri.,-PUBLISH WRITING and Share with Class

After reading a play about An Ant and The Grasshopper we will create a Frayer Diagram to record characters, setting, Author’s Purpose, and a favorite part of a story.   Lots going on in here.

MATH-We’ll be working with subtraction,  using 10 Frames, and we’ll play a Math Game with our Buddies.  Please work with Subtraction at home.  Use real happenings in your home to illustrate/use subtraction.  

SCIENCE-We planted some seeds last week.  As SCIENTISTS, while wearing our lab coats and safety glasses, we observe our plant, check for similarities from last week, look for differences from last week, and record our observations in our Science Journal.  We date each entry, draw a picture of what we see, and write 2-3 sentences about our findings.  We are real Scientists!  I’ll post some pictures from today.

Again, have a Blessed Easter and Spring Break.

Mrs. Smith

A short week this week but, as usual, I will try to fit in 5 days’ worth of learning and lessons into 4 days!

Here goes…

READING-Unit 8 Week 3 (Week 3 of each unit is always the REVIEW week of weeks 1 & 2).   What’s in my Garden?

COMPREHENSION STRATEGY-Recognize story structure

COMPREHENSION SKILL-Draw Conclusions

LETTERS-K  k   U  u

SPELLING WORDS-here  was   said  little  bun  fun  sun  run

WRITING-a poem

MATH-A Function Machine  ???

SCIENCE-Seeds and Plants    We planted some seeds today.  We entered our observations in our Science Journals.  We are SCIENTISTS!

This week…

Wednesday-Library Book Due

-Evening conferences    (I have contacted those parents that will be coming in for a conference.)

Friday-No School

Happy Easter and Spring Break!

Mrs Smith

WRITING-We will be writing Similes.  Once they understand them, my kids enjoy writing with similes.  Look for some to come home.

MATH-We will continue to decompose numbers less than 10, into pairs, in more than one way.   For example, 7 can be decomposed (broken apart)  into 3 + 4    or  1 + 6  or   0+ 7 

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Also, make 2 groups of spoons, shoes, bracelets, paper clips,…

Compare the groups as “less than, greater than, or equal to.”

For example, make 2 groups of pencils.

The first group has 8 pencils.  The second group has 6 pencils.

The first group is greater than the second group.

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Thirdly, practice composing numbers 11-19 using 10’s and 1’s.

For example,  17  is  1  10   and  7  1’s

or      10  is   1   10  and  0   1’s