Reading with others and the start of a new unit!

Important Dates:

Tuesdays: library

March 15 - early release

March 17 - Report Cards

March 24 - Fun Fair 4:30-6:30

Parent/Teacher Conference - April 13 and 14

Before vacation we shared our nonfiction books with Mr. Schlatter's second grade and Miss Bushey's kindergarten. Our class had to read like experts and prepare books with questions and places to stop and think. The students did a great job!

 

This past week we kicked off our Project Based Learning unit (PBL). I'll be sharing more about this in next week's post. But this past week, we started off by talking about giving and receiving feedback. We watched this video.  Then, we tried it ourselves. The students worked really hard to give and receive feedback on how to make their butterfly drawings more realistic. I impressed with the quality of feedback the students gave each other.

Valentine's Day + Snow = FUN

Important Dates:

Tuesdays: library

No School: February 27 - March 7

I know this was a shorter week with a snow day on Monday and early release on Wednesday, but we did so much! I took a ton of pictures this week. I think this post will be mostly pictures. :-)

Meet Nana:
This is our Foster Grandparent, Marion Kennedy. The students call her Nana. She is with us Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 8:00-1:00. We love having her in the classroom!

Valentine's Day:

We had a blast on Valentine's Day! First, we made dog biscuits for the Humane Society of Chittenden County. I'm dropping them off later today. Then, we made our own batch of Heart Healthy Soup. Later in the day, we exchanged Valentine's Day cards with each other. It was a lot of fun!

SNOW!:

Recess has been extra fun with all the snow! The students are burying themselves in the snow, building the biggest snowmen ever, and having races to see who can push a giant snowball the fastest.

On Friday, we went outside as usual, and the maintenance men at school had made giant snow mounds for us to climb on! We could have stayed out there all day on those mountains! Please remember to send in boots and snow  pants. It doesn't hurt to have an extra pair of clothes and socks in case of wet clothes after recess.

Happy February!

Important Dates:

Tuesdays: library

February 14: Valentine's Day (info coming on Monday)
February 15: early release

No School: February 27 - March 7

Library is now on Tuesdays because we have guidance on Wednesdays with Mrs. Murphy. We also have gym on Tuesdays so make sure to send in sneakers for Tuesdays and Fridays.

Foster Grandparent:

 I am so excited to tell you that we have a Foster Grandparent starting on February 14! She has a 2 week trial period to see if our classroom is a good match for her. I haven't even had a chance to tell the kids yet! The Foster Grandparent program is a wonderful program that connects adults (55 and older) with kids. The Foster Grandparent helps out in the classroom providing one-on-one help to the students in the class. I was lucky enough to have a Foster Grandparent several years ago and I'm happy to have another one! 

Literacy:

This is a piece of writing from a student in our class. She wrote it during mindfulness time. During mindfulness, the students can color, read, do turtle time, watch our aquarium video, or write. It says: 

When school is 

like your

family  you 

will make friends.

Everybody has a friend.

We love JFK.

Math:

This week we worked on the concept of fact families. We used dominoes to introduce the concept. The mathematicians would use the three numbers on the number to name the part, part, total of the fact family. The class developed a public record about fact families. We ended the week with an activity where the students had to find all the members of their fact family. The students were able to justify why a group of equations were a fact family. Super work mathematicians!

 

School Wide Celebration:

JFK filled the heart monitor again! This time we did a dance party! Miss Bushey's kindergarten class came and joined our class and we danced for half an hour! So  much fun! 

Class Celebration

Important Dates:

Tuesdays: library - new day

February 15: early release

Winter Clothing:
Winter is here. Please make sure to send in winter clothing for recess. We go outside everyday. Snow pants, boots, mittens, hat, and a coat are really important this time of year. Do you  have boots, snow pants, or a coat your child has outgrown? I would love a few to keep in our extra locker for those days that items are forgotten. Please feel free to send in any old winter outdoor clothes that you don't need anymore.

Class Celebration:
I didn't get a chance to write an update over the weekend due to sickness. But I really wanted to share about our celebration!

Last week we fill our heart bucket once again! This time we did a very different type of celebration. Earlier in the week, Zulie, Nadia, and Yasmina spent a recess cleaning the playground. They were shocked by the garbage and clothing that they found. They asked if they could make posters to tell people not to litter or leave their clothing outside.


So for our celebration, we learned all about taking care of the environment and the 3 R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. After reading some books and watching a fun rap video, the students created their own posters to educate others which are now hanging up throughout JFK. Our plan was to then go out and finish cleaning the playground. Unfortunately, the playground was really wet on Friday and then I was out sick on Monday. Hopefully once the ice and snow melts we can get outside and finish the job.

I love that the class used a celebration to teach others how to care for the earth. Thanks so much to Zulie, Nadia, and Yasmina for giving us the idea! What a great class we have!

January 16. 2017

Important Dates:

Wednesdays: library
February 15: early release

Winter Clothing:
Winter is here. Please make sure to send in winter clothing for recess. We go outside everyday. Snow pants, boots, mittens, hat, and a coat are really important this time of year. Do you  have boots, snow pants, or a coat your child has outgrown? I would love a few to keep in our extra locker for those days that items are forgotten. Please feel free to send in any old winter outdoor clothes that you don't need anymore.

 

Literacy:

We are loving nonfiction! We continue to learn about nonfiction features such as labels, table of contents, and diagrams. But, we are also learning how to talk about our books. The students have time everyday to share the information they have learned from reading. They need to state the topic and then name several supporting details. 

We have also started to learn how to write nonfiction books. The class has a wealth of knowledge of so many different topics!

We also took time on Friday to play a couple rounds of sight word bingo. We had fun while learning our sight words!

Math:

We have discovered another math app on our ipads that we love! We started playing Monster Math and the students work on finding equivalent equations using addition and subtraction.

Great week back!

Important Dates:

Wednesdays: library
January 11: early release
January 16: No School

Winter Clothing:
Winter is here. Please make sure to send in winter clothing for recess. We go outside everyday. Snow pants, boots, mittens, hat, and a coat are really important this time of year. Do you  have boots, snow pants, or a coat your child has outgrown? I would love a few to keep in our extra locker for those days that items are forgotten. Please feel free to send in any old winter outdoor clothes that you don't need anymore.

Field Trip:

Our field trip to the Flynn was awesome! We got to see Cirque Mother Africa. As Zulie said, "It had music, singing, dancing, and tricks!" It was fantastic! Thank you to our volunteers who were able to come with us. 

Literacy:
The class has jumped right into our exciting study of nonfiction! This first week, we have introduced what nonfiction is and started to develop our super smart reading habits. We are learning that nonfiction can be read in a different way than fiction. We are taking the time to really study the pictures and other nonfiction features before actually reading the words. There is so much information in those nonfiction pictures!

During writing time we are finishing up our small moments before starting our nonfiction writing next week. 

Math:

.Our unit of measurement continues with comparing measurements. We even compared all the people in our  math class and ordered then from shortest to tallest!

Happy New Year!

Important Dates:

Wednesdays: library
January 3: School starts
January 3: Field Trip to the Flynn
January 11: early release
January 16: No School

Winter Clothing:
Winter is here. Please make sure to send in winter clothing for recess. We go outside everyday. Snow pants, boots, mittens, hat, and a coat are really important this time of year. Do you  have boots, snow pants, or a coat your child has outgrown? I would love a few to keep in our extra locker for those days that items are forgotten. Please feel free to send in any old winter outdoor clothes that you don't need anymore.

Go Noodle:

Go Noodle is a website we use in the classroom for our movement breaks. I sent home info about kids creating their own Go Noodle Champs at home and then we can connect those champs with our school account! In case you missed it, here is what to do:

Go to gonoodle.com/class-code and enter this code: GZDMNF 

Literacy:
We finished up our first unit in literacy which was all about building good reading habits. We focused on what readers do when they first get a book, who to puzzle out tricky words, what to do when you finish a book, and how to work with a partner during reading time.
When we get back from vacation, we will be starting our nonfiction unit. I know the students will love it! These pictures show the class posing with our anchor charts from the first unit.

Math:

The students are making so much growth with their fact power! We are not once a week, using apps on the ipad to reinforce the math facts they have been learning. One app we use is called Math Slide: Addition and Subtraction and Math Slide: Tens and Ones.