Week 20 & 21

The Burlington Science Center presented and amazing interactive show titled, Our Trash, Our Choice

Students throughout Burlington schools are being asked to think about how our choices can help make a difference.

We were taught to sort food waste, recycling and trash.

The students have been motivated to reduce the amount of trash Memorial school disposes of daily.
We are tracking the weight of our waste and are exploring the idea of a school compost.
Awareness has already helped to reduce trash by 22 lbs.

Scientific experimentation is all the buzz in room 177. We are learning about weather, patterns in seasonal weather and the benefit of forecasting weather.
 

Ask you child about our cloud experiment. 

Important Mentor text:

Comprehension Objectives: 

• main ideas and details, 
• extracting fact from fiction,
• review story summary 
• text to text connections

Phonics: 

• Review digraphs, sh, ch, th, wh 
• Listening for the two letter blends, (cl, cr, st, bl, br, tr, dr)  
• Writing uppercase letter S, T, U and V
• Writing a sentence with upper and lowercase letters, spaces between words, and punctuation.

Writing: 

• We finished a unit on writing to explain. Wait until you see the final projects. 

Math:

• Composing numbers through ten (part, part, whole)
• Decomposing numbers through ten ( whole is equal to the parts)
• Using base ten to understand the pattern in teen numbers. 
• Subtraction fluency, Thanks for all of your help with addition facts. 

Science: 

• Weather and the purpose of predicting and tracking patterns
• Weather for each season
• Scientific method: experimentation, questioning, and researching for answers

Guiding Questions:

Why do we look at weather forecasts?

How can the temperature effect the weather?

What makes a rainbow?

What's 3 and ten more, 4 and ten more, 5 and ten more etc.? ...

Tell about your favorite season. What are some activities you can do during that season? 

Which Dr. Seuss character do you like best? Why? 

Week 19

Read Across America Day was lots of fun!

We celebrated by honoring the famous author Dr. Seuss. Although students have been selecting books from the classroom's collection of Seuss classics, I saved a few of my favorites for read alouds. The Sneeches, Horton Hatches an Egg and The Lorax are stories about unforgettable characters that we can learn from and have fun describing.  Fortunately, we were able to extend our community helpers theme to the librarian in his honor.
Community helper discussions were focused on librarians and nurses. We continue to use adjectives to describe, character traits and tools used by each.

Phonemic Awareness:

• Listing for medial sounds in cvc words.
• Sorting beginning blends, (sl, sp, sk, fl, gl ) 

Phonics: 

• Letter formation for uppercase letters Qu, &  R. 
• Writing a dictated sentence, (uppercase letter to start and lowercase letters throughout, spaces between words and punctuation)

Comprehension: 

• Review story maps for retelling
• Using vocabulary from the text to ask and answer questions

Writing: 

This is week two of our until on writing to inform. The children are working with peers to research a topic of their choice. They are in the process of creating a poster and collaborating on a script in order to create "how to videos". They should be finished by the end of next week.  If you do not want your child's video published on the web page or on the Memorial Web sight please let me know. 

Math: 

• decomposing the numbers 4-9
• addition and subtraction symbols. 

Social Studies:  

• President's Day 
• Presidential election
• What it means to vote

Reminders: 

Please return small guided reading books daily

Return Discovery museum permission slips

Sight Words solders should be returned weekly for a check in and new words added

Please sign up for a parent teacher conference (schedule will be sent out next week). 

Week 18

What could be better than learning about all of the people in our community? After all, they help make Burlington a great place to live. Community helpers is our new theme. We will be focused on what each helper does as his/her job, the tools they need and character traits of people in these valuable professions. Speaking of great communities, thanks to all of the parents who sent donation or crafts for the fundraiser raffle basket! We are building quite a collection.

Mentor Texts:

Students were introduced to the writing concept instruct. 

They practiced the procedure for a school fire drill, made a movie and created posters explaining how to be safe in a fire drill. This was presented to the whole class as way to teach the features of a good instructional text.

Features:

Title

sequences steps

Action word to tell the reader what to do

Pictures and captions to describe steps

Next week students will be creating short video clip and independently producing a poster of their own! The choices will be: How to Brush Your Teeth, How to Check Out a Library Book, How to Call 9-1-1, or How to Wash Your Hands.

What we have been up to:

Readers Response and Comprehension:

• Identifying character traits, main idea and details, (see mentor text)
• Making text to self connections
• New Guided reading groups. Please be sure your child returns his/her leveled book the very next day!!! We are seeing lots of reading progress kids are building confidence and flying through books.

Writing:

• Introduce the student to Instructional writing as a genre. Whole class project titled, How to be safe in a fire drill.
• Review the features of a good narrative.
• Wrote a February break story. Thanks for helping to make such great material. The kids shared stories of: tubing, skiing, visiting friends, trampoline parks, playdates, cooking and so much more!

Phonics/Phonological Awareness:

• Listening for beginning blends, decoding cvc and ccvc words, (cat and clap).
• Handwriting uppercase letters M, N, O, P
• Sentence writing with spaces and appropriate punctuation ( . & ?)

Math:

• Relating addition and subtraction.
• Recognizing the symbols for addition and subtraction (+, -, =)
• Vocabulary words: sum, difference, whole & part
• Exploring ways to make numbers ( see charts)

     6

0	6
1	5
2	4
3	3
4	2
5	1
6	0

Social Studies: 

• Community helpers with a focus of firefighters.
• Chineese New Year.
• Presidents Day and the job of the president.

Guiding Questions:

Who is the president of the United States of America?
Why to we celebrate President's Day?
What holidays are most important to our family?
Why are firefighters brave?
How can you describe a doctor, (librarian, teacher, police officer etc.)? Ask for adjectives.
What do you want to be when you grow up? Why?
Tell me the sum of  ___ and _____.
The me the difference between ______ and ______.

100th Day of School Celebration

Pictures from this exciting event!

100 chicks from the Wolf's Chicken's Stew

Parachute Mix Up: Shake, mix and toss the numbers from 1- 100 . Sequence them again

Build a Structure with 100 cups  Great team work!

Roll, Add and Collect 100 Cents

100 Reasons Why We LOVE Memorial School

Every celebration needs a party hat. 

100 Years Older Portraits

100 Days more Fit Exercise Center

Aquarium week

The ocean offers such an amazing variety of cool and interesting animals to learn about. Our class did an exceptional job navigating the aquarium. We saw sharks, eels, tropical fish and jelly fish. We touched sea stars, sting rays, lemon sharks and hermit crabs. We watched divers and scientist feed harbor seals and clean penguin habitats. It was awesome. Thanks you to the amazing chaperones who did a great job keeping a close eye on our class. We were an organized well behaved bunch!!!

New England Aquarium January 2016

                                               

Chaperones please email me any pictures you have, I would love to share more photos. 

In class this week...

Reading Comprehension: 

• Using pictures to gain knowledge
• Author's purpose as it applies to non fiction
• determining main idea 

Phonics: 

• Reading short vowel words, focus on short i. (review short a)
• Writing upper case letters including: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K

Sight Words: 

• I, can, go, to, the, a, be, she, you, my, we, up, in, and, so 

We will have a check in assessment at the end of next week. To inform both introduction and pace. 

Writing:

• Responding to nonfiction
• Determining importance from non fiction
• Writing a complete dictated sentences using a Capital letter to start and "mostly" lowercase thereafter. 

Math:

• Numbers and counting to 100 by 1's, 5's and 10's. 
• Subtraction
• Story problems containing both addition and subtraction

Reminders: 

Blue folders return daily!

The weekly homework is a resource, please ask your child to tap and build the short vowel words. They will increase in complexity as the year progresses. My goal is to solidify the medial and ending sounds in simple words. Please do not feel as if you need to return the paper the very next day. This should be a "make a word" game that you play repeatedly. The recording sheet is there to give your child practice connecting handwriting with phonics. 

Red sight word folders are to be returned weekly, Thursdays work best to keep a routine. We will ask your child to read and/spell the sight words. Please leave the envelope in your child's folder so that we can include new words. We will record your child's score on the envelope so that you are aware of how they are doing. If your child does not have at least 4 out of 5 we will not send new words. Most kids are on week three words. 

Guiding Questions:

Tell me about Sea Turtles.

Why do Sea Turtles lay their eggs at night? 

What does it mean to have an endoskeleton? 

What was your favorite exhibit at the aquarium? Why? 

What did you learn from Superfish? 

Who was your aquarium writing partner? 

How did you decide what to draw?

Tell me about subtraction? 

Tell me a subtraction story. 

Superfish presented by the Burlington Science Center

   

Superfish and all of it's features. 

                                                                                            

Mr. Musselman tell of the characteristics of mollusks

Watch us participate we have so much background knowledge

Desmond demonstrates the suction of seastar and octopus suckers. 

Real lobster claws!!! 

Do you know why the claws look different? Ask any kindergartner they can tell you. 

REAL OCTOPUS, STRAIGHT FROM THE MARKET

Guiding questions:

• How are vertebrates and I vertebrates different?Do fish have a backbone?
• Are horseshoe crabs dangerous?
• Name some different kinds of mollusk!
• What might we find at the aquarium's touch tank?
• Why do fish have gills?
• How are sharks different from other fish
• What are some similarities between an seastar and an octopus? 

Week 15 & 16

It was a great work filled two weeks in room 177.

We began a study of sea creatures, in preparation for our field trip to the New England Aquarium.

Thanks to all of our volunteers. Unfortunately we can only take four chaperones.
Thanks to Mrs. Currier, Mr. Cline, Ms. Spinale, and Mrs. Cassidy. Get your sneakers ready this is a busy trip. The chaperone fee, $4.80, is due as soon as possible.

Throughout this unit, we hope to gain knowledge of fish, sea mammals, penguins and the ocean environment. This theme affords us an opportunity to explore both fiction and non fiction texts.  Students are learning to extract facts from fiction. Although it is easier to talk about story elements, many children are motivated by real facts.

                                  

             

     

Centers are up and running with guided reading as our new focus. Student have been meeting with a teacher for leveled reading instruction three times per week. Student will continue to take home small guided reading books in his/her plastic book bag. These books must be returned to school the very next day. They are part of our core instruction. Many students, are reading at similar levels; therefore they are in high demand. If your child does not return a guided reading book to school they will not be allowed to take home a book that day. This home connection is important in building confidence, fluency and communicating progress to families. It is awesome to watch students progress through levels and practice "good reader reading strategies".
I would like to remind you that students not working with a teacher at guided reading must manage time and complete centers with less teacher support. Please help us by reinforcing when your child brings work home that displays his/her personal best. Compliment your child's good letter formation, illustrations, detailed answers on a reader's response or guided writing. Your kind words are really motivational.

Sight word Folders are in full swing. Some students returned red sight word folders early others spent time utilizing the resources provided. One student found over twenty words and glued them on the "I Spy" page. Please keep the envelope in your child's folder. We will add five new words each week. If your child is having difficulty keeping pace we will talk about reducing the number. Our first week is going well. If your child is proficiently reading and spelling these words please feel free to return them regularly. We will do our best to add new words. We will extend the word list into first grade words.  Thanks for your help.

Monday homework is designed to reinforce sound by sound spelling and short vowel sounds. Please dictate a few words and ask your child to build the words with the letter tiles. If your child would like to write the words on the page with the three boxes, please do so. Please see the homework help post to follow.

The "Good News" coupons are working well. Thanks for helping the kids pick simple show and share items.

Phonemic Awareness:
Listening for medial sounds.
Tapping CVC words

Phonics: 
Writing uppercase letters: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H
Counting words in sentences

Sight words: 
I, the, is, go, can, to, an, you, a, be

Writing: 
Taking notes from text
Turning a bullet into a sentence
Using describing words

Science: 
Ocean life
Features of fish vs mammals  ( What are sharks?)
Vocabulary: appearance, prey, food source, predator, adaptations

Math:
Addition stories to ten
Writing number sentences
Using symbols, (+, =)

Guiding Questions:
Tell me about the character Big Al? Would you like to be friends with big Al? Why?
How are sharks different from other fish?
Why did Rainbow Fish share his scales?
Can you retell the story of Swimmy?
Tell me a story about adding or joining numbers?