Short Days, but a Long Week

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Happy Friday to Everyone!  What a week it has been.... between minimum days and conferences.
First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of the parents of the classroom for coming to meet with me for Parent Teacher Conferences.  It was such a pleasure meeting all of you on a more personal level.  You should be very proud of your students and also give yourselves a pat on the back for being such supportive parents!



This week, we worked on the letters P, Q, R, S, and T.  Our big focus right now is writing the correct letters in formation and connecting each letter with the sound that it makes in order to connect with other letters and make words.
We have been watching this video, alongside with our newly adopted Journeys Curriculum, to work on saying the sounds of each letter.  This is one that definitely gets the class moving along!

In math we have been working on writing and counting the numbers from 1 to 5.  This game on ABCya.com is a great way to practice counting numbers and identifying the written number to match.  Round 1 of this game focuses on counting from 1 to 5.

Fish Counting Game

Because of the minimum days, we have only had a chance to work on Language Arts and Math this week.  However, we did have our first character trait assembly for the year.  We learned about "Being Respectful' and how we respect ourselves and others while at school.  There were some pretty exciting performances by some of the teachers.

We did have library today, so if your child brought their book back today they were able to check out a new one from Mrs. Meyer in the library.

We have also been reviewing our school-wide PBIS rules: 

I am Safe

I am Respectful

I am Responsible

I am a Learner       

                                  

We have been working on these rules on different areas of the school, including the playground, the cafeteria, the bus/pick-up line, the hallway, and the bathrooms.  We expect each of our students to follow each of the rules in all of the places on our school campus.  Please help your student remember our school rules!

These are a little late in posting, but here are the students' First Day of School Pictures taken by Ms. Brown.

Upcoming Events:

* Pumpkin Patch Field Trip on Friday, October 13th -- we will leave at 8:30am; Please be on time to school that day

* Morning Flag Salute, Monday, October 9th at 8am

*Sign-ups for Halloween Party will be going up on ClassTag starting next week

Have a great weekend and thank you again for all of your support!

Digging in Deep

We are starting to really get into the curriculum in our classroom.  We have spent the last two weeks reviewing the letters A-J in the alphabet.  As we begin this next week, we will have a weekly story to accompany all of our letter work.  Our new program, Journeys, is working out very well and the numerous resources we have to go with it helps enhance each of the lessons so much.
My students are feeling pretty accomplished at this point.  We have managed to learn how to count, write, and model the numbers 1,2, 3, and 4.  As we move through our pilot math program, GoMath!, the class is learning how to use manipulatives that help them count objects.  The class has also been using the interactive student edition of our math book on the Chromebooks where they get to play games and follow lessons and quizzes that match right along with our math book.  If your child tells you about the mouse game, they are referring to the Interactive Student Edition.  To start our math everyday we watch a fun video to get us focused on what we will be learning about for each lesson.  Here is the link to the latest video we watched Math Video- Model and Count 3 and 4.
For science, we have continued to explore apples.  We did one experiment this week to decide if apples would float or sink in a bucket of water.  As a class we learned what it means to make observations and to record those, along with the results.  As part of this experiment, we even tried different colored apples and found the results to be the same every time --- the apples floated!

We also conducted another experiment where the students learned about making a prediction on how many seeds were in an apple.  Many students predicted that there would be 2 or 3 seeds in the apple, while some even predicted there would be 500 seeds in a single apple!  In the apple that was cut open, we found there were 9 seeds.  The students made observations and recorded their results for this experiment as well.

P.E. this week has been focusing still on Yoga.  We have been using some exciting videos from Cosmic Kids that tell a story while we do our Yoga exercises.  Here is an example of one that we have done in class:

We have also been using the Chromebooks a little more this week.  The kids played a game on Alphabetical order during their center rotations this week and it can be found at http://www.abcya.com/alphabet.htm  We also tried a new (FREE) reading program online this afternoon called Teach Your Monster To Read.  This is a program that I absolutely adore and have used with my own children.  Everyone starts at the same place and works on basic letter identification and sounds and then they progress at their own learning pace.  As students progress it puts them into levels with sight words and then eventually to small sentences.  So, if you here your child talking about creating their monsters, crashing a spaceship, and learning their letters, they are probably referring to this game that saves their progress throughout the year.
We have had a great week in class!
*Upcoming Events and Information*
Monday, Sept. 25th --- Outside flag salute on the blacktop at 8 a.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 27th --- Minimum Day; students are dismissed at 12:20 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 28th --- BMX assembly in the afternoon
Friday, Sept. 29th --- picture day (information will be sent home soon)

Please sign up for a conference time (if you haven't already) so that we can discuss how your child is doing in kindergarten so far.  You can sign-up on the clipboard by the homework basket in the mornings, or you can sign-up through the ClassTag app (or online at classtag.com).  I would love to meet with each of you so that we can discover together what will work best for your child.  Conferences are Tuesday, October 3rd through Friday, October 6th from 12:30 - 2:30 each afternoon.  These four days are minimum days, with students being dismissed at 12:20 p.m.

Data, Graphing, and Science Investigations

I will start by apologizing for not getting a post up last week.  The end of the week hit and I somehow ran out of time, so I told myself I would do it Sunday evening and then that didn't happen either.  So this post, hopefully shouldn't be too long, but will cover the last two weeks in the classroom.
We finished up our Graphing and Data unit in math.  For our culminating project the students created group graphs based on their own surveys.  We had many that asked about favorite movies and we also had a couple groups that asked about other favorites.  The process involved the students creating a survey and then asking that survey among each of the class members and collecting the data.  Then as a group they created a bar graph to represent their data.  The students worked very hard on these and it was quite exciting to see the results.

Surveying the class

The finished products --- all 6 bar graphs

In science, we finished off the investigations involving erosion.  The students were given a tower of sand and they had to create a device to prevent water AND wind erosion.  Each group did not have much to work with.... one piece of string, some foil, one coffee filter, a piece of mesh cloth, 4 large popsicle sticks, and 2 small popsicle sticks.  

After the structures were built, each group was given an eye dropper with water to be the "rain," and each student was given a plastic straw to be the "wind."  Once all of the "erosion" was complete, we removed the structures and the students made observations in their science notebooks about how much of a change occurred between the two types of erosion to their sand tower.

For this current week I don't have near as many pictures as I thought, but we did quite a bit in the classroom this week.  Our new unit in math is focusing on numbers to 1,000 and we have been writing these numbers in expanded notation, word form, and representing them using blocks, sticks, and cubes.  The students have also been working on projects in our Google CS-First curriculum.  We were able to complete activity 3 today using the scratch.mit.edu platform.  It is incredible to think that February is almost half-way done.  The coming weeks we will be doing a lot in the classroom.  

As a side note, a permission slip was sent home this week for our walking field trip to the Kelseyville Post Office.  These permission slips are due on Feb. 23rd.  Also the trip itself is on Thursday, March 9th, which is a minimum day.  The permission slip says we will arrive back at the school at 1pm, but that is not correct.  We will be back to the school by 12pm, so that students will still be dismissed at 12:20.  A note is going home about this on Monday.  So sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Winter Projects!

The last two weeks in class have been very exciting!  I didn't post last week because this week's curriculum and last week's ran into each other and we were able to create a culminating project at the end.  As part of our new ELA curriculum that is being piloted this year, at the end of every two units (which is after every 10 weeks) the students are able to participate in a student-led project.  We have been focusing on the story, "Poppleton in Winter" over the last two weeks.  This is such a fun story that explores the many things that can be done during the winter season.

In groups of three, the students had to choose a focus for their project that had something to do with winter.  After a class discussion, the groups were left with a few choices: winter weather, winter animals, winter clothing, indoor activities, and outdoor activities.  Each of the different groups ended up choosing 2 different focus areas and it was very interesting to see how their projects developed.  The main idea of the project was the group was to create a museum display about their "winter focus" that included intriguing questions, pictures, and non-fiction captions for each picture.  In the beginning of this whole process, there was a lot of discussion and organizing to figure out the best way to show their museum displays.

The next part of the project consisted of a lot of research and the use of the wonderful cloud printer in our classroom.  The students found a fact (which became their caption) that was related to their focus topic(s) and then found pictures that would match the facts.  The students worked incredibly hard on this whole project.  There was some compromising, some lessons in fairness, and a WHOLE LOT of teamwork involved.  

After working on the project for 2 full weeks, the class was ready to present their museum display.  So we spent some time working on what would be said and by which group member.  Then this morning, our class had the wonderful opportunity to present their museum displays to two other 2nd grade classes.  The kids were so great.... they ended up presenting their museum displays a total of 6 TIMES so that they could present to reasonably-sized audiences.  The two classes who came to see our museum display were very impressed with the hard work that the class put into their projects.

Group Presentations

A special scratch video created by Lincoln for Group #2's presentation.

Group Presentations

Group Presentations

Group Presentations

Over the last two weeks, we have been learning about money during our math time.  So, some of your kids may be showing a newfound interest in money, especially around the Christmas season.  Between coin sorting, identifying, and counting, we were very busy with learning all about money.  Some of them really enjoyed the money songs that we learned to help identify the coins.  Enjoy the songs!

Within the last two weeks, we also had the opportunity to have Baileigh read to us from "Junie B. Jones."

Looking back, I realize just how busy the last two weeks have been!  I think we are all looking forward to some fun Christmas activities in the coming week.

*As a reminder: The 2nd grade Christmas performances will be Thursday, December 15th at 9am and then again at 7pm.  For the evening performance, please make sure your child is in our classroom no later than 6:30pm*

Looking ahead: Friday, December 16th is a minimum day with students dismissed at 12:20pm