This Week's News.....BOO!

This week in Social Studies we learned about landforms. We made a dough and put it in a landform mold. When it dries we will paint it and label the landforms. In Math, we did Candy Corn math, where we practiced multiplication and division fact families. In Reader’s Workshop we’ve been working on making good connections to what we read. We read Duck for President and Roberto the Insect Architect. We also read The Wall by Eve Bunting and learned about Veteran’s Day (coming up on November 11th). In Writer’s Workshop we’ve been practicing writing great leads, which are the first sentences of the story to hook the reader! In P.E. we started basketball. In Art we painted Picassos. Our postcard exchange project is going great! This week we received 8 new postcards. We now have postcards from 15 of the 50 states. Today is HALLOWEEN! We have our parade at 1:30 and our party afterwards. We brought LOTS of goodies! Our class’s ball chair project was fully funded on the Donor’s Choose website! We will soon have 6 large exercise balls to use as chairs! Thanks to everyone who donated money for our classroom!

This Week's News from Room 203

This week in Reader’s Workshop we learned another way we can respond in our Reader’s Workshop journals. We practiced making connections. We read Sparky the Firefighter to practice this strategy. We also worked on picking out the adjectives in a story. We read The Night I Followed My Dog by Nina Laden. In Writer’s Workshop we practiced telling stories, instead of just saying what happened. We learned that great writers write so that readers can feel like they are there (in the story)! This week we received new postcards from Washington, Alaska, Texas, Nevada, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. We now have 20 total postcards from 12 different states. In Social Studies we are learning about landforms, which are different ways our land is shaped. In Math, we’ve been practicing subtraction facts with flashcards. We learned strategies to help us when we subtract 9 or 10 using a hundreds chart. The answer to a subtraction problem is called a difference. We also started multiplication this week! We practiced multiplication number sentences using cookie crisps! This week, we also started cursive! We put shaving cream on our tables, and practiced some of the strokes that we will use when learning cursive letters. Friday is Matthew’s birthday. This weekend Julia will be taking Speedy home. In P.E. we are learning about fitness. This week was red ribbon week (drug awareness week). Each day we did something fun to promise to just say no to drugs Monday was turn your back on drugs so we wore our shirts backwards. Tuesday was put a cap on drugs, so we wore hats to school. Wednesday was sock it to drugs, so we wore crazy socks. Thursday was team up against drugs, and we wore our favorite sports team shirt to school. Friday is saying no to drugs is no sweat, so we are wearing sweats and pajamas today. We decorated our door for the door-decorating contest, which will be judged today!

Our First VoiceThread

A Peek At Our Week (October 13-17)

This week we received our first postcards in the mail for our Postcard Exchange Project. Our goal is to get a postcard from all 50 states. So far we’ve received 13 postcards from the following states: Florida, Texas, Vermont, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan. In Reader’s Workshop we reviewed our Workshop Plan which is to 1. Choose a book, 2. Read, 3. Think, 4. Read some more, and 5. Respond. In Writer’s Workshop we read Library Mouse which was about a mouse who was an author and wrote about what he knew. He wrote lots of different genres (kinds) of books and he taught the kids that they were all authors, too! This week we used the Activotes (the eggs) to review for our Reading Cycle Test. In Math we worked on Magic Squares, which are squares where each line equals the same sum. On Wednesday we had a very special visitor. Mr. Bren, an artist, came to visit Kennedy School. He started Project Smile, where he leaves his paintings for people to take for FREE! But the new owner has to promise to smile more often! We went to an all school assembly to learn about his project, and then he visited Room 203 to teach us how to draw his creations. He’s so cool! He gave our school one of his paintings. We are so lucky! If you come to Kennedy School you will see lots of smiling kids & teachers! This week we’ve been working on the Halloween Story with our online buddies in Mount Prospect. We write a little of the story, and then they continue where we left on. We are using Google Documents to share and work together on a story. We can’t wait to show you our story when it’s done. We sure have been writing a lot this week!! Our next project with our online buddies is to create a VoiceThread to teach them a math game from Math Trailblazers. Announcement: The food drive is going on at Kennedy, so please bring non-perishable foods. Dominika will be taking Speedy home this weekend! Today we have Music and Computer Lab. We also made our first VoiceThread today. It’s like a mini-movie. Click the link below to check it out:

http://voicethread.com/share/224433/

Have a good weekend!

A Peek At Our Week.....

In Social Studies we reviewed the 7 continents, and the 4 oceans. We made a compass rose. We learned that the cardinal directions are North, South, East, and West. A trick to remember which order they go in is, ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles”! We also learned the intermediate directions: northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. In Reader’s Workshop we started writing in our Reader’s Response Journals. When we read books, we think about them and respond in our journals. We put our thinking in writing. They are like maps of our reading adventures! This week we read Wolf and Jumpy Jack and Googily. In Writer’s Workshop we learned another strategy to write personal narratives (true stories). We think of an object that’s special to us. We also talked about the difference between a watermelon story and a seed story. On Monday this week the Schiller Park Fire Department came and taught fire safety. Only call 911 if it’s an emergency. In P.E. we started soccer. Today we’re starting a project with our online buddies, and we’re visiting our Kindergarten buddies this afternoon.

New Mix Tape!

What We Did This Week.........

This week we played football in P.E. In Social Studies we started a new theme! We will be learning about the 50 states. We are starting a postcard exchange project, where we are trying to get a postcard from each of the 50 states. We reviewed the words universe, galaxy, Earth, continent, country, state, and city. In Math this week we used connecting cubes to help us with an addition strategy. We tried to make groups of 10 to make adding easier. In Reader’s Workshop we got new tools, like a journal, a pencil, bookmarks, pointer sticks, and word finders. to help us become better readers! We read Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss. We also read Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind. It helped us get pumped up about AR (accelerated reader). Some of us even started taking AR quizzes this week!
On Monday we brought back our decorated writer’s workshop notebooks and shared them with the class. We learned two new strategies to help us write personal narratives (true stories). We would brainstorm a special person, or a special place, and think of clear, small moments that happened. In Art we made Christmas Cards for a contest. 1st place winners get a $50 gift card to Toys R Us. 2nd place winners get a $25 gift card. This week we also reviewed and practiced fact/opinion. Have a good weekend!