Saturday, January 22, 2011
Energy by Design
Nicor is sponsoring a program called Energy by Design: A Visual Arts Contest for Students. This exciting contest provides teaching and learning opportunities for students on the critical topic of energy. It is perfect timing for the program, since we have just begun our Social Studies unit on Conservation, Our World, and how to protect and care for our environment. Students are encouraged to design and create a poster promoting energy efficiency. All of the details and information about the contest and requirements for the poster have been distributed to students in backpack mail.A grand prize winner will be selected in our K-2 grade category. Grand prize winners will be awarded a $1,000 saving bond, a pizza party for their class, and a prize pack filled with fun, age-appropriate prizes. Three finalists in each grade-level category will receive a $200 savings bond, a pizza party for their class, and a prize pack. The prizes will be awarded at the winners' schools by Nicor employees.The contest entry deadline is February 4, so I am requesting that all students return their entries no later than February 3 so that I can postmark all of the posters by February 4. For more information please visit the website http://www.energybydesign.org/.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Three Cheers for Jon Scieszcka
This year, the Naperville Reads contest author is Jon Scieszka (pronounced She ska), who wrote Stinky Cheese Man, Math Curse, the Trucktown books, the Time Warp Trio series and many others. All of the 4th graders from Gombert will hear him speak at Waubonsie Valley High School. There will also be a contest among the District 204 Elementary Schools for a school visit. Families and teachers will have other opportunities to see him while he's in town during the week of March 14th.So at Gombert we've declared January 31st to February 11th Cheer for Scieszka time. Our job as a class is to get as many students in the class as possible to read Jon Scieszka books! We have a circulating take-home bag for our classroom containing a book and a short response to what is read. The bag went home with the first student tonight and will continue to go home each night until everyone has had a chance to read the book! It is EXTREMELY important that you bring your book back the day after you take it home or else not everyone will get a chance! All the responses will be posted around the LMC. Students who turn one in will get a certificate for a free kids meal at Buffalo Wild Wings!!We're hoping you will all find a way to take part. In class today we talked about the fact that students can go to the public library to look for books by Jon Scieszka and then request a form from Mr. Ferrellto fill out about the book they read from the library! This would be such an awesome opportunity for all of the students at Gombert! Please let me know of any other ideas you may have to promote this terrific author. Thanks!
Hundreds Day
Today your child was given a note and piece of construction paper explaining an optional hundreds day project. This project entails making an array out of 100 items. We read a book in class titled, The Hundred Hungry Ants and talked about the different arrays that were made in the story. In the letter it describes the different arrays that the children can make. You do not need to go out and buy anything for the project, and they can be as creative as they would like. If the students bring back the arrays they will earn a special prize for turning in the project! The project is due on Monday, January 31st! I am looking forward to seeing what they came up with to make the arrays!
Report Cards
Report cards went home today for the second quarter! Please remember to sign the envelope and have your child return it back to school. If you have any questions about the report card, please feel free to contact me!
Spirit Week
"Making a Change” for Local Families
Here are the daily themes:
Monday, January 24th---Pennies-“Pick a Color Day” Staff to wear blue, K & 5—green, 1 & 4---purple, 2& 3 red
Tuesday, January 25th-----Nickels “Neon Day” bright & neon colored clothes
Wednesday, January 26th----Dimes “Dress for Success” Dress like what you want to be when you get older
Thursday, January 27th------Quarters “Quite mixed up day” Mix up colors & patterns
Friday, January 28th-----Spare Change “Spirit Day—gator wear”
Here are the daily themes:
Monday, January 24th---Pennies-“Pick a Color Day” Staff to wear blue, K & 5—green, 1 & 4---purple, 2& 3 red
Tuesday, January 25th-----Nickels “Neon Day” bright & neon colored clothes
Wednesday, January 26th----Dimes “Dress for Success” Dress like what you want to be when you get older
Thursday, January 27th------Quarters “Quite mixed up day” Mix up colors & patterns
Friday, January 28th-----Spare Change “Spirit Day—gator wear”
Saturday, January 8, 2011
New Beginnings
I would like to officially welcome the students back. I hope that everyone had a restful break and are excited to be back in familiar territory. We will continue to put learning at the forefront as we begin 2011. Our return back to school brought back familiar routines and procedures. On Wednesday, we took some much needed time to discuss good listening. We had an in depth discussion about what good listening looks like and what it does not look like. We also talked about the fact that there are consequences when we choose to not follow the classroom rules. These consequences will serve as a tool to help students learn from their mistakes and, hopefully, make better choices in the future.
After this discussion, we were ready for learning to begin. Students are up and running in all academic areas. During Guided Reading, students learned about the importance of being a voracious reader and understood that it is important that they take every opportunity they have to read. We read the books Library Lion and Wild About Books. These books helped us to understand how important it is to choose various books that fit our purpose as readers. We also took some time to organize our library because we came to understand that if we are unable to access books easily, it will make it much harder for us to become voracious readers.
During Shared Reading, we introduced new vocabulary for the story Mr. Putter and Tabby Fly the Plane. We also built our background knowledge about toys in the past and made some comparisons with the toys that we play with today. We found out that sock monkeys were actually a toy that was played with in the past, and they have made a triumphant return for children to play with and enjoy today.
We are continuing to focus on nutrition in Science. We learned about foods that are not found in the 5 food groups. We referred to these foods as "Others". Students were made aware of the fact that eating too much of these types of foods will not enable them to grow up strong and healthy. However, it is o.k. to eat these types of foods every once and awhile. We discussed the meaning of the word snack and we identified healthy snacks (i.e." Smart Snacks") and those that were unhealthy (i.e "Others"). Some students thought that sugary snacks were healthy. We quickly cleared up this misconception.
In Math, we have begun Unit 6 and have delved back into Guided Math. We also took our first math benchmark which assessed the students' knowledge of math facts. Overall, students did very well. Next week, they will be assessed over their knowledge of mathematical skills. Students are always encouraged to do their personal best. I would like to encourage all students to make sure that they complete all math assignments in a timely manner. It is a new year and some students need to make improvements in this area.
We are continuing with Slice of Life in writing and are discussing different types of leads. We are using well known authors like E.B. White, Eve Bunting and Cynthia Rylant to help us to understand how experts create exciting leads. Our goal is to mimic their ideas when creating our own leads. Next week we will move full steam ahead with paragraph writing. I will be modeling the important parts of a paragraph, and students will be required to use this information to write each component of their own paragraph. The use of conferences will help to ensure that each child is on the right track as they attempt each stage of their writing.
Finally, with a new year upon us, we have had great discussions about what the meaning of a resolution is. Our goal is that every student be able to appropriately focus during learning time in order to achieve their personal goals. We have begun something new in 2F...Brain Breaks! This is an active time where students are allowed to move around and release excess energy before learning takes place. This is used in the afternoon before Writer's Workshop. I have already seen benefits and am hoping that they will continue. Here is to a new year and to all of the new and exciting opportunities it will bring!
After this discussion, we were ready for learning to begin. Students are up and running in all academic areas. During Guided Reading, students learned about the importance of being a voracious reader and understood that it is important that they take every opportunity they have to read. We read the books Library Lion and Wild About Books. These books helped us to understand how important it is to choose various books that fit our purpose as readers. We also took some time to organize our library because we came to understand that if we are unable to access books easily, it will make it much harder for us to become voracious readers.
During Shared Reading, we introduced new vocabulary for the story Mr. Putter and Tabby Fly the Plane. We also built our background knowledge about toys in the past and made some comparisons with the toys that we play with today. We found out that sock monkeys were actually a toy that was played with in the past, and they have made a triumphant return for children to play with and enjoy today.
We are continuing to focus on nutrition in Science. We learned about foods that are not found in the 5 food groups. We referred to these foods as "Others". Students were made aware of the fact that eating too much of these types of foods will not enable them to grow up strong and healthy. However, it is o.k. to eat these types of foods every once and awhile. We discussed the meaning of the word snack and we identified healthy snacks (i.e." Smart Snacks") and those that were unhealthy (i.e "Others"). Some students thought that sugary snacks were healthy. We quickly cleared up this misconception.
In Math, we have begun Unit 6 and have delved back into Guided Math. We also took our first math benchmark which assessed the students' knowledge of math facts. Overall, students did very well. Next week, they will be assessed over their knowledge of mathematical skills. Students are always encouraged to do their personal best. I would like to encourage all students to make sure that they complete all math assignments in a timely manner. It is a new year and some students need to make improvements in this area.
We are continuing with Slice of Life in writing and are discussing different types of leads. We are using well known authors like E.B. White, Eve Bunting and Cynthia Rylant to help us to understand how experts create exciting leads. Our goal is to mimic their ideas when creating our own leads. Next week we will move full steam ahead with paragraph writing. I will be modeling the important parts of a paragraph, and students will be required to use this information to write each component of their own paragraph. The use of conferences will help to ensure that each child is on the right track as they attempt each stage of their writing.
Finally, with a new year upon us, we have had great discussions about what the meaning of a resolution is. Our goal is that every student be able to appropriately focus during learning time in order to achieve their personal goals. We have begun something new in 2F...Brain Breaks! This is an active time where students are allowed to move around and release excess energy before learning takes place. This is used in the afternoon before Writer's Workshop. I have already seen benefits and am hoping that they will continue. Here is to a new year and to all of the new and exciting opportunities it will bring!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Running Low on Expos
Parents we are having an Expo marker shortage. If anyone is interested in donating markers to our class, we would very much appreciate it. We use them daily during our Math time. Thank you in advance for your donation. If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email me at your earliest convenience.
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