10-21

I hope everyone is enjoying their three day weekend! I am happy to say I have all of the report cards done, and am looking forward to seeing everyone next week. I will be sending a reminder home on Monday for the dates and times for conferences.

Focus Wall:

Literacy:     Beginning Sounds

Math:    I can count to 25

           I can recognize and write my numbers 1-8

Bible: Psalm 119:10 – I will seek the lord with all my heart.

Social Studies: Pumpkins

This last week I tested all of the students on their reading levels so I can begin sending home books with students that is at their right level. Most students are starting at a level A. By the end of the year our goal is to be at a level D.

As well, as most of you seen I have begun to send home decodable readers that we practice at school. These are great to practice sight words and to build fluency. We practice about 2-3 a week and I will continue to send these home. If students read it 5 times to someone they can earn a pint for our class. Last week we earned 7 points towards our party! We need 50 more to earn the party.

In math we will start working with teen numbers and beginning concepts of addition.

In social studies we are learning about pumpkins, which will go great with our field trip next week! We started using our science journals this week. We measured how big around our pumpkins were, weighed them, predicted if they float or sink, and labeled the parts of a pumpkin. I wish I would have taken pictures of this! Science is one of my favorite subjects to teach, the children get so excited over it.

Important notes for next week:

Field trip: we will be leaving at 8:30ish and return around 11:00ish. Please dress students based on the weather. You can bring an extra change of clothes if they are staying for after care as well. Please send students with at least $5.00 to get in and get a pumpkin.

Parent Conferences: Thursday and Friday are conferences. I look forward to seeing everyone!

Tuesday volunteer: If anyone would like to help in the classroom on Tuesday afternoon we will be cutting open our pumpkins and taking the seeds out. We will be attempting to grow our own pumpkins inside of the old ones. I have not done this before but have heard it works well.  It should be a fun experience.

P.s. I am sorry for not having any pictures this week. I will make sure to have some next week. 

10-21

We had such a fun week! We baked cookies, had grandparents day, Learned about colors, and more.

Our focus wall this week included:

Literacy:     I can identify beginning sounds.

Math:         I can count to 25

                I can recognize the number s 1-8

                I can write my numbers 1-8

Social studies: I can name the rainbow Colors and prime colors

Our Grandparents day went wonderful. It was so fun having the grandparents in our class, the students were sad to see them leave at lunch.

During the morning grandparents read to their grandchildren, did a fun fill-in-the-blank, and did some writing in their grandchild’s writing journal. Grandparents were also able to see what students are learning in library, music, and Bible.

In math grandparents had the chance to sit with the children and work at math workstations.

We ended our morning wonderfully with pizza and pictures, and a gift thanks to Shelly at Umpqua Bank. Thank you Shelly! The pictures will be printed off and one will be sent home with each child.

Here are some pictures of the students making cookies for our grandparent’s day.

In social studies we explored colors. Here are some pictures of the stations students went to while learning about colors. 

Just a reminder that picture day is coming up on Wednesday! You can send the picture form back anytime this week.

Another reminder is that there will be no school on Friday. This is a teacher work day.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend. I hope you enjoyed the pictures! (My next purchase is a new camera though! my pictures are very blurry=( )

~Mrs. Lee

10-11

10-11-13

I cannot believe we have been in school for a month! Though I also can believe it because of the progress I have seen in the students already! This week we started learning to write sentences to go with our pictures, and they are doing amazing! I cannot wait to share them with every one during conferences.

Conferences will be held on Oct. 31^st and Nov. 1^st. I sent out an e-mail to schedule a conference date. If you did not receive one, please let me know.

Field Trip

Our Field Trip to the fire station was a lot of fun. They took us on a tour of the station, we were able to see where they sleep, eat, exercise, and study. We even had the chance to watch a fire fighter slide down the pole! They gave us a tour of the fire trucks, and all of the students had a chance to sit up front. Here are some pictures.

Literacy

In Literacy we have been working on rhyming and letter sounds. Next week we will be moving on to recognizing the first sound in a word.

Ways you can help at home is by practicing with your child by asking what the first sound in a word is. For example you would say “what is the beginning sound in Car?” and they would say “/c/”. This is an important skill as students learn to spell and read. Later in the year we will focus on ending and middle sounds.

Math

In math we have worked up to number 5. Next week we will begin working on numbers up to 10. Things you can do to help at home are practice counting as high as you can, play I spy with numbers, and help them practice writing the numbers.

Important information

-Please sign up for your top 3 conference times if you have not done so already.

-Next Friday is Grandparents Day. Grandparents can come in from 8:15-12:30. We have a lot of fun activities planned, and there will be a gift for the grandparents.

- We are planning a field trip to the Portland Children’s Museum on November 19^th. I will be sending additional information home soon. I wanted to give advance notice for parents who would like to join.

-Halloween: We are not celebrating Halloween in our classroom, so we ask that students do not wear costumes to school. We will be going to the pumpkin patch on the 31^st, so we will still have a lot of fun! As well, we have the fall festival on the 26^th with a lot of fun games and activities.  

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

~Mrs. Lee

9-30-13

I hope everyone had a great weekend! My husband and I have had family in from Korea so I am just now able to post about last week. We have had a fun weekend too though.

In literacy we are continuing to work on our letters, letter sounds, rhyming words, and syllables. Some things you can do at home with your children is practice rhyming words, point out letters in books as you are reading to them, and what sounds the letters make. A fun thing I like to play is I spy. In this game you spy different letters in books. Constant repetition with letters will help students build a strong foundation for when they begin reading.

In math we have we have worked on reading, writing, and counting up to 5. Next week we will begin numbers 6-10. In our workstations we are working on counting games, practicing our number writing, and we have even started some beginning addition concepts.  

Timothy and Eli are playing a butterfly board game

Eliza and Lilian are playing Make 5

Ava is practicing writing her numbers on our white boards

My favorite part about this week was our theme on community building. We did a lot of activities where we had to work as a team. Here are some pictures of what we did.

We started our week off talking about how we are a community and we all affect each other.We should that we are connected by making a classroom web.

 In this activity we had to work as teams to build something with marshmallows and toothpicks. The students loved this and they did great!

Here is our classroom picture!

Our class hand print heart to show that we all love each other!

Tuesday is our field trip to the fire station. We will be leaving around 8:40 and be returning around 10:30. They will be showing us around the fire station and talking to the students about fire safety. I am excited to share the pictures of it with everyone next week!

Another note- if you are able to provide some snacks for our class for snack time that would be wonderful! We are beginning to run low on our supply.

Thank  you,

Mrs. Lee

9-28-13

Happy Saturday Families!

Our class had a very busy week, So busy I did not get to take any pictures=( Those are my favorite to post. This week we started our reading and math curriculum. We as well, did out Dibels testing in math and reading. These scores will be given to parents during parent conferences.

Here are a few things we did this week.

In reading we are learning a letter a day and the sign to go with it. We are as well practicing rhyming and syllables. The students are very good at breaking the words up to count syllables. We are continuing to do our Daily 5, and students are able to pick their own rotations now.

In Math we are practicing counting and writing to 5.  In Math Workstations we are continuing to practice routines and expectations, and learning new counting stations each day.

In social studies we talked about families, and how families and different and the same. They all look different but they are the same because they all have love. We as well, discussed how we are all apart of God’s family. I am excited about next week’s unit, we are talking about Community building with in our classroom. This includes how to be a good classmate, and things we can do to help our class. This unit includes a lot of fun games and activities for the students, which I will make sure to get pictures of!

I hope everyone enjoys their rainy day, and takes time to relax inside! And if you haven’t taken time to look at scholastics for the September book buy here is the website

https://clubs2.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/LogonForm?fileName=get-started&anchorLink=gs_page-menu-startedlink

Class activation code: M9B42

Bible verse next week:

Proverbs 3: 5- Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

~Mrs. Lee

Week 3

3^rd Week of school-

We had an awesome week! All of the students are learning the procedures very well. They are becoming very comfortable with each other too; making lots of friends.

We are slowly adding more Sign Language signs to our daily routine. Thanks goes to Eliza and her mother for teaching us new signs everyday! Every day when we come in from recess I use signs to see if they need to use the restroom or get a drink of water and they respond with a yes or no sign. Next week as we begin practicing our letters we will as well learn our letter signs!

This week our focus in Social Studies was butterflies! We made Lap books, which I will send home on Monday. We labeled our butterflies and talked about the lifecycle. We even watched a video of the life cycle which they loved! In art we talked about symmetry to accompany our unit. Students painted butterflies, and when they were done pressed both sides together to make it symmetrical.

In daily five we added two new things: Listen to Reading and Word Work. The students have the routine down very well, and are saying they love doing it. It is my favorite time of day too, the students are all quietly reading, writing, and working with words. The best part though is this is the time where authentic learning is happening! Next week I will begin working with students one on one and in one more week begin small groups.

In math we are continuing to learn how to use all of the manipulatives, including computers. On Friday, they learned how to use the workstation board and find where they should be. Next week we begin lessons on counting.

I have to say all of my students are becoming very independent, which amazes me and I am very proud of. Some examples are in Daily 5 they pick where they will sit in the room, in math they look to see what station they work at, they grab that station and pick a place to sit in the room, and while walking in line the line leader leads us not me!

Next week we begin digging into our curriculum, now that our class has a routine down. We will be doing dibbles testing all next week. Lastly, in Social Studies we will be talking about families.

As well, look out for our October calendar and a News Letter next week. There are a lot of fun things going on in October!

*For easier access, I have added a link on my blog to follow me by email so you can receive an email when I post a blog each week.*

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Thank you,

Mrs. Lee

9-9-13

Wow, this week went by REALLY fast. I feel like we got a lot accomplished though!

This week our focus in social studies was All About Me. We made self portraits that turned out super cute, if you haven’t had a chance to see them they are hanging on the hallway wall. We made our names out of beans. The students loved this so much they did this in after care as well, and spelled their sight words. Lastly we made an all about me book.

In literacy we continued to build our stamina in reading, we are at 7 minutes, double what we did last week! Students also began using their whisper phones (they whisper into it and it comes out louder in their ear). We also introduced writing and built our stamina to 4 minutes. We have not done any lessons, we are just learning to sit and write/draw for 10 minutes (goal).

In math we are learning different math workstations. This week we introduced how to use the interactive white board, and a few board games that help with counting (and taking turns=)).

We also started specials this week. Here is a picture of Senorita Victoria reading them a story in Spanish. It was pretty neat because she taught the whole class in Spanish, the kids were very intrigued in trying to understand what she was saying. 

Extra notes:

Verse of the week:

Psalm 51:10a- create in me a pure heart,

 oh God.

-If you would like to volunteer on Friday's to test students on sight words and Bible verses let us know!