 |
 |
| Slideshow made with Smilebox |
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Happy Valentine's Day! :-)
If you weren't able to make it to our classroom yesterday, check out all of the festivities! From mailing our cards to snack to the party, it was one of the best day's of the year!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Friday, February 11th
Happy Friday!! It’s been another wonderful week in 301!! The little Weckies sure are excited for their first Valentines’ Day at school! We have been working hard this week on our Valentines’ holders and if I might say, they are BEE-utiful!!
This week at Dublin was also spent celebrating the “Season of Non-violence”. In Kindergarten this meant we read a few books this week that dealt with kindness and bullies. We talked about being kind to people and treating our friends how we would want to be treated. We talked about how the words and action we use can hurt feelings. We read several good books including Audrey Penn’s Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully and Pat Thomas’ Stop Picking on Me. We had a really great discussion about both of these books and will refer back to them as needed in our classroom.
Reader’s Workshop: This week in Workshop we focused on the “-am” chunk in words. We brainstormed a list of words with “-am” at the end and also read a short little-book that featured many of these words and many names with –am. Reading groups continued to meet as well. To help clarify, if your child is in groups 1, 2 or 3, your child will ONLY need their book-bag at school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If your child is in groups 4 or 5, your child will ONLY need their book-bag at school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Writer’s Workshop: An important part of writing is having an audience. Writers need to have a purpose when they sit down to compose a piece and our kids have been THRILLED at the newest component of our Writer’s Workshop. We have really been focusing on sharing our work. We’ve been talking about how we can set an example as an individual for the writers in our class with the work we do. We started a new story on Monday and were reminded that it needed a beginning, a middle and an ending. To help our writer’s along the way, they have been introduced to four new words: FIRST, NEXT, THEN and LAST. When planning a story, you need to tell what happens in a sequential order. To build our understanding of this we have been working on “pre-tellings”. This is where we have stopped and retold how we do something. We practiced pre-telling how we get ready for lunch and how we get ready for snack. As an added treat, we also practiced “How we eat a cookie” this afternoon! It is impressive to see what our kids have been up to in Writer’s Workshop!
I have included a slideshow here of the four writers who shared their work today with our class!
Math: In math we have been focusing on graphing this week. Students have created a couple different graphs. We graphed the types of shoes we were wearing (buckles, laces, Velcro, etc.) and we also played a dice game where students graphed the number of rolls they made on a certain side of the dice.
Important Info:
Valentines’ Day Party – 1:45 Monday, February 14th
Snack Leader’s: Monday: Ben; Tuesday: Kasey; Wednesday: Matthew; Thursday: Kelsey; Friday: Narek
This week at Dublin was also spent celebrating the “Season of Non-violence”. In Kindergarten this meant we read a few books this week that dealt with kindness and bullies. We talked about being kind to people and treating our friends how we would want to be treated. We talked about how the words and action we use can hurt feelings. We read several good books including Audrey Penn’s Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully and Pat Thomas’ Stop Picking on Me. We had a really great discussion about both of these books and will refer back to them as needed in our classroom.
Reader’s Workshop: This week in Workshop we focused on the “-am” chunk in words. We brainstormed a list of words with “-am” at the end and also read a short little-book that featured many of these words and many names with –am. Reading groups continued to meet as well. To help clarify, if your child is in groups 1, 2 or 3, your child will ONLY need their book-bag at school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If your child is in groups 4 or 5, your child will ONLY need their book-bag at school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Writer’s Workshop: An important part of writing is having an audience. Writers need to have a purpose when they sit down to compose a piece and our kids have been THRILLED at the newest component of our Writer’s Workshop. We have really been focusing on sharing our work. We’ve been talking about how we can set an example as an individual for the writers in our class with the work we do. We started a new story on Monday and were reminded that it needed a beginning, a middle and an ending. To help our writer’s along the way, they have been introduced to four new words: FIRST, NEXT, THEN and LAST. When planning a story, you need to tell what happens in a sequential order. To build our understanding of this we have been working on “pre-tellings”. This is where we have stopped and retold how we do something. We practiced pre-telling how we get ready for lunch and how we get ready for snack. As an added treat, we also practiced “How we eat a cookie” this afternoon! It is impressive to see what our kids have been up to in Writer’s Workshop!
I have included a slideshow here of the four writers who shared their work today with our class!
 |
 |
| Create your own free slideshow |
Math: In math we have been focusing on graphing this week. Students have created a couple different graphs. We graphed the types of shoes we were wearing (buckles, laces, Velcro, etc.) and we also played a dice game where students graphed the number of rolls they made on a certain side of the dice.
Important Info:
Valentines’ Day Party – 1:45 Monday, February 14th
Snack Leader’s: Monday: Ben; Tuesday: Kasey; Wednesday: Matthew; Thursday: Kelsey; Friday: Narek
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Friday, February 4th
Greetings from Room 301! It’s been a short, but fun-filled busy week for our kids. We celebrated Groundhog’s Day, the Chinese New Year and even had a special technology coach come and teach us how to use a new program in the Dublin computer lab!
Reader’s Workshop
This week in Workshop we have been working on building our sight word list. We’ve picked out words from book that we see often, added them to our classroom word wall and have been finding them in books we read. (We’ve even been making sure to use these words – spelled correctly – in our writing pieces). Guided Reading Groups met every day this week with an exception to Thursday. Thursday was a different day as we celebrated the Chinese New Year and had our time in the computer lab with Mrs. Getosian (Mrs. G.) our technology coach! Thank you for making sure guided reading book bags are being returned on time!
Writer’s Workshop
This week in Workshop we have had one motto, “When we write sentences we use lowercase letters in our words.” The kids have been striving to remember capital letters for the first letter of a sentence and then making sure the rest of the letters are lowercase. Our kids will be expected in first grade to write with lowercase letters. Why not start practicing now as we are getting better and better at writing our lowercase letters? We have also been talking about the three parts of a story (beginning, middle and end) and how we should include these parts in our writing.
Math
In math this week we have been back on a measuring and weighing series of lessons. The kids have been using standard and non-standard forms of measurements to measure items and distances in our classroom. We were introduced to tape measures and used these tools to measure different objects in our room. We also used our feet to measure and talked about how using my foot would give us a different number than a Kindergarten foot!
Social Studies
An important part of our Social Studies curriculum is introducing the kids to a variety of holidays. February 3rd started the celebration of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit. To celebrate we began the day on Thursday by making dragon masks. We talked about how the masks can be used in parades to celebrate at festivals in China. Then we read a story about a rabbit (keeping with the theme of the year). Last we created paper lanterns to use to decorate for the holiday. Everyone also found a fun treat waiting for them in their folders to celebrate at home! :-)
Important Info
If you have not done so already, PLEASE make sure to send in your child’s Valentines’ box (one large cereal box) so that we can begin decorating them on Monday!
Snack Leaders: Monday: Nick; Tuesday: Carly; Wednesday: Ava; Thursday: Thomas; Friday: Lily
Have a fabulous weekend – Enjoy the snow! Mrs. Weckstein
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday, January 28th
Reader’s Workshop
Guided reading groups have met EVERY day this week! Please be sure that when your child brings home a book bag it is returned to school with a signed parent “comment” form! Many parents have been leaving great comments about how their child has been doing with the books at home. There have also been a few questions about books being sent home for a “re-read”. On almost all nights two books will come home with your child. One will be a new text. Please spend time going over this text with your child (looking at the pictures, saying the words, even spelling the words). The second text is called a “re-read”. This book comes home for a second trip for many reasons. When it comes home it comes home as a familiar text. Reading something familiar helps to build confidence in our readers so that when they read, they not only feed good about themselves, but they are imprinting sight words (high frequency words) into their minds. Secondly, we want our kids to sound as though they were talking when they read. We call this fluency. We want our readers to sound fluent.
Writer’s Workshop
This week the kids have been working on a “beginning”, “middle” and “ending” to a story. New terms of “Once upon a time” and “Last” have been introduced as a way to get a story started and finish off a story. It has really been neat to see the kids using strategies we practice over and over as a whole group independently. You can see them “stretching” out words like a piece of chewed bubble gum so that they can pick out the sounds within a word, and then transcribe the letters on their paper.
Math
In Math this week we have been continued our work with addition. We are using numbers that when combined add up to 10 or less. These mathematicians have been introduced to many of the tools we have to use in our room to help us count (counting bears, cubes, counting dinosuars, etc.). We have also been working with pan balances and comparing objects to find out which is heavier, which is lighter, and how we can make different objects equal (balanced). This was a VERY popular station this week during Work Stations!
Important News
Information came home this week regarding our Valentines’ Day Party on Monday, February 14th. Please make sure to send in your child’s cereal box ASAP for their card holders.
Additionally, I wanted to let you know about a unique opportunity being offered in the Walled Lake School District right now. Walled Lake’s Foundation For Excellence is sponsoring a 50-50 raffle called the “Tuition Expedition”. You can purchase a $100 raffle ticket for this event by calling Sandy Richards George at the ESC at (248) 956-2116. There will be 500 tickets sold across the district. The winner either receives $25,000 to be put towards college tuition for your child OR there is a $20,000 cash payout. You can get more info on this at www.foundation4excellence.com .
I bring this to your attention because it was the Walled Lake Foundation for Excellence that awarded me the grant money last year ($3,750) to purchase all of our Smartboard Equipment. We are so very fortunate in WL to have a foundation established with a dedicated staff wanting to help out our classroom teachers. Without this funding, YOUR child would not be having the experience they are having this year with this advanced technology in their classroom. We are the only classroom at Dublin to have this equipment and are one out of less than 5 elementary classrooms in the whole district (14 elementary schools) to have this technology. I was very fortunate to receive this funding and am hoping that you too are very appreciative of this learning tool. If you are able to do so and purchase a raffle ticket, you would be helping the Foundation to grow and give more to the students of Walled Lake. If you are unable to purchase a raffle ticket, please check the web site www.foundation4excellence.com for other exciting events they will be hosting this year and over the summer.
Snack Leader’s: Monday: Geneva; Tuesday: Gabby; Wednesday: Emma; Thursday: Hannah; Friday: Robby
Tuesday, February 1st – PTA Meeting in the Dublin Media Center (7:00pm)
Saturday, February 5th – Scrapbooking Crop Day in the Old Gym at Dublin (10am-8pm)
Friday, January 21, 2011
Friday, January 21st
It has been a fabulous two weeks of color in Room 301! The kids have thoroughly enjoyed coming to school in a different color each day, and on top, getting to wear LOTS of colors on Rainbow Day today! Thank you for your support at home in helping to make sure our kids came to school each day in a certain color. I have to tell you, it made it very easy to find our class in the hallway, just look for the color of the day!
Reader’s Workshop: All reading assessments have been completed and I am very enthusiastic about the growth that our students have been making as a reader. Guided Reading Groups also met towards the end of this week and will meet every day next week and beyond! I have had several questions about the books coming home as the kids get good at “memorizing” the text. Here’s what you can do… You can write the words out on a paper or use magnetic letters if you have them, and practice with them looking at the letters and sounds to figure out the words. Additionally you can cover the illustration and ask them to read to you. It is important though, as our kids begin to learn to read, for them to be able to cross-check between the word, the picture and go back to read the word, as well as to do some memorization of our high frequency words (the, a, said, it, to, etc.). Next week we will be setting our first goals as readers! I’ll be sure to share those with you.
Writer’s Workshop: This week in Writer’s Workshop we have been focusing on a new strategy, “Buzz Groups”. Each child has a writing partner and they spent time “buzzing” with their partner, talking about their writing. They could ask each other questions about their writing, as well as help each other with tricky words. It is important that our students see how partners can help them to improve as a writer.
Math: This week in Math we worked on two different things. We practiced measuring different objects and people around the room with non-standard forms of measurement tools (chains, paperclips, unifix cubes, etc). We also did a fun rainbow activity on Friday where the kids were asked to sort 10 M & M’s by color, and then create a graph of their candy. They LOVED this food activity!!
Important News: Our Valentine’s Day party will be on Monday, February 14th from 1:40-3:10pm in Room 301. Look for a list to come home with your child next week of everyone’s first names. Your child can bring in a Valentine’s Day card for each child (a great way for your kiddo to practice writing their name with an CAPITAL letter to start and lowercase letters for the rest) to pass out the week before Valentine’s Day.
Snack Leader’s Next Week: Monday: Mason; Tuesday: Evan; Wednesday: Alycia; Thursday: Nolan; Friday: Skylar
Have a wonderful weekend… Stay Warm! Mrs. Weckstein
Friday, January 7, 2011
Friday, January 7th
Happy New Year and Welcome Back to School!
It has been a VERY productive week in Room 301 as we have gotten back into the routine of school! I hope that everyone enjoyed their two weeks off (or perhaps it was two weeks "on" with your kids at home). It has also been a VERY cold week outside at Dublin. Please make sure that your child has snow pants, boots, gloves and a hat to wear outside daily with their coat. Even when there is not snow on the ground, these warm clothes will help protect them against the wind. Many of the kids without warm clothes have been complaining this week about “freezing” outside.
Reader’s Workshop – This week in Reader’s Workshop we started a new mini-book that features the lyrics to the “Pledge of Allegiance”. This tied in perfectly with our Social Studies lessons this week as we have been learning about the American Flag! We also started working out of our Poetry folders this week, practicing poems we have been learning all year to help build fluency in our oral language. Over the course of this past week and next week I will be conducting Reading and Language Assessments with each child. Look for new reading groups to start after the MLK Jr. holiday break!
Writer’s Workshop – This week in Workshop the kids began keeping their very own Word Wall within their folders. We have been working on five new sight words this week: I, a, in, the and my. Each has been placed on the big Word Wall in our classroom and the small Word Wall in the kids’ folders. These are five words that the kids are now being held accountable for in their writing, reading and spelling. Next week look for a packet of writing to come home with your child. This is a collection of stories they have created in the first few months of Writer’s Workshop.
Math – This week in Math we have done a couple of different things. We have been working on writing our numbers in a Numbers Book as well as working on counting items using stickers within the Numbers Books.
Social Studies - In Social Studies this week we talked first about the flag. Be sure to ask your child how many stars are on the flag today and challenge them to see if they can remember how many stripes are on the flag (13). We also spent time talking about rules and why rules are important to us. The kids brainstormed a giant list of rules which will lead nicely into a class project we will be working on next week to help keep our classroom safe (as rules help us to do this)!
NEXT WEEK we will begin a unit on Colors! Please use the schedule below to help your child wear something in the color listed on each day.
Monday = Red
Tuesday = Yellow
Wednesday = Green
Thursday = Blue
No need to buy new clothes – just try to find something that your child can wear on each of the days!
Snack Leaders: Monday = Thomas, Tuesday = Lily, Wednesday = Benjamin, and Thursday = Kasey
**Remember there is NO school on Friday, January 15 (Teacher Records Day) and Monday, January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance).
Have a wonderful weekend – Stay warm! :-) Mrs. W.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 10th
Run, run as fast as you can,
You can’t catch me,
I’m the gingerbread man!!
If you haven’t heard the news… there has been a “Cookie Alert” out in the halls of Dublin for 21 missing gingerbread ornaments!! After all of our kids helped measure the ingredients, mix the dough, roll the dough and cut our ornaments, we placed 21 men into the ovens in the Teacher’s Lounge. We checked on them 5 times in 3 hours.Each time they were resting comfortably in the oven. When we returned at 3:00pm to take them out (three hours later) they had VANISHED! They left us a note and candy canes. We need your help! Please make sure to check your child’s backpack, lunch box, etc. for the missing gingerbread men. Your child will be thrilled to help search! Our first clue led us to Mrs. Entwhistle in the library today but they cookies were not there. Instead they left us chocolate and another clue. They asked that we look for them on Monday in the office. The mystery continues Monday…
Reader’s Workshop: This week workshop had a holiday theme to it! Students had two new books, one with a gingerbread many story (no surprise there) and one with a Christmas tree. Our students enjoyed learning the words to these two stories and had time to practice reading them with their Reading Partners.
Writer’s Workshop: This week in workshop we talked about the three steps a writer has to do to write a small moment. First, we picture a time something happened to us in our head. Then, we sketch a picture and third, we write down the words to describe our story. Our writers are getting better and better and listening for sounds in the words that they want to write and attempting to write words!
Math: This week in math we learned how to use a ruler!! Our students have been eagerly measuring things around the room using special caterpillar rulers. Next week they’ll learn how to measure, with candy canes!
Important Info: If you have not yet sent in a wrapped book for our gift exchange for the party, please do so ASAP. These need to be turned in soon so that I can make arrangements if someone does not have a book to donate.
Friday, December 17th: AM – All School Sing-Along (time TBD); 2:40-4:00pm – Classroom Holiday Party
Next Week’s Snack Leader: Monday: Skylar; Tuesday: Geneva; Wednesday: Gabby; Thursday: Emma; Friday: Hannah
I’m the gingerbread man!!
If you haven’t heard the news… there has been a “Cookie Alert” out in the halls of Dublin for 21 missing gingerbread ornaments!! After all of our kids helped measure the ingredients, mix the dough, roll the dough and cut our ornaments, we placed 21 men into the ovens in the Teacher’s Lounge. We checked on them 5 times in 3 hours.Each time they were resting comfortably in the oven. When we returned at 3:00pm to take them out (three hours later) they had VANISHED! They left us a note and candy canes. We need your help! Please make sure to check your child’s backpack, lunch box, etc. for the missing gingerbread men. Your child will be thrilled to help search! Our first clue led us to Mrs. Entwhistle in the library today but they cookies were not there. Instead they left us chocolate and another clue. They asked that we look for them on Monday in the office. The mystery continues Monday…
Reader’s Workshop: This week workshop had a holiday theme to it! Students had two new books, one with a gingerbread many story (no surprise there) and one with a Christmas tree. Our students enjoyed learning the words to these two stories and had time to practice reading them with their Reading Partners.
Writer’s Workshop: This week in workshop we talked about the three steps a writer has to do to write a small moment. First, we picture a time something happened to us in our head. Then, we sketch a picture and third, we write down the words to describe our story. Our writers are getting better and better and listening for sounds in the words that they want to write and attempting to write words!
Math: This week in math we learned how to use a ruler!! Our students have been eagerly measuring things around the room using special caterpillar rulers. Next week they’ll learn how to measure, with candy canes!
Important Info: If you have not yet sent in a wrapped book for our gift exchange for the party, please do so ASAP. These need to be turned in soon so that I can make arrangements if someone does not have a book to donate.
Friday, December 17th: AM – All School Sing-Along (time TBD); 2:40-4:00pm – Classroom Holiday Party
Next Week’s Snack Leader: Monday: Skylar; Tuesday: Geneva; Wednesday: Gabby; Thursday: Emma; Friday: Hannah
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)