Friday, February 23, 2018

Highlights Before Break

Hello families,

We've had a joyful week together. I finished up reading check-ins and we got back into our reading groups. Many students also take their free time to read together in the morning or practice reading sight words. Each child has a sight word booklet to help them practice frequently used words--a lot of which don't follow standard rules so you just have to know them on site. For each page (of 10 words) a child masters (can read as quickly as their own name, 5 times to get a bundle of tallies) we earn 1 tally on our bonus recess chart. One of the fox kits counted up all the tallies we've earned so far this year and it's over 100 tallies! The fox kits collectively have mastered over 1,000 sight words so far this year!!! That is incredible!

We also finished up a few more teaching books this week. It's amazing to see them working in such an engaged way to teach others about topics of interest. Some of the teaching books they've written include: tornados, school mornings, volcanoes, lady bugs, legos, art, dragons, avengers, and how to ride a bike!


We finished reading our non-fiction anchor text on sharks this week. We also sang a funny shark song, Baby Shark. We will have one more week after the vacation to finish up our non-fiction reading and writing unit before moving on to writing opinion and persuasive pieces.

On Friday we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday (a week early). We read The Foot Book and had a special guest visitor, the Lorax herself, read us the story of The Lorax! We did some fun Dr. Seuss inspired writing and activities, read a news article about his writing and life, and in the afternoon watched a movie adaptation of another of his books, Horton Hears a Who!



We finished up our Big Change Roundup fundraiser for the Children's Hospital. The school collected over $1,600 to donate! This is amazing. Mr. Schlatter won the contest and toured the school in his T-Rex costume all day. It was fun to celebrate this good deed with some fun for everyone.

We had an assembly to learn about Jump Rope for Heart -- another fundraising event our school will take part in next month. Your child brought home an envelope and information about raising money for this cause if you choose to do so. For more information check out their website: http://american.heart.org/jump-hoops/about/

We are working hard to show HEART each and every day. This week we focused on having quiet transitions. There are so many times we switch activities each day and consistently doing this in a quiet way helps us be more appropriate with our bodies and ready to engage in learning. We also love to end our day counting up all of our high 5s and hearts that we earned by showing HEART all day long.




I hope you have a great vacation and I'll see the kids back here on Wednesday March 7th!

Dates to Remember:
Monday February 26 - Tuesday March 6 - Winter Break (3/5 and 3/6 are Teacher In-Service days)
Wednesday March 7 - school resumes
Wednesday March 14 - Half Day - Dismissal at 12:15 for Teacher Inservice - after school activities available
Wednesday March 14 - Jump Rope for Heart event
Friday March 16 - Report Cards go home
Friday March 23 - Fun Fair (PTO event) 4:30-6:30 pm

Have a great, long vacation!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Highlights a Night Early

Hello families,

I don't know where the time is going. This week has been sailing by! I'm sending out our class news a night early since I'll be out tomorrow. Here are a few highlights from our week:

We celebrated the 100th day on Monday. We read Zero the Hero, counted to 100 many times and explored 100 in different ways during math workshop. We also filled up out heart jar that day! On Tuesday we had a class celebration with iPad time. We learned about a new app, Color Therapy, and also used Kodable. It was so fun!

We read about sharks as our anchor text for writer's workshop. We learned about using comparisons to help the reader understand better and twin sentences to help elaborate on an idea. Many students are nearly finished writing their second teaching books. Some are even writing a third one already!

Wednesday was Valentine's Day. It was fun to share our notes with each other. We did some heart drawings and a word search. We also read Huggly's Valentines. It was a sweet day together.

In math we've continued practicing addition and subtraction patterns in Fact Power. We also used base ten blocks to help model groups of tens and leftovers (ones) in numbers. By modeling numbers using these hands-on tools it helped students explain why 63 is more than 36. We used this knowledge of comparing numbers and learned about the symbols that help us write comparison expressions: greater than >, lesser than <, and equal to =.

In reader's workshop I've been meeting with students individually to do our mid-year formal, summative, reading assessments. This data will be reported out on report cards next month. Throughout the year I do formative assessments to differentiate reading instruction in our day to day learning. This makes sure that each child is getting the practice he/she needs while also getting access to whole class mini-lessons on strategies all good readers use to solve unknown words, or mini-lessons to help learn about text features that help us to be better reader.

Dates to Remember:
Monday February 26 - Tuesday March 6 - Winter Break (3/5 and 3/6 are Teacher In-Service days)
Wednesday March 7 - school resumes

Have a great Friday and weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Friday, February 9, 2018

Highlights from a Whirlwind Week!

Hello families,

Wow, this week just flew by! It's hard to believe we fit so much into just 4 days together.

We began a new math unit about place value of 2-digit numbers. We also did our winter check-ins on counting skills and number sense: counting forward by 1s, 5s, and 10s to 100 and counting by 2s to 20. Students also demonstrated their number writing to 100 or beyond! Many students took this challenge and wrote well into one hundred!

We also began a new word study unit on the "bonus letter." In words with short vowels that have an f, l or s after the vowel there is a "bonus letter." Here are some examples: fill, muff, pass. We also began reading and writing our new set of trick words (many with digraphs from our previous unit): why, where, her, when, which, that, then, them, this, with, you, your, I, they, was, one, said.

Our writers are adding tons of details in words, pictures and labels to their second teaching books. They also wrote "good beginnings" or introductions this week to hook the readers' interest and give them a clue about what they will learn in the book.

On Tuesday we had a Flynn companion workshop to go along with our Flynn show on Friday. Rose from the Flynn came and did some movement and shadow work with us. We made our bodies become elephants, flowers and planes. We experimented with making different shadows with our bodies. It was so fun! On Friday we went to see the show Pilobolus Shadowland, which is a dance and shadow performance about dreams (some happy, some a little scary). It was a great time.













Dates to Remember:
Wednesday February 14 - Valentines card exchange
Wednesday February 14 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service -- No After school Programs, all students dismissed at 12:15
Monday February 26 - Tuesday March 6 - Winter Break (3/5 and 3/6 are Teacher In-Service days)
Wednesday March 7 - school resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox

Monday, February 5, 2018

Meet the Fox Kit Bands!

As a culminating project in our PBL (project based learning) about sound each student made an instrument and then formed a band. They worked together to make songs and perform them for each other and a small audience. Thanks to Mrs. Hogan's class who came to watch us as well as some other JFK teachers.

Now, meet the bands!

Xanadu





Eagles Rockout




The Band Team



The Rainbows




Robeosonicks


Friday, February 2, 2018

PBL Week 2 Highlights


Hello everyone,

We had many changes to our usual schedule this week with our 2nd (and final) week of our Sound PBL (project based learning), a class celebration, and a holiday (Groundhog Day). Even with all the changes these Fox Kits had a wonderful (though a bit loud) week!

This week has been full of lots of learning about sound, making sounds, creating instruments and songs in our PBL unit. PBL is an amazing learning experience that involves cross-curricular learning -- aspects of science, math, art, music, movement, literacy, teamwork, and planning. 

This week we did a lot of planning, experimenting, augmenting, and cooperating. On Tuesday students made a plan for what kind of instrument they would make. On Wednesday we made our instruments and got into "bands" to plan what these groups would be like and begin to make unique songs. On Thursday bands practiced their songs, adding some elements or taking others away. They made band posters to advertise their performance on Friday. Some 2nd graders came to watch our culminating performances on Friday. It was a blast!

















We also filled our heart jar again and had a celebration on Wednesday. We had a game day where we played with puzzles, blocks, dinosaurs, battleship, mancala and more. Each student also had a chance to play a fun "One Man Band" game connected to our PBL about sound and music. Here's the link in case you want to play at home!




We read a few books related to our PBL learning too: Ty's One Man Band, I Got the Rhythm, and Playing from the Heart.

We wrapped up our measurement math unit and our digraph word study unit this week. Students did a "show me what you know" end of unit assessment in both math and word study to demonstrate their level of mastery over these concepts. Even with the excitement of the week they were engaged in doing their best work!

Friday was Groundhog Day. We checked the news to see if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. Looks like it's 6 more weeks of winter ahead! We did some fun Groundhog Day activities in the afternoon.


Coming up in a few weeks is Valentine's Day. We will do a valentines exchange with our class. Your child can make them at home or make them in school that week. If your child wants to participate please make sure there is a card for each student, not just a few. I've sent home a class list of names to help you if your child is making valentines at home. We will exchange valentines on Wednesday morning February 14th. Please don't send in any candy or food! If you need assistance getting materials for making valentines please let me know!


Dates to Remember:

February 5 - afternoon Library times start weekly!
February 6 - Flynn Theater workshop for "Pilobolus Shadowland" 9:45-10:30
February 8 - Scholastic Book Orders Due (online or send in flyer with check by 2/8 at 8:00 a.m.)
Friday February 9 - field trip to the Flynn Theater to see "Pilobolus Shadowland" - we are leaving by 8:40 a.m. Make sure your child is at school on time!
Wednesday February 14 - Valentines card exchange
Wednesday February 14 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service -- No After school Programs, all students dismissed at 12:15
Monday February 26 - Tuesday March 6 - Winter Break (3/5 and 3/6 are Teacher In-Service days)
Wednesday March 7 - school resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox