| The Week of JANUARY 5TH, 2009!
Some of our thoughts about GIFTS are in this week's COUNTRYSIDE, p. 3
(January 1st Buffalo Grove edition).
Some of our thoughts about OUR GIFTS FOR JESUS are in this week's (January
4th) church bulletin.
Check our Homework page for your dates for CHRISTMAS SHOW AND TELL! (It's
optional.)
The Week of January 5th:
Monday, January 5th:
We began our morning by starting our next Alex book, HOT CHOCOLATE
FRIENDSHIP. Alex was assigned a project to complete with the worst kid
(academically) in the class as her partner. Julia shared her Star of the
Week poster with us. We also shared our thoughts about gifts that were
published in the Countryside Reminder and in this week's church bulletin. We
are proud to be good writers! We colored Day 82 and we shared our postcard
from Virginia. We went over all of our spelling words from Lesson Sixteen.
We listened to a story about OLD BEFANA who flies in the sky looking for the
Christ Child on January 6th. The book we read was an Italian folktale retold
and illustrated by Tomie DePaola. We worked on some story activities. We
also worked together on phonics and on our spelling worksheets. We had art
with Mrs. Zueck. We began reading MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS, a Newberry Award
winning story written in 1938. Each of us has a copy of the book to follow
along with the readers. We worked together on DOL and on the next story
about Marta and Nicky. After lunch and recess, we worked on the next Math
Minute and we reviewed addition and subtraction with and without
regrouping. We did some story problems. One of them took us two steps to
find the answer. We practiced a lowercase i (first floor letter) and a
lowercase t (second floor letter) in cursive. We then put the i and t
together to write the word IT. We write the i and the t and then we cross
the t on the dotted line and dot our i. We ended our day with library and
ORFF.
Most of the Advent Booklets were turned in today. Those who totally
followed directions on each page were graded and given happy grams. If a
grade isn't on the cover, the book is being returned tomorrow with a post it
note with the dates marked that need writing or coloring completed. They
are due back by Friday. Most of them are beautifully done except for a few
pages that need some touch up.
Tuesday, January 6th:
We began our Jesus Day placemats today by working on the Advent square. We
completed and shared all of journals about our Christmas Break. We also
copied and illustrated a poem about the New Year in our Poetry Notebooks.
Those who finished began work on their Resolutions page in their "Bare"
Books. We completed this week's lesson in our spellers. We read the next
chapter in our Alex book. We had a "thumbs up" from Mrs. Olson for being
good sports and getting along in gym! We read Chapter III and Chapter IV in
MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS. Today Captain Cook (the penguin) arrived in a crate
from the South Pole. We worked on time and money in math. We worked words
that end with y...we found out that y can sound like a long e (funny) or
like a long i (try). After recess, we celebrated Brandon's birthday, shared
some of our Christmas Show and Tells, and shared all of our journals. We
then worked together on Marta, DOL, and a math minute. We reviewed i, t, and
it in cursive. We introduced u and w which are alike except that w has a
tail. We introduced a and d which are also very similar because we begin
them both on the dotted line. Some of us practiced the word dad. We read
HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE STARRY NIGHT by Cynthia Rylant in our Adventures
Reader. Tomorrow we will listen to the CD of the story, work on vocabulary
and comprehension activities, and take tests on the story. It is an
accelerated reader. This story is about camping so our book told us about
different campfire games which we had fun playing. We played Telephone,
Campfire Telephone, and Rainmaker. The message I sent on Telephone was "Mrs.
S. loves good kids!" It came round the circle as something silly about
Chris Columbus! I guess some of us could work on our listening skills!
Campfire Telephone involved a pattern to pass on using hand squeezes.
Rainmaker was fun. We had to rub our hands together and make a swishing
noise, move our arms up and down while making a popping sound with our
tongue on the roof of our mouth, slap hands on our knees, pound the ground
with our palms, slap hands quietly on our knees, snap our fingers gently,
and, finally, rub our hands lightly.
Wednesday, January 7th:
This was a busy day for 256 Kids. We began by working on the Christmas
square on our Jesus Day Placemat. We took our pretest and practice
dictation. We read the next chapter of HOT CHOCOLATE FRIENDSHIP. The ghost
howling in the basement turned out to be a black lab puppy with black
freckles on his white nose! We worked on place value in math. We reread
HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE STARRY NIGHT by following along with the CD. We
took tests on the story vocabulary and comprehension, and we worked on two
sequence activities. Most of us did quite well on the vocabulary (a few
didn't know that a fawn is a baby deer and that a doe is the mother) and on
the comprehension (a few had trouble with the why you think type of
questioning). Lots of us had troubles figuring out chapter sequence order.
We were suppose to use our readers to help us, not rely on our memories.
That's an area we will need to continue to work on. The tests will all be
returned tomorrow in our Thursday Folder. Everyone took and successfully
passed the accelerated reading test on this book. We ended our morning with
computer. In the afternoon, we had a long science class where we completed
a study guide, worked on a project, and finished talking about the
dioramas. The study guide should have been brought home today. We worked on
our cursive. Today we added the lowercase m and n and wrote the word man.
We can now all write matt! We enjoyed the Christmas show and tells,
especially Emma's NED'S HEAD game! Most of us had never seen that one
before.
FYI I have posted a Henry and Mudge game for fun and two wordsearches about
today's story in the optionals. We have many accelerated reading tests for
various Henry and Mudge stories. They are an easy, fun read.
Thursday, January 8th:
We hope to continue reading MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS and begin working on story
skills. It's a music day. We'll be switching classes with Mrs. Barr's
room. We'll be learning about Martin Luther King. (There is an optional
project posted on MLKing.)
The Thursday Folders will contain: Our PENGUIN PROJECT, family activities
for January, the next penguin book list, the lunch order form, a dental
form, and some other "stuff" depending on if you're the oldest or a girl.
I also sent the January order form for LUCKY BOOKS which I'd like to have
back by next week Tuesday if you're interested in ordering some new books.
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