Week 6: The Five Senses and Sub on Thurs-Fri

 I will have a sub on both Thursday and Friday. The sub will be Kristin Henderson again. I will be at a training to become a mentor to other teachers. Art is Friday so please help if you can!

 

Here are our topics for the week:

Language Arts:  The letter of the week is 't' pronounced "te." Students will practice writing the letter as well as learn many vocabulary words that begin with 't.' The sight word is "el/the."

Math:  Students will learn about circles.  They will continue to practice and hopefully master counting and writing the numbers 0-5 before we move onto larger numbers.

Color:  The color of the week is brown/café or marrón.

SLD/Science:  Los Cinco Sentidos/The Five Senses. Students will participate in some fun activities in which they will use their five senses to describe objects.  They will learn adjectives such as ácido/sour, suave/soft, duro/hard, dulce/sweet, áspero/bumpy.  They will make a book with something they will glue on each page the represents each sense.  They will review some of their body parts as well as we go through which parts we use to experience each of the senses.

NGSS Science Pilot: The kids will use lamps as models to represent the sun. They will observe how the light/heat affects the temperatures of various surfaces. They will need to know what a modelo/model is.

Week 5: Science Pilot, Buddies, Early Release Day and Picture Day

Reminders and Upcoming Events

1) Please sign up for the Carnival.  We are in need of volunteers and donations for the basket.
2) If you are interested in scholastic books, click the link on my blog--ordering is really easy online.  Plus, we get class bonus points and shipping is free.
3) Picture Day is Thursday, Sept. 26. You should have received information about it on Friday. Kindergarten usually goes first thing in the morning.
4) Friday is an early release day. Students are out at 12:15pm. They will still have lunch as usual.

5th Grade Buddies

Students were paired up with their 5th grade buddies two weeks ago. Sra. Mello's class, who are bilingual students from the Spanish Immersion Program, will work with the kindergarteners once a week. They will come every Wednesday after recess. They will keep these same buddies until the end of the Trimester and we will change buddies once each trimester.

These are the projects they will work on with the kindergarteners throughout the year:

1) Technology projects:  Book Creator, iMovie's, PicCollage, Google Slides, Google Classroom

2) Digital Citizenship Lessons about using the internet and technology properly

3) English practice: reading books in English, Quizlet, etc.
4) NGSS science lessons-planning and carrying out investigations

It's nice from them to have a buddy who can help them work on things one-on-one. They can help with reading, writing, and art. Plus, they can do everything in both English and Spanish.

Here are the topics for the week:

Language Arts:  The letter of the week is /p/ pronounced "pe"  We will be learning about words that begin with /p/ and begin reading the syllables pa, pe, pi, po, pu.  The focus sight words are "veo" and "tengo." They will also learn about family and we will talk about things we do with family.

Math:  We will be writing and counting numbers 1-5 and learn about triangles. We will cut out triangles from magazines.

Color:  The color of the week is green/verde.

SLD:  Students will be learning about lots of different body parts that are categorized into three groups:  parts of the head (face, hair, etc.), exterior parts (limbs, torso, etc.), and interior parts (organs, bones, etc.).  At the end of the week, they will label a human body with the parts they learned.

Science NGSS Pilot: We will begin our pilot curriculum called Amplify. The kids will discuss how scientists study weather and what they already know about weather. Without telling them what to think and guiding them too much, please review the vocabulary so they have a better understanding of the lesson considering the language barrier may pose a challenge.

They will work on the following vocabulary words:

cientîfico/scientist
clima/weather
predecir/predict
temperatura/temperature
soleado/sunny
nuboso/cloudy
ventoso/windy
nevoso/snowy
lluvioso/rainy

* We make a lot of books and flip-books in class.  These are great resources to improve reading and vocabulary development. Please store them in a book bag and give your child some time every night to practice them.  It is okay if they don't know every word.

Week 4: Start of Work Stations

Upcoming Events

Please support our PTA by participation in our fundraiser. I will be handing out monkey keychains to kids that turn in the little tickets. Our class goal is 280 items sold. We can do it!!

Also, our class has a basket for the Fall Carnival. You  should have received a letter from the room parent, Bonnie Baum. She asked for donations. I am currently accepting them. Thanks!

Picture Day is Thursday, September 26th. We go first thing in the morning.

Work Stations:  How you can help

Some kids have gotten some practice with the computers and we have started exploring the iPads. We are going to begin “work stations.”  If you have access to Quizlet  at home, it is helpful to practice with your child how to use a mouse, get in and out of websites, and how to navigate a website such as scrolling up and down.  We will explore sites and apps such as the ones on the Symbaloo webmix, Quizlet, Onlinefreespanish.com.

My plan is to have work stations every Thursday and Friday and offer the students time to work on some of these activities as a "may-do" once they finish their work on a daily basis.  During this time, it is important that students can work independently at their station and stay on task while I work with small groups on guided reading and phonics practice.  Please talk to your child about these expectations and that if they need something that no other child can assist them with, they need to stand on the taped X by the U-table until I address them.  This helps minimize interruptions during small group time.

Yo puedo/I can:

We will go over the “I can” or “Yo puedo” options for each station.  They have a choice of a few different activities that share the same objective.  For example, there are a few different ways to practice handwriting in that station, as demonstrated on the cards. There are also signs around the room with pictures demonstrating their options.  In addition, certain areas around the room have hanging signs that designate where they can do that station.  Some stations will require them to grab the materials from the library area and move them to the station table.

Our Stations:  Handwriting, Alphabet/Words, Library, Pocket Chart, iPads, Puzzles, Computers (Symbaloo Edu), Big Books, With the Teacher

How it works:

They will rotate twice each day on Thursday and Friday.  For each station period (about 12-15 minutes) they will be working on that station only. They will do the station in the blue section first and then the green section (refer to the chart above). When they rotate, they will work on the next station.  They may not do every station every week, but they will meet with me in small reading groups at least one day a week.  It is okay if they don’t get to do a particular station one week, because they may get the chance to do it the following week or week after.  There is a chart in the room with their pictures next to their partner, and the station cards to the right.  They will always move to different stations in pairs (with their partner). Blue is the first station and green is the second station.

Why am I giving you so much information about this?

 I have found that when parents talk to their kids in English and explain procedures and expectations, it makes receiving the same instructions in Spanish so much more understandable.  This helps the transitions run much more smoothly.  Thanks for your participation in the process.

These are the plans for the week:

Language Arts:  The letter of the week is /m/, pronounced 'eme.' Now that the students have learned the five vowel sounds, we will be blending /m/ to make the syllables ma, me, mi, mo, mo.  Students will learn words that begin with /m/ and do various activities to practice writing and reading words with this letter.

Math:  We will learn to count and write numbers 3-5 as well as describe shapes, decompose numbers in groups, etc.

Color:  The color of the week is blue/azul.

SLD:  Students will be learning about different actions/verbs.  They will describe which things they like to do at home, at school, and at the playground.  They will use the sentence frame:  Yo puedo _______. / I can ______.  Ex.  Yo puedo dibujar./ I can draw.

Week 3: Jobs and Scholastic book orders

This is last year's class.

Classroom Jobs 

Now that the kids are familiar with many of the routines, I will be assigning them a weekly job.  Please give your child a heads up about having a job.  The kids LOVE having a responsibility.  Every child will have a job and the jobs will change weekly.  If they don't get the job they want, just remind them that all jobs are important and that they will get their turn in future weeks to do ALL jobs. The jobs will be on the blue pocket chart near the door.

Jobs include:  sharpen pencils, pass out papers, pass out materials, messenger, first in line, line ender, pass out wipes, trash collector, cleaner, organize toys, put lunches in a line, clip chart manager, librarians, mail stuffers, teacher's assistant, etc.

Color Wednesday:  Here is the schedule for wearing the color of the week on Wednesdays.  Color Schedule

Books, books, books!!

You can order scholastic books! If you click on the link to the right, you can check out my recommended books and class wishlist.  Ordering online is preferred as the shipping is free, it's much easier to process, and we get class points.

Many of the books are in both English and Spanish, so you can still read the books to them and then when they start reading in Spanish, they can read the same books to YOU.  I HIGHLY recommend buying a set of "Cuentos Foneticos 1-36."  It is a bit pricey ($65), but parents have agreed that it was a great investment as it helped their kids become readers.  If you don't wish to purchase them, that's okay.  I have a few copies of each book in my class and when I feel your child is ready, I will start lending them out.  This usually happens between October and January, depending on your child's readiness level.

Click the link on the side bar to order books from our class book club.  Online orders earn us class points that I use to buy more books for the classroom library.

These are the topics for week 3:

Language Arts:  The letters of the week are /i/, /e/, and /u/.  The students will be learning the songs for these letters, will practice tracing them, and will be learning vocabulary words that begin with the letters.  The songs in the dropbox are called "Ignacio e Iván," "Edgar Elefante," and "Ulises Unicornio."

Math:  They will be counting and tracing numbers 1 through 3.  In addition, they will learn about graphs using their birthdays and some of their favorite things.  They will compare different columns to describe which have more or less (más or menos).

Color:  The color of the week is yellow/amarillo.  Don't forget to wear yellow on Wednesday.

SLD: Students will be learning about different objects they see at school.  These will be separated into three categories:  furniture/los muebles, school supplies/los utiles escolares, and technology/la tecnología. They will be using the sentence frame: Yo veo _____./I see _______.

Week 2: Food, Vowels, Red, and Quizlet

We had such a successful first week and a half of school!  Keep up all your wonderful support at home. :)


As I promised, I will be posting information about the weekly topics on each last day before the new learning week.  I do this for two reasons: 1) so that you know what type of work to expect and what to talk about with your child and 2) so that whatever they learn in Spanish, you can supplement their learning by talking about it in English.  For example, if we are learning about things that start with 'o' in Spanish, you can help your child point out things that begin with 'o' in English.

Quizlet 

Quizlet saves you paper and reads the card to the students in the chosen language.  Flashcards are a good idea for practicing automatic skills such as reading high frequency words "fast as a snap."  What I really like about Quizlet is that if the student needs assistance reading the word or letter, the program reads it to them.  If they feel confident enough, they can turn off the audio assistance. There are also games to practice what they know.

Check it out at www.quizlet.com. It is one of the icons on symbaloo. There is also an app that works on any phone or tablet.

I have a class set up with lots of flashcard sets.  You can sign up which allows you to make your own sets.  The ones I created have BOTH English and Spanish words, letters, syllables, and even sentences.  Go ahead and use the following login information, but please don't create your own sets on this account.

How they are organized:

I have created folders to make the sets organized:  Spanish Reading, Spanish Math, English Reading, English Math.

Letter vocabulary for homework:  Sra. James and I will be creating a set of vocabulary words for each weekly letter.  These will include an image as well as the English translation.  We recommend reviewing the words as part of weekly homework.

The login information is: salonk3   password: oso12345.  You can always make your own account if you would like to do so, but you would have to ask to join my class to get access to the sets.

Thanks!!

Here are the topics for the week:

Language Arts:  They will be introduced to the five vowels.  They will focus on the two vowels: /o/ and /a/ and will continue with the rest next week.  They will practice forming these letters as well as learn words that begin with them. There will be vocabulary words on Quizlet that begin with "O." and "A."

Math:  Our curriculum spirals between different topics so some concepts they will learn about are comparing length, numbers, counting, and an introduction to shapes and pattern blocks.

Color:  The color of the week is red/rojo.  Students will learn about different things that are red and will learn to spell the word "rojo."  Don't forget to wear red on Wednesday! There is also a Quizlet set on things that are red in the Spanish Reading Folder.

Spanish Language Development:  They will learn about foods they eat and drink for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  They will use the language structures: Yo como______./I eat _______. and Yo bebo_______./I drink _____. along with the many new vocabulary words they learned for the foods they eat and drinks they drink.  This will be the first time they will see the vocabulary icon (lips) to indicate new important words they are learning.  I use these in my fill in the blanks that I call "widiwidi."