Reading Washington Children's Choice Nominations...Mr. Jeffrey will be asking us to vote in March for our favorite three books from all of the fabulous books below that have been nominated for the 2014 Childrens' Choice Award. We know some of the books and are reading the rest to make sure we make our best voting choices. Stay tuned as we use our speaking and writing to review these books as we read them, retelling our blog readers what each book is about and sharing our opinions about each book. Feel free to leave comments to share your opinions with us, too!
I dream that the world is kind, safe and fair. ~ Brooklyn
I wish that we would have more garbage cans so that people wouldn't throw garbage on the street and I wish they were more steady so the lids didn't fall off. ~ Max I dream that the world would be more not polluted. ~ Lucy I dream that kids would be more helpful to their parents and do more chores and not be mean. ~ Evie I have a dream that when I grow up I will be a leader of a church. ~ Harry I wish that people on the street had tents. ~ RaniMy dream is to have a little circle and have a little bit of the community pick up the garbage around the world. ~ Addison I wish there was more food for animals. ~ Owen HP My dream is that people would stop cutting down so many forests. ~ Chloe I dream that kids were in charge. Everyone would be happier because we always got to play and make choices in whatever we wanted to do. ~ Owen B. My dream is that I wish that everyone wouldn't have any yucky stuff and the world would be so clean and no one would throw any trash anywhere around the world. ~ Kai I wish that princesses lived by my home. ~ Ava I dream that people will not be mean and I hope that people will say "I have a dream" too. ~ Olivia I wish there wasn't snakes because snakes are venomous and black widow spiders are venomous so I wish there weren't any of those too. ~ Roman I dream that we are greener. and not use as much electricity and stuff like that so it will be more healthier. ~ Audrey I dream that we will not use cars or buses because they pollute the air and use up oil. ~ Calvin I wish that we would use less stuff - only the stuff we need. To make sure that we try not to use very much chemicals because it can cause sickness and stuff like that. Because some are more poisonous than others. ~ Matthew There would be lots and lots of trees. ~ Isabel To finish the lego DeathStar. ps. It is not going to make the world a better place, but it is my dream. ~ Christopher To make the world a better place if you see trash on the floor you can pick it up and put it in the garbage. ~ Lexi I wish the world had more games because people could play more games. ~ Jonah My dream is to be a mom when I grow up and have two kids. That will make the world a better place because I am going to be good mom that has good kids. ~ Ali I wish that people would stop cutting down too many trees.~ Felix I dream that everyone in the world would be kind, safe and fair. ~ Mika I want to thank you all for your meaningful holiday gifts. I will be giving each student a thank you card to take home and share with their family this week but I know those things do not always make it home. I also don’t mind over thanking you all for your generosity. I love that you made a classroom donation to Dwankhozi Hope ~ the opportunity we have as a school community to partner with the Dwankhozi Basic School community is such a gift, and I am honored you all chose to support that partnership as a gesture of appreciation. Thank you! or as they say at Dwankhozi, Zikomo! I hope you all had a restful winter break and that you are as excited as I am about the learning days ahead of us. Last week, I was excited to see how quickly the students were able to get back into our learning routines. Your kids came to me last fall as young children needing to adjust to a new classroom, new friends, a new school… They are returning from winter break as “grown up” kindergarten students who know how school works and understand how to be kind, safe and fair friends. We will spend some time during these first few weeks back re-establishing our classroom learning routines, spending extra time on our social and emotional learning (Kelso’s Choice) and holding classroom meetings. We will be talking about “grown up” independence, and how we can work effectively with our learning partners. Keep reading for specifics on what we will be learning.
MathThis month, the students will be engaging in activities that will help them become experts at composing and decomposing the number 10. The expectation is that they will be fluent in knowing combinations used to make 10 by the end of the year. The games Pig 10 and Go Fish (where matches are combos of 10 like 7 and 3) are both great ways to practice this at home. Students will continue to use math menus that help them learn to be collaborative, self-directed learners. | Readers' WorkshopIt is so exciting for me to see how much growth the students have made as readers. During back to back reading time, our class can read independently for 10 minutes, staying focused on their books and using voices that work for all readers. Many students are starting to get "lost in their reading", having a hard time stopping when I ask them to transition to hip to hip shared reading. It is wonderful to see this level of engagement! This month, I will be focusing my mini-lessons and guided reading instruction on the following teaching points:
Writers' WorkshopThis month, the students will continue writing true stories that readers can really read. The students have learned that writers make writing easy to read by including spaces between words, using mostly lower case letters unless a capital is needed, being neat and using word walls to spell words like they are spelled in a book. They have also learned to use tools such as personal word walls, vowel charts and editing checklists. This week, I will be meeting with each writer to assess their writing (using our editing checklist) and help them set a writing goal. Fabric Science UnitWe launched our first science unit this week ~ Exploring Fabric! On Friday, we used our senses to explore the properties of 10 different kinds of fabric: organza, corduroy, seersucker, fleece, nylon, burlap, satin, terrycloth, knit & denim. The students noticed how the fabrics looked (shiny, sparkly, see through) and felt (soft, smooth, slippery, scratchy, rough) and sounded (like the ocean) and smelled (like flowers) and recorded their observations in their new science journals, using pictures and words. This coming week, we will be using feely boxes to compare how our fabrics are the same and different and will go on a fabric hunt to help us match different fabrics. We will also be putting different fabrics together to make fabric collages. Fabric can be really soft.
Fabric comes in all different patterns. You can make clothes out of fabric. You can make soft toys out of fabric. You can make carpets out of fabric. Some fabric is silky. You can make pillows out of fabric, too. You can make clothes in different ways with different fabrics. You can blankets out of fabric. Fabric can be rough or it can be smooth. You can use fabric with breakfast to wipe your mouth (napkin). Fabric can come in all different colors. You can cut fabric so it can be small or big. You can sew fabric You can find fabric at a yarn shop and if you have a project and you need enough of it you can get lots of it. |