Monday December 13, 2010.

Today was another very busy day. We started our day with Making words in English for morning work. We had a morning meeting with Mrs. Stewart and then we started our Daily 5 Routines. After reading, we worked on Math. First graders worked on making 10's with sticks and ones with circles and second graders worked on learning three ways to solve addition problems with regrouping. We had PE and Music for our special and then in the afternoon we learned about the holiday Hannukkah. We were able to play the dreidel game and sample Latkes(potatoe pancakes) with applesauce and sour cream.

Tuesday December 7, 2010

Happy Tuesday today... another wintery day. We started our day by working on Making words in Spanish. Our big word today was: "amarillos". After that we had our morning meeting and then we had reading. We practiced using our schema to make connections with what we are reading. We worked on our daily 5 routine and then we went to specials. After specials we worked on Math. First graders worked on showing tens and ones using cirles. Second graders continue working on odd and even numbers and on estimating. After Math we had lunch and finished up math. We had a read aloud and while we were reading the story we were trying to find ways that authors show us not telling us emotions. We then used that strategy in our writing.

PS.A new calendar with the correct specials is being sent home today. Sorry for the confusion.

Monday November 8th

Happy Monday! Today in science we set up an experiment that will help us learn how seeds grow. We learned the science term for growing...germinate. We put pea, oat, corn, and bean seeds in a bag with a moist paper towel. We hung our baggies on the window and will now patiently wait for our seeds to grow! In math today the red rhinos worked on solving problems with unknown partners. We used equations and math mountains to solve these problems. The Green Gators worked on solving story problems with extra information and not enough information. In reading workshop today we had a minilesson on how readers read and think at the same time and how they use their schema to make connections between what they are reading and their schema. Ask your child to tell you what schema is! We also welcomed back Marcella today!

Wednesday October 20, 2010

Today the second graders had math in Spanish and the first graders had math in English. First graders worked with nickels and pennys. The second graders worked on measuring with centimeters. We did the daily 5 and most of us worked on reading for 30 minutes. We had a practice fire drill in the morning and we worked on handwriting. Gianni's mom volunteered for the first time today.

Don't forget the field trip to the fire house on Friday.

Tuesday, September 28th

Today we practiced for the first time our daily 5 routine and learned how to listen to stories using headphones. In Math, second graders took their chapter test and first graders worked on learning how to count on when adding. We worked on our writing and stretched out our details for our stories.

Monday, March 29th

After a nice relaxing weekend, we were back at it, working hard today. This morning we came in and cut out our new sorts for word study. The students were excited to see that they were put into new word study groups after their last word study assessment. After our morning work was completed, we had our morning meeting in English. We helped edit the morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our math routines. Today's question of the day was Did you go out to eat over the weekend? We learned that a greater number of students in our class did go out to eat and a fewer number of students did not go out to eat. Today, the green gators reading workshop minilesson again focused on identifying the characters most important action and why that action was important. They did a GREAT job of writing about this in their writing about reading notebook. The green gators read a poem called Spring Magic and discussed what mental images the poem gave them

We started our afternoon with a read aloud. Today we read the story the Wolf that cried boy. After reading we discussed the character's most important action and why it was important. Ask your child to share what lesson they learned from this book. In mathematics, the green gators solved story problems with money and discussed strategies for solving them. The red rhinos were busy working on the expanded method and the ungroup first methods for solving two digit subtraction problems.

Monday, March 22nd

A busy day in C-7 and C-8 today. Upon arrival into our classroom, we did our morning routines and cut out our new word study words. After our morning work, we has our morning meeting. Today's meeting was in Spanish. We helped write morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our daily math routines. Our question of the day was How many buttons are you wearing on your clothes today. We learned that a greater number of students were wearing 1 button on their clothing. After our morning meeting, we had minilessos. The green gators read the poem Wind Song and talked about words how the author showed feelings in the poem. The red rhinos began to work on preparing for their upcoming district reading tests (the CET). We learned startegies for taking multiple choice tests. We also enjoyed having Mr. Perez (Jarel's dad) visit this morning and look forward to seeing him again later in the week.


We started our afternoon, with our read alouds. The green gators read the story Dr. DeSoto and the Red Rhinos read the story My Brother Dan's Delicious. Ask your child to share with you what these stories were about.In mathematics, the green gators worked making partners of 10 using coins and also making partners of one hundred using pennies. The red rhinos continue to work on subtracting two digit numbers. Today we learned a new strategy for subtracting called the expanded method. Ask your child to show you how this strategy works.

Wednesday, March 10th

Another busy leanring day in C-& and C-8. Today we started our day with a message in our dialogue journals. We reponded to our message and then started our morning meeting. Today's meeting was in Spanish. We helped edit the morning message, talked about the calender, and did our daily math routines. Today's question of the day was Which food do you like best? we learned that most friends like peas the least and spaghetti the most. After our morning meeting we split into two groups...boys and girls. The girls stayed in the classroom and listened to the taped interviews that they had with Mrs. Zodarecky in preperation for writing their chapeter to go into our biography. The boys went to the bookroom and read the story "My Brother Dan is Delicious". We practiced reading the title and looking at the pictures, as well as using information from the text to make inferences about the characters. After writing workshop, we had a reading workshop minilesson. We contniued learning about making inferences to help us better understand the stories that we are reading. The Second Grade friends practiced making inferences using the story "Tight Times", and the First Grade friends read the book "Fly Away Home" by Eve Bunting. We have been practicing making inferences by using what we know and our experiences, plus clues from the text and pictures to come up with new ideas, or inferences. This afternoon, we did a read aloud on Clouds, or Nubes, in spanish, and learned the terms for meterologist (meterologo), cloud (nube), as well as the three different kinds of clouds we are learning about: cumulus (cumulo), cirrus (cirro), and stratus (estratos). After read aloud we had math. The Green Gators practiced counting different objects, and grouping them in groups of tens and ones to count easier, as well as show the correct amount using our secret code cards. Students had to identify how many tens and how many ones were in the number. At home, you can practice this with your child by asking them to read a 2-digit number, such as 95, and ask them: How many tens are in the number (9), how many ones (5).
The Red Rhinos practiced different ways to make $1.00 using different coin combinations.

At the end of the day, we finished up with science, where we reviewed the different types of clouds we can see in the sky. We looked at different cloud pictures and practiced identifying what kinds of clouds they were, what kind of weather they would bring, and what those cloud descriptions would be (big and fluffy, light and wispy, thick and like a blanket, etc.). Ask your child to look in the sky and tell you what kinds of clouds they are! We also put our rain gauge outside the school, and will start to measure the rain on a daily basis and report this information during our morning meeting each day. What a busy but great day of learning we had in C-7 and C-8!

Friday, March 5th

This morning the students in C-7 and C-8 started their day with a message in their dialogue journals. They read the message and then wrote a response. After completing the journal response, the students took their word study assessments. They then participated in a Spanish morning message. They helped to edit the morning message, talked about the calender, and completed their math routines. We ended the morning with a visit from Fireman Dean. Fireman Dean brought in the Hazord House to help us learn about fire safety. Ask your child to share with you what they learned about fire safety from his visit.

This afternoon, we had the daily 5 and glued in our word sorts. Today Mrs. Helfer read us the story what are you so grumpy about? Their were many funny things that made the character in this story grumpy. Ask your child to tell you all about his story. We ended the day with mathematics. The red rhinos took their end of the unit assessment and the green gators played memory match and wrote their own number riddles.

Thursday, March 4th

What a great learning day we had today. We started our morning with making words. Today we tries to make smaller words from the big words NORMAL and CINTURON. Ask your child to share with you what words they were able to make from these big words. Our morning meeting was in English today. We helped edit the morning message fixing the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. We then discussed the calender and completed our math routines. Our question of the day was Which book would you rather read. We learned that a greater number of people would read The Dog That Cried Wolf. After our morning meeting, we had a Reading Workshop mini lesson. Today we continued to work on the skill of inferring the meaning of unknown words within books that we read. After our mini lesson, we worked on our word study routine ("If I can spell") and then completed our daily 5 work.

We started our afternoon with a read aloud. Today we finished reading the book Flat Stanley in Space. Ask your child to share with you how this book ended. After our read aloud, we listened to our last reader's theater group perform. After that, we got into our mathematics groups. The green gator played "memory match" the goal was to find the matching number, picture representation, and equation. The red rhinos worked on completing a table and adding two digit numbers. Tomorrow the red rhinos will take their end of the unit assessment. We ended our day with science. We read a book called "Why does it Rain?" and began to look at different types of clouds.

Wednesday, March 3rd

Another busy day for the students in C-7 and C-8. We started our day with reading a message from our teachers in our dialogue journals. Ask your child to tell you what their message said today. Our morning message was in Spanish. We helped edit the morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our math routines. Our question of the day was Do you like to sing? We learned that there is a greater number of students that do like to sing and a fewer number of students that do not like to sing. After morning meeting, we enjoyed a few more reader's theater performances. We ended our morning with Reading Workshop. Today we had a mini lesson on how good reader's infer the meaning of words. After our mini lesson, we worked on our word study routines and enjoyed our daily 5 choices.

We started our afternoon with a read aloud. We were very excited to hear the conclusion of Enemy Pie. After we read we discussed two ways that readers respond to books...talking about how the character changed throughout the story and talking about a lesson that can be learned from the story. The students then wrote about this. Ask your child to discuss one of these aspects of the book. After our writing about reading, we started math. Today the green gators worked on the make a ten strategy and also prepared for a new math game. The red rhinos worked on creating a horizontal bar graph using information from a vertical bar graph, and making comparisons. We then looked at a table with two-digit numbers, and practiced adding two-digit numbers using information from the table.
We had a busy and productive day!

Monday, March 1st

Welcome March!!! We were off and running after a extra long weekend. Our morning meeting was in Spanish Today. We helped edit the morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our math routines. Today's questiopn of the day was Are your waering Somehting Blue Today? After morning meeting, we started our daily 5 routines and met with our teachers to learn our new word study pattern. Try someting new tonight...Ask your child to teach you how to sort their words. This will really force them to demonstrate their understanding of the "grammer" rule behind their sort.

We started our afternoon with a little Flat Stanley news. We saw some pictures from Ms. Wesley's Flat Stanley's trip to Key west and heard about Flat Stanley's trip to Puerto Rico with Brandon. After that, we enjoyed some of our friends Reader's Theater performances. We ended our afternoon with mathematics. The red rhinos completed a partner activity. They worked with a partner to read bar and circle graphs and answer questions comparing information. The red rhinos also created their own comparisions (all in spanish:>). Today in mathematics the green gators worked on number sentneces that contained ones, tens, and both. We learned that knowig simple facts such as 3+5 can help us when we are working on solving problems with bigger numbers such as 30+50.

Monday, February 22nd

Happy 100th Day of School!!!

We had a great time celebrating the 100th Day of School today. In the morning we made 100 fish swimming in a river. We used blue jello and sweedish fish. We had four containers and put twnty-five fish in each container. We learned that 25+25+25+25=100 (Just like 4 quarters equals one dollar). We enjoyed this yummy snack in the afternoon. We also made a mural of 100 fish, 100 clams, and 100 octopus! Thank you to all of the families who sent supplies in to make this day possible!

Tuesday, February 9th

Today we had a busy morning. Today's morning meeting was in English. We helped write morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our math routines. Our Question of the day was... have you been on a airplane? We learned that there are a greater number of students in our class who have been on an airplane and a fewer number of students in our class that have never traveled on a plane. This morning we also worked on making words. Today we tried to make smaller words from the big word reporters. Ask your child to share with you what words they were able to make. After making words, we started reading workshop. The red rhinos continued to learn about inferring the meaning of unknown words within a text that they were reading. We ended our morning by completing our "general" interview questions that we will use with Mrs. Zodarecky and Mrs. Holtz during our upcoming conversations with them.

This afternoon Marcella's Flat Stanley arrived back to Rochester after a long trip in Hawaii. We enjoyed seeing the pictures of Flat Stanley surfing and laying in the sand. We then spent some time doing mathematics. In math the red rhino took a survey about what their favorite ice cream flavor is. The green gators lean red how to use the number path board to represent tens and ones. After math we were off to visit our reading buddies! We ended the day with a silly read aloud. Ask your child all about it!

Monday, February 8th

What a great day we had in C-7 and C-8! We started our day with our morning meeting in Spanish. We helped write morning message, discussed the calender, and completed our math routines. Today's question of the day was How do you feel when it's time to go to sleep. We learned that a greater amount of people feel tired when it is time to go to bed.

After our morning meeting, we had reading workshop. Some students read the Poem Winter pleasures in English and some students read the poem Los Tres Gatitos in Spanish. We talked about the mental images that the words in the poem broght to our minds and completed some multiple choice questions about the poem. We then completed our daily 5 routines and met in small groups to learn our new word study patterns. After reading workshop, we worked on our class biographies. The boys are writing a biography about Mrs. Holtz (the PE teacher) and the girls are working on a biography about Mrs. Zodarecky. Today both groups worked on writing "general" questions that they can ask when they interview these important people in the school. Both groups learned that general questions require more than a yes or no answer.

After lunch we read a few Flat Stanley letters that arrrived. Ask your child if their Flat Stanley has arrived back in Rochester yet! We also read a great book called Rhyming Dust Bunnies. Ask your child to tell you all about it! After our read aloud, we had mathematics. The red rhinos worked on reading horizontal and verticle bar graphs. The green gators worked on representing numbers using words and stick and circles. TOMORROW WILL BE THE LAST DAY WE WILL COLLECT MONEY FOR HAITI!!

Wednesday January 27th

today was great and busy.we did morning meeting and we went to a acemble it was a long one. after the acemble we went to lunch and after that we did writing we are trying to convince people to read the book called spaghetti high school kids came and read dreaming of amaercia . from renee

Tuesday, January 19th

We started our day with cutting out our new word study words for the week. Then, we had our morning meeting in English. Today we once again helped EDIT morning message. We are working on reading carefully and making appropriate changes to spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. We also discussed the calender and completed our daily math routines during morning meeting. After our meeting we had a minilesson in English. Today we practiced getting deeply inside of the Story Spaghetti that we have been reading. We tried to listen to the story and create a dream or play in our minds. Today the students were asked to write about their thinking for the first time. After responding to the story the students worked on their Daily Five choices and met with their teachers in small groups to learn their new word study patterns. To end the morning, we had a chance to read the biographies that our friends wrote about us. We then created a chart to show the things that our firends did include in the biographies. We will be working in groups based on gender for the next week in writing. This is to get us excited about biographies and in groups we will be reading about famous people. The students will find our tomorrow who they will be reading about.

To start our afternoon, we had a special read aloud. Today Derek read us the book Froggy's Baby Sister. After he read he shared some speical news! We then worked on our math, the green gators finished their first grade assessment and the red rhinos worked on using coins. To end the day we read to our reading buddies in Mrs. Maynard and Mrs. Stacey's rooms

Scholastic Book Ordering Online

Dear Parent,

I have exciting news. You can now place your Scholastic Book Clubs orders online!

Browse all the great monthly Book Club selections at low prices and order online. Plus, our class earns a FREE book every time a parent orders online.

Here’s how it works:

1. Use the information below to access the Scholastic Book Clubs Web site.
2. Browse the titles with your child and place your order with your credit card.
3. Your order will come to me, and your credit card payment will go directly to Scholastic’s secure server. There’s no need to send money to school.
4. After I submit the entire class order to Scholastic, your order will be delivered to our classroom for your child to take home.

To get started, go to the Web address below and enter our class’s personalized user name and password in the sign-in fields on the right side of the page. Note: You do not need to create your own user name and password.

www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
User Name: EVDuallanguage
Password: sammy

Ordering online is the most convenient way to use Scholastic Book Clubs. You can order anytime, right up until the online order due date. You’ll also get instant access to over 500 additional titles plus online-only specials and discounts.

And don’t forget: Every time a parent places an order online, we earn a FREE book for our classroom library!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,


JANINE HELFER

Friday, January 15th

We had a very busy end to our week. We started our morning by responding to the messages in our dialogue journals. After our writing time, we too our word study assessment and had morning meeting. Today's morning meeting was in Spanish. We helped write the message, talked about the calender and completed our daily math routines. After mornig meeting we had our Reader's Theater Performances. This week the teacher's filled out a rubric to provide the students with some feedback about their performances. These rubrics will be going home in Monday Folders. Please review these rubrics with your child and help them to work on the areas that we have indicated need improvement. Overall, we really enjoyed listening to the performances and have seen a big impovement in the students reading fluency.

After lunch we had our non-ficition read aloud. Today we started to read the biography of Oprah Winfery. Ask your child to tell you what a biography is and what they learned about Oprahy Winfery. We also learned about a convention that will help us as readers of non-fiction texts. Today we learned about the index of a book. We added this convention to our convention books. We also had a mystery reader today. Thank you so much to Ms. Anderson (Danielito's mother) who read us a great book...Vote Sponge Bob. After our reader, the green gators took an assessment in mathematics and the red rhinos worked on creating different amonts of money with coins. To end the day we awarded the "goodies" in the estimation jar to Nicole who guessed the exact number of pieces of chocolate in the jar.

Wednesday January 13th

This morning our morning meeting was in Spanish. We helped write morning message, talked about the calender, and completed our daily math routines. After our morning meeting, we completed our biographies about someone in the class. These writing pieces were written without any instruction and will be used as a way to inform the teachers about what skills the students need to learn in order to write a GREAT biography. After writing workshop, we had our reading workshop minilesson. Today's lesson was on how readers "step-into" the story by creating images in their minds. Today we practiced this "special" kind of reading with the story Spaghetti by Cynthia Rylant. Ask your child to describe the kinds of images that came to their minds as we read. After our minilesson, the students worked on the word study routine and only their daily five choices.

After lunch, we read a little more out of the book Stanley in Space. In math, the green gators practiced our doubles in Spanish. The green gators worked on facts such as 4 + 4= 8 and 10 + 10=20. The rhinos worked on story problems which required them to find the perimeter of certain shapes. These problems required the students to add three two digit numbers. Please continue to support your children in the strategies that they are using to solve two digit addition problems when they are working on their homework.

Friday, January 8th

What a great week we have had. After writing in our dialogue journals, we started our day with our word study assessment. After our word study assessments, we had our morning meeting (which was in Spanish today). We helped write our morning message and completed our daily math routines. After our morning meeting, we were off on day 4 of trip across the country with Stanley. Today we visited the great city of Chicago! Ask your child to share with you some details about their trip to the windy city! After our trip, we completed our word study routine (glue in sort) and our daily five activities.

After lunch, we listened to another chapter out of our book Flat Stanly in Space. Ask your child to give you a summary of what has happened in the book so far. After read aloud, we had mathematics. The red rhinos are working hard at becomeing more efficient at strategies for solving two-digit addition problems. The green gators completed their word problem assessment. We ended our day with science. We learned a great new song that will help us remember the vocabulary to describe the proceses that take place in the water cycle. We also used this vocabulary to label a diagram.

Thursday, January 7th

Another great learning day in C-7 and C-8! We started the morning with morning meeting in English. The students are getting so good at writing morning meeting and our daily math routines that they leading the meeting. Mrs. Helfer and Mrs. Wesley have been joking with them and telling them that they don't even need us anymore! After morning meeting, we were once again off to another city with our friend Flat Stanley. Today we traveled to the great city of Dallas. Ask your child to tell you all of the fun and exciting things they saw while they were in this busy city. After our trip, we completed our word study activity for today (look, say, cover, write, check)and our daily five routines. We ended our morning by discussing the words that we could form using the letters in the words rectangles and diciembre.

After lunch, the red rhinos worked once again on adding two digit numbers. Today we tried to move away from drawing stick and circle drawings to trying to add the tens and ones. We are getting pretty good at this! The green gators continued to practice different strategies for solving different types of word problems. We then began our end of unit assessment, which we will complete tomorrow. After math, we had social studies and non-fiction read aloud. We continue to learn about communities and the types of communities that exist in our world.

Wednesday, January 6th

We started our morning with morning meeting in Spanish. We helped write the morning message, completed math routines and discussed the question of the day. Today's question of the day was who washes the dishes in your house. We learned that the greatest number of students said that their mom's washed the dishes. After morning meeting, we were off to see another city with Flat Stanly on our Webquest. Today Flat Stanley visited Atlanta, Georgia! Ask your child what fun and exciting things they did on their trip today. After our trip, the students completed the word study activity for today, speed sort and no peek write and worked on their daily 5 routines.

To start the afternoon, we enjoyed a little more from the book Flat Stanley in Space. Ask your child to tell you what happened in the story today! After our read aloud we started math. Today the green gators, worked on accuracy with subtraction and subtraction word problems. The red rhinos once again worked on strategies for adding two digit numbers. Today they used these strategies to solve story problems. To end the day, we broke up into two groups for social studies. We are leaning about different types of communities. Ask your child to tell you the characteristics of a city or Urban area!

Tuesday, January 5th

Another busy learning day for the students in C-7 and C-8. We started our day with our morning meeting in Spanish. We helped write morning message, completed our math routines and sang our Spanish good morning song. Today's question of the day was...

After morning meeting, we started our Flat Stanley Webquest. Today Stanley traveled to New York City. He visited Broadway and watched some shows, saw the statue of liberty, went to the Empire State Building, took a walk in Central Park, and ate lunch at Tavern on the green. Ask your child to share with you what other fun and interesting things they learned on their trip with Stanley! If you would like to check out the web quest, I will attach a link on the home page of our BLOG after the students are finished with their trip. After our trip, the students completed their scrapbook to document their adventures. We are excited to find our what city Stanley will travel to tomorrow!

We started our afternoon, by check our experiment that we set up yesterday. Today we noticed that the water level went down! We learned that this is because the water evaporated! Ask your child to explain the term evaporation. We also discussed the water cycle and the terms condensation, collection, and precipitation. In math, the green gators practiced math mountains and the red rhinos shared strategies for adding double-digit addition. We ended our day by sharing some stories with our kindergarten and pre-K reading buddies.

Monday, January 4th

Boy it's great to be back in school. We had a great learning day today! We started the morning with our morning meeting in English. We helped write our morning message and completed our daily math routines. Todays question of the day was did you watch the ball drop on New Years Eve. We learned that their was a greater number of people that did stay up to watch the ball drop and to ring in the new year. After morning meeting, We learned the proper way to address an envelope for the mail. We learned that your return address should go in the left-hand corner, a stam should go in the right-hand corner, and the destination address should go in the center. We then used what we had learned about addressing an envelope to address our envelopes that would hold our flat stanleys. We were excited to finally send our stanleys off in the mail. Be sure to tell your friends and family that they are on their way! After we sent our Stanleys off, we made our New Years resolutions. Ask your child what they resolved to do in school during the year 2010.

We started our afternoon with a non-ficition read aloud on the Water Cycle. We sent up an experiment...we filled a glass jar with water and set it on the windowsill for the night. Then we made predicitions about what would happen to the water over night. Talk to your child about what they predicted would happen to the water. In math the red rhinos learned about estimation. We learned that grouping objects (especially by 10s) would help us make better estimations. The green gators practiced word problems with subtraction and took a Quick Quiz. We ended the day with another science experiment. We explored air using syringes and tubing!