by Jackie & Marci | Jan 11, 2020 | Kindergarten News
Senses collage
Science
This week in The Five Senses science domain we continued to do review activities and read about Ray Charles and how becoming blind affected his life growing up.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• describe the experiences and challenges of someone who is blind
• explain the contributions of Ray Charles
• review what we have learned about our senses so far
History and Geography
This week in our Columbus and Pilgrims unit we finished reading about Columbus and began learning about why and how people made the pilgrimage from Europe.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify reasons why the pilgrims left England
• identify the continents of Europe and North America
• describe the pilgrims Voyage on the Mayflower
English Sight Words of the Week
new, year, happy, name
La lectura y las matemáticas
Hi all! The holiday season is over and we are back to school. All our children were happy to see everybody again and they were excited to share their experiences during this special season. This week we reviewed the skills they learned in the last semester. This week’s main goal was to help our children to remember everything we worked on last semester and establish this as a foundation to continue their learning experiences. The LA topic of the month is the WIND. We read the book “El Viento” (The wind), which talks about what wind is, how does the wind form and why it is important for all of us.
We also practiced their skills to say all the letters out loud and their ability to blend and recognize the sound of all letters correctly. This was done through dictation of words and to correctly form the shape of each one. The words of this week were: “Por” (By/For) and “Con” (with). The children worked hard in their efforts to build more complex sentences. This was a great exercise for them!
According to the topic of the month “El Viento” (The wind), the children had a lot of fun making a windsock. These are on display on our hallway bulletin board.
Las Matemáticas: The numbers of the week were 71 – 75. We revisited our more than/less than concepts, also identifying if a number is even or odd, as well as identifying tens and units inside a given number. We continue using the abacus to make sums and also dominos. We started with a new topic, “the geometric shapes like “Cuadrado” (Square),”Rectangulo” (Rectangle), “Circulo” (Circle) and “Triangulo” (Triangle).
Character Education
“Be like a postage stamp, stick to something until you get there!” ~Josh Billings
During the month of January we will be learning all about Perseverance. What does it mean?
- Staying with the task and not giving up.
- Showing commitment, pride and a positive attitude in completing tasks.
- Trying again and again and again.
- Being patient and willing to work hard.
Throughout the month we will be reading several great books, discussing them and then putting our perseverance to the test with some fun activities.
by Marci & Ivary | Jan 11, 2020 | First Grade News
La Lectura
This week we read Los bomberos. Our objectives were:
- use the comprehension skill main idea and details
- review identifying words with the vowel o and i
- review punctuation . ¡! ¿?
- our high frequency words this week were: son, todos, esta
At home have students tell you about what we learned about firefighters! See if they can use some of the Spanish vocabulary (bombero- firefighter, fuego- fire, vestimento- uniform).
Las matemáticas
This week we began learning how to add numbers within 20. Our objectives were:
- introduce the chapter by practicing counting to 20
- use different strategies to add 1- and 2-digit numbers
- use 10s frames to form 10 then add the ones
Continue practicing recognizing numbers to 20. Flashcards are a great way to practice, our goal is to say the number without counting from 1.
The food chain game
Science
This week we continued our science domain: Animals and Habitats. We worked on some activities that reviewed the East African Savanna; its habitat and the animals that live there.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• understand that living things live in habitats to which they are particularly suited
• identify the characteristics of the grassland habitat
• explain how grassland animals have adapted to the grassland habitat
• identify food chains in a habitat
• classify animals on the basis of the types of foods that they eat (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore)
• be familiar with the terms prey and predator
History & Geography
This week we in our Early Americas Civilization unit we reviewed what we have learned about the Maya and did some Maya glyphs. We began our next civilization study of the Aztecs.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the area in which the Maya lived
• review what we have learned of the Maya so far
• understand that the Aztecs established a vast Empire in central Mexico many, many years ago
• understand that the Aztec had a religion
• identify the area which the Aztec lived
English Sight Words of the Week
will, were, with, word, would, you, your
Character Education
“Be like a postage stamp, stick to something until you get there!” ~Josh Billings
During the month of January we will be learning all about Perseverance. What does it mean?
- Staying with the task and not giving up.
- Showing commitment, pride and a positive attitude in completing tasks.
- Trying again and again and again.
- Being patient and willing to work hard.
Throughout the month we will be reading several great books, discussing them and then putting our perseverance to the test with some fun activities.
by Jill & Sarah | Jan 11, 2020 | 2nd/3rd Grade News
La lectura
We have really been working on our reading strategies with some non-fiction pieces. This week we focused on answering comprehension questions using complete sentences. We are also working on using textual evidence to help us confirm our answers.
Students received their new spelling list on Tuesday. The test will be on Friday, January 17th. Each day we are working with the words in different ways to help us with their spelling and their meanings.
Las matemáticas
We continued our multiplication unit and jumped right back in with our timed tests. We have been adding to our Multiplication Strategies poster each day, as well as adding to our math journal. This week we worked through the 7s, 8s, and 9s.
I have asked the kiddos to complete their first Genius Hour project in the next two Fridays. Here are the sign-ups:
Friday, January 17th:Rachel, Frederick, Evelyn, Aleya, Eden, Evie, Maya
Friday, January 24th: Catalina, Elizabeth, Isabella, Penelope, Andres, Maria
Science
We had a great first week back after the break and we are enjoying our new unit: Classification of Animals. Our weekly objectives this week were to:
*Observe and describe basic characteristics of an animal
*Observe and describe basic characteristics of an animal
*Explain the plan to classify animals by common or shared characteristics
*Explain that scientist classify animals in order to study them and show relationships
*Identify cold-blooded/warm-blooded and vertebrate/invertebrate that’s important characteristic used to classify animals
*Describe basic characteristics of vertebrates/invertebrate animals
*Pacify particular animals as vertebrate or invertebrate
*Identify fish, amphibian, reptiles, birds and mammals as groups of vertebrates
*Pacify particular animals and fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds or mammals
*Identify insects as invertebrates
*Explain that there are a large number of animals that have not yet been identified
History & Geography
This week, our objectives on our new unit: Earliest Americans, were to:
*Understand that nomadic hunters may have made their way from Asia to North America by crossing a land bridge located in the Bering Strait
*Describe how Ice Age people of Beringia
*Understand the meaning of the following vocabulary: Ice Age, land bridge, sheets, hunter-gatherers, herd, mammoth, musk ox, and spear
*Explain how Americans first settlers divided into many groups and spread throughout North and South America
*Explain the impact of farming on how people lived
*Understand the meaning of the following vocabulary: river valley, mastodon, and soil
Character Education
“Be like a postage stamp, stick to something until you get there!” ~Josh Billings
During the month of January we will be learning all about Perseverance. What does it mean?
- Staying with the task and not giving up.
- Showing commitment, pride and a positive attitude in completing tasks.
- Trying again and again and again.
- Being patient and willing to work hard.
Throughout the month we will be reading several great books, discussing them and then putting our perseverance to the test with some fun activities.
by Ivary & Paola | Jan 11, 2020 | 4th/5th Grade News
History & Geography
This week we continued to learn about the Renaissance. Our objectives were:
- review what we learned before break about Florence
- take a virtual tour of Venice
- create a Venn Diagram comparing Venice and Florence
- understand why Michelangelo Da Vinci was called “The Renaissance Man”
Mathematics
This week we began learning how to find the Area of Triangles. Our objectives were:
- complete test corrections and review how to multiply and divide fractions
- understand what the base of any polygon is
- practice finding the height of a triangle given the base
- begin creating a poster that explains why the area of a triangle is half of its rectangle
Lectura
This week we introduced our new unit: Energy in Action. The essential question for this unit is: How does energy affect our life? The development of this unit will be closely connected to our new science module, Living Systems starting the week of January 20th. During writing we continued with our biography project. We read the biography of one of our students favorite authors, J.K. Rowling, and used is as as example on our to outline their essays. Students did a great job using their resources (linea cronologica) to organize their biography paragraphs. We will be finishing the final details next week. We talked about finding a good date were students can present their biographies to the class, and invite families that would like to attend. I will make sure I will let you know as soon as we put a date on the calendar. Other objectives this week included:
- Establish purposes, audiences and the need for different genres.
- Apply reading comprehension skills and strategies such as asking questions, summarizing, visualizing, identify cause and effect situations.
- Understand the spelling patterns of homophones with v – b
- Apply knowledge of the use of capitalization and proper punctuation.
- Conjugate and understand how verbs are used in contexts, Present tense of regular verbs. Subject/ verb agreement.
- Using the information gathered, accurately organize it into categories.
- Cross-check different sources of information.
Dean presenting his spelling game to the class. It was so much fun!
Ciencias
Heat, Earth Materials and Conduction
As a class we discussed the concept of energy. The sun is the major source of energy that heats Earth. The different energy transfer properties of earth materials (soil and water) can lead to uneven heating of the Earth’s surface. We also discussed the concept of radiation. After that, students observed an example of heat transfer by conduction: from hot water to a container of cold water. Students discussed the mechanisms by which energy transfers to and from the air: radiation and reradiation from Earth’s surface, and conduction between Earth’s surface and air particles.
Character Education
“Be like a postage stamp, stick to something until you get there!” ~Josh Billings
During the month of January we will be learning all about Perseverance. What does it mean?
- Staying with the task and not giving up.
- Showing commitment, pride and a positive attitude in completing tasks.
- Trying again and again and again.
- Being patient and willing to work hard.
Throughout the month we will be reading several great books, discussing them and then putting our perseverance to the test with some fun activities.
