November is here!! And our new topic too “The Farm / La Granja.” This month kids are going to learn all about the farm concept, animals that live there and the products that we can obtain from the animals. The cow gives us milk and milk-by products, as well as meat. The chicken gives us meat and eggs. The pig gives us meats: salami, ham, sausage, bacon.
So, this week we started learning about the cow and the food that we can eat from the cow. The words of the month will be;
Granja-farm,
Granjero-farmer,
Granero-barn,
Tractor-tractor,
Vaca-cow,
Gallina-chichen,
Cerdo-pig.
This week the kids learned all about the cow; the cow is a mammal with hair on their body, they have hooves, horns, a long tail, head and udders. They learned that the cow can give us milk and meat, and with the milk we can have yogurt, butter, cream cheese, ice cream, and cheese. We did activities and projects related to the cow. The kids milked the cow, and then we made butter with the milk. We had a great time milking the cow, as well, eating the butter with salty crackers, and bagels with cream cheese. The words of the week:
This week we started a very fun theme for the little ones: Sombras (shadows), for this theme we started by reading the book “Sombras”, (Shadows). In this book we learned what a shadow is and what it takes for a shadow to be formed or projected. The book also showed us ideas on how to make shadows figures with our hands, such as dogs, ducks, birds and other animals.
Working to explore more about shadows, we worked hard while having fun doing a “Shadow Theater.” Using different shapes to form a shadow the children were able to tell a story creating different characters and talking out loud, using their Spanish knowledge. It was a fun and exciting time with all the children participating and enjoying making shadows in the shadow theater.
This week we also continued working with exercises to learn how to blend the letter “a” with all the consonants. The students practiced and recognized words such as Casa (House), Cama (bed), llanta (tire) and so on.
The words of the week were:
Nosotros (We)
Tres (Three)
As all weeks, we continued practicing writing letters drawing their shapes, the letters this week was V and T.
Las matemáticas
This week we began teaching “La recta numerica” (Number line), as you may know the practice involved using the whiteboard by jumping from one number to another. This method is helpful because our children were able to practice and do sums with these methods.
The numbers for this week were 44 to 48 and as do every week, we practiced drawing their strokes. We also did visual practices relating the number to its corresponding amount. We also continued practicing the concepts of tens and ones using legos, paper, straws and clips to help the children understand.
Science
This week in The Five Senses science domain we went on a sensory walk and we began learning about the sense of sight.
Sensory walk. “I smell apples!”
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch
• identify each of the body parts associated with the five senses
• describe the sense of sight
• identify the parts of the eye and their functions
• provide simple explanations about how the eye works
History & Geography
In our Native American unit this week we learned more about the Wampanoag and watched a video called The “Wampanoag Way”.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the environment in which the Wampanoag lived
• understand how the Wampanoag tribe lived
• identify the Wampanoag as a settled tribe
• describe the food, clothing, and shelter the Wampanoag
This week we read El cangrejo ermitáno. Our objectives were:
review types of sentences
continue working on our pumpkin writing piece
practice the comprehension skill summarizing during our first read
use the comprehension skill making conclusions during our second read
Las matemáticas
This we week continued working with Shapes and Patterns. Our objectives were:
review solid shapes names such as cube, sphere, cylinder, and rectangular prism
combine plane shapes to make new shapes
combine solid shapes to make models
Science
This week in our science domain: Animals and Habitats, we learned about the Arctic tundra. The class wrote about different animals that live there in their journals and we played the “What Am I” game to review the animals we have learned about.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• describe what a habitat is
• understand that living things live in habitats to which they are particularly suited
Working on an Arctic book
• identify the characteristics of the Arctic tundra habitat
• explain how arctic animals have adapted to the Arctic tundra habitat
History & Geography
This week in our Three World Religions section of Early World Civilizations unit we learned alot about Judaism. On Friday we tried some Matzoh and talked about its significance to Passover and Exodus.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify Judaism as a monotheistic religion
• identify the Hebrews as the ancient people who were descendants of Abraham
• understand the followers of Judaism are called Jews and that the term Jewish is used to describe practices or objects associated with Judaism
• demonstrate familiarity with important Jewish holidays such as Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah
• recognize the Star of David as a symbol of Judaism in the Torah as an important part of the Hebrew scriptures
• identify that a Jewish house of worship is called a synagogue or temple
This week we introduced a Thanksgiving reader’s theater. We will use this drama to focus on our reading strategies throughout the month of November. We will most likely be performing this drama on the last Friday of school before our Thanksgiving vacation begins. Look for more information coming home soon. (We might ask for parents to contribute to a class feast.)
We have continued to work on:
visualizing as a reading strategy
summarizing what we have read (ask your child to retell they stories to you, in their own words)
identifying main ideas and supporting details
identifying cause and effect
FLUENCY: covering parts of words to help us pronounce them better, using context clues to help us understand new word meanings, identifying parts of words we know
Please be sure to have your child click on the book icon (in www.kidsa-z.com
Las matemáticas
Math in Focus Chapter 4: Subtraction Up to 10,000
Big Idea: Subtraction up to 10,000
Greater numbers can be subtracted with or without regrouping
Students learn the part-whole concept, and the addition and subtraction of numbers up to 10,000
Key Concepts:
Subtraction of numbers with or without regrouping up to 10,000
Subtract 4-digit numbers with or without regrouping
Solve real-world word problems involving subtraction of 4-digit numbers
Lessons:
4.1: Subtraction without Regrouping
4.2: Subtraction with Regrouping in Hundreds and Thousands
4.3: Subtraction with Regrouping in Ones, Tens, Hundreds, and Thousands
4.4: Subtraction Across Zeros
History & Geography
This week we spent time reviewing previous lessons and catching up on lessons we didn’t get to last week
This week we continued working on the Age of Exploration. Our objectives were:
continue compiling notes for our poster project
check notes for accuracy
design an informational poster about assigned chapter
begin creating poster
Mathematics
This week we continued our chapter on Adding and Subtracting Fractions. Our objectives were:
add and subtract mixed numbers
apply skills from this chapter to complete word problems
practice adding and subtracting mixed numbers by completing a scavenger hunt
convert division expression to mixed numbers and decimals
Lectura
Dear families,
Please take the time to stop at our bulletin board and see our published magazines articles!
Objectives:
Establish purposes, audiences and the need for different genres: Una critica de libros
Apply reading comprehension skills and strategies (asking questions, clarifying, summarizing, compare and contrast information)
Understand the spelling patterns of homophones. This week we reviewed homophones with and without h.
Learn how to use relative pronouns in context (que, quien, quienes)
Apply knowledge of the use of capitalization and proper punctuation.
Compare and contrast two objects or ideas, in oral and written for. Demonstrate understanding of how to compare and contrast texts.
Ciencias
Focus questions: How and why did our ancestors look at the sky? What did they see? Why do stars appear to move across the sky?
This week we assessed our students understanding of the concept of gravity. After that, students were introduced to constellations as traditional stars patterns. They identified images in patterns of stars and give them names. Students simulated Earth’s rotation. While rotating, they observe the appearance of stars rising in the east, traveling across the sky, and setting in the west. Students observed a demonstration of the relationships and orientations of Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way to explain why different stars are visible in different seasons. We read and informative piece titled ¨Stargazing¨ and watched watched a video that showed how star brightness, distance, and alignment converge to produce constellations. We concluded working on a fun constellation art project.
Stars are at different distances from the Earth. Stars are different sizes and different brightness.
Groups of stars form patterns and form constellations.
Stars (constellations) appear to move together across the night sky because of earthś rotation.
This week we continued working with “The Five Senses” / “Los Cinco Sentidos” Unit. We learned about their sense of smell. They learned that we breathe in odors in the air and our brain makes sense of what we smell, how to protect our noses and how our noses can protect us. We learned that the nose sends messages to our brain and the brain tells us what we smell. The sense of smell was the last lesson of the five senses. We all really enjoyed this unit of study. The little ones did a great job completing projects and science activities.
Cultural Holidays: We also celebrated Halloween in the classroom. All the kiddoss looked so cute with their costumes! We did Halloween activities and we read the book “Samuel El Espantapájaros”. On Friday, we learned about “The Day of the Dead” and did activities related with this. We also talked about this celebration that is celebrated in Mexico. I explained to them that it’s a festive holiday in which families come together to honor their ancestors.
By creating an altar called “La Ofrenda,” in which we put pictures of our ancestors to remember them so they can cross to the land of the living to visit their families.
“Dia de los Muertos” is spread over two days. November 1 is Día de los Inocentes, honoring children.. Graves are decorated with white orchids and baby’s breath. November 2 is Día de los Muertos, honoring adults, whose graves are decorated with bright orange marigolds.
This week we read two books; “El principe solitario” (The lonely prince) and “No necesito amigos” (I don’t need friends). Both books talk about friendship and show the children the different feelings that the characters are experiencing, such as being happy and sad.
The children focused on using the words from the both books. The students found rhyming words related to the friendship concepts.
Amigos-Caminos
Triste-Chiste
Feliz-Lombriz
jugar-Ganar
We discussed how each word is related to friendship and concluded the lesson by emphasizing rhyming words with games. These games always lead them to learn new words.
The children need a lot of practice reading in order to build fluency, so we continued practicing “Palabras con a” (Words with a). For these activities we used cards, chant, and story books containing many words with syllables with “a”. We also practiced letter strokes, both in their notebooks and on the whiteboard.
The two words of this week were: “ veo” (I see) and “más” (more). It is amazing to see how the children strive to give ideas in Spanish to make their sentences. This is a very good activity where they begin to think in Spanish. Every time they say a word or sentence in Spanish the students get tallies, which accumulate until they reach a hundred. Once they have reached 1,000 tallies they get a “Piñata” as a prize. They made it this week!
This week was also Halloween and the children took turns talking about their costumes, using their Spanish vocabulary. It was a really nice experience to watch the little ones work hard to use their Spanish knowledge.
The craft of the week was to make a nice bat where they had to use their fine motor skills and follow multi-step directions.
Las matemáticas
The children continue to practice their counting and learned numbers from 39 to 43. We continue with the routine lessons to identify if a number is even or odd. We also practice identifying how many tens and ones each number has. They practice the strokes and quantity for those numbers. Children practiced counting by saying out loud the numbers counting 5 by 5 and 10 by 10.
The little ones did a great job practicing their sum abilities with dominoes and tallies.
Science
This week we had fun with some pumpkin activities and spooky ghost experiments during our Halloween rotation party. On Monday we had health with Ms. Bree, our lesson was on Nutrition. The class also finished their barn writing book. On Friday we began our next science domain: The Five Senses. A big thanks to Cassie and Jennie for your help in class during the Halloween activities, we couldn’t have done it without you!
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch
• identify each of the body parts associated with the five senses
• describe how the five senses help humans stay safe and learn about their world
History & Geography
This week in our Native American unit we finished our parfleche and began to learn about the Wampanoag. We read a story called “Bear, Gull, and Crow”, which also fit in nicely with our new science domain.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the environment in which the Wampanoag lived
• understand how the Wampanoag tribe lived
• identify the Wampanoag as a settled tribe
• describe the food, clothing, and shelter the Wampanoag
English Sight Words of the Week
purple, zero, what, big, not
Specialists
Art with Ms. Kelly
We’ve had a fun and busy month creating art!
Apple Paintings
Observe shape, color and texture of real apples
Learn about our state’s apple orchards
Draw and paint 3 life-size apples on a table
Use only blue and yellow to create green
Listen to Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni
Owl Drawings
Look at photos of real owls
Observe eyes and feathers
Follow a Guided Drawing of Owls
Add your own color designs
Drawing and Painting pumpkins
Observe lines and shapes of real pumpkins
Draw a large pumpkin with ridges
Mix yellow and red paint to create orange
The students’ creative owls and pumpkins have been on the bulletin board!
Line Experiments
Listen to Lines that Wiggle by Carol Whitman
Create a variety of lines using oil pastels, watercolors and markers.
Add googlie eyes to your line drawing to make funny faces.
Music with Ms. Nadia
Wow, has it been two months already?! This month flew by as we learned that music can be a way to express feelings. Some songs are happy, and some songs are sad. Some songs are peaceful, and some songs are crazy! In learning about classical music, we focused on two songs by Edvard Grieg: Morningand In the Hall of the Mountain King. Both songs were composed for a play (Peer Gynt) about a man who goes on an adventure. Each week as we listened to the songs, we interacted with them in different ways, from drumming to dancing with sock puppets. This past week, we listened to a few different versions of In the Hall of the Mountain King, including piano, electronic, and rock. We also sang lyrics to the song as we reenacted trick-or-treating.
As it is flu season, our class bear cub Bartholomew got sick had to stay home for a few weeks. We wrote this song for him to feel better:
(to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle)
Bear cub, bear cub, get well soon
I would like to play with you
Here’s some soup and a card
Baby monkey for your yard
Bear cub, bear cub, get well soon
I would like to play with you!
We had fun writing songs together and read books about other songwriters, including the composer Mozart (Play, Mozart, Play!), a girl named Violet who was born to play music (Violet’s Music), and a cat (Kat Writes a Song). Truly, anyone can enjoy the wonderful world of music!
This week we read Las arañas. Our objectives were:
review and expand our knowledge of adjectives by playing adjective bingo
practice the comprehension skill summary during our first read
use the comprehension skill main idea and details during our second read
begin our Pumpkin writing piece
Las matemáticas
This week we began discussion Shapes and Patterns. Our objectives were:
review shape names for circle, square, rectangle, and triangle
identify and count the number of sides and corners
begin sorting shapes by color and size
discover how shapes are alike and different
Science
This week we began our next science domain: Animals and Habitats. We begin this unit with the Arctic Tundra. The class took a local “safari”, identifying things that animals might eat and things that might be shelters for animals around our school. On Monday we had health with Ms. Bree, our lesson was on nutrition.
Our weekly objectives were to:
• describe what a habitat is
• understand that living things live in habitats to which they are particularly suited
• identify the characteristics of the Arctic tundra habitat
• explain how arctic animals have adapted to the Arctic tundra habitat
History & Geography
Market day was a huge success, the class had so much fun trading and bargaining with one another. They ate some food from egypt and had a Mummy race. As we move on in our Ancient Civilizations we take a look at three world religions. Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as major monotheistic world religions
• locate Jerusalem, Israel and the area known as the Middle East on a map
• Define monotheism as a belief in one God
• identify the Western Wall as associated with Judaism, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with Christianity, and the Dome of the Rock with Islam
Draw overlapping apples on a plate (aerial view) or in a bowl (side view)
Use only red, blue, yellow and white to mix a variety of colors
Each class from K through 4th/5th made stunning apple paintings!
Scarab Beetles
Learn about importance of Scarab beetles in Ancient Egypt
Look at photos of beetles, and the class mascots, Rose and Blue
Learn about the 3 parts of beetles: head, thorax, abdomen
Create a Beetle Collage using various papers
Owl Guided drawing
Use shapes and patterns to draw an owl
Learn about warm and cool colors
Use watercolors to paint the owl and background
Their Beautiful owls are on the bulletin board!
Listen to Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
Fun Fall art:
Pumpkin Drawings with Chalk pastel – beautiful, quick drawings!
Ginkgo Leaf Rubbings with crayons
Halloween decorations using paper strips
Music with Ms. Nadia
Wow, has it been two months already?! This month flew by as we learned that music can be a way to express feelings—even if the song does not have words. Sometimes the same song can make one person feel happy, and another person feel sad. We used our imaginations while listening to music by Edvard Grieg (Morningand In the Hall of the Mountain King) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) and danced with sock-puppets! We learned the difference between a composer (someone who writes music) and an arranger (someone who plays someone else’s music in a different way). Mozart was mainly a composer, while Grieg both composed his own music and arranged Mozart’s songs. There are many interesting and epic arrangements of In the Hall of the Mountain King,as we experienced while freeze-dancing! Our books this month taught us about Mozart (Play, Mozart, Play!) and Mozart’s sister, Maria Anna Mozart, who was also a composer and talented musician (For the Love of Music).
Other highlights of this month include writing a few songs about Big Foot, playing the glockenspiel, drumming to In the Hall of the Mountain King, and learning simple folk dances to She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.
We have really been focusing on our reading comprehension strategies and would love for you to help reinforce these at home during your child’s nightly reading. Remember: reading is the number one most important thing for your child! They should be reading aloud every single day in both English and Spanish. We don’t give much other homework in order to make sure you have time for reading.
Creating an origami-vampire bookmark.
7 Reading tips for home:
1. Make connections.
When kids connect what they already know to what they read, it helps them focus. Show your child how to make connections when you read aloud. If a book mentions places you’ve been to with your child, talk about those memories. Then have your child give it a try.
2. Ask questions.
Asking questions encourages kids to look for clues in the text. When you read together, ask questions to spark your child’s curiosity. Ask things like “What do you think will happen?” or “How is that character feeling?”
3. Make “mind movies.”
Visualizing helps bring a story to life. That’s where mind movies come in. When you read with your child, describe what the scene looks like in your head. Talk about how it makes you feel. You can use other senses, too. For example, if the scene takes place outside, what does it smell like? Then invite your child to make a mind movie, too. Point out how your child’s movie is different from yours. If your child likes to draw or color, encourage your child to make a picture of the scene, too.
4. Look for clues.
When you combine what you already know with clues from a story, you can make guesses or predictions. These are inferences. And making them is a great way to build reading comprehension.
For example, when we read “Kim’s eyes were red and nose was runny,” we can infer that Kim has a cold or allergies. Help your child do this as you read. If a character is wearing gym clothes and sweating, ask your child what the character might have been doing before.
5. Figure out what’s important.
Ask your child: Who are the main characters? What’s the most important thing that has happened in the story so far? What problem are the characters trying to solve? When kids can point out what’s important, they’re more likely to understand what they read.
Your child can also use a tool called a graphic organizer to do this. A “story element” organizer keeps track of the main characters, where the story is taking place, and the problem and solution of the story.
6. Check understanding.
It helps to encourage kids to stop and ask themselves, “Is this making sense?” If your child gets stuck, suggest rereading the part that didn’t make sense. What about it was confusing? Were there specific words that tripped your child up?
7. Try new things.
The more kids know about the world, the more they can get meaning out of what they read. You don’t have to take an expensive trip or go to a museum to do this, though. You can expand kids’ background knowledge and vocabulary in lots of ways.
Shooting hoops or watching a baseball game can help your child connect more with books about sports. Riding the subway might make your child interested in books that take place in big cities.
SPELLING
We art starting a new, more meaningful, method of spelling. We are refocusing on specific parts of words, to help us in our reading and writing. Your child brought home a new (shorter) list of words on Tuesday. They can put the list in alphabetical order (on the right side of the page) and turn it in on testing day (Friday, November 8th) for a bonus point on their spelling test. Why? Looking at the ABC order will help them dig into the words, comparing their spelling.
We will be doing several activities with the spelling words during the 2-week period, including word sorts. Your child brought home an orange word sort on Friday. They should use these to practice their spelling words. Comparison of words helps us to look at them more carefully.
Halloween math and stem projects.
Las matemáticas
We completed our unit on addition to 10,000 with a test on Monday. Everyone did great! We made time on Tuesday for the students to make any corrections to their test, with most of them realizing they made very simple/silly errors. We need to learn from our mistakes!
We will continue taking the addition 2-minute timed tests but we have also added in the 2-minute subtraction tests. Our new unit is subtraction to 10,000. Skill and drill with flashcards at home is VERY helpful! Students are making the connections between addition and subtraction and we are really looking for automaticity! Mastery of these skills is very important as we will be building upon them in each unit throughout the year.
Science
Our objectives this week were to:
• Explain that the five senses work with the brain to process information about our surroundings
• Identify the surrounding parts of the eye: eyesockets, eyebrows, eyelids, and eyelashes
• Identify the outer parts of the eye: Sclera, cornea, iris, and pupil
• Identify the inner parts of the eye: lens, retina, and optic nerve
• Explain how the parts of the outer and inner eye work together with the brain to allow a person to see
• Describe nearsightedness and farsightedness and how these can be corrected
• Identify the outer parts of the year: ear flap, ear lobe, ear canal, and eardrum
• Identify the middle parts of the air as the three ear bones: hammer, anvil, and stirrup
• Identify the inner parts of the year: cochlea and auditory nerve
History & Geography
Our goals this week were to:
• Explain why ancient Rome was considered a civilization
• Identify and locate on a map the following areas: France, Spain, England, Germany, North Africa, and Egypt
• Describe the life and contributions of Julius Caesar
• Identify some of the contributions of the ancient Roman civilization, and describe how they have influenced the present
• Describe the role of Cleopatra of Egypt in the ancient Roman civilization
• Explain the significance of the Pax Romana and how it affected the life of Romans
Specialists
Art with Ms. Kelly
Apples Paintings
Observe shape, color and texture of real apples
Learn about our state’s apple orchards
Look at Paul Cezanne’s paintings of fruit
Draw overlapping apples on a plate (aerial view) or in a bowl (side view)
Use only red, blue, yellow and white to mix a variety of colors
Each class from K through 4th/5th made stunning apple paintings!
Leaf Art
Observe shape, color and texture of autumn leaves
Make texture rubbings of leaves
Use leaves for stencils and stamping
Make rubbings of Ginkgo leaves
Owl Guided drawing
Use shapes and pattern to draw an owl
Learn about warm and cool colors, and how to mix brown
Use watercolor techniques
Listen to Owl Moon by Jane Yolen
These beautiful owls are on the bulletin board at school!
Pumpkin Drawings and Still Life
Observe real pumpkins and fruits
Learn how to use chalk pastels
Create a fall still life picture using crayon and tissue paper
We’ll continue these colorful still life projects in November.
Music with Ms. Nadia
Wow, has it been two months already?! This month flew by as we learned about Solfege, dynamics, and Aaron Copland.
Solfege, a fancy word for the musical system of “do ra mi”, is a useful tool to learn melody. As a group, we played melodies with pitched percussion instruments (boom-wackers and the glockenspiel), while keeping the beat with our non-pitched percussion instruments (clave, shakers, triangle, etc.). Other games and hands-on activities made learning fun, such as Solfege Charades, Solfege Finders, the Solfege Songwriting Challenge, and Do a Deer (hand-motion style).
Aaron Copland was composer in the early 20thcentury who composed such masterpieces as Appalachian Spring and Rodeo, both of which were written as ballets. In a game of Two Truths and a Lie, we learned that Aaron Copland started composing at age 11, studied in Paris for a few years, and had an amazing teacher named Nadia (Nadia Boulanger)! We drew art to his music, learned the words to Simple Gifts (from the seventh movement of Appalachian Spring), changed the words to Simple Gifts in a game of mad-libs, passed a bear around hot-potato-style to Rodeo, and let our imaginations run wild! His compositions feature a wide range of dynamics from his piano legato (soft and smooth) introduction in the first movement of Appalachian Spring to the forte staccato (loud and choppy) second movement. I encourage everyone to listen to Appalachian Spring at home; it’s a wonderful way to start the morning or wind down a long day!
Character Education
Teamwork and collaboration proved to be the most helpful in our Class-wide blanket fort.
Granja-farm,
Vaca-cow,
Libros de la semana
