Kindergarten Week 29

by Sarah Segall | Apr 16, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

squares

Wow!  What a busy week.  We continued our Teamwork theme with a great story: Swimmy by Leo Lionni.  In this fable Swimmy was left all alone when the rest of the fish in his school were eaten by a large tuna. Swimmy then set out to find another school of fish, and he did. However, when his new group of friends are afraid to venture out into the ocean, Swimmy invents a plan to protect them. Swimmy showed them that teamwork could save them.  The kiddos enjoyed illustrating this story with a special paint project.

This week we worked with the pronouns: él – he and ella – she. They had no problem with the concept of pronouns replacing proper nouns.

We worked with riddle poetry this week. The students were great at figuring out what the ¿Qué soy? riddles were.  Next week the students will work to write their own personal riddles.

rectangle

Math

We have officially began our geometry unit.  The students are already very familiar with two dimensional shapes. This week we talked about circles / circulos, squares / cuadrados, and rectangles / rectángulos. We talked about what makes a square, what makes a rectangle, and how they are different. The students all did a great job telling how a square has 4 equal sides and a rectangle has four sides with two sides shorter than the other two sides.  We have almost completed our two dimensional shapes on our class Teamwork mural.  We plan to add three-dimensional farm animals when we get to that part of our math lessons.

Science

This week we started our unit on Taking Care of the Earth.  This week we learned that Earth is composed of land, water and air.  We identified examples of these in our own environments.  We learned about how humans, plants, and animals depend on Earth’s land, water and air to live.  We also discussed how people have a special responsibility to take care of the earth.  See if your kindergartner can tell you some of the ways we can care for our earth.

We also learned about garbage.  We were amazed at how much garbage humans generate!  We learned the process that garbage goes through from its creation to being dumped in the land fill.  We learned what a landfill is and why it is a dangerous place.  We discussed alternatives to landfills.

Every April, we challenge families to send in trash-free lunches.  We are doing our part in reducing the amount of trash we as a school are sending to landfills.  This means sending lunch items in reusable containers and minimizing the pre-packaged foods with wrappers.  It’s fun for the kids to compare the difference in the amount of trash we generate.  We will begin on Monday, as we paid close attention this week to how much garbage we produced.

Save the date!! We have our last field trip on Friday, April 29th.  We will meet at the Vancouver Water Resources Education Center at 9:30 in the morning.  We will have lunch after the presentation, play at the park, and then return back to school for a regular afternoon with the usual dismissal time.  Like most Spanish With Sarah field trips, students will be transported by their parents or a driver arranged by their parents.  Stay tuned for more information!

*****Save the date!!  All moms are invited to a special Mother’s Day Tea on Tuesday, May 3rd at 2pm.

Art

The kindergarteners learned about Eric Carle’s artwork this week. We talked about how he makes a variety of painted papers in different colors and textures, and then uses these papers to cut out shapes to create his animals. The students had fun making their own painted papers by mixing primary colors. Next week the students will use their painted papers to create a “Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Music

First Grade Week 29

by Sarah Segall | Apr 16, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

In language arts we finished our summary of the firefighter story we read a few weeks ago. They also started to draw a self portrait that will serve as the artwork that goes along with their summaries. They used mirrors to be able to correctly draw their facial features. The portraits are looking so cute and were a test in following directions that they all passed with flying colors! I’m proud of how much effort they put into doing such quality work.

We also discussed using commas to separate a series of words to make their writing more easily understood, for example: We went to the market to buy apples, bananas and strawberries. We also discussed that a comma would not be used before the word and/y.
Phonics
In phonics we reviewed the diphthong -ua. They made for some very yummy diphthong/diptongo smoothies.

Math

This week in math we finished our unit on regrouping in addition and subtraction. We did more work on word problems. The kiddos had many opportunities to practice the word problems using bar models to help them to visualize and better understand addition and subtraction in the context of real world math. We also took the unit test and everyone did a great job!

History & Geography

This week we learned about George Washington and the important roles that he played in founding this country, as  the commander and chief of the Continental Army, as the president of the Constitutional committee, and finally becoming the president of the the new United States of America. The class was sad to hear that after all his sacrifices to this country he only had two and a half years to enjoy Mt. Vernon after all this before he passed.  We also learned how he created a permanent Army and Navy as well as establishing the capital of the United States. On Tuesday we finished making our flags and added to our class time line. We learned the song Yankee Doodle and sang it in our own musical parade. The class loved marching around with instruments and practicing singing our song.

Science

We began a new science domain this week called Our Home the Earth. The class learned about geology and what a geologist does. We read about the different layers of the Earth; the crust , the mantle , and the core. Everyone was surprised to hear that all living things only inhabit the crust, a small portion of the Earth. We learned that geologists look at time, not in the term of hours and days, but in thousands and millions of years. We read how heat, pressure, and time effects the changes to our planet.

On Friday the students got to fill the bears that they’ve been collecting for the Children’s Center of Vancouver, with rocks and then sew them up. They had to first take out some of the stuffing from their animal and then determine how much rock weight their stuffed animal could hold.  Next they weighed out the rocks using one of the scales set up in the classroom.  We then sewed the animals with the help of Miss Laura and Miss Jennie.  Miss Laura will be delivering the animals to the center sometime in the next couple of weeks. The class was very excited to know that these stuffed animals were going to a wonderful cause.

English Spelling

We worked on our new sorts this week. Students did one activity of finding their words in books in the room.  They also practiced their words by writing them down and underlining the vowel patterns with different colored markers. Our next spelling test will be Friday, April 22nd. In our journals this week we wrote about sewing up our bears and we also had free choice writing. For grammar review we looked at different ways that we make words plural .

Art

The first grade students learned how to draw a symmetrical butterfly this week, and then they used neon crayons to add patterns and color. The next step of this project involves wetting the butterfly, crumpling it up to create cracks in the crayon, and then adding watercolor. As the students finish their butterflies, I’ll hang them in the window of their classroom. These are turning out very beautiful!

Music

Today we explored music from the South American harp traditions, inspired by sounds and sights in nature. These included “Cascadas” (“Waterfalls,”); “El pájaro campana,” (“The Bell Bird,”); “Galopando,” (“Galloping,”); Melissa Morgan’s “Waltz of the Dolphins;” and Ecuadorean indigenous harper Taita Emilio Guandinango’s composition, “De la cosecha de maíz,” (“Of the Harvest of Corn.”)

2/3 Week 29

by Sarah Segall | Apr 16, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

This week in 2nd/3rd grade we worked with:

• personal and possessive pronouns
• suffixes: -ado, -ido, -ando, -iendo
• sequences – using words of order and time (Students wrote about their daily routines and quite enjoyed hearing about eachothers!)
• compound words (We illustrated these in our estudio de palabras.)
• writing (Students wrote in their journals on a daily basis but on Friday they wrote an ending to their new little reader.  They were great!! They then edited their own writing for noun/verb agreement.)

Math

We jumped back into measurement with real-world application. Our math objectives this week were to:

• draw bar models to solve one-step and two-step measurement problems.
• choose the operation to solve one-step and two-step problems.
• use spatial visualization.
• identify patterns and relationships

Students were assessed on these concepts on Friday. They will complete their assessments on Monday.

History & Geography

This week we started off with reviewing our lesson on Francisco Vasquez de Coronado we looked at a map of where he traveled and we made a travel log entry into our Expedition journals. The rest of the week we worked on a pausing point in our unit.  Students are creating an expedition proposal that they would present to a sponsor on where they would like to travel. Part of this proposal involves making a map and deciding on a route, creating a list of supplies, designing an ad to recruit volunteers, writing a letter to the sponsor detailing what the purpose of the journey would be and why it would be in their interest to invest. The class is having a great time creating this proposal and are so excited about the finished product. On Friday we also did some review of what we’ve learned so far in this unit.

Science

We began our new science domain on ecology this week. Our first lesson was on animals and their habitats. Some of the information that we read about was a review of this year’s domain on animal classification as well as what they learned in first grade on animal habitats. On Thursday we played the game “Which ecosystem am I?”.  We wrote some responses to chapter questions and begin reading the chapter book Judy Moody Saves the World. On Friday we worked on our stuffed animals for the Children’s Center of Vancouver.  The class weighed out rocks and then put the rocks into their animals. Laura will be delivering them to the center. Everyone was so excited to do this activity, knowing that it was going to a great cause.

English Spelling

For grammar this week we have been  reviewing adverbs.  We discussed the purpose of adverbs and how they make our writing more interesting and meaningful.  The class did several adverb worksheets for practice.  In our journals we wrote about something we learned during spring break, weather it was something about a place we traveled, a new skill, or something about ourselves. Spelling practice was short this week. The class did a great job of getting right to their activities and doing partner practice.  Everyone did really well on their spelling test on Friday.

Art

The 2nd and 3rd grade class, and the 4th and 5th grade class are working on a portrait project in art. We looked at a variety of famous portraits such as Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s self portrait, some Picasso portraits, and Matisse portraits, etc. The 2nd/3rd graders are using a collage technique to create a face, and the 4th/5th graders are using pipe cleaners to create a face. These are fun ways to get the students to think about facial features, proportions, and expression!

Music

We learned a South African song, Siyahamba (We are marching) in Zulu, English and Spanish. Sr. Kit also taught the class his Spanish translation of “Life is a Dance,” by Karl Anthony.

Kindergarten Week 28

by Sarah Segall | Apr 2, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

Group mural, day 1!

The kindergarteners finished their writing process and published their work.  These can be viewed in the hallway. This was our first time through the process and I think they did a great job!

We also wrote in our journals about teams we participate on. We did several worksheets which involved writing sentences (using a word bank we brainstormed together). All this writing practice is providing lots of opportunities to work on our capitals, word spacing, line writing, and punctuation.

To practice our teamwork theme we have added a mural station to our daily rotation. Students looked at the mural and said, “that’s huge and a lot of work”. They changed their tune when they saw how quickly the work went (and how fun it was) when they worked as a team.

Math

We had so much fun estimating quantities in our estimation station!  We also had fun learning all about scales. We worked with partners to see how many school supplies (markers or crayons or pencils) would be needed to equal a pound. This was their first experience reading the scale and they did a great job!  We also worked with the balance scale and tried to find classroom objects that would equal the weight of 20 unifix cubes.

We also worked a LOT with number bonds this week. We continued using small beads in our morning binders to break apart numbers. We also used two tens frames and two different colored markers to add numbers greater than 10. This is a strategy we frequently use in mental math, but this breaks it apart so the kindergarteners can see how it works.

Math buddies.

The first graders came in and demonstrated fabulous teamwork by helping with number bonds (and reading buddies). Math buddies is a great

way for the kindergarteners to have one-on-one assistance while also providing the first graders with the fabulous opportunity to talk through their math.  Math talk is important!!

History & Geography and Science

This week we learned about the different activities on farms according to the season.  We learned how farmers protect their crops from drought and pests and we learned the sequence of planting, growing, and harvesting.

We also learned more about why farmers grow crops and identified that crops are plants grown on farms for use as food.  We learned the sequence of events of crops from farm to store (planted, harvested, transported and packaged).  See if your kiddo can explain this process to you.  When you are at the grocery store, see if your child can identify produce that has come from a crop on a farm and explain how it got from the farm to the grocery store.

Lastly, we learned about Modern Agriculture.  We learned about the machines and tools of farming and how farming has changed through the years.

The students took their end of unit assessment and did wonderfully!  We also finished up the wonderful farm book they created.  I hope you enjoy these together over the break.

I hope you all have a fantastic Spring Break!  When we return, we will be learning about taking care of our Earth.

Music

We concentrated this week on novelty songs: B-I-N-G-O (en español), and the lullaby “Hush Little Baby.” We also watched YouTube videos of mockingbirds singing (“poppa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.”

First Grade Week 28

by Sarah Segall | Apr 2, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

This week in language arts we continued our section on writing a summary. The kiddos began writing their rough drafts of a summary about the Firefighter story they read last week.

In phonics we worked on the diphthong -oy and -oi as in the words hoy/today and oigo/I hear.

In grammar we discussed action verbs/verbos. We reviewed how verbs are words that show some type of action. To practice our verbs we went outside to the enjoy the beautiful sunshine and ran a verb relay race. The kids took turns running between two given points acting out a verb that they chose. Some ran back and forth doing things like combing their hair/peinando el pelo or flying like an airplane/volando como un avión. It was a blast!

Math

In math we worked on word problems/problemas cotidianas. The students practiced reading the word problems and then underlining the important information/información importante. They then practiced drawing out bar models that represented the important info so that they could better visualize what was going on in the problem. They also used number bonds/números conectados to represent the different parts of the math problem. These tools will become increasingly more useful as they continue to work through word problems that are more complex.

Have a safe and happy spring break!

History & Geography

This week we read the story of Betsy Ross and her meeting with George Washington to discuss making a new flag. The class was particularly interested in this legend of how the Stars and Stripes came about. On Tuesday we all became seamstresses in class and started working on our version of the original 13 colony flag. The class continue to work on sewing their Flags through out the week when they had free time.  On Thursday we did a reader’s theater retelling of the Betsy Ross story. We also reviewed what we’ve learned in the Birth of Our Nation unit so far. we practiced our 13 Colony chant, identified key contributors to the Declaration of Independence, and added where Jamestown, Roanoke Island, and Plymouth Rock were located on our map of the 13 colonies.  The everyone was quite concerned when I said we were  at pausing point. They were disappointed and thought this meant the end of the unit.  I assured them we were only partially done.  The students are fascinated with this history.

Science

We wrapped up our unit on astronomy this week by taking a closer look at the solar system and each planet. On Monday we went more in depth into characteristics of the four inner planets and on Tuesday the outer ones.  The class made their own individual planet books and learned a new song about the planets. Thursday was our review day, we played some games and read a trade book to help us refresh our minds about everything we have learned.  On Friday the class took their unit assessment and did very well!  Afterwards we celebrated the end of the unit by having some “Space” time.  We watched a Magic School Bus episode called “Lost in Space”, ate some astronaut food ( dehydrated ice cream, dehydrated strawberries, and squeezable apple sauce), and by using inches and feet, we measured and marked the distance between planets in the hall to get a better visualization of how far apart each planet is from the Sun. Some students brought in extra credit projects about space and shared them with the class.   It was a fun way to end our last day before spring break, I think the class is going miss this unit.

English Spelling

The class had fun with their sorts this week. They got to practice their words with a friend and go on word hunt around the classroom, looking for words that fell into the pattern that their sorts were in this week. Everyone did fantastic on the spelling tests!

For journal time, students wrote several entries this week.They wrote information they knew about each planet,  they wrote about the Betsy Ross legend, and they also wrote an entry on what they were going to do for spring break .

Music

From the core curriculum, we listened to the original story of “The Sorcer’s Apprentice,” then watched videos of an orchestra playing the Paul Dukas composition, followed by the Disney version with Mickey Mouse.

4th/5th Week 28

by Sarah Segall | Apr 2, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts / Artes del lenguaje

We had such a great time playing fun games, working on art projects, and reviewing concepts seen this term. We are also very sad to say good bye to a wonderful friend, Ale. We will miss you!

After working on reading and listening comprehension activities of our new unit, Going West, we spent time focusing on vocabulary and spelling. Students are taking home our new sentences for the dictado. It would be great if they could spend some time practicing them, at least once during spring break. We also spent time working on our verbs mini-books. Please have your child show you this project. This is a book that compiles common regular verbs in Spanish and their corresponding conjugations in present tense. As a way to keep Spanish alive during break, students were asked to do a short assignment. They also took home a book in Spanish. This book has several short stories.We will be working on this book as a class during our new book club this Spring.

I hope everybody enjoys their time off immensely! Everybody deserves it! Students were also encouraged to spend as much time outside exploring as possible. It would be great if students came back prepared to share their fun adventures with the class after break.

Science / Ciencia

We had such an amazing science week! We not only got to finalize our wonderful winter science studies (Environments), but also witnessed the most outstanding science presentations. Students were responsible for choosing an area of study seen during this term, conduct research and present their findings in front of the class. Students did such a marvelous work. They did very high quality work and delivered presentations maintaining perfect Spanish command. We could not be any more proud!

We are very excited about our Spring science module, Living Systems. It will be just as great (if not greater) as our previous science investigations. We will also get to put into practice all our knowledge creating, planning, and planting our school garden! Stay tuned!

Parents,

On April 22nd, our class will go on a field trip to Columbia Springs (read below). We have sent permission slips this week. Please make sure you return the signed slips after Spring break. Also, we are in need of six chaperons. Please let the teachers know if you are interested in chaperoning for this field trip.

–      Friday, April 22^nd from 9:30am-1:30pm.  4/5 split class will do Eco-Explorers. We will have a picnic afterwards.

·         Dress for the weather! Everyone should be prepared to spend the day outside (wear clothing & shoes that can get wet and dirty & layers for the cold). We will be outside rain or shine!  

·         Pack it in, pack it out! If you will be having lunch on the property please be aware that Columbia Springs has a pack it in, pack it out policy.  Please bring a garbage bag to collect lunch trash. 

·         Be involved! 

http://www.columbiasprings.org/

History & Geography

We began our chapter on Lewis and Clark this week! At the beginning of the week we reviewed the information we received last week on the Louisiana Purchase and why it was so important. I had the students work on a web quest this week, where they were given a specific website to explore and find the answers to a work sheet about the Louisiana Purchase. As many of the students will be moving into middle school next year I think it is important that they continue to improve in being able to find resources online. We also did a short read-aloud on Lewis and Clark, which we were able to read outside because of the beautiful sun this week! The students took notes during this read aloud as there was a lot of important information that we will add to our lapbooks when we return from spring break as well as 5 new vocabulary words. Again, I did work to catch up students who were absent, I believe most of them are caught up now or only have a couple more things to add to their lapbooks to be caught up. We will be having a vocabulary quiz on our 5 new vocabulary words when we return from spring break. I have listed the vocabulary words and their definition here just in case anyone forgot to bring home their vocabulary sheet.

Expedition: A journey for a particular purpose (as for exploring).

Plains: A large area of level or rolling treeless land.

Louisiana Territory: Land stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico.

Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, which more than doubled the size of the United States.

Corps of Discovery: A group of men who signed on with Lewis and Clark to explore the far west.

Math

This week such a busy and exciting week! After our Chapter 6 test last week the students worked on correcting and missed problems and the explanations of the correct answer. I feel that test corrections are so important especially in math, to get students really looking at their work and what mistakes were made. Many students found that they made the same mistake on multiple problems and were able to correct and understand what they did wrong. We then jumped to chapter 12 to continue our work with angles. We discussed what we already knew about angles and review information they may have forgotten that will be needed in this next chapter. I know many students were gone the past week so the last two days of class this week so I did work with them on anything they missed and making sure they understood all the information covered in chapter 6. I did assign pages 101-104 for homework over spring break. They should also have a “Lets Practice” piece of scratch paper were they worked out similar problems, this is a great tool to help them with their homework over spring break.

English Spelling/ Vocabulary

We did receive new spelling lists this week from Lesson 25. I pass out the usual packets that the students are used to getting but did not assign them a due date this time. I wanted the students to have access to their packets all week so that they could study for their spelling test on Friday. We did a $100 word warm-up using our spelling lists to familiarize ourselves with the words for the week. Each letter in the alphabet was assigned a value between $1 and $26 and the students had to add up how much each word was worth. They were then able to compare what their “cheapest” words were, their most “expensive” and if they had any $100 words. I also redid our Mountain Language system this week to include the students spelling lists. This way they are not only practicing their grammar skills but also practicing spelling their words. Again, we played BAM! this week for review which the students absolutely love.

Music

We tied up a few loose ends from the core curriculum in years when we were mostly singing in Spanish: read a translation of Goethe’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and watched videos of it played by an orchestra, and then the Disney version from “Fantasia.” We started work on individual compositions, with lyrics to be drawn from words starting with the letters of each student’s name.

2/3 Week 28

by Sarah Segall | Apr 2, 2016 | In The Loop

Language Arts

We read a very entertaining tall tale this week. The bursts of laughter from your children really showed their complete understanding and grasp of this story.

We read ” Cuatro dólares y cincuenta centavos”. This is a humorous story set in the Old West. Bajito Largo is a cowboy who owes everybody money. One day Widow Macrae, who runs the Café Dólar de Plata, decides she’s tired of Bajito not paying his bills. Bajito owes her four dollars and fifty cents, and she wants him to pay up. When Widow Macrae goes to the ranch where Bajito works, Bajito pretends he’s dead so he won’t have to pay her. Well, if Bajito is dead, he has to be buried. Widow Macrae takes Bajito’s body to Boot Hill, where dead cowboys are buried. That’s when the outlaw, Narizotas Joge Perico, and some of his gang come riding along and Bajito’s troubles multiply.

Sharing our stories with the kindergarteners.

Ask your child to tell you what happened when the outlaws came. It was VERY fun to read this!

We also worked on publishing our stories. Most of these are now on display in the hallway. Please take a few minutes to read through (or have your child read to you) some of the stories. They really enjoyed this process and I couldn’t be more pleased with their work.

Students received their new spelling list this week. They will be tested on these words the Tuesday after spring vacation.

Spelling

iba

autobús

busqué

necesitaba

haber

debían

saber

caminaba

cobró

miserables

palabras

culebra

estaba

cobran

bromeando

Math

Estimating and measuring our throws and jumps using Meters.

This week we worked with metric length, mass, and volume. Our objects this week were:

• Use meters and centimeters as units of measurement of length, estimate and measure length, convert units of measurement.
• Use kilometers and meters, estimate and measure length, convert units of measurement.
• Read scales in kilograms and grams, estimate and find actual masses of objects by using different scales, covert units of measurement.
  

  Mass & volume scoot had the students moving all around the school to test their measurement knowledge.

• Estimate and find volume of liquids in liters and milliliters, find the volume and capacity of a container, covert units of measurements.

one meter = 100 centimeters

one kilometer = 1,000 meters

one kilogram = 1,000 grams

one liter = 1,000 millilters

History & Geography

We learned about three European explorers and conquistadors this week; Juan Ponce de Leon, Hernando de Soto, and Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. We watched short documentaries on Leon and Coronado. The class read articles about each of these explorers and wrote out answers to questions on their readings. We did our read-aloud lessons and created a travel log for each explorer.  We added these to our Expedition Folders which we created earlier in the week. Students will be choosing one explorer to draw a portrait of at the end of the unit.

Science

Space ice cream!

On Monday we reviewed for our astronomy assessment and then worked on our biographies. We took our assessment on Tuesday and overall everyone did very well. Thursday our focus was to finish up our biographies, edit, and try to write out the final draft. Some students finished but most will be doing so after we return from break.  On Friday we had our Space Day. The class had fun trying different astronaut foods,  like dehydrated strawberries , dehydrated Napoleon ice cream, and applesauce in a bag . We watched Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space , and the students who did an extra credit assignment got to share these in class.  It was a fun way to end the week before Spring Break.  We also had some silly April Fools high jinks as well!

English Spelling

During our spelling and grammar time this week the class worked on new activities and doing their sorts. I met with individual groups for clarification and review.  Everyone rocked their spelling tests! We will have our new sorts after the break.  Our focus for grammar was on time and order words, as well as contractions. The class had practice worksheets for both of these areas. We did not do journal entries this week but instead revised and edited our biography reports.

Music

We tied up a few loose ends from the core curriculum in years when we were mostly singing in Spanish: read a translation of Goethe’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and watched videos of it played by an orchestra, and then the Disney version from “Fantasia.” We also watched the class’s favorite conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”.