THANK YOU!

I just wanted to say thank you for donating food items for our Read Across America week! I have donations from Matthew, Porter, Sydney, Tristan, Justin R., Jacob, Gabriela, and Cooper. I had several more children state that their parents would send things too, but we have enough now. Thanks so much everybody for being so generous and supportive of all our fun "extras"! I couldn't do it without you!

FYI

I sent home a note about Read Across America week next week. If your child hasn't given you the note, please ask about it.

Book orders are due Friday.

The kids have reading/math homework that is due on Friday. Remember that they can bring a juice to drink while we are going over the homework.

Week of 2/23

We had a great week last week! Look at the pictures below of our Space Day and also of our Valentines pics from the week before. Here is what's ahead for this week:

Reading - Literature circles - The children have made great gains since last semester! I am extremely proud of them. Their lexiles have jumped quite a bit since the beginning of the year. Yeah! The best way to become better readers is to simply READ, and to read on your level. You can't grow if you are reading things too hard or too easy. We spend quite a lot of time reading leveled books. Another important aspect of becoming better readers is to discuss what your reading. We do that in small groups. Many of the children are beginning to do some higher level reading skills such as making inferences. We will work on that specific skill in a couple of weeks, but truly it is developmental. This week we will work on the skill, cause and effect. This too is another higher level reading skill.

Math - add and subtract fractions with like denominators, relate fractions to decimals on a number line, compare and order decimals, review previously learned skills

Social Studies - We will be looking at the Midwest Region of the US on Monday using a map and labeling states, land features, and products. On Tuesday, the children will begin an independent study of the Midwest. When they finish their study, they should have a better understanding of the important people and events of that area of our country. We will test on the the state locations and capitals in about 2.5 weeks. This will be the week before Spring Break. (Can you believe that? I can't get over how quickly this year has flown!)

English - parts of speech review, creative writing

Spelling - I forgot my spelling list, but will post the words on the SpellingCity.com site tomorrow. I will also post enrichment words.

Spanish - The children will have a test coming up next Tuesday. We will prepare this week for the test and I will send home the study guide by the end of the week. The test will mostly be over plant parts and habitats.

Have a super week! Don't forget to order your yearbook, if you haven't done that yet and you want one.

Space Day!

Wow! What a week! Our Egg Launch was "eggciting"! The children did an "eggceptional" job on their egg containers! A great big thank you to Mr. Starks for donating his time and his bucket truck to "launch our eggs"!

Our space habitats were a huge hit! I am so impressed with how hard your children worked! Hopefully they learned many things from this huge project like........................

Teamwork - This is a biggie! I have seen such growth this year in your children with this important life skill. I've told the kids that many times it does not matter how smart you are, but whether you can work with others. Many very intelligent people cannot keep a job because they have no people skills. Teamwork can be a very hard thing to learn, but it is so important for life!

Geometry - They constructed a 3 dimensional object (cube). We talked about faces, vertices, edges, and right angles in relation to their cubes.

Science - They had to figure out how to keep an air current in their habitat to keep it inflated. They had to problem solve a lot!

Take a look at the space habitats and your cute kids!


Where are the kids? Oh, peace, they are in their habitats "reading". (supposedly!) They were being quiet anyways!

Our day was so exciting that it was nice to relax, kick back, and watch Space Buddies while eating a mini Milkyway! We only got to watch about an hour of it, so maybe they can rent it to watch the whole thing!

And the winner is..............

MATTHEW! For a Valentine activity, we did math and other activities with Conversation Hearts. One of the activities was a "heart stacking on our finger" contest! I, myself, stink at this! I can only stack 3 on my finger! I never can seem to get more than that! The kids always amaze me with how steady they are! Matthew got 7! Wow! That is a record! Good job Matthew!

Valentines Day Pictures!

We played a cute and funny game with our kindergarten buddies. It was called Honey, do you love me? We all laughed a lot at the sillyness this game evoked!

Other close heart stacking contestants! Chloe with 5

Jacob with 4

Gabriela with 4

FYI

Hi families! I just wanted to let you know that our Egg Launch will be at 1:00 tomorrow behind the school, if you would like to come. I have been hearing some great ideas! Can't wait to see them all!

FYI

I have all the fans now.

Reward earned!

The children have earned a reward after having 25 good and productive days! We will watch a movie on Wednesday afternoon and the children may bring a drink and popped popcorn or another snack. The other time we did this, I popped the popcorn for the kids..............well, not this time. :o I thought my old 1987 microwave was going to catch on fire by the time I got everyone's bag popped!!! I know warm popcorn is better, buuuut it's just too big and scary of a job for me!

Don't forget that it is this Wednesday! I will not let anyone call home for forgotten snacks. They really frown on that in the office!

UPDATE!

Hi all! I just did our space habitat experiment and found that unlike what my directions say, I found a smaller round fan to work better and be easier to maneuver. Sooo...........if you have a small round fan, please share. I need 6 right now, but I am going to check with some friends and neighbors. I will keep you posted with that!

This week's agenda is below and below that are Chinese New Year pictures.

Week of 2/17

Hi Families! Hope your kiddos enjoy a great day off tomorrow! I will be at teacher's meetings in the morning and in the classroom organizing in the afternoon. I think I must be in nesting mode! (We will hopefully get our referral for our baby from Africa in May or June, don't worry though, we won't travel until summer or fall.) I have been crazily trying to clean, throw out stuff, and organize, both at school and home. While I am a major planner and organizer of days, projects, and events, I am not a natural organizer of stuff! I'm trying to do better! :)

This will be an exciting week at school while we culminate our space unit!

Science: On Tuesday, the children will have a small assignment in relation to a planet of their choosing. On Wednesday through Friday, they will be in groups of 3 or 4 designing a space habitat out of heavy duty plastic and duct tape! It should be quite interesting! This is why we need fans. I've been thinking that maybe a round fan would work too, not the tall ones, but the short ones that oscillate. We will not need it to oscillate, but we could turn that feature off. Please share if you have one. Remember that the Great Egg Launch is scheduled for Friday. Mr. Starks is volunteering to bring his bucket truck to school that day to do the Egg Launch! Thanks Mr. Starks! You are awesome!! We will do the launch sometime around 12:30 or 1:00 that day. I will let you know when I know for sure, in case you want to come! Please remember this project is worth 200 points. I will grade according to creativity and design used, in other words don't just put it in a box and call it good! Try also to make it space theme related!

Reading: Your kids are doing super with literature circles! They are reading up a storm. I love meeting with the groups and talking about their books with them. When they get done with the book they have to list the main characters, setting, and write a summary. They then will do a project comparing themselves with the main character. When they are done with that, they get to start a new book.

Math: Equivalent fractions, comparing and order fractions

English: Abbreviations

Spelling: From now on to find the spelling and enrichment lists, you and your child can click on the link to the right labeled "Spelling practice". This link takes you to spellingcity.com. It is the coolest site! You will then click on "Find a List", then type in corderman in the white bar. Next, you will click on Gina Corderman. This week's list is List 18 and enrichment words are List 18.5. This site allows your child to play games and even be tested on the words. It will say the word and even put the word in a sentence. Once your child is done taking the test, it will give you your child's score. It is an awesome tool for learning spelling. We will be using this website in computer lab every Wednesday.

That's it for now! Remember, this week there will be no reading/math homework because of the science homework. Happy inventing!

Pics from CNY!

Here are some pictures of our Chinese New Year celebration with our kindergarten buddies! The first 2 are from the dragon parade and the ones after those are of our feast! I don't know what happened, but many of my pictures this time were too blurry to post. I must have been moving too fast trying to get everybody and didn't take enough time to focus them correctly. So sorry if your child was left out. It was hard to get over 50 kiddos in!

FYI

Hopefully you got the science homework info today! We talked about it in class, but I will give you the info just in case! The children need to design a capsule/container that will hold a raw egg and protect it from the 40 foot fall it will make! I told the children to tie a space theme to the container. The container needs to be no bigger than 12" wide and 12" high. If they include a parachute, it will not count in the dimensions. I hope that everyone will spend some time designing their container and think through the construction of it! This project is worth 200 points in science. Parents, you are encouraged to help, but try not to take over. We will do our Great Egg Launch on Friday, February 20th. The time is to be announced at a later date.

I wanted to give a shout out to Matthew's mom for donating a big box of Blow Pops and to Kathryn's mom for donating a new Children's Scholastic Encyclopedia to the class! You ladies rock! Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness!

If anyone has a box fan to loan to the class, we need 6. We will be doing a group project next week that involves a fan. I have one fan, but we have 7 groups. We will take good care of the fans and return them as soon as we are done with them! Thanks so much! You can send them starting on Monday. Hopefully, we can collect enough. Go ahead and email me or post a comment if you plan on sending one.

Week of 2/09

Hey families! This is what the week looks like:

Reading: We will begin leveled literature circles. Each group will meet for about 5 minutes daily to discuss how many pages/chapters they want to read that day and then once a week I will meet with each group to discuss their book with them. We will also focus on the skill mood/setting, as well as learn some new vocabulary words. We will play skill games too!

Math: We will begin fractions this week.

English: We will cover possessives and contractions. Last week we did our pen pal letters and a simile project, so we didn't get to possessives and contractions, like I had hoped. Some things just take longer!

Science: We will continue our space study. We will look at comets, the black hole, among other things, as well as do a simulation on how far the planets are from the sun.

Spelling:

also

bought

cough

almost

false

officer

soft

stalk

halt

faucet

saucer

caution

lawyer

awesome

stall

crawl

awful

because

famished

fractions

Enrichment words:

gadget gardener gawky genuine gracious gymnasium guidance gravitate gnat granule ghastly geranium grieve gaudy guitar

Homework: For the next 2 weeks, I will not assign a reading/math homework assignment, because tomorrow I will send home a science homework project that may take a little time. The project is in relation to our space unit. It is due on Friday, February 20th. Your child should bring home the information on the assignment tomorrow. It is pretty cool!

BRAIN TWISTER!!!

Hi families!
I gave the kids a major math enrichment problem today! I thought I would post it on the blog because several kids were still trying to figure it out at the end of the day! Only 2 kids have gotten the answer so far and that is Brandon and Jaxin!! I had several get pretty close and they definitely have the right idea on how to get to the answer. Perseverance! I told them it was worth 10 points for their team if they get it on their own and 5 points if parents help them with a strategy to get it. So parents send a note with your child stating whether they got assistance or not, if they choose to do the problem.

7 girls got on a school bus. They each carried a backpack. In each backpack there were 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. How many legs got on the school bus?

Spelling Enrichment!

Here is our list of spelling enrichment words for the week:

fabulous facility failure faithful fastening feigned feud finesse flabbergast flamboyant fluent folklore forgivable fraudulent foreign

Week of February 2nd

Wow! Where did January go?? I wish things would slow down a little. The thought of losing your precious children hurts my heart. I don't want my Baylee to go to Waller yet either. I love her being down the hall from me! Here is the agenda for this week!

Reading: We will finish our tall tales unit. We will also take an SRI test to determine our current lexiles (reading levels).

Math: We will tie up long division this week. We will also continue to review everyday, previous skills learned.

Science: Space! Look for an upcoming exciting homework project. Parent participation encouraged!

Social Studies: SE state capital test - Tuesday

English: Friendly letters, possessives, and contractions

Spelling: Plurals

leaf and leaves
wolf and wolves
potato and potatoes
roof and roofs
family and families
library and libraries
journey and journeys
hero and heroes
ditch and ditches

special words - ornate and exaggerate

The children that participated in the spelling and geography bees did super! They did not go on farther than our school, but I am very proud of them and their hard work!!

Enrichment: If your child qualified for enrichment from 3rd grade test scores and you signed a paper at the beginning of the school year for your child to do enrichment, I wanted to let you know how I have been doing enrichment. Both math and reading enrichment is met first of all through our computer program, Success Maker. This program levels kids and gives them work on that level. This is a great way for your child to see things he/she may not see in 4th grade or see things ahead before we even get to the concept! Another way I enrich reading is to do leveled groups and reading activities throughout the year, such as literature circles. This is a way that I can meet all the levels of readers in my room, instead of having them all in the same leveled text book the whole time. Math is harder to enrich, simply because I have so many children and quite a few that struggle. If your child is an enriched math student, and they understand the math that we are doing in class and get done early, I try to give them a fun challenging math page or problem to work on in a small group. I stamp these pages with a brown bear stamp. Some days these high math students get done early, and they have time to do an enrichment page, but many times they don't. If you would like homework for your enriched child, let me know, otherwise, we will fit it in every opportunity we can.

Mail: We pass out papers almost daily, but some children let their mailbox get to overflow before taking it home! Just wanted to let you know that! This is why sometimes you may not see any papers for 2 weeks! Ha! With 27 kiddos, I need them to be responsible for some things, and check their mailbox daily!