i-Ready Program

We are now able to use the i-Ready Program and
 we promise you will all fall in love with it like we have!

I-Ready offers your child lessons in Reading and Math. The Reading lessons cover the following domains: Phonics, Phonological Awareness, High-Frequency Words, Vocabulary, Comprehension of Literature, and Comprehension of Informational Text. The Math lessons cover the following domains: Number and Operations, Algebra and Algebraic Thinking, Measurement and Data, and Geometry. We have assigned lessons to your child based off of what their needs are.

The students make i-Ready their own by choosing a Study Buddy (character) and a Theme (setting). They will see these items every time they sign on i-Ready. (If the students ever want to change these items, that can be done by going to 'My Stuff' and choosing the appropriate tabs.)
  

These are a few of the different Study Buddies that are offered on i-Ready.

We log on to i-Ready 1-2 times a week during Reading and Math Centers. The students know a lesson is completed when they receive a rectangle saying the words 'Congratulations!' or 'Good try.' A 'Congratulations!' means that they passed the lesson and a 'Good try.' means that they did not pass the lesson. In class we give an "i-Ready Treasure" when your child receives a 'Congratulations!'. (The treasures are pencils, erasers and other small trinkets.)  To make the learning continue at home, you may want to come up with an award system to use with your child.

VERY IMPORTANT: When the students complete the lessons in class, they are done without any teacher or student assistance. I-Ready is an Adaptive Math Tool, meaning that the lessons increase with difficulty every time one is passed or decrease with difficulty when one is not passed. Please make sure that you are not helping your child with the lessons at home.

  

If you ever want to see how many lessons your child has completed, go to “My Progress” and it will show you. You can also check “My Stuff” and see how many coins they have. The students earn coins for every completed lesson and the coins allow them to play games. 

This is a picture of the sign on screen.

You can log on to i-Ready at home by going to https://login.i-ready.com. with your child. (Your child's username and password were sent home today stapled to their Conduct Sheet in their folder.) After you log on you will be prompted to choose Reading or Math. (You choose) Then click on the rectangle that says 'Start Lessons' and allow the learning to begin! (We recommend going on at least twice a week.) If you ever have any questions, please email us. :)

Week of September 29

  

Our Resources for the week are: Monday- #1-18 MUSIC and #19-36 P.E., Tuesday- #1-18 P.E. and #19-36 COMPUTER LAB, Wednesday- MUSIC and Friday-#1-18 P.E. and #19-36 MEDIA . The Fun Friday activity is Stuffed Animal Day! (Make sure your child brings their stuffed animal  to school in their backpack. :) Please do not send a brand new stuffed animal to school, we will be bringing them outside during Recess.) Our class set of twins, Ryan and Emily, will be bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the class.

Don't forget to send in your signed Permission Slip and Money ($12.50) for the Field Trip to Diamond D. Ranch. Also, Chaperones need to prepay $10.00. 
ALL MONEY needs to be in by Tuesday, October 7.

**Continue to have your child practice writing their first name. We need to see the first letter as an uppercase letter and the remaining letters lowercase. Once that is mastered, begin the same process for the last name.**

MATH

We will continue to practice counting and recording how many we have using ten frames. (The correct way to display items on the ten-frames is shown below.)  Plus we will play the game "Grab and Count." (Practice playing the game at home with your child. :) Allow them to grab one handful of objects and do a little shake, so no items are dangling out of their fingers. Then have them count the objects and record it on a sheet of paper.)

Continue to work with your child on counting groups and making groups at home, along with writing numbers 0-10. :) The Youtube video is a countdown song and the layout of the green bottles are similar to a ten frame.

Here are ten frames showing the numbers 1-9.

ELA

(English Language Arts~ Reading and Writing)

We will continue to practice letters and sounds using flash cards and singing phonics songs. The sight words are- five, me, no and go. We will read two books this week: A Party for Bob (from our Houghton Mifflin Reading Series and A Birthday for Frances by Russell Hoban.  We will discuss birthday vocabulary related to each book (selfishness and generosity) and how we feel when we celebrate other peoples birthdays. We will identifying the different characters and multiple settings in the story. Plus we will be watch the Youtube video's of the book and practice retelling the story by including key details.

Practice retelling stories at home by using books you have read to your child before. Also, discuss the different CAP (Concepts About Print) items with your child using a book:

1) ask them to point to the front cover

2) ask them to point to the spine

3) ask them to point to the back cover
4) ask them what an illustrator does
5) ask them what an author does

Here are Youtube Videos for the book A Birthday for Frances.
 (I LOVE the characters squeaky little voices. :) Hope you all do too!!)

SCIENCE
We didn't get a chance to finish our Five Senses Discussions, so we will be finishing them up this week. :) We will discuss how scientist use their five senses to describe items to others. We will make a journal entry and play a describing game. :) (The students will have to describe their picture to their partner and allow their partner to guess what their picture is of. Pictures could be of animals, foods, or other small items.)

Practice playing this game at home with your child. :)

Below is an episode of Sid the Science Kid.

 (We love the show! It makes Science fun for kids. It episodes show Sid and his friends at their school. Then they flash over to real children learning and discussing Science. :) Hopefully you all enjoy Sid the Science Kid and check out other episodes of the show. Here is a link to check out more Sid the Science Kid.)

Sunglasses Day & Blabber Mouse

The class was adorable with their sunglasses!! They entered the room and showed each other the "pretty", "cool", "sparkly", "shiny" movie star sunglasses. :) (Those were just a few words the students used to describe them to their friends. haha)

 

Here are pictures of our class movie stars!!
(If your child brought home a pair of sunglasses that do not belong to them, please return them to school on Monday. One student was not able to find his sunglasses after Recess.)

This free picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

Also, the students did a FANTASTIC job making their Blabber Mouse characters and drawing a setting from the book this week. We liked them so much, we decided to hang them on our Bulletin Board in the hallway. So if your child didn't bring their paper home... we are sorry, but it is hanging up outside our classroom. :) 
  
 Enjoy the pictures of the bulletin board!!

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International Studies Magnet Program

As some of you may already know, our school is an International Studies Magnet school.  Our goal is for the students to learn and have an appreciation for other countries around the world. Every year grade levels focus on a continent of study. (You can find the list at the bottom of this post.) Kindergarten's continent of study is Africa. This year the Kindergarten classes have each picked a country to focus on. 
Our class is going to focus on Egypt. :)

 

 

It is an alphabet book that features photographs taken from all over Africa. Some of the photographs we focused on were (A) Africa, (R) River, (W) Weaving and (Z) Zigzag.

 

We read A is for Africa. After reading the book, we found Africa on our large rug and then we discussed Egypt. We discussed how the people there are similar to us, but different. We informed the class we'd be learning a lot more about Africa and Egypt in the future and we told them we'd be having an activity every month. :) 
 
This month our activity was to make a flag for Egypt.
Everyone colored a flag and we hung them in the hallway and in our classroom.


We also looked at the Egyptian numbers and we matched them to our numbers. We focused on numbers 1-10.

Continent of study for each grade level:

Kindergarten~Africa 

First~ Australia

Second~ Europe

Third~ Asia

Fourth~ North America

Fifth~ South America

Spirit Sleeves

We have had a few students purchase Spirit Sleeves and we wanted to show you what they have chosen. We will add more pictures to this post as the Spirit Sleeves are purchased. :)

Giovanni with his black and green Spirit Sleeves.

Namiah with her black and purple Spirit Sleeves.

Abigail R with her elephant Spirit Sleeves.

Kinley B with her blue and orange Spirit Sleeves.

Kian with his black and orange Spirit Sleeves.

Braxton with his black and orange Spirit Sleeves.

Kinley with her dark blue and light blue Spirit Sleeves.

Thomas with his green and blue Spirit Sleeves.

Alexia with her pink star Spirit Sleeves.

Week of September 22

Our Resources for the week are: Monday- #1-18 P.E., #19-36 MEDIA, Tuesday- MUSIC, Thursday- #1-18 MEDIA, #19-36 P.E. and Friday- ART.  Tuesday is our School Fundraiser Night at Chuck E. Cheese. Our school receives 15% of all sales made between 3:00 and 9:00 that evening!! (Be on the look out for me and Mrs. Pitts. :) We don't stay long, but we always try to stop and show our school spirit.) Wednesday is an Early Release Day, so our lunch time is at 10:00a.m and our Fun Friday activity is Sunglasses! (Make sure your child brings their sunglasses to school in their backpack. :) We will only wear them in the classroom and outside during Recess.) Carson will be bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the class.
ooh Don't forget to wish Micah a Happy Birthday, his birthday is on Saturday, Sept. 27. :)

**Continue to have your child practice writing their first name. We need to see the first letter as an uppercase letter and the remaining letters lowercase.
Once that is mastered, begin the same process for the last name.**

MATH

We will continue to practice writing and recognizing numbers 0-10, with a focus on 8 and 9. We will work on strategies for counting and keeping track of how many we count, so that we can make groups that match it. We will learn how to play a math game called "Roll and Record!"
Continue to work with your child on counting groups and making groups at home. We want a class full of Mathematicians!! 
(The video I chose is a little quirky... but I really liked how it makes the counting interactive. :) I think the students will enjoy it.)


ELA

(English Language Arts~ Reading and Writing)

The letters we are focusing on are Ww, Xx, Jj, Qq, Zz, Uu and the sight words are- three, four, can and like. We will read the book Blabber Mouse by True Kelley.  We will discuss what it means to blab and how people feel about "blabber mouths." We will focus on identifying the different characters and multiple settings in the story. Plus we will be discussing our opinions of the character and story Blabber Mouse (Do you like him? Do you not like him? Would you want a friend like that?  Was this a good book or a bad book, why? etc. Read books to your child at home and discuss their feeling about the main characters.)
We will be making our own blabber mouse pictures with a setting from the book. Be on the look out for a little blabber mouse in your child's backpack Friday. :)


I wasn't able to find a reading of the book on Youtube, but I found this short phonics video that reviews the letter sounds and shows a picture that begins with each letter.  Enjoy!

SCIENCE
We will be finishing up the Five Senses!! We will discuss the sense of sight- shiny, dull, bright, large, small, big, wide, skinny, long, etc. Then we will review the five senses and what each one does. **An assessment is coming, so discuss all this infomration with your child at home. We want everyone to do GREAT!!

  

If your child has any difficulty naming the five sense and telling what each one does, go back through our posts and rewatch the Mr.R Five Senses Videos. :)

Smell Baggies

Today during Science, we used out sense of smell and tried figuring out what the items were inside of our ziploc baggies. The students were too funny!! Everything they smelled received an excited response of... "Sugar" or "Cookies!" haha Even the baggie of vinegar was called sugar. :)

The only bag the students quickly figured out the smell for was nail polish. (it seems everyone knows that smell and only a few said it smelled good. Everyone else said it was "NASTY!" haha)

Anyway, all the students were able to smell the baggies, but we took pictures of the students that were blindfolded when they were smelling them. Enjoy the pictures! :)

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Character T-Shirt Day

The students were so excited when they entered the classroom today. Everyone walked in sticking their chests out and showing HUGE smiles!! They especially loved when they looked around and noticed that their friends were wearing the same Character T-shirts as them. :) Today Minnie Mouse and Disney's Frozen were very popular!
ooh I almost forgot to mention... we won School Spirit today for Kindergarten. Woohoo!! :)

 Enjoy the slideshow!

A free photo slideshow by Smilebox

Diamond D Ranch Field Trip

 

 

 Our Field Trip to Diamond D. will be on Thursday, October 16. We have an unlimited amount of Chaperones, so we hope lots of you can join us. :) Chaperones will need to prepay and the cost will be $10.00.
Permission Slips went home today!! Look for it in your child's folder. 

We want to get everyone excited. So we are sharing with you what their website lists about Field Trips...

The Diamond D Ranch is an actual working horse and cattle ranch covering over 500 acres. One of the highlights of the student’s visit is the wagon ride around the ranch. During the wagon ride, children will experience first hand just how the ranch operates. They learn the history of the ranch and how a real working horse and cattle ranch works. The children will get to meet some of the cattle up close and personal during their stop at the cattle pasture. The final stop on the wagon ride is at the petting zoo with Deer, Goats, Sheep, Emus, and the star of the show, “Bubba” the American Bison buffalo.

Back at the live oak shaded grounds the children will go for a walk on our nature trail. Our nature trail provides children the opportunity to learn all about some of the trees and wildlife native to Florida. At the Animal Orientation they will get to learn more about cattle and horses and just how much these animals helped shape America. Kids will get to take turns jumping around in our bounce houses and even take a spin on the Dixie Cartwheel.

 

Pictures were taken off of the Diamond D Ranch website.

Fundraising!!

 

On Tuesday, September 23 our school will be having a Fundraiser Night at Chuck E Cheese. Our school receives a 15% donation of all the sales made from 3:00-9:00.

 We placed a flier about this event in your child's folder today and it has coupons!! :)

 

Our Chimney Lakes Studio Crew is selling Spirit Sleeves. They come in all different colors! Above are some of the color choices they offer and they are only $10.00. (Cash only)

**When sending in money for Spirit Sleeves, please make sure to label the envelope ~ SPIRIT SLEEVES. Also, some of the color choices sell out quickly... so make sure you have a few possible color choices in your head. **

Hat Day

Let me first tell you the students look ADORABLE in their hat pictures and a quick sorry this wasn't posted  for all of you to see sooner. (I was absent on Friday.)

Anyway, here are the cutest kids from Chimney Lakes Elementary!!  :)

This free slideshow made with Smilebox

Week of September 15

Progress Reports go home this week!! Make sure to sign, cut and return the bottom portion.

Our Resources for the week are: Monday- #1-18 MEDIA, #19-36 ART, Wednesday-#1-18 P.E., #19-36 MEDIA and Thursday-ART. The Fun Friday activity is Character T-Shirt Day. We can't wait to see all the different character shirts. :)  London will be bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the class. (We still have lots of available dates for Fun Friday Snacks. Check the dates on the left side of the blog, then send us an email with the date you'd like to sign up for. ) ooh Don't forget to wish Kinley B a Happy Birthday on Thursday, Sept. 18. :)
Also, Friday is the last day to submit a Scholastic Book Order. There are two ways to order: send in the order form with a check or order online at https://clubs2.scholastic.com/and use our Class Activation Code: GLPLP.

**Continue to practice having your child write their first name. We need to see the first letter as an uppercase letter and the remaining letters lowercase.
Once that is mastered, begin the same process for the last name.** 

MATH

We will continue to practice writing and recognizing numbers 0-10, with a focus on 4 and 5. We will also count groups and make groups for those two numbers. We will use different attributes to sort groups of people~ by hair color, by height, by glasses, etc. Practice at home and discuss all the different ways to sort people.We will also work in our number journals. :) (The students are getting really good about completing the pages in the journal! The pages deal with writing the numbers and the number name, and then finding the number.

Here is a short Youtube counting video from Sesame Street (it was my younger brothers favorite counting video and we sang it ALL THE TIME! haha It's a little catchy.). Enjoy!

ELA

(English Language Arts~ Reading and Writing)

The letters we are focusing on are Gg, Ll, Ee, Vv, Yy and the sight words are- and, it, one and two. We will read the books Let's Go to the Fair (Social Studies Link from Houghton Mifflin) and PIGS by Gail Gibbons. We will also use our Second Step Curriculum and review what Empathy is and how to be respectful to others.  We will continue to review answering/ asking questions about the stories we read and practice retelling them. We will focus on identifying the characters and settings in the stories. Plus we will be discussing our opinions for the book Pigs on a Rig and drawing a picture in our ELA Journals of something we liked or did no like about the story.

Here are the pictures from the story Let's Go to the Fair.

Every year lots of people go to their county fairs. Farmers bring their best animals for people to see.

It's fun to watch all the contests. Dogs chase sheep. Horses pull logs. Children hope one of their pigs or lambs will win a blue ribbon.

People win prizes for their homemade pies and jam. There's even a prize for the biggest pumpkin.

You can have a fun day at a county fair!

SCIENCE

We will continue to discuss the Five Senses. (The class is getting really good!! When asked to tell the five senses, we see more quiet hands raised every day!) We will review the sense of taste- salty, sweet, sour, fruity, etc. and discuss the sense of smell- strong, weak, sweet, etc. Practice having your child describe the foods taste and things they smell. (If they try to say good or bad, ask them to be more specific and use their "Scientist Vocabulary." :)

Here are Mr. R's Youtube videos for Taste and Smell. :) Enjoy!

Volunteer Application and Field Trips

Today Mrs. Pitts and I had a Grade Level Meeting and we discussed some possible Field Trips we may go on this year. :)  (It was so much fun! We were just like the students when we take them out for Recess... Super excited!!! ) 

Anyway, we don't have any information on the actual trips, dates, or costs to give to you... but we can tell all of you to FILL OUT a Volunteer Application. :)  (We will need Chaperons and we would hate to have any of you miss out on being a Chaperone all because the application wasn't processed in time.) It takes about two weeks for the District to process the applications and when their is an influx of applications it can take longer than that. Here is the link to fill out the application online. 

If you have any questions, please email us. 

Week of September 8

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Our Resources for the week are: Monday- #1-18 Art and #19-36 Music, Tuesday-#1-18 Media and #19-36 P.E., Wednesday-Art and Friday- Music. Wednesday is an Early Release Day (Lunch on Wednesday will be at 10:00) and Thursday is Open House from 6:00-8:00. Also, we'd love if everyone can show their School Spirit by wearing a Hat on Friday. (Any hat~ baseball, birthday, cowboy, princess, etc :) Send them to school in your child's backpack. They will only be worn inside of our classroom.) Jaiden will be bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the class. (We still have lots of available dates for Fun Friday Snacks. Check the dates on the left side of the blog, then send us an email with the date you'd like to sign up for. )

**Practice having your child write their first name. We need to see the first letter as an uppercase letter and the remaining letters lowercase.
Once that is mastered, begin the same process for the last name.** 

MATH

We will continue to practice writing and recognizing numbers 0-10. Then we will be counting groups, making groups, sorting groups by attributes and comparing groups of objects up to 10.  (The class has been getting really good at counting and drawing groups. They have been taking their time and using 1-1 when counting objects, so that they don't count an object twice by mistake.)

Here is a Youtube video of the book Mouse Count. We have read this book in class, along with many other counting stories. The class loves it!!  Enjoy!

 

ELA

(English Language Arts~ Reading and Writing)

The letters we are focusing on are Ii, Ff, Bb, Hh, Kk, Oo and the sight words are- the, of, a and to. We will read the books Pigs in a Rig by Helen Lester and A Lot! A Lot! by John Manders. We will continue to review answering/ asking questions about the stories we read and practice retelling them. We will focus on identifying the characters and settings in the stories. Plus we are going to make an ABC Setting Poster so that our drawings have different settings. (Some examples may be: A- alligator farm, B- basketball court, C-cafeteria, etc.)

I wasn't able to find a Youtube video about either book. So I took pictures of the books and I put the pictures into Smilebox slideshows again. :) Enjoy!!

SCIENCE

We will continue to discuss the Five Senses and the different ways to describe the sound of things we hear- loud, quiet, soft, etc. and the things we taste- salty, sweet, sour, fruity, etc. Because of our shortened school day on Wednesday, we will not be having Science. Practice having your child describe the sounds they hear and the items they taste. Make sure to get them to use the different vocabulary. :)

Here are Mr. R's Youtube videos for Hearing and Taste. :) Enjoy!

Sports Day

Today during Recess we took pictures of the students wearing Sports Day shirts. :) (If you don't see your child, they didn't think they were wearing a Sports Shirt and didn't come when called for the pictures. )

At the end of the slideshow, you'll notice a few ice cream pictures. The students really enjoyed the ice cream cones and juice during Recess and we wanted to post a few smiling pictures. :)

Enjoy!

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Scholastic Book Clubs

A Scholastic Book Club flyer went home today in your child's folder. We know some of you are not familiar with Scholastic Books, so we wanted to give you a quick heads up about them. :)

 Here is a link to Scholastic Books and our class activation code is GLPLP.

       

Scholastic Books have some of the most competitive prices! You can find quality books that cost as low as $1.00. Plus they offer books with cd's! They are great to have on road trips or at home so your child can learn fluency. There are two ways to submit orders to Scholastic Books: by filling out the order form on the back of the flyer and sending it to school with a check or cash. Or by ordering the books online. (Every time a parent from our class orders online... we get a free book for the classroom library!! Not to mention, there are a ton more book titles online.) When ordering books, don't just think of your child in our class... but think of upcoming birthdays, think of other family members, think of holidays and stocking stuffers!!

We will try to have a few Scholastic Ordering times this year... but it really depends on the participation. The more participation we have, the more orders we will have. :)

If you have any questions please email us or leave a comment on this post.