News for the Week of October 22nd

Many of the Monkeys were excited about the PTA Run Wild Fun Run on Friday and kept talking about it during the day.  I hope that everyone that attended enjoyed the event!  

Also, thank you to everyone who helped your child participate the Red Ribbon Week activities by dressing up each day.  We had a wonderful assembly on Monday morning to kick off the week!  It was a lot of fun for the students and we definitely learned to say no to drugs!
Here are some pictures of students who dressed up on "Peace Out to Living Unhealthy" day on Tuesday:

In math this week, we began our unit on comparing through graphing and more/less.  We made various graphs such as our favorite color, how many boys and girls in our class, and graphed cubes after sorting them by color.  We discussed what had the most and what had the least.  We also discussed how many more of something there was such as, "How many more boys are there than girls in our class?"  We will continue learning about amount of various objects and which has more, less or the same.  

In language arts, we read the poem, I Like School, and focused on the sight word, "to."  We wrote the word "to" several times and looked for rhyming words in our poem.  We read the book The Great Kapok Tree, by Lynne Cherry and listened to "Living in a Rain Forest" on PebbleGo and learned about text to world connections.  We also began making the book, "I am a BOOK EXPERT!"  The students illustrated what they like to read about, they labeled the parts of a book, and they drew characters.  Next week in language arts, we will finish our BOOK EXPERT book by adding a page about setting and a page about end pages.  We will also complete fun reading/writing activities on the 50th day of school (Monday) and on Halloween on Wednesday.  We will also learn about the actions of characters in our stories and the reasons behind those actions.  During our word study, we focused on beginning sounds of words and completed our own fun alliteration activity.  For example, "I went to a party and I took pickles."  We also looked at sight words and how to read them, make them with individual letters and we wrote them.  We continued our work in our handwriting book by forming the letters t, a, d and g.

In science, we began to learn about magnets.  We explored what was magnetic and what was nonmagnetic in our classroom.  The students walked around with magnets to test what was magnetic.  We wrote about something that we found to be magnetic and we wrote about something that was nonmagnetic.  We will continue our unit on magnets and finish it next week.  We will then focus some on location words such as above, below, beside, between, next to, etc.  

The Monkeys enjoyed learning about our superstar student, Lucas!  We were able to learn all about his life and interests.

We look forward to learning all about our next superstar student, Mozelle!

Reminders

Tomorrow, Monday, October 29th, is the 50th day of school.  Your child may dress up in 1950s attire to celebrate.

Wednesday, October 31st, we have Pumpkin Math from 8-9 a.m.  If you signed up to volunteer, please be at the school to check in and get your badge by 8 a.m.  Your are welcome to come on down to the classroom at 8 a.m.  If you signed up to donate items and have not yet, please send them to school by Wednesday morning.  Thank you very much for your help and support of our learning!

Please be sure to check out the "Dates to Remember" below. 

Upcoming Dates to Remember: 

Oct. 31      Pumpkin Math, 8-9 a.m.
Nov. 6        TAG Parent Referral Meeting, 6 p.m.~Library
Nov. 9        Veterans Day Program, 8 a.m.
Nov. 12-16  Book Fair
Nov. 13       PTA Meeting, 5:45 p.m.
Nov. 14       Thanksgiving Lunch, 11 a.m. (for our class)
Nov. 16       Kindergarten Music Performance, 8 a.m.
Nov. 16       Kona Ice, after school
Nov. 19-23  Thanksgiving Break, NO SCHOOL

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

Mozelle!

Morris October Birthdays:

Siddhant-10/24

News for the Week of October 15th

What a rainy and cold week!  Many of us are enjoying the cold, but it would be nice for the Monkeys to have outdoor recess more often!  Next week is Red Ribbon Week!  Please have your child participate if you can in the daily dress-up activities below:

Monday: Rally in RED to live a healthy life! (wear as much red as you can)

Tuesday: Say PEACE to living unhealthy! (wear peace signs or tie-dye)

Wednesday: DON'T MATCH UP to an unhealthy life! (wear mismatched clothing)

Thursday: RUN AWAY from unhealthy things! (wear warm-ups, a track suit, or sports clothing)

Friday: Be a CCE SUPERHERO, pledging to live a healthy life! (ear a superhero t-shirt or cape) 

In math this week, we finished our unit on 2D shapes and 3D shapes.  We focused a lot on learning about a sphere, cylinder, cube, pyramid, cone, rectangular prism and triangular prism.  We discussed the attributes of these solids such as how many faces, edges and corners.  We really focused on noticing what 2D shapes we saw on the 3D solid shapes.  We played the game 5 in a Line with 3D shapes and the students had to spin a spinner and then cover up that shape.  The first student to get 5 shapes in a line won.  We also made super cute shape monsters that are hanging in our classroom!  Our unit was completed with an assessment on 2D & 3D shapes.  Next week, we will begin a unit on graphing and comparing numbers.  We will focus on some words such as more and less and greatest and least.

In language arts, we read the poem, I Can Hop, and focused on the sight word, "can."  We wrote the word "can" several times and looked for rhyming words in our poem.  We read the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and learned about text to self connections.  We shared a time that we had a bad day with a partner.  We also read Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes and made text to self connections about things we worry about.  We completed cute artwork with our connections that are displayed in the hallway.  We read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and made text to self connections about what we do when we feel wild.  These cute connection crafts we made are also hanging in the hallway.  Come see them!  We discussed text to text connections by reading Jessica by Kevin Henkes and Leon and Bob by Simon James.  We made a connection between the two books by realizing that the characters in book books had imaginary friends.  We then drew this connection in our reading response journals.  Next week in language arts, we will learn about text to world connections.  We will also begin a new unit called "Fiction in Focus."  We will work on creating a book called "I am a BOOK EXPERT!"  It will show all that we have learned about books such as the parts of a book and characters, setting and events.  During our word study, we focused on syllables and sorted pictures according to how many syllables.  We then focused on beginning sounds of words.  We sorted pictures according to their beginning sounds.  In writing, we worked on writing our connections for our reading art projects. Our class also continued work in our handwriting book and worked on the forming the lowercase letters o, s, v and w.  

In science, we finished our unit on Forms of Energy.  We had fun exploring light energy and made shadow puppets.  We learned about sound energy and explored instruments and sound making objects.  We also matched up canisters by shaking them and figuring out which sounds matched.  We explored heat or thermal energy by using a hair dryer to melt crayons on a sheet of paper.  

We then took an assessment on forms of energy to complete the unit.  Next week, we will begin exploring magnets.

The Monkeys were excited to learn all about our superstar student, Noah!  We were able to learn about his life and interests.

We look forward to learning all about our next superstar student, Lucas!

Reminders

Thank you to everyone who already signed up to donate or volunteer for our pumpkin math.  Our class is in need of some more donated items for our pumpkin math on Wednesday, October 31st.  We also need more volunteers to help run pumpkin math.  If you can, please sign up at this link.  Thank you!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c44afac2aabff2-kindergarten3

Please be sure to check out the "Dates to Remember" below. 

Upcoming Dates to Remember: 

Oct. 22-26 Red Ribbon Week
Oct. 26      PTA Run Wild Fun Run, 6 p.m.
Oct. 31      Pumpkin Math, 8-9 a.m.
Nov. 6        TAG Parent Referral Meeting, 6 p.m.~Library
Nov. 9        Veterans Day Program, 8 a.m.
Nov. 13       PTA Meeting, 5:45 p.m.
Nov. 14       Thanksgiving Lunch, 11 a.m. (for our class)
Nov. 16       Kindergarten Music Performance, 8 a.m.
Nov. 16       Kona Ice, after school
Nov. 19-23  Thanksgiving Break, NO SCHOOL

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

Lucas!

Morris October Birthdays:

Siddhant-10/24

News for the Week of October 8th

I think we will finally be getting some much cooler fall weather this upcoming week!  Thank you all for coming to the parent/teacher fall conferences this past week.  I enjoyed meeting with all of you and discussing your child's goals for this year.

In math this week, we continued our unit on 2D shapes and sorting and classifying.  We found ways to fit smaller shapes into larger shapes in a variety of ways using pattern blocks.  We are becoming experts at our math stations during guided math!  We learned a couple of games where we used a spinner and put the shape that we landed on inside the larger shape on our game board.  The player that put down the last shape to fill the game board won.  We also learned a game called 5 in a Line that we will continue next week.  Next week, we will focus on 3D shapes in math.

In language arts, we read the book The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall and discussed what the author told mostly about in the story.  We came to the conclusion that the author mostly tried to teach us how an apple tree grows over the seasons.  We also had a lot of fun making Franken-Rhymes.  We created a Frankenstein craft and chose two words/pictures that rhyme to add to our craft.  Come and see them!  They are on our classroom doors!  We finished integrating social studies into our reading time by reading about one last historical figure that helped shape our  state, Jose Antonio Navarro.  Next week in language arts, we will learn about making connections when reading.  These connections are text to self, text to text and text to world.  During our word study, we focused more on syllables or word parts.  We sorted pictures based on if they had 2 syllables or 3 syllables.  Our class also continued work in our handwriting book and worked on forming some words, all uppercase letters and we started lowercase letters with the letter c.

In science, we began our unit on Forms of Energy.  We discussed what heat/thermal, light and sound energy are and what objects have one or more of these types of energy.  We studied a lamp and noticed light energy, as well as heat energy.  We also completed an activity where we rubbed a variety of objects on the carpet quickly and then felt to see if heat was created.

We will continue learning about forms of energy this upcoming week in science.

The Monkeys enjoyed their second week of reading buddies on Friday and were pleasantly surprised to each receive the book Mother Bruce from their reading buddy.  The books was also a gift from our librarian, library assistant, the counselor and our family support specialist.  

The Monkeys are excited to learn all about our new superstar this week, Noah!

Reminders

The fourth grade's Denim Drive ends on Friday, October 19th.  If you have any new or gently used denim you would like to donate, please do so this week.

Please be sure to check out the "Dates to Remember" below. 

Upcoming Dates to Remember: 

Oct. 17      Bush's Chicken Spirit Night, 4-7 p.m.
Oct. 19      Kona Ice, after school
Oct. 22-26 Red Ribbon Week
Oct. 26      PTA Run Wild Fun Run, 6 p.m.
Nov. 6        TAG Parent Referral Meeting, 6 p.m.~Library

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

Noah!

Morris October Birthdays:

Siddhant-10/24

News for the Week of October 1st

I hope you all enjoy your nice, long weekend!  I will see most of you this Monday at the fall conferences and I will see the rest of you later this week.  We had a fun week in kindergarten!

In math this week, we continued our unit on 2D shapes and sorting and classifying.  We learned about the trapezoid, rhombus, heart and hexagon.  We sorted groups of pattern blocks and organized them into a graph.  We discussed which shape in our graph had the most and the least.  We played a fun game where we used a spinner and then traced the shape we landed on.  We were trying to trace every shape on our game board.  Next week, we will use pattern blocks to make large shapes out of smaller shapes.

In language arts, we read the poem, I Like, and focused on the sight word, "like."  We wrote the word "like" several times and looked for rhyming words in our poem.  We read the book The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll and discussed the characters in the book, the setting and the main event.  We then made jack-o-lanterns, just like the mice did in the book.  Our jack-o-lanterns are hanging in our hallway.  Come and see them!  We also integrated social studies into our reading time by reading about historical figures that helped shape our country and state.  We learned about Christopher Columbus (before our Columbus Day holiday on Monday), George Washington and Stephen F. Austin.  We will learn about Jose Antonio Navarro next week.  We usually learn about these figures at the end of the school year during our patriotism unit, but the RRISD curriculum asked us to study them earlier in the year this school year.  Next week in language arts, we will learn about what authors are trying to tell us about in their books.  We will also create a fun rhyming words craft.  During our word study, we focused on syllables or word parts.  We recited a fun poem over and over and added in different food words.  We clapped how many syllables were in the food words.  The students then got to make their own poem with a food word of their choice and illustrate.  For example, "I like pizza, Yum, yum, yum! I like pizza, In my tum!"  In writing, we worked on learning about changes that happen in autumn/fall.  We wrote about these changes on special pumpkin paper and they are hanging in our hallway next to our jack-o-lanterns.  Our class also continued work in our handwriting book and worked on the forming the letters S, A, I, T and J.  

In science, we finished our unit Heat Causes Change.  We took chocolate chips and tried a variety of things.  We put one bag of chocolate chips in a bag on the floor and left them alone, we took another bag and put it on a heating pad, we put another bag in ice, and we held the other bad in our hands.  We noticed that our body heat melted the chocolate chips, the heating pad melted the chocolate chips and the ice hardened the chocolate chips.  Nothing happened to our bag that was just sitting on the floor.

We used a hot plate (only the teacher) and put a pan lined with foil on it to melt crayons.  The students were amazed at how quickly the crayons melted.  They also thought it was very cool how the crayon colors mixed together.

The Monkeys REALLY enjoyed making ice cream on Friday!  It was a lot of fun!  We noticed how cooling materials changed them.

We took an assessment on our Heating/Cooling Causes Change unit.  We will begin a new unit called Forms of Energy next week.

The Monkeys were super excited to meet their 3rd grade reading buddies on Friday!  They worked on a getting to know each other activity this week.  Every Friday afternoon we will be reading together with our 3rd grade buddies.  This is a great way to work on reading skills and meet new friends!

The Monkeys were excited to learn all about our superstar student, Luka, this past week!  We were able to hear all about her life and interests.

Reminders

Parent/Teacher Fall Conferences will be this upcoming Monday, October 8th.  I look forward to meeting with you.  If you are not having a conference on Monday, I will see you later this week.

Please be sure to check out the "Dates to Remember" below. 

Upcoming Dates to Remember: 

Oct. 8        Student Holiday/Parent~Teacher Fall Conferences
Oct. 9        Student Holiday
Oct. 12      PTA Movie Night, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Oct. 17      Bush's Chicken Spirit Night, 4-7 p.m.
Oct. 19      Kona Ice, after school
Oct. 22-26 Red Ribbon Week
Oct. 26      PTA Run Wild Fun Run, 6 p.m.

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

None

Morris October Birthdays:

Siddhant-10/24