Weekly Newsletter 10.25.13

What a week! As much as we all love school, I am sure your kids loved having the snow day on Thursday. It looked like a winter wonderland over on the eastside. I am sad to say that I did not see any snow over here where I live. We wrapped up our unit on landforms and will be studying Native American tribes Southwest and Plains. The kids love doing hands on activities and this week we made a volcano. Check it out!

The kids loved following the multi-step directions and we used our measuring skills. The activity consisted of vinegar, dish soap, baking soda, and food coloring. The volcano erupted! Why does this happen? The red lava is the result of a chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar. In this reaction, the carbon dioxide gas is produced, pressure builds up inside the plastic bottle until the gas bubbles out of the volcano. This is a good representation of what happens in real volcanoes.

The students were introduced to a real spider this week. It is a Rose Hair Tarantula named Sweetie Pie. I thought the kids would be scared but they were not. I am not 100% comfortable having a spider as our class pet so we will be bringing it back to my husband's room this week. Sweetie Pie likes eating a diverse menu including grasshoppers, crickets, moths, beetles, cockroaches and mealworms.

This week we will start our Bats unit. I do not plan on bringing any live bats to our class.

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: Reviewed words and started making sentences. Fall Word Wall: pumpkins, spider, scarecrow, apples, candy corn

Wilson Reading: consonant one syllable blends, welded sounds olt, old, ind, initial sounds

Language Arts: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

Social Studies: Landforms - Volcanos and Mountains (Canadian Rockies)

Writing: Prewriting-Students generate ideas for writing through class discussion and by drawing pictures about their ideas for self-selected and assigned topics.

Math:Geometric Shape Sort, time, money, addition,

Science: Spiders

Dates to Remember:

10/29 - Conferences 3:30-8:00 pm

10/29 - Mix it Up Day

10/31 - Fall Festival Parties

Weekly Newsletter 10.18.13

It is time to start thinking about tricks and treats. October is such a fun and spooky month. It is a great time to bring in some nonfiction learning on bats and spiders. The students loved to learn about creepy, crawly things! Did you know that four out of my five students wanted a pet spider? We asked them what they would do with the spider if they had it as a pet. Some students wanted to put make-up on it and hair bows. One student named it Sweetie Pie! Another student picked the name Sam.I am super excited to see if they still want a spider for a pet when I bring the real one in this week. Luckily, my husband is a Science teacher and he was generous enough to lend the spider to us! I will be sure to give you the update and I plan on taking a new survey once they visit our spider.

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: we, when, your, can, said 5th grade sight words: community, dance, expensive, automobile, bicycle Fall Word Wall: pumpkins, spider, scarecrow, apples, candy corn

Wilson Reading: consonant one syllable blends, welded sounds olt, old, ind, initial sounds

Language Arts: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

Social Studies: Landforms - Volcanos and Mountains (Canadian Rockies)

Writing: Writing lists and opinions and introducing journal

Math: Geometric Shape Sort, time, money, addition,

multiplication and subtraction(Student A)

Science: Spiders

Dates to Remember:

10/22 - 5th Grade Skate Night

10/24 - Conferences

10/25 - Crazy Hat Day

Weekly Newsletter 10.11.13

Hello Parents! I hope you had a great week! This week went super-fast but we accomplished a lot! Here are a few updates to bring to your attention!

As you know we had so much fun going bowling with Miss. Katelyn. I never knew some of our kids had mad skills on the bowling lanes! We were lucky enough to bowl with our friends from Timmons Elementary and Cardinal High School. We are all so excited for the next trip swimming.

Our character trait of the month continues to be 'Respect.' We are continuously reinforcing the trait by encouraging the students to be positive, polite, and work as a team. We like to offer many opportunities for the students to practice respectful behavior. By reinforcing positive character-building skills at home and school, students will acquired the essential character-building skills and habits.

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: but, not, what, all, were 5th grade sight words: community, dance, expensive, automobile, bicycle Fall Word Wall: pumpkins, spider, scarecrow, apples, candy corn

Wilson Reading: consonant one syllable blends, welded sounds olt, old, ind, initial sounds

Language Arts: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words

Social Studies: Ecosystem, Owls

Writing: Writing lists and opinions and introducing journal

Math: Geometric Shape Sort, time, money, addition,

multiplication and subtraction(Student A)

Science: Pumpkin Unit - Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Weekly Newsletter 10.4.13

Another week went flying by! KIS ACHIEVE were very active on Thursday when we participated in KIS PTO Fundraiser- Run Blue, Walk Blue, Pledge Blue at KIS Stadium. One of our students ran twelve laps! Way to go!!! The students got their pictures back and they looked so wonderful.

In reading, we will be learning that good readers ask questions before, during, and after reading. This week we started formulating questions. Literal questions are a hard concepts because most students take every literally. It is my goal to have them "think and search" questions.

In Social Studies, we introduced the students to Google Earth. The kids loved it. We entered KIS and saw the school. They wanted to see where they lived, so we entered our addresses.

On a side note, I would like to remind the parents that we have a PTO meeting Tuesday night at Mangia! Mangia! in Newbury. We are so appreciative of Mangia for supplying the food for our fundraiser.

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: or, had, one, be, word and 5th grade sight words community and expensive

Wilson Reading: closed syllables, blends and short o

Language Arts: They will continue to practice the strategy of “asking and answering questions” to help them better understand what they read.

Social Studies: Timeline, US Regions, and Maps

Writing: Writing lists and opinions

Math: Solving word problems with addition and subtraction

Science: Pumpkin Unit - Life Cycle of a Pumpkin

Our PEAK Character Trait for the Month of October is RESPECT.

Dates to know:

10.8 Geauga ACHIEVE PTO Meeting at Mangia! Mangia! - 6-7:30 pm

10.9 KIS PTO Meeting - 9:30 AM

10.10 Picture Retake Day

10.11 Bowling with APE

10.17 Chagrin Falls Park "Lights On" Evening

10.22 Grade 5 Skate Night - 6:30-8:30 pm

Weekly Newsletter 9.27.13

This week was action packed in KIS ACHIEVE! The students kicked off our Fall Unit with pumpkins galore! The students used inquiry to predict what is inside a pumpkin. Mrs. Karn cooked the pumpkin seeds and we ate them. :) We set aside a few to glue on our craft and when Mrs. Marshall opened the pumpkin we discovered mold all over! This got us thinking that we will do a "Pumpkin Jack" experiment and watch it change or rot. ;)

We also went putt putt with Ms. Katelyn and our friends at Timmons. A huge thank you to Bella's mom for providing a room and ice cream. We appreciate it. We were so proud of our kids considering our bus broke down and we had to wait for it to be fixed. Another huge thanks to Ms. Rex and Ms. Katelyn for running out to Wendy's and feeding us!

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: at, be this, have, from

Wilson Reading: short a sound and students read aloud We all Can!

Language Arts: They will continue to practice the strategy of “asking and answering questions” to help them better understand what they read.

Social Studies: Timeline, US Regions, and Maps

Writing: As a whole, we need more practicing with adding describing words to our personal stories! We will continue to work on the strategy this week!

Math: We began unit two which focuses on making up, representing, and solving addition number stories, reviewing and applying alternative strategies for addition and subtraction, and practicing addition and subtraction facts for sums and differences up to 10.

Science: Pumpkin Unit "Outside-Inside a Pumpkin

Dates to know:

10.3 - KIS PTO Fundraiser- Run Blue, Walk Blue, Pledge Blue at KIS Stadium

10.4 KHS Homecoming Game

10.11 Bowling with APE

Weekly Newsletter 9.20.13

This week, KIS ACHIEVE students continued to work on our Charlotte's Web book. I sent home the book and their comprehension packet for you to review. We will continue to work on Charlotte's Web and cannot wait to move into Global Read Aloud. Most of the students are working on Touch Math to reinforce their number sense. Everyone is doing a wonderful job. We have worked on the skills of reading and writing numbers 0-5. We have also focused on the concepts of greater than, less than and equal to. Finally, we have started working on the concept of one more. Since we have such a diverse group of learners, my other students are working on multiplication and arrays. I would like to try to enhance fluency so we may be doing quick drills daily. We will be introducing our Fall unit this week.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not too kind to us this past Friday. We were forced to cancel out field trip but I am happy to report that it has been rescheduled for Friday, September 27th. Students will get on the bus at 10:30am, golf from 11-12 and take a trip to Wendy’s in Chardon for lunch. We will return to school by 1:30. I will send out a menu for Wendy's and forms for you to order and send money. If you want your child to bring their lunch that is fine too. We were able to participate in International Peace Day this past Friday. The student's made flags in Mrs. Allemang's art class. International Day of Peace provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. In 2002, the General Assembly officially declared Sept. 21 as that date but because it fell on a Saturday, Kenston students celebrated Friday, Sept. 20. We also kicked off the KIS PTO Fundraiser. The kids got to see their favorite Kenston teachers do activities in the gym. Everyone was super excited with lots of high energy. We sent the packet home with you.

This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: as, with, his, they, I

Wilson Reading: short a sound and students read aloud Let’s Be Pals and Zak and Cat

Social Studies: All About Me Timeline

Writing: Our Address Social Studies Strand - All About Me

Math: Base 10 number operations

Science: Animal identification

Dates to know:

9/27: APE Field Trip - Putt Putt

Weekly Newsletter 9.13

Good Morning! It is hard to believe we have been in school for over a month! September has been flying by and the students are settled in.

The students will be taking their STARS assessments soon. STAR assessments allow teachers to accurately evaluate students’ abilities in just 10 to 15 minutes. I will then use information provided by the assessments to target instruction, provide students with the most appropriate instructional materials, and intervene with struggling students. They are not allowed to use accommodations for these tests but there will NOT be a grade. All students will get a “benchmark score” (completed 3 times a year) and we’ll use the assessments to progress monitor (approx. every 2 weeks) your child as well.

We were visited by our therapy dog Calena. The students had so much fun and we are happy to welcome her every two weeks. :)

The students read the first four chapters of Charlotte's Web. We completed comprehension checks and they were introduced to the characters. On "Fun Friday" we watched the first few chapters during lunch.

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This week we reviewed:

Spelling Words: he, was, for, on, are; 5th Grade Sight Words: exercise, dance, expensive, forecast, heart

Wilson Reading: 3 sounds in a word - cat, mat, sat

Social Studies: All About Me and Hero's of 911

Writing: Our Address Social Studies Strand - All About Me

Math: Count with base ten blocks using a cube (1) and a long (10), Addition numbers 1-5 using touch points

Science: Weather Unit - Weather Sort

Dates to know:

9/20: APE Field Trip - Putt Putt

To reinforce the skills we learned in class. I would love if your children could practice Spelling City at home. It has some wonderful games with their targeted sight words. See the sidebar under websites to login.