Dec. 9th

It is hard to believe that we have only one week left of school before break.  The children have been on their best behavior trying to earn money to buy at the class store.  We started to pay more attention on getting classroom chores done because the students are getting checks for how hard they work.  Many children are sharpening pencils, keeping their desk extra clean and the floor  picked up.



 We have not had much turned in to sale and could really use some more items.
  Reading:  Many of the students have passed off all of their Fry Phrases.  This is allowing more time for the parents helpers to work with children who need more help.  Thank You parent helpers.  I try to test the children each Friday on how fast they read.  Every child has improved and most of them have doubled their words per minute.  The children who passed off their Fry Phrases have made the most progress.  Please parents help them with these list.  They can be found on my web site and some children have been bringing them home.

Math:  We finished our base 10 unit and have started on money.  This is a hard unit for many children and any extra help working with real coins at home would benefit the children.

Social Studies:  We are working on the continent Europe.

Dec. 2nd

We are going to have our Christmas store in 2 weeks.  If every child could bring somethings that you would give to the DI to sale at our Christmas store we would really appreciate it.  You can start to bring these items to school.

Reading:  We started our new December Reader Theaters and refined our summaries.  We wrote about something we would see at Santa's house.  We are singing lots of Christmas songs to help with fluency. Our word chunks we were on this week were "at. ake. ame, ail, ain, and ate".

Math:  We worked on place value to the 10's.  I felt like we still need some practice so we have not taken the test yet.   Hopefully this week we will be ready.

Social Studies:  We are starting our unit on Europe.  We did a map study and took the temerpatures of different cities in the world.

Science: We wrote about our favorite moon phase.

Nov. 28th-Dec. 4th

WOW!  We really have been working hard. 
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Our book orders are due this Friday.  I opened all of the available books online if any parent is interested.

Reading:  We started to learn how to write a complete summary.  We have been doing lots of modeling and shared practice. Some groups have started to write them on their on their own others are still working on the different strategies to writing a complete summary.  We shared our Readers Theater with each other.  We wrote about the cornucopia and described different fruits using as many adjectives as we could think of.  It is exciting to see how the children have improved in word attack and fluency.  Also how they interact with each other as they start to work with small groups to figure out beginning, middle and end of the stories.

Math:  We took our pretest on BASE 10 numbers and sometime this week we will be taking our Post Test.  The students should have brought their Pretest home with them if they would like to practice.

Social Studies:  We had our Feast in Africa--in was flour, salt and water fried.  We talked how many people in the world don't have all the good things to eat that we do.


Science:  We made pictures of the moon phases, did an experiment with golf balls and a light showing how the sun hits the moon and the earth.  We also took cookies and made moon phases out of them. We will finish up our unit on the moon next week.

Nov. 12

Language Arts:  We looked for descriptive words in our book share.  Then we started to describe a basket of fruit using adjectives.  We continue to work on comprehension strategies as we do small group and write our summaries.  Everyone in the class is making progress with  Fry Phrases.  We have been trying to increase our fluency by taking timed reading on the same passage.  Every Friday we do our Reader Theater.  The class did a super job following along with each other and using expression.
Math:  We took our ODD and EVEN test and the class did super.  Everyone passed with a B+ or higher.  Most of the class got 100%.  Way to go!!!
Science:  We are continuing to read about the Moon Phases.  This week part of the students homework is to draw the moon at night.
Welcome to our new student Marquez. We are excited to have him in our class.

Nov. 5th

Dear Parents,

I am sending home the Pre Test for our test on ODD & EVEN numbers.  We will be taking the POST test sometime the 3^rd week of November.  We are still learning and reviewing and when I feel like the class is ready we will take the test.  The students put the corrections on the PRE TEST so the parents can know how they should answer the questions.  If you want to help out your child you could go over the PRE TEST to see how they are doing and where they need to improve.  Also your child should be on + 10 combos on their math drills.  If they are not to that point you may want to spend some extra time reviewing with them. Many times just asking them problems as you are preparing dinner or getting ready for bed is enough to help the children learn their facts.

          I am really proud of their progress in READING.  They are doing a great job on their summaries.  Most of the children are able to do them on their own.  I am amazed when I get the monthly READING CALENDARS and see all the minutes they read.  You are wonderful parents and I appreciate all you do help them with reading, math and spelling. Everyone is working on FRY PHARASES now.  You can check to see where your child is at on their HOMEWORK FOLDER.  We have 2 students who have actually passed off all their Fry Phrases.

        We are starting our Moon unit in science.  Next week the students will be bringing home an assignment where they will need to draw the moon phases.

Oct.28

Monday is the Halloween Parade ant it is 9:30 in the morning a switch from the normal afternoon parade.  All children are to come dressed in their costumes.

Reading:This week we worked on fluency and rate.  We started to time each other at our listening center to see if we could read the selection faster.  We also performed our Readers Theater for each other.  There was some amazing expression going on.  We have been working on writing summaries.

Math:  We finished our unit on fact families and started our next unit on odd and even numbers. We continue to work on number sense using blocks to count and subtract.


Social Studies:  We colored costume form Africa and found the temperature of different cities in the world.

 Science:  We finished our unit on floating and sinking.

Oct. 23

I hope everyone had a great Fall Break.  I am excited to hear about all the fun adventures that happened over the weekend.

Last week we took a spelling test that allows me to evaluate the phonic areas that each child needs help on.  We did a two act play and lots of reading.  In math we took a quiz and this week we are going to take a test on the things we have learned so far this year.  I will send the results home next Monday.

Oct. 16th

There will be no homework this week except for reading.
 Enjoy Fall Break.

Reading:  We reviewed characters, setting, and authors message.  We begin to talk about the beginning the middle and the end.


Math:  We have been working on Fact Families.  2+4=6, 4+2=6. 6-4=2, 6-2=4


Social Studies:  We talked about Africa, Utah and the oceans and continenets.


Science:  We continues to test objects to see if they would sink or float.

Oct.8

Thank you parents for coming to SEOP's .  It was wonderful to talk to all of you.  For those who could not make it I would love to reschedule a time were you come and visit with me.

Reading: We continue to talk about the character and setting.  This week we spent more time talking about the authors purpose.

Math:  We did hands on math.  We took 10 blocks and divided them into 4 groups.  We drew pictures and wrote equations. Then we looked how we could make a "Friend of  10" or "Doubels".

Social Studies:  We did our end of unit on the North America continent and celebrated by eating hot dogs, apple pie and lemonade.

There will be no homework next week.  enjoy your Fall Break.

September 19-29

REMEMBER SEOP’S TUESDAY AND THURSDAY.

READING:  We continued to talk about characters and settings. We did our second summary page.  About half of the class did this assignment on their own while the other half I guided them through it.  On Friday we did our Readers Theater.  We did 2 plays- Spinderella and Raffunzel.  We added a listening center to our class.  The children will listen and read along with a person reading at the expected Words Per Minute and then they will be given a comprehension quiz on the story. 

MATH:  We did story problems, had a pocket day (Where we counted all the pockets and tried to figure out the best way to count all the pockets.) worked on all the ways we can add or subtract to get 10, and we introduced doubles.

SCIENCE:  We worked on drawing pictures of what happened on our log and we made a diagram of the life cycle of a butterfly.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  We talked about some of the words in the “Pledge of Allegiance”

And the United States is a Republic where we can vote.  We also found the temperatures of different cities in the 7 continents.  American Fork tied with Los Angeles and Antarctica was still the coldest.

Sept. 16-25

c

Dear Parents,

 Part of the math homework this week is to write the numbers by 10’s, 2’s and 5’s.  As your child is writing them they need to pay attention to the direction they are writing the numbers as well as what they think the number really is.  There have been a large amount of students who are writing the numbers backwards as well as reversing the letter.  For example they will think 31 is 13.  They are using the 100’s chart the right way to add and subtract but if they don’t understand that the 3 is in the 10’s place and the 1 is in the ones place they will get the wrong answer. We will continue to use the 100’s chart but we are going to stop and talk about the place value of the numbers.  I have taught the students that when they are doing story problems they are to do 5 things.  1.  Circle the question in the story problem. 2.  Write and equation.  3.  Circle the answer.  4. Show their work.  5.  Explain how they got the answer.  They can say I used the 100’s chart but they need to say I went up 1-10 space and over 3 ones.  They can also draw arrows to show what direction they went.  And other way to figure out the problem is to draw pictures. They can draw pictures and show how they added or subtracted.  We are still working on following these steps and it usually takes awhile for them to get the hang of it. 

Reading:  This week we continued to work on recognizing who the characters are in the story and started to talk about the setting.  We talked about how some stories have more than one setting and it can change several times in a story.  Most of the class did a their first summary page.  They were impressive. In our small groups I help them with word attack and how is the best way to figure out what the word is.  We look at little words in big words, we look at chunks, and we skip it and read on and come back.  We look at the pictures and try to figure out what the word could be by what we have already read.

Spelling:  Our new list is the long A sound using VCE pattern. Some children would benefit from using magnetic letters to manipulate the letters.  The list has both short a and long a patterns.  We want the children to be able to distinguish the sounds they are hearing.  And other helpful hint with spelling is to have the children use a different color of pencil and enlarge the letters of the part of the word they missed.

Science:  Our caterpillars hatched and we let the go.

Social Studies; we had a visit form the Fire Station.  They brought their truck and we got to look inside.  We also talked about Fire Safety and drew pictures that will be entered in a contest.  The winning ones will be put on the Fire Truck for the rest of the year.

Art:  We drew pictures about Fire Safety.

All of my scores have been entered into skyward if you want to check on grades.

Sept. 19-23

We had over half of the parents come to our parent meeting on Wednesday.  Thank you for the support.  I hope you got some ideas on how to help your child this year.  I am sending home the handouts to the parents who were unable to attend.  The orange handout with the holes punched out is to help you with reading strategies while you listen to your child read.  The homework folder would be a good place to keep it so you can refer back to it as needed.   As I corrected the math homework I could see that some parents were teaching their child to add the traditional way.  We will learn how to do this but not until April. We are using the 100's chart to figure out the answers.  There is a copy laminated on the homework folder and a larger one  may be downloaded from my blog under math.

Reading:  Our main strategy we worked on this week was figuring out the characters in the stories we read.  We talked how characters can be animals that take upon human characteristics.   One of the first questions on our weekly comprehension assignment is to name the characters.  They get points for using the name of the characters from the book in their assignment.

Math:  We used the 100's chart to figure out subtraction problems.  We talked about  how the numbers need to get smaller (not larger or bigger) in order to figure out if we should move up or down and to the left or right when we subtract.  Most of the class is doing find with this concept, but there are still some who are needing extra help.

Spelling:  Our spelling test used short a,e,& i sounds and ending chunks.  The students were also expected to write the sight words in a sentence.  Some of the children did a great job and some need to make sure they practice their sight words too.

Social Studies:  We colored the United States of America and answered questions about the land and oceans that surround it.

Science:  Our caterpillars have made their chrysalis.  We are just watching them to see what will happen next. 

We had a fun week with the Read-A-Thon and the Walk-A-Thon. 

September 12-16

Remember our Parent Meeting this Wednesday at 7:00 in our classroom.  Only parents and guardians please.

Last week in-

Reading: We worked on how to figure out a word when we do not know it.  Some of the strategies we worked on were to look for little words in big words, sounding it out, look at the pictures, does it make sense, skip it and then go back and see if it makes sense.

Math:  We used the 100's chart to figure out what 23 + 52= By counting down by 10's and going across by 1's.  Some of the children still are counting 1 number at a time.


Science:  We are keeping a log on our caterpillars.  we think they made their chrysalis.

Social Studies:  We colored a the oceans and land on a picture of a globe and talked about the equator, North & South Poles.

Read-A-Thon Parent Meeting

Dear Parents,
Monday is the school wide Read-A-Thon.  I forgot to let you know about it.  I am sorry.  There will be no treats this year.  The children can bring blankets, pillows and books to read.  I will be bringing some big blankets and do some activities with them.  If the weather is good we will read both outside and inside.

Also, I am having a parent meeting on Wednesday, September 14th @ 7:00.  I would love to every child represented.  Thanks,
Shiree Kitchen

I hope you had a fun Labor Day Weekend.
Reading: Last week we practiced shopping for "Just Right Books". The children taught other children the three steps to finding a "Just Right Book".  1.  They can not make more than 5 mistakes on a page.  2.  The book should be interesting.  3. They should be able to retell the story.


Math:  We played: Can You Guess My Number" using the 100's chart and a number line.  We practiced "Friends of Ten"and filling in the number chart 1-100.

 Science:  We prepared for our caterpillars to arrive.

 Social Studies:  We looked up the temperature of different cities in the 7 Continents and focused on the North American Continent.

Make sure you do your homework.  Follow the green instruction page in your homework folder.

Spelling Test is Friday and Book Orders are due on the 9th. To order books on line the activation code is HCVHL.

Dear Parents,

I had a fabulous week.  I hope that your child felt the same.  There was a feeling of cooperation, kindness and respect in our classroom.  All the children looked so nice in their new clothes and they were eager to learn. I was so proud to be their teacher. I appreciate all of the supplies that have been donated and all the parents who volunteered to help out in our classroom.  I can feel the support from each one of you.  We are off to a great start.

We spent most of the week practicing routines.  I am sending homework folders home today.  I fastened information to the folders that will be useful for you throughout the year. If you have any questions please email me, write a note or call.  Homework folders are due every Friday.  I will try to update my blog each week.  I have purchased a computer online reading program to help supplement home reading.  Google  “razkids.com”.  To use this program you will need to type in my user name sbkitchen and click on your child’s name. The students earn points to decorate their rocket room by listening, reading, recording themselves, and taking quizzes.  I hope this helps give you reading material and other options to encourage reading at home.  Our first Spelling Test and Book Order due date will be Sep. 9th.  You can find information about online ordering of books on the gold paper in your child’s homework folder.  I opened all the catalogs on the Internet to give you more options.  Our class’s activation code is HCVHL.

I am looking forward to a fabulous year.

Mrs. Kitchen

Open House

Well today is the open house and I hope to see all  my students.  I am looking forward to a wonderful year.
Mrs. Kitchen

First week of school ...

'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogroves
and the mome wraths outgrabe.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The claws that catch, the jaws that bite!
Beware the jub jub bird and shun
the frumious bandersnatch!