Spring is in the air (although we might see a bit of snow on Wednesday). I am crossing my fingers after putting away the snow shovel this weekend that we won't see any more significantly cold weather. Bring on the sun, and a much needed break.
It's career week at Middleton, and this week we will be visiting four guests in the building to listen to them speak about their job, how hard they had to work to get it, and why it is important. Thanks to some of the parents who are coming in to share with our students! Please note, I will collecting Reading Logs on Thursday. There will be no homework or checklist over Spring Break. Book clubs will have books coming home over the break. Ms. Williams came in to class today and introduced our keyboarding program with the students. We will be going on Chromebooks about twice a month to help students with their keyboarding skills. It's a fun program and the kids really enjoy it. Here's the latest... Language Students will be listening to two great stories this week, and we will talk about inferring characters' emotions and motivations. We will be doing some visualizations and ask wondering questions. Students will share their own personal experiences with peers, connected to characters in the book too. Writer's Workshop We will be using our writer's workshop time for science. Poetry will begin after the break. See below. Math Our Data Project has turned out to be a huge success. Students have wrapped up most of their project by writing 3-5 questions about their data using words such as more and fewer. Tomorrow we will share our findings with partners and ask and answer questions in small groups. They will be recorded and sent home at the end of the week. We will review and assess by Thursday. Science We began our Planetary Research Guides today. Each student was able to choose one planet to research. They will be required to ask a question and search through various resources to answer their question. I am also asking them to document where they found the answer (your brain is not a resource), so asking questions you don't already know is paramount. We have dozens of books, compliments of our great school and classroom library, and we will learn how to use a useful, child-friendly, online resource called pebble go. Hopefully by the end of the week, each planetary group will have a small booklet of questions, answers, pictures and labels to share. Miscellaneous -Aaron Lehman's birthday in on March 31st. We will be celebrating his 7th b-day on Friday. That's all for now. Remember, no school next week. Enjoy the break. Rest, relax and recharge for the last part of our school year. It has flown by! Take care, ~Mr. Layes
0 Comments
I bought a house in Evanston last summer, and there is a giant cottonwood tree in our backyard. Wind gusts up to 65mph scare me. I have an arborist coming out next week, and that is not a day too soon. Power went out here for a moment today too, but just recently our school purchased a new generator, so we're back up!
Enough about the weather. I hope all of you received and looked over your child's grades. Please call me or email me if you have any questions whatsoever. Like last time, please sign and date the envelope and send it back to school. I will reuse it for our spring grades. Thanks. Here's the latest... Language We are reading more Chicken Little-like stories including Henny Penny and Hattie and the Fox. Students are comparing and contrasting between text and characters, and making an inference to their motivations and feelings. We resumed iBlock this week, and kids will be moving in groups to various 1st grade rooms for 25 minutes in the morning to work on specific reading skills. Writer's Workshop The students finished up their opinion papers this week. Each packet included a chapter on their collections, a restaurant review and a T.V. or movie review. Some students augmented their writing with a chapter on a book review. We celebrated with a publishing party on Wednesday. The kids shared their books with partners and toasted individuals or the group at large. It was pretty awesome. Math Due to the complexity of this unit, my math coach Ms. Larenas and I decided to put together a data project for the kids to support their learning. Over the course of the next week, students will ask one question with 3-5 different answers, they will survey their peers, build bar graphs, analyze data and ask more/fewer questions from said data, and finally share their findings. We will wrap everything up next week, review and assess by Thursday. Science Constellations are the name of the game this week. We are learning that constellations are a group of stars that make a pattern that have been named (only 88 to be exact). We are reading books, and watching videos to learn more about them. We will cover the Zodiac constellations as well. A short quiz will be given late in the week. Starting next week we will begin our Planetary Research Guides. More to follow... We will also take some time to learn more about St. Patrick's Day and the first day of spring too. Also note, we will be learning a new keyboarding curriculum next week. Our tech coach will be joining us to guide us through using new Chromebooks and the keyboarding program. Miscellaneous -Winter enrichment ends on the 17th. Spring enrichment sign up is closed. Thanks for all of you who signed up. Spring enrichment will begin after Spring Break. -Spirit Day on Friday. Please wear your blue and white. We will have a Pride Paw Assembly in the afternoon. That is it for now. Only one more week until a much needed Spring Break. Take care, ~Mr. Layes My apologies for getting this out a day late. I hope everyone is enjoying the lovely weather we're having, looks like this weekend March rain showers will bring April flowers. Here's the latest...
Language We are continuing to read more Dr. Seuss books and asking questions related to the characters; making an inference to their feelings and motivations and finding the moral of the story. We read a version of Chicken Little to support these types of questions as well. Spelling clarification: My apologies for the confusion around the spelling words this week. This week we are learning the oa and ow sounds (toast, blow), and word wall word list with old, under, etc. Writer's Workshop The students are finishing up their final opinion paper on T.V./movie reviews. Some students that completed one already are augmenting their final publishing packet with an optional book review as well. We will be editing and cleaning every thing up early next week, building covers, and will hold a Publishing Party later in the week. They are writing some convincing papers! Math We are continuing with our graphing, data and comparison unit. The concepts are complex and I have taken extra time to reteach lessons and go over homework to make sure the students are mastering the content. Before we assess, I have decided to open up the unit to a data/research project that we will begin next week. Students will ask one question, survey their peers on the question, graph their findings and write and answer questions related to their data. We will finally assess before the break. Science It's all about stars and constellations! We are learning what a star is, how to tell the difference between a star and planets in the night sky and more. We did some wondering about the night sky with lights off and flashlights (fun times), and we did some drawings to discern the difference between the day and night sky. We learned that the stars are still in the sky during the day, but we can't see them because our own star, the sun, is too bright. We will continue to learn more about stars and constellations specifically next week. Miscellaneous -Report cards are coming out next week. Please contact me with any questions. Please understand that content this trimester is more complex and rigorous when looking at academic progress. -The PTA St. Patrick's Day fundraiser is this coming Saturday. Please come if you can. The have a babysitting service with details that went home this week. Details below: https://sites.google.com/site/pta735/home -The last day of winter enrichment is next Thursday. Keep those spring enrichment forms coming in. And please make sure to fill out all the required fields including transportation plan. -St. Patrick's Day is coming up next week. We will do a few things to celebrate. We have begun reading Magic Treehouse Leprechaun in Late Winter, and when finished, we will read the accompanying Research Guide to learn more about Irish Folklore. -Reading Club: Thanks for all your orders from the Scholastic Book Club. I do get a small kick back (in points) whenever you purchase books. This month I grabbed more poetry books (for our next Language unit), and more space books (for our planetary research guides that we will be working on late next week). Thanks for the support! That is all for now. Just about two weeks before Spring Break. Woo! Take care, ~Mr. Layes Hello everybody,
I did not intend to send math homework that went home yesterday. I had it in my outbox before I knew that I was going to take a sick day. 6.6 was on comparison bars, and it's a concept that I have not taught. If you and your child were able to make sense of it, kudos to you, if not, it's not your fault. I will be going over this thoroughly today. Because the homework was sent in error, I will be sending the homework back tonight to either fix and/or double check. Here is a sample question for you to get the idea: Tessa has 15 pens Sam has 9 pens How many more pens does Tessa have than Sam? The bigger number goes in the top rectangle and labeled with a T for Tessa. The smaller number goes in the lower rectangle labeled S for Sam. The oval always gets the difference (more/fewer) number. I hope that helps. Also, because of the short week and with me being sick, we have not had enough time to cover the spelling/word wall words this week. We will assess these next Friday. ~Mr. Layes Due to the short week, myself and my son being sick (which is why I was out today), and having to coach through a week of 7th grade JV basketball tournament games, I'm spent. So here's the (abridged) latest...
Language It all about Theodore Seuss Geisel this week. We are learning more about this amazing author this week and talking about why his books are so fun and powerful. We will read books, watch videos and visit the website Seussville.com for some fun and games on his birthday March 2nd. Writer's Workshop You might have seen our Leap Year letter come home this week. If you can, put that away and treat it like a time capsule. Students wrote about a goal they have for the next four years, and listed some favorites and included some illustrations too. Should be fun to open in 2020. We will continue with our reviews the rest of the week. Math We are still working with data/graphs, and later this week I will introduce something called comparison bars. These can get confusing, so be on the lookout. Science We began our next phase about stars for our unit of Space. We will look at constellations and the patterns that we can see in the night sky. We will visit a great website called kidsastronomy.com too. Check it out! Miscellaneous -Jonathan Weissinger will be celebrating his 7th birthday on March 10th! -No school on Monday for Pulaski Day! -We invite a great poet to Middleton named Bill Buczinsky on Thursday. The kids love this guy and we'll spend about 45 minutes watching and learning all about poetry. -The PTA is hosting an adults night only fundraiser Saturday March 12th from 7-11 at Prairie Moon in Evanston. Cost is 40$, so go support the PTA. They are amazing. That is all. Thanks for all your support at home (don't forget to be reading at least 3 books a night on RAZ-Kids + quizzes this week). Take care, ~Mr. Layes |
AuthorMr. Layes hails from the Pacific NW, cut his teeth on the streets of NYC, and now calls the Midwest... home. Archives
September 2017
Categories |