I realized that you can't tell in the email that the last image is actually a video of the play!
If you are having trouble seeing it, try going straight to the blog address at:
http://hmsroomb324.blogspot.com/
Thanks!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Deaf Awareness Day
October 17th was Deaf Awareness Day for us at Horace Mann School.
Enjoying hot dogs at the BBQ :)
Enjoying hot dogs at the BBQ :)
Very funny play by some of my favorite girls :P
Kayla's performance!
The boys practiced their Halloween Monsters play for 2 weeks but due to Chung's absence on the day of, everyone shifted roles and was ... well ... thrown off! Special thanks to Delila who stepped in at the last minute! She really ran with the punches and handled it all like a trouper!
Enjoy!
Don't forget - field trip tomorrow (10/21) so dress comfortably and pack a lunch!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
SPECIAL NOTE TO FAMILIES
PLEASE make sure your son studies for
1) the science make-up test on Friday. He should be able to match (and Jonah needs to spell) all 12 science vocabulary words:
sight
eye
nose
smell
hearing
sound
deaf
ear
touch
feel
tongue
taste
2) Our spelling test - repeat of last week's words because everyone failed last week!
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Bonus words: Halloween, Columbus Day, field trip
We'll be starting easier words next week since everyone is strugging but they need to pass these first!!
Thanks, everyone!
Becky
1) the science make-up test on Friday. He should be able to match (and Jonah needs to spell) all 12 science vocabulary words:
sight
eye
nose
smell
hearing
sound
deaf
ear
touch
feel
tongue
taste
2) Our spelling test - repeat of last week's words because everyone failed last week!
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Bonus words: Halloween, Columbus Day, field trip
We'll be starting easier words next week since everyone is strugging but they need to pass these first!!
Thanks, everyone!
Becky
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Jonah's 12th Birthday
Beautiful cake Jonah's mom, Silvia, sent in.
I love this picture!
Since the kids were SO GOOD and got so much done during math this week, I let them decorate them during the last 20 minutes of class! :)
They were really not sure about this!
Dig in, guys!
... and Kayla!
Jonah's first masterpiece!
A tray of birthday cupcakes ... yum!!
Almost done! What a team!
Jonah's 3 cupcakes - we had to put them aside for him to bring home!
Jonah and his cake!
Chung really wanted to use the streamers! We went all out for this birthday!
Ready for the guests!
Chloe was able to come join us for the party, and was an excellent guest!
4th/5th grade October birthdays: Jonah and
Katherine (12), Billy - para - (16???) and Adriel (10)
Jana, Billy and I trying to get the candles lit without burning down the school while Adriel discusses how dangerous this is. I love this kid!
Signing and singing "Happy Birthday"
Birthday crew gets their slices first! Yum, strawberries inside!
Happy birthday girl!
Chloe can't wait for her spider ring :)
Digging in! Thanks again, Silvia!
Jonah and Debbie
The boys, tired but happy from an exciting day.
Happy Birthday, Jonah!! :)
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Language Experience Approach to Reading
We are trying something "new" in reading this year. It is actually an "old" idea, taken from a book I found that was written before I was born! I've made some tweaks to the original plan to fit our group but I'm loving it. The basic idea is to get the kids to generate a story that I scribe. I give them a prompt (currently we've been using paintings) and ask them to tell me all about what they see. Then, we take all of the ideas and write a story. It doesn't have to match EXACTLY, it's more important that they are somewhat on task but motivated to re-read the story.
The story that we wrote on Monday with the prompt we used.
Once we write the story, we re-read it a number of ways - just the teacher, as a whole group, one-at-a-time with the teacher, etc. We also play word finding games for vocabulary I know they already have.
Then, on Tuesdays the kids re-read the story together with me as a group and are asked to find new words or phrases. They then read the story "aloud" to the group one at a time.
Agustin is reading back the story!
"Apple"
Once that is completed and I feel the kids are comfortable with the story, they get a copy for their composition books. They then illustrate the story with their own drawing, which helps me to see what they have gotten out of it. They are also asked to underline any words that they know they can read.
Jonah is ready to work today!
Jonah also personalized the story, making it about his family.
On Wednesday, the students do creative writing using the prompt and vocabulary they have learned during the week. It is unstructured and some students stay closer to the topic than others but I do see evidence that all of them are using new vocabulary that has been introduced.
Sorry, the pictures of this step did not come out clearly - I'll try to type up some examples of their stories soon!
While the kids are writing with the paras, I conference with each one of them. First they read through the story and underline words that they feel they can read today. I then go through the story backwards, one word or phrase at a time, and have them identify the vocabulary.
Any words they read confidently are written on a word strip and added to their vocabulary box.
I know it is hard to see this, but you can see the N-like squiggles in the sample above. These are my notes that a student underlined a word but could not read it back. Overtime the children will be better judges of their own reading ability which will help them to determine "just-right" books.
Now that they are a month into this process, we will begin using their word boxes for a variety of activities including spelling lists, grammar instruction, classification activites and more!
Hopefully this gives you some idea of the work we are doing in reading/writing this year!
The story that we wrote on Monday with the prompt we used.
Once we write the story, we re-read it a number of ways - just the teacher, as a whole group, one-at-a-time with the teacher, etc. We also play word finding games for vocabulary I know they already have.
Then, on Tuesdays the kids re-read the story together with me as a group and are asked to find new words or phrases. They then read the story "aloud" to the group one at a time.
Agustin is reading back the story!
"Apple"
Once that is completed and I feel the kids are comfortable with the story, they get a copy for their composition books. They then illustrate the story with their own drawing, which helps me to see what they have gotten out of it. They are also asked to underline any words that they know they can read.
Jonah is ready to work today!
Gluing in the typed up stories into their books.
Jonah has underlined the words he knows in red. The half circles are his way to remember "scoops" or phrases such as "pulls down" or "picks up" which are signed with 1 sign, not 2!
Chung has personalized his illustration by labeling the people with the names of our class, but I see the tree and the house so I know he gets the gist of the story.
Agustin's illustration is very similar to the prompt and he was able to explain the story/illustration to me in his own words.
Chung has personalized his illustration by labeling the people with the names of our class, but I see the tree and the house so I know he gets the gist of the story.
Agustin's illustration is very similar to the prompt and he was able to explain the story/illustration to me in his own words.
Jonah also personalized the story, making it about his family.
On Wednesday, the students do creative writing using the prompt and vocabulary they have learned during the week. It is unstructured and some students stay closer to the topic than others but I do see evidence that all of them are using new vocabulary that has been introduced.
Sorry, the pictures of this step did not come out clearly - I'll try to type up some examples of their stories soon!
While the kids are writing with the paras, I conference with each one of them. First they read through the story and underline words that they feel they can read today. I then go through the story backwards, one word or phrase at a time, and have them identify the vocabulary.
Any words they read confidently are written on a word strip and added to their vocabulary box.
I know it is hard to see this, but you can see the N-like squiggles in the sample above. These are my notes that a student underlined a word but could not read it back. Overtime the children will be better judges of their own reading ability which will help them to determine "just-right" books.
Now that they are a month into this process, we will begin using their word boxes for a variety of activities including spelling lists, grammar instruction, classification activites and more!
Hopefully this gives you some idea of the work we are doing in reading/writing this year!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
I'm back!
Well, it is a new month and I'm going to recommit to getting this blog back up and running!
Without telling you my whole life story, I do want to share with my HMS family a picture from March 2008 that is now one of my prized possessions.
This is my grandfather, H, and grandmother, Barbara, with me and my husband, Dave, when we visited them in the spring. Barbara passed away on the night of September 4th and H. soon followed her home on September 14th. It has been a difficult month for me but I have appreciated every act of kindness from my colleagues, students, friends and family.
In all the craziness of the start of the school year, I forgot to introduce you to Kayla, a 10-year-old who joins us for math. She is a great addition to our group and the boys work well with her. Welcome, Kayla!
Without telling you my whole life story, I do want to share with my HMS family a picture from March 2008 that is now one of my prized possessions.
This is my grandfather, H, and grandmother, Barbara, with me and my husband, Dave, when we visited them in the spring. Barbara passed away on the night of September 4th and H. soon followed her home on September 14th. It has been a difficult month for me but I have appreciated every act of kindness from my colleagues, students, friends and family.
In all the craziness of the start of the school year, I forgot to introduce you to Kayla, a 10-year-old who joins us for math. She is a great addition to our group and the boys work well with her. Welcome, Kayla!
Speaking of math, we are currently working on a unit called "How Many Rooms, How Many Floors." It is an introduction to patterns, ratios and multiplication. We are also practicing coin values, time to the hour/half hour and addition facts. I expect the students to have fluency in all of their addition facts this year! Some will also be required to learn subtraction.
The students are getting a lot of one-on-one attention as you can see! They are all working on various activities at the same time -they rotate through 4 centers during the second half of math every day: a math game with Jana, addition flashcards with Cathy, independent math reading and a review/intro lesson with me.
Agustin is finding the ratio between rhombuses and hexagons! (It's 1:3!)
For math homework, the students have a review worksheet and are expected to practice their flashcards with a parent nightly.
I'll update about our English Language Arts curriculum soon!
They've been doing GREAT work and I want to make sure to get some work samples to demonstrate!
Thanks for hanging in there while I work out the kinks here. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think! :)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Hey everyone,
Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for so long. A quick update in case you are checking here ... I am still in Tennessee. My grandfather passed away on Sunday. His services are Tuesday and Wednesday so we hope to come back to Boston Thursday. Hopefully things will go as plan and I will be back at school on Friday. Thanks for all of your patience.
_becky
Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for so long. A quick update in case you are checking here ... I am still in Tennessee. My grandfather passed away on Sunday. His services are Tuesday and Wednesday so we hope to come back to Boston Thursday. Hopefully things will go as plan and I will be back at school on Friday. Thanks for all of your patience.
_becky
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