Friday, January 30, 2015

Catholic School Spirit!

What a fun week.  I meant to take photos every day but I only managed to take it on Tacky Tuesday.  The kids loved wearing their clothes backwards and mismatched.

I asked the students what their favorite act was from St Mary's music assembly and most of them said it was the boy who did beatboxing.  (That's where you make sounds with your mouth)  So when we came back to the room I played the Dynamite song for them performed by one person using only his mouth for instrument sounds  They liked it so much it turned into a dance party.  Here's the link: Dynamite

Today was our pep rally.  The kids cheered, sang, danced, and participated in a relay race.  Thanks for the extra photos Mrs. Rahill!







Sweatshirt Relay Race
Of course we did do school work as well. :-)  We learned more about weather, compared numbers with <, >,=, learned to compare and contrast, and sharpened our map skills.  We also added to our hallway timeline. 

Next week we will not use the reading series, therefore we have no vocabulary or spelling words.  We will be reading and discussing Flat Stanley You can look forward to Stanley coming home before the winter break so your child can have adventures with him and write about them in a special journal.

Important dates:
1/30, 1/31- DeSales musical at the Palace- I went last night- it was wonderful!
2/6- Candy orders due 

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Catholic Schools Week

The coming week will be full of fun activities to celebrate Catholic Schools Week.  Be sure to pay attention to the blue sheet that was sent home so your child doesn't miss out on all of the dress down opportunities.  There is one change on the sheet- the Monday Prayer Service is at 8:30, not 9:40 as stated.

This past week we were very busy in all of our subjects:

Reading: identified cause and effect, enjoyed more books by our Author of the Month- Jan Brett, and practiced combining sentences with the word "and".
Writing: we finally finished our digital opinion piece about the best pet to have.  The students learned how to use MS Word to type.  They had fun using the Word Art and pasting a picture from a google search.
 Math: we worked with expanded form and learned to read and write numerals in different ways.
Science: continued learning about weather by predicting and recording the weather and then used our data to draw conclusions and observations.
SS: used map coordinates to find points of interest on a map
Religion: learned more about the 7 Sacraments.
Cooking: in our monthly "cooking" lesson we learned to make Rice Krispie Treats. 
Enjoying our treats.



Special Dates: 1/26- Prayer Service at 8:30, Wear PJ's to school, collections for SPCA begin
1/27 - Wear clothes that clash, music assembly
1/28- crazy hat day, 9:40 Mass, ice cream at lunch, Pizza served for snack from Dr. Fike
1/29-Wear clothes from 70's and 80's, SPCA presentation
1/30- Pep Rally, wear sports uniforms or PE uniforms

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Thank you MLK Jr!

Martin Luther King Jr 9365086 1 402 300x300 Whats Open, Closed on ...In SS this week we read and wrote about MLK Jr.  After learning about his "I Have a Dream" speech, each student wrote about their own dreams that would make the future a better place.  Our students dream of a world without litter, bullying, killing, or drugs.  Sounds like a great dream.

This is our door for January.

We are published!  We were so excited to receive our shipment of books.  We took the time for each student to read his/her own page to the class.  The books went home with the students on Thursday.  I hope you enjoyed reading about everyone's traditions.  If you did not order the book but would still like to, I sent home a flier with instructions on ordering directly from the publisher.

In L.A. we have been identifying the author's purpose for writing the stories we are reading (P for persuade, I for inform, and E for entertain).  On Friday the students started making their own Author's Purpose pies.  Next time you are reading together, see if your child can tell you what the author's purpose is.

Our unit in Science is weather.  We made models of three kinds of clouds- cumulus, cirrus, and stratus.  If you would like to see the Prezi I made to go along with this unit, click on link.   Weather Prezi

In Math we are working on expanded form.  ( 462= 400+60+2)   We used these cups to help us practice.  They are easy to make using Styrofoam cups.  To use, first turn the cups so they are at the number you want.  Then open the cups to see the expanded form of the number.  (see below)


These are the New Year's resolutions we started last week.


Special Dates:
1/17-1/18- Speakers will be at all area Masses to talk about DeSales.  Please have your child wear his/her uniform to Mass.
1/19- No school for MLK Jr. 

Friday, January 9, 2015

A Two Day Work Week!

We obviously didn't get a lot done this week, but there are a few things I'd like to share with you.

I saw this on Pinterest and had to try it.  The students thought it was very cool and wanted me to post the instructions: put a few drops of food coloring in a balloon and then fill it with water and tie it up.  Freeze it and then pull the balloon off.  Each ice ball will probably look different.  I asked DeSales' science teacher, Mr. Welt, why it looks like this and he explained that the outside froze very quickly and pushed all of the air bubbles to the inside to make the blue "tree" shape.  If anyone tries it at home I would be happy to post your results. 
 ELA: On Monday we took some time to sit in a circle, nibble on candy canes, and we each told about something from Christmas break.  It was a nice way to start back and give everyone a chance to speak.  We also started writing about out New Year's resolutions.  We will finish that up next week. 
Math: We reviewed for the chapter 4 test and the review sheets were sent home.  The test is postponed until Monday.

We will not try to make up last week's reading or spelling test.  Since we have a test every week, I have enough assessments to use for grading purposes and it doesn't make sense to try to squeeze in the test.
Important Dates:
1/12 and 1/13- STAR testing- please be sure your child has enough sleep and a good breakfast
1/14- Mass- 9:40
Enjoy the (long) weekend!