Welcome Fall

 

Autumn has arrived and you can feel it in the air, except for a few days during the week.  The days are flying by and the children are doing well with following each teacher's expectations and rules.  

Fourth Grade News

During our Intervention block, we played Kahoot.  The children love it!!  One of the games was Getting to Know Mrs. Zirilli.  It was great to see their reactions when they found out the right answers.  

They even chose a topic of Foods, which many knew while others weren't quite sure of the answers.

We also do Book a Day during Intervention.  Mrs. Davia reads aloud to them and they have wonderful conversations about the book or do some sort of activity with them.

They finished types of sentences with a quiz on Friday.  

Fifth Grade News

We finished Types of Sentences last week.  We will be moving on to the first novel of the year.  I have chosen Ungifted to read together.  I am looking forward to starting this book with the children.  It is found on Epic.  I have added every student to the site, however, we are still awaiting for Chrome books to be distributed to everyone.  We will be reading it off of the big screen as a whole class.  

Last week I also read to my Fifth grade Intervention Block.  I love doing read alouds with the students and discussing themes of the book or doing a writing activity with them.  Here are the books we read:

Mrs. Bello, our former Reading Specialist, wrote a book titled, The Spaghetti and Meatball Adventure, which tells of a story about working together as a team to get things done.  Mrs. Imondi is the illustrator for this book.  What a wonderful collaboration of colleagues to work together on this book.

The Worst Best Friend, talked about what it means to be a friend.

The 2 friends realize that in the end, the bond between 2 friends is one that can never be replaced.

The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, is one that we will continue to read during the week.  The book tells a short story for each habit.  The first one I read to them on Friday was, Bored! Bored! Bored!  It discussed how You are in Charge- being Proactive

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!!

New School Year, New Beginnings

Welcome to the 2020/2021 School Year!!

This year I have been assigned to all the 5th graders and only 1 4th grade Intervention Block.

I am super excited to be back in the classroom and to be with the children.  We have been going over many protocols and new procedures that have been put in place.  Last week, we spent our days getting to know one another and doing some writing.  

Fourth Grade News:

We listened to the book; I Am Enough.  During the Intervention block, the children will listen to a book a day and do some type of assignment.  The book I read always has some type of lesson or moral and we discuss it thoroughly.  Once we discuss it, we will then do an activity that relates to the theme of the book, it may be a writing, art or small group activity.

Last week we also did a lot of getting to know you activities.  We are building relationships and getting to know one another.  The children have Mrs. Davia for ELA, Mr. Pono for Math, Mrs. DeAngelis for Science and Mrs. D'Amico for Social Studies.  We have Google Classrooms and Class Dojo up and running.

Each week I will send out the blog through Skyward, so pleas make sure you have access to that.  Also, if you did not join Class Dojo, please do as I communicate daily through that.  

The children all wrote a positive word on a slip of paper and put it into our positvity jar.  Distant learners, you had this as an assignment of Google Classroom.   I will write your word on paper also and put it into our jar.  Each week I will choose a slip and we will discuss what that word means and how we can use it in our daily lives.

Fifth Grade News:

It was great seeing all of my former students this week.  They all seemed happy and ready for the new year.  One of the first books we listened to was The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  It is a great book that teaches us not to give up and Make a Mark wherever you go.  So, once we listened to the story, they were given a piece of paper with a dot on it and used their imagination to turn it into a picture.  We have some great illustrators in the room.  For the distant learners, they also listened to the book and did some writing about how they can make their mark in the world.

I also had the children listen to the song while they drew their pictures. It is a catchy song that you can find on You tube for my distant learners.  

I hope the children enjoyed drawing their creations.  Some are still working on them and I will see what they drew tomorrow.  

Hope that this little glimpse into our week showed you how we spent our days.  Now that they in person learners will be in 5 days, there will be a lot more discussion, interacting and participation as we social distance and follow the CDC guidelines. 

For our distant learners, I will be seeing you live during the week, as you follow your daily schedule.  We are excited to have you be part of the classroom as much as possible given the current situation that we are all in.