Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Awesome 1st Graders!

Hello, dear parents and students!

I hope you are enjoying the cool Spring weather.  This week in my 1st Grade ESOL class, we are learning about making predictions.  My students have been writing about what they think the characters are thinking and saying, and what they are doing in a wordless picture book called, "Here I Am" by Patti Kim.



Here are my awesome 1st graders in our Writing Center.


They have been working really hard, and I'm just so proud of them!



Happy Spring!

Ms. Chavez

Thursday, February 19, 2015

ESOL ACCESS Testing and Snow Days

Hello, dear parents and students!

I know it has been like forever since I last wrote on this blog.  It has been a busy month of testing all of my ESOL kids for ACCESS, which is the standardized testing required to determine their language proficiency levels.  This test, which includes all four domains of language (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) also determines their ESOL levels for next school year. An ESOL student should get a total score of 5 in order to exit ESOL.  Otherwise, he/she will continue to receive appropriate instructional and testing accommodations next year.

I am so glad that I am almost done testing all my kids, even with a number of snow days and two-hour delays we have had this Winter season.  I love seeing snow, even the feel of it, but I do not like the fact that it has been this bitterly cold that I almost feel like not wanting to go out.

But life goes on for all of us, so let's all keep the energy going to always be ready to learn in school.

I am sure we are all looking forward to Spring and to warmer weather.  But for the meantime, stay bundled up!!!

I missed greeting you on Valentine's day, so belated Happy Hearts Day!


Love,

Ms. Chavez
Friday, January 2, 2015

Happy New Year!

Hello, dear parents and students!

Welcome to 2015!  I am excited to see my students back in our Classroom Wonderful.

I wish I had the opportunity to post our hallway decoration photos during our "Deck the Halls" contest before 2014 ended, but as they say, "better late than never."  The good news is, we won second place!

So here are our hallway photos.
My 5th grade's Snowman project on main idea/details

My 5th grade's Snowman project on main idea/details

My 3rd grade's perimeter project - house designs

The Doorway to ESOL and Title 1 Rooms

The 3rd grade Door featuring their nonfiction project on penguins


Here are our lessons for the week of January 5th:

Kindergarten - high-frequency word "go"and /c/ words
We will trace, copy, and write the word "GO" on ConnectEd.com.  We will also draw and use "GO" in a sentence.
We will read an interactive book on "C" words on Raz-kids.com.

1st Grade:  informational/non-fiction text
                  introduction to text features: maps

                  (Map Assessment)  http://zapt.io/t2q3k2cu

                  (Click on the link to read the interactive book) Me on the Map by: Joan Sweeney
We will look at a book and review some text features we have already learned in class.
We will watch an interactive video on maps and write our responses to show our knowledge about maps.

3rd Grade and 5th Grade -  Text Features
We will look at examples of text features from a text book, watch  a video and respond to questions about text features.
We will create our text features booklet using examples from old magazines.
                 


Happy Winter!

Love,
Ms. Chavez