Week of December 8th

We have a tradition at Washington School in which each class does some research and creates projects about a winter holiday. We put all our projects together and then display and discuss them at the celebration. Our holiday is the Buddhist holiday, Bodhi Day. We have been working hard on our Bodhi day projects and using lots of glitter for our jewels. Next week we are going to decorate cookies shaped like the Banyan tree leaves. In math we learned a silly new song about being rounding heros. Ms. O's singing voice isnt so good. In social studies we finished watching a video about the american revolution. During reading time we have been working on reading graphs and completing cause and effect charts. Next week we are going to make our own ginger bread houses to bring home for winter break.

Mrs. Choudhary had her baby last Friday night. Anthony Nicholas was born December 5th at Loyola University Medical Center. He weighed 9 lbs. 5.6 oz. and measured 20.5 inches long. She and Anthony are resting and adjusting to the new life at home.

The fish!

If you move the mouse over by the fish tank, you will realize that the fish follow the mouse! They are hungry! Just click on the mouse, and it will drop little green food in the tank for these little colorful creatures. Thanks for keeping our fish fed!

December Mix

Enjoy some winter music to get into the holiday season!

Week of November 24th

This week was very short. We only had school for a full day on Monday and then a half a day on Tuesday because of Parent/Teacher Conferences. Both days we worked on some researching of the first Thanksgiving. We performed a Reader's Theatre play and really enjoyed that. Tuesday, some representatives from the American Cancer Society came to talk to us about the dangers of smoking. We also started our reserach on our Winter Celebration, Bodhi Day. Each classroom at Washington School is given a Winter Holiday to research and create a display for the rest of the school. Our celebration will be December 18th. Members of the Schiller Park community are welcome to come out and see what we have learned. Bodhi Day is a Buddhist holiday in which the Buddhists celebrate Buddha's enlightenment. We started to think about how we want to present this information to the school and what we want to create. It will be a fun project to work on in December.
Ms. Olszewski will be our new teacher from now until April as Mrs. Choudhary is ready to start her maternity leave. We will still keep you updated with what's happening in our classroom. :) Happy Thanksgiving!!

Week of November 17, 2008

This week was a very hectic week for us at Washington School. It was a week that was very abnormal. We took Common Assessments, so we did a lot of reviewing in math and reading all week. On Monday we met Ms. Olszewski who will be taking over for Mrs. Choudhary when she has her baby. Ms. Olszewski stayed with us all day and worked with us in small groups to get to know us better. Thursday we had a very special day. All morning we had special guests who came in to do Junior Achievement with us. They taught us about geography and having a small business. We learned about profits and costs and we were even able to play some games that went along with our businesses. In the afternoon, Kennedy School (where we went to preschool-3rd grade) welcomed us back for an ice cream treat. They told us we did so well on our ISAT's last year that they wanted us to come back so we could celebrate. We had vanilla ice cream with all kinds of toppings: chocolate chips, m&m's, whip cream, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, and sprinkles. We really had a treat! Today we are at the Lincoln Park Zoo studying our animal groups and animal adaptations. If we have some good pics, we'll post them so you can see what we were up to! It's chilly out there, so we are glad we came in our winter coats, hats, scarves, and gloves!
Next week we have a really short week. We will be here all day Monday and then only a half of a day Tuesday because of Parent Teacher Conferences. Wednesday-Friday we will be on Thanksgiving Break. If we do not post next week, you'll hear from us in December!

The Week of November 10th

On Tuesday, we celebrated Veterans' Day. We were celebrating all of the Veterans who help keep the United States free and safe. The Chorus of Washington School sang in the gym for a special assembly. Many important people, including some veterans from Schiller Park came to our assembly.

Last night was Sports Night. We played badminton and had a fitness challenge. We had pretzels and graham crackers for a snack because we played so hard.

Some people received a Frank and Iggy Bronze brick for earning 50 points on their AR quizzes, and were able to read with Ms. Kopta's dogs today, Frank and Iggy. Our first two earners of Bronze Frank and Iggy bricks were Riya and Albi! Congratulations to them both and we hope to have more students reading with the pups soon!

In Science, we are writing about different animals. We are reporting on an animal's group, habitat, if they are an invertebrate or vertebrate, 6 or more interesting facts, and all of their adaptations. We were able to choose our own animal to reserach and then study about it. We are now choosing our own project to create about that animal.

In P.E. class, we are learning how to play basketball. We were shooting and dribbling the ball around the cones in stations. In Art, we were using water colors to paint pictures of whatever we want. In Music, we are learning how to play the keyboards. Gerardo tells us that he is learning how to play Batter Up on the keyboard. He thinks it's easy! :)

In Reading, we played on Study Island today. We were working on drawing inferences with the text. We can play different games while we answer questions such as Sling Shot, Bowling, and Ski Lift. If you check out our website, you can link to Study Island. Sorry...you'll need a password and a username to get in!

In Writing, we started doing essays on what we observe and what we realize. We wrote a whole class on essay how raising our hands in school gives everyone a fair chance. We also wrote an essay on the story, Teammates by Tiki and Ronde Barber. We learned to stretch our thinking by using sentences that start with "For example...", "I realize...", "Many people think...but I think", and "This is important because".

In Math, we are learning about factors, primes, square numbers, and multiples. We are using square inch tiles to help us see this clearly. Yesterday we learned how to make prime factorization trees to find the the prime factors of a number. We are also continuing our multiplcation time tests! Some people are really studying hard for those!!

In Social Studies, we are watching a video about what happened during the Boston Massacre. We learned that a gun accidently went off and killed someone. This led to the French and Indian War. The colonists needed to be taxed on the tea, paper, and ink. They taxed them on these things so they could pay for the war. The colonists were dressed like American Indians during the Boston Tea Party and dumped all of the tea into the sea.

Week of November 3rd

This week in reading we worked on plot diagrams and different types of conflict. We used our books to determine the introduction, the rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution of stories. We also talked about four different types of conflict in stories: character vs. character, character vs. nature, character vs. society, and character vs. himself/herself. We also did centers about homonyms. Homonyms are words that are spelled the same and sound the same but have different meanings. In Writing, we started our new unit on Essays. We worked this week on making observations and then thinking about our realizations about our observations. In Science, we played a game to help us learn what animals need to survive. It was a game of chance with rolling a die. If we rolled certain numbers, our animals would receive food, water, or shelter. If we rolled for all three needs, an offspring was born. If we did not roll for all three needs, one would die. We also started learning about animal adaptations. We worked on a center activity with our partner matching an animal with it's adaptation to help it survive. In Math, we worked with rectangular arrays. We arranged square tiles into rectangles in various ways. For example, we learned that we can make a 1x24, 2x12, 3x8, or a 4x6 size rectangle all from 24 square tiles! Next week we will begin to see how this connects to factors and multiples. In Social Studies we continued to learn about colonization. Most exciting of all this week was that we were able to watch a video recording of President Elect Obama's victory speech. We talked about how historical this week has been! Some day when our children are sitting in our seats in school they are going to read about this day in their Social Studies books, and we will be able to say that we lived through it! How amazing!

November Mix

Week of October 31, 2008

We had such a busy week last week that we did not have time to blog. Friday was Halloween, and at our school we have a parade in our costumes at the end of the day. We were so busy getting everything done before our Halloween celebration that we did not post! Anyway, in Reading we worked on Plot Diagrams. We watched an episode of The Emperor's New School and we determined the introduction, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution of the episode. We also learned that homonyms are words that are spelled and pronounced the same way, but have two different meanings. For example, the word pool can be a game or a place to swim. In Writing, we finished up our second unit of study on Personal Narratives. We celebrated our fabulous writing on Friday by reading our favorite parts to each other and complimenting each other on the good points of our writing. In Math, we worked on place value. We used our place value to add and subtract numbers. We even worked on some word problems that help us use math in real life. In Science we created webs about the 6 different types of animals and their traits. We worked with our partner and were able to determine our own grade by how much work and effort we put into the project. Finally, we were really excited Friday afternoon to meet our principal, Miss Kopta's new baby, Emily Carol! She had the baby a couple of weeks ago and she brought her in to see us in our costumes. We had a great week! Check in again at the end of the week for an update on the beginning of Novemeber!

October Tunes

My class asked for some Halloween tunes. Here's some spooky music to get you ready for Halloween!

Week of September 29th

Today we had a picnic. We invited our parents and family members. We got to eat outside! We could even eat on the playground! In Writing, we had a Celebration for our September stories. Ms. Kopta, Ms. Folan, Mrs Gorzynski, Mrs. Piltaver, and Ms. Phelan came in to hear us read part of our stories. We had cookies and juice too. People were able to share their favorite parts of their stories. In Math, we were talking about the ants that live in Antolpolis. We were working with square inch tiles to make runways and helipads. In Social Studies we are still learning about the 3 branches of government. Mrs. Cole had us watch the news about the Presidential Debate. In Science we finished the posters of the Phases of the Moon. We did an experiment about the brightness of stars. In Music we learned about chest voice and head voice. In P.E. we played a game that we had to cross the river to get from the volcano to the island. We had to use our equipment to get to the other side of the gym. In Art we had to finish our Hero Project Posters for the American Legion Contest. Today we changed seats for the first time. We now have new writing partners for October! In Chorus we learned a new song, called The Spirit of America. Check back again next week for new news!

Week of September 22nd

This week we saw a movie about 3 branches of government in Social Studies. One branch is for the President. That is called the Executive Branch. Then the Legislative Branch makes the laws. The Supreme Court makes up the Judicial Branch. In Science, we learned about the 9 phases of the moon. One of the phases is full moon. That's when you see the whole side of the moon that is facing the sun. The next phase is the waning gibbous. The moon in this phase sort of looks like a cookie in which someone took a bite out of it!! :) In Reading we are learning about synonyms. Synonyms are words that mean the same thing, for example big and huge. In Math, we used square inch cubes make a runway for planes. We determined the length and the width of the runways. This was part of our learning about perimeter. In Writing we made timelines of our stories. In Chorus, some of us learned the Star Spangled Banner and the Spirit of America. In Art, we were drawing one of our favorite heroes and writing why they are special to us. In PE, we took more fitness tests. In Music we sang a song that helps us remember do, re, me, fa, so.... etc. Some people are running to be elected for Student Council in our classroom for representatives. We are voting this afternoon for our Student Council officers and representatives. We'll tell you more next week! Adios!

Week of September 15th

A flood happened in the basement at Washington School on Sunday, so we had no school on Monday! Our basement was full of a lot of water. In P.E. we started taking fitness tests. We did the sit ups and step ups this week. In Science we are learning about asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Comets are made up of ice and dust. We will learn more about this in the next few school days. In Music we used headsets that were connected to the computers so that we could talk to each other while we worked on Super Duper Music Looper. Super Duper Music Looper is a program we use to make our music and listen to other people's songs. In Math we are learning how to make point graphs. We measured our height and arm span and used that data to put in our point graph. In Social Studies we watched a video on the 13 colonies and how they became the United States. Mrs. Cole is also teaching us about the flag and what the colors stand for. For example, the red stands for the blood shed by the soliders. In Writers' Workshop we started working on our endings for our stories. We are adding setting, dialogue, and action to make them meaningful. We also worked on making strong leads. Strong leads have setting, dialogue, and actions as well. This week in reading we worked on finding the theme of a story. The theme is what the author's trying to tell you about life. We worked on strong and weak questions from Gleam and Glow. Strong questions start with: who, where, when, why, what, and how. Weak questions answer with "yes" or "no". We worked on making as many strong questions as we could. We were also thinking about alternate titles to the text that we were reading.

Week of September 8th

In Science we learned how the Earth rotates around the Sun and the moon rotates around the Earth. We watched the video on the Solar System that is posted on our blog and we modeled this using our own bodies! One person would be the moon, one would be the sun, and one would be the Earth. Then they rotated around each other! In Technology, we used little egg timers with our Promethean Board. We answered questions about categorical and numerical variables. In Math we learned how to find the median. Some of the medians we found were how many phones we have in our house, how many video games we have, how many brothers and sisters we have, and how many pets we have. In Reading, we read The Lily Cupboard. We worked on questioning. We created questions before, during, and after reading the story to comprhend better. Yesterday we started working on theme. We will continue working on this next week. In Social Studies we are making posters about the Colonial Times. We also made a diagram comparing life in the Colonial Times to life today in America. In Writing we worked on creating really interesting leads to our stories. If the lead is really good, then the reader will want to continue to read our stories! We read the lead to Jose's story out loud. It was so fabulous that everyone wanted him to read more!! We also had an assembly about Student Council. There will be an election and the whole school will be voting!

Monday and Tuesday's Science Lesson

If you want to show someone at home how many months it takes the Earth to rotate around the Sun, check out what's below!

Mrs. Choudhary and Uncle Peter

Mrs. Choudhary's uncle, Uncle Peter is the Commander of the Schiller Park Fire Department. We are lucky to have him as our Fireman Buddy this year! He came in and read us the story, Tacky the Penguin. We talked about how Tacky was a unique penguin just like all of us are unique people. We created little logos with symbols to represent ourselves. They are hanging up in our classroom along with our pictures. Uncle Peter made one and it's hanging up with all of ours in the classroom! :)


This is Mrs. Choudhary.

Week of September 1, 2008

This week in Writers' Workshop, we learned the difference between a watermelon story and a seed story. A watermelon story is for example, about a whole day. A seed story is a small moment in that day that you liked the most. In Music class we learned about steady beats. We also learned that a long time ago people used tape players and cds to listen to music. In Math we made bar graphs to learn more about our classmates. We learned about variables and values too. In PE, we are learning about disc golf. We are just starting to learn about it, and hope to play today! In Art we are drawing pictures that we see in our brains on paper with oil pastels. In Science we learned about the four layers of the Earth's atmosphere. The closest layer to the Earth is called the troposhere. Then comes the stratosphere, the mesosphere, and finally the thermosphere. In Social Studies we learned about the 13 colonies and how the Revolutionary War started. In Reading we read the book Peppe the Lamplighter while worked on making predictions and studying character traits of people in the story. In technology we are learning how to use our laptops at Washington School. Stay tuned for next week's update! Adios!

Pictures of our Classroom

This is Mrs. Choudhary's desk. You will hardly ever find her there during the day, but you'll find her there before or after school! :)


This is our Guided Reading Table. A different group comes to read everyday together with Mrs. Choudhary during Readers' Workshop.


This is the Star of the Week board and our supply area. Each week Mrs. Choudhary picks a Star and that person posts pictures and fills out a All About Me sheet. That person is the messenger, lunch helper, and overall classroom helper for the week. On Friday, the Star shares his/her information and pictures and then the rest of the class gets to ask questions to learn more about him/her.
We share all of our supplies in Room 101. So, they go in tubs and when we need something, we just ask and take a tub to our table.


Here are our mailboxes and our Class Norms board. Each day we check our mail for important letters to go home.


This is our computer area. Our school has a mobile computer lab with laptops on it which we use when we all are working on a lesson. However, these computers are in the back of our room for AR tests, or spontaneous work.


This is our brand new Promethean Board. He looks sort of like a robot! We use him every single day. No more writing on the blackboard/chalkboard/or white dry erase board. This guy hooks up to the laptop and is completely interactive. We'll post some pictures later of us using it.


This is our carpet area from a different angle. On the shelf are our supplies for indoor recess. Also on the windows are our Math Charts to help us with important ideas in math.


This is our carpet area and our classroom library. We have Readers' and Writers' Workshop here. When we have silent reading time, some of us are allowed to sit on the carpet and read too.

September Tunes!

Check out some of the music we are listening to during our Silent Reading Time in the afternoon!

Week of August 25th

Phew! What a great week! We were so busy for 2 1/2 days that we didn't even have time to blog. Mrs. Choudhary is doing it from home tonight. Wednesday was a half day and we just collected supplies, got our new FROG binders, and had a fabulous pep rally where we met all of the teachers and staff of Washington School. Thursday and Friday were full days. We already started our Writers Workshop, had a visit from Uncle Peter, our classroom fireman from Schiller Park, and started to learn about variables in Math class as we learn more about each other. We had art class on Thursday and went to Music and P.E. today. Next week we will get into more fun class work. We are going to have a fantastic year, Champions!

A Big Welcome and the August Mix!

Hi class! Today is only August 16th, but you are in my thoughts already. Even though it's warm and we are all enjoying our summer vacation, I'm starting to get our blog ready for you! Each Friday (or Thursday if we are off of school on Friday) we will write a summary together as a class on this blog site. Instead of sending home a weekly newsletter, you and your family can log on to this website and find out exactly what we have been doing! As we all get better at the blogging, you will all have a chance to do the typing as you lead the class in writing our weekly summary! All aboard the Choudhary Technology Train!