The Diener School

Friday Follow Up-May 21, 2010

2010-05-24T05:33:00.000-07:00

This week in speech and language, Ms. Kate's Uppers HAD A BALL learning about different kinds of figurative language such as idioms, homophones, and synonyms! Ms. Barbara's Uppers worked hard on their nonverbal communication skills with Ms. Jen to prepare for their Diener stage debut that is scheduled for next week! Ms. Shannon's Inters also worked on nonverbal communication, specifically eye contact and facial expressions, and enjoyed our special topic time on Friday.

Primary and inters students completed their end of year assessments this week. In addition, primary students participated in their weekly motor group focusing on body/spatial awareness, rhythm and timing. We continued to work in our handwriting books, focusing on letter "J". Inters students completed a writing activity called "info. about myself" focusing on capitalization rules.

This week in the Social Club, we made up names and assigned roles for our puppets for our puppet show "Busy Bee's at the Diener Hive". We came up with a very interesting story plot and we will create a problem and solution next week. The kids practiced talking to each other with their puppets. We encourged them to use their imaginations to answer questions about their puppets family and what school their puppet went to. They came up with some very creative answers!

We made observations of our terrariums, this week. The kids drew pictures of the changes they noticed in their bottles and answered some questions to help them to sequence the steps that we took when putting our terrariums together.

Friday Follow Up-May 14, 2010

2010-05-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

We had a great week in speech and language and social skills. The Uppers continued to learn about conversing and also staying in touch with friends over the summer. We enjoyed brainstorming expected and unexpected telephone behaviors. Engaging in role-playing scenarios, especially over the telephone, was especially fun!
Ms. Jenni and Ms. Shannon's Inters worked hard to expand their semantic (vocabulary) networks this week. They loved playing Headbanz, working on perspective taking, and integrating the various clues given to them by their peers to problem solve. This game has quickly become one of our absolute favorites!

Monday was Fitness For Health, We have been working on hitting a birdy with a racket, and continued the same thing on Tuesday and Wednesday. We worked on body and space awareness, not running into each other and saying excuse me when we do. Friday for dance the uppers learned the thriller dance.

Ms. Jenni's class focused on rhythm and timing skills during our weekly motor group. They continue to work very hard to complete end of year assessments. Their improvements are truly amazing!

Light, camera, action! This week in the Social Club we began making our puppets for our awesome puppet show! The kids have been working together to come up with a story plot, characters, a problem and a solution that will take place in this little play of theirs. We used different materials to make our paper bag 'bees' and every bee has a job/profession (inspired by Disney's "Bee Movie"). How exciting!

We used different shapes to make pictures in the Art Club. The kids used their imaginations to make robots and aliens, chickens and lions, Ms. Patrices' and Ms. Lauries'... it was truly amazing to watch their creativity soar through art!

In science this week, the primary and inters started learning about the butterfly life cycle! We made butterfly books and life cycle wheels. We even got to watch a short power point slide show that went through the process of the life cycle. The uppers started constructing their soda bottle terrariums! Over the next few weeks, we will make observations about what we see in our bottles!

Friday Follow Up-May 7, 2010

2010-05-10T05:37:00.000-07:00

During language time, the primary students made edible ladybugs out of grapes and strawberries. focusing on following directions and reinforcing the concepts of living things and insects. Small group work focused on describing, listening, following directions and asking clarifying questions.

This week in the social club we played some exciting group games to promote socialization and team work. We played "Diener Diner" which allowed the kids to practice asking questions ("What can I get for you? Would you like some tea or coffee? How many eggs do you want?" etc...) and follow directions. We also watched clips of "Bee Movie" to get inspired for our Bee puppet show we will be putting on!

We took some time to really appreciate nature this week in the Art Club. We investigated and scowered the playground for natural beauty. After collecting different items (leaves, sticks, rocks, mud...) we came back inside and the kids made Art from Nature. Their work will be displayed in the science room.

Primary students designed festive arts-n-crafts activities focusing on folding, scissor, and handwriting skills. They also participated in their weekly motor group practicing their body awareness skills, moving their fingers, noses, and toes to the rhythm!

Ms. Jenni's inters class did a great job during their weekly handwriting group, working on forming compound words and formulating their very own silly sentences!

This week the students participated in a few Mother's Day craft projects. In addition, we continue to work on completing our end of the year assessments. It has been so exciting to see all the progress!
In science, we started talking about Life Cycles by discussing the differences between living and non living things. The primary and inters classes did a fun sorting and coloring activity. The uppers worked on comparing and contrasting real worms and gummy worms. Next week, we will focus on our new classroom pets and start constructing our terrariums!

Friday Follow Up-April 30, 2010

2010-04-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

We had a lot of fun this week in music! In the Primary class, we learned some new songs about springtime and went on a Bear Hunt. In the Inters classes, we got out a parachute and played some really fun games, like "Floating Down the River," and "You Can't Make a Turtle Come Out!" In the Uppers classes, we had fun practicing our two songs for graduation, "You've Got a Friend in Me" and "Lean on Me." We sang more of our favorite songs and played fun movement games.

During language time, the primary students played go fish with bug cards, working on asking and answering questions, while continuing to learn about different types of bugs. They also participated in smaller group work focusing on following directions, turn taking with peers and expanding on play and language skills!

Thu, April 29, 2010 10:52:09 AM
Re: Friday Blurb
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From:
Patrice Felder [Chat now]
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To: Laurie Schwadron
This week in the social club, we focused on doing group activities. We played three different games in the sensory room that highlighted a few important skills such as team work, positive attitudes, and patience. When we were finished with our games, we cooled down by making cards for the VIP's (Very Important People) in our lives :) We tapped into our creative sides in the Art Club when we did our Colorful Expressions project. The kids used various colors to show different emotions (example: blue=sad, yellow=happy, red=angry, pink=shy, green= silly, etc).We ended the day by going outside to search for inspiration for next weeks art project-- Art in Nature.

In science, we continued to talk about planet Earth and ways to keep it safe and reduce pollution.. We defined liter and came up with a list of ways to prevent people from littering. The primary and inters classes made liter bugs. We used miscellaneous items that were all reused or recycled from previous projects! The uppers classes worked on finishing up their planet Earths. In addition to this, each child came up with two facts about the Earth and ways to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!

The Uppers classes continue to make great strides in Social & Life Skills. We reviewed the components of nonverbal communication including: body language, facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, and vocal volume. We had a blast engaging in role play and acting out skits to match our body language, vocal tone, volume, and facial expressions to different situations! Ms. Jenni’s class also worked on identifying and using appropriate body language and facial expressions given a variety of different situations. The Inters loved playing What Did You Say? Ms Shannon & Ms Deanna’s Inters made edible compost cups! We read The Little Green Monster and discussed ways we can help our environment. Our compost cups were delicious!

Friday Follow Up-April 23, 2010

2010-04-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

Primary students participated in weekly handwriting groups focusing on the letters "I" and "T". They also completed a mystery coloring activity which required them to distinguish between upper and lower case letters. The students did an amazing job during our small group Yoga Bingo activity, where they got to practice yoga postures, as well as their turn taking skills.

Ms. Jenni's inters students worked very hard during their OT groups completing visual motor and brain gym activities in the hammock swing, working on core muscle and upper body strength. They continued to work hard in their handwriting books, completing their repertoire of lower case letters!

This week in music, we practiced our Earth Day songs to sing at Hadley Park! The Primary Class sang "This Old Earth." Miss Jenni's class sang "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." Miss Shannon's class sang "Recycle." Miss Kate's class sang another version of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." Miss Barbara's class sang "We've been Working on the Trash." Miss Deanna was so proud of all of the Diener kids today. Everyone sang beautifully at Hadley Park and it was so fun singing all of these songs with our Bullis pen pals!!

This week in the social club, we went on a safari in our minds! We walked through different habitats and identified the animals that we saw. We concluded with a fun group game out on the playground. We had a great time telling stories through pictures in the art club. Each student made four pictures that told a story, without using words. We also created a silly springtime sticker scene. We wrapped up our first session by using modeling clay to make our favorite animals.

In science, we celebrated Earth day by discussing the 3 R's-- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. We made giant planet Earth's with large coffee filters, makers, and water. we stuffed them with newspaper and other recyclable paper. We will continue to talk about the Earth and ways to help the environment next week.

We had a fun week in Speech and Language! The Uppers enjoyed being detectives while playing Reading Riddle Maze. We worked hard with our teammates to cooperate, respect one another’s ideas, and share responsibilities. The Inters learned about Earth Day with Fancy Nancy and completed a recycling project by sorting paper products, plastic/glass, and compost items.
In Social & Life skills, the Uppers classes were introduced to conversation vocabulary terms and learned about body language, gestures, facial expressions, and more. We had a blast practicing using different form of body language to convey messages to our peers.

This week our students participated in a fun body awareness activity. We focused on directionality and multi-step gross motor movements. In addition, we have begun out OT re-assessments. Its exciting to see all the wonderful progress!

Friday Follow Up-April 9, 2010

2010-04-23T06:08:00.000-07:00

This week in Beyond Cooking, we made cinnamon tortilla chips with fruit salsa. The kids had fun while working on their fine motor skills (cutting, chopping, and slicing fruit). We made comparisions between our fruit salsa and the tomato salsa and used a vin diagram to organize our information. We measured and mixed, sprinkled and sifted. It was a very delicious treat!

In science, we began talking about The Earth and our environment. The primary and inters classes read the book "On Earth" by G. Brian Karas and identified and located all seven continents. The uppers created Earth puzzles and began discussing biomes and animal habitats.

This week our students continued tomake excellent progress with their overall handwriting skills. Several of our students are enjoying learning cursive. This week we also focused on building our upper body strength and maintaining postures.

Friday Follow Up-March 26, 2010

2010-03-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

We had a fun-filled drama day with Mr. Aaron, in the Social Club this week. The kids talked about the story of The Three Little Pigs. They each were assigned a role and acted out different parts of the story. We ended the day by playing a fun group game in the fitness room.

Participants of the Buddy Program enjoyed doing Buddy Tracings with their friends from Green Acres. Inside of the tracing, each child wrote something that they liked about their buddy and the Buddy Program. We played a group game and enjoyed oatmeal cookies. What a treat!

We had a fiesta in Beyond Cooking on Thursday! The kids had a blast preparing Cheese and Spinach Quesadillas, Pita Chip Nachos, and fresh salsa. We incorporated math into our cooking lesson by cutting our quesadillas into halves and fourths. Everyone agreed that the recipes were easy to make a very delicious!

The 2nd Annual Diener School Science Fair was a huge success! The children had a great time learning about and executing all of their projects. Parents (new and old), friends, and other visitors were amazed by all of the hardwork put in by our kids! Everyone did an amazing job!

Today the Primary class and the two Inters classes sang at the Hebrew Home! Everyone did an awesome job. The Primary class sang songs like "Old McDonald," "Open Shut Them," and "Five Green and Speckled Frogs." The Inters classes sang songs like "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and "If You're Happy and You Know It." The kids all did an awesome job and the people at the Hebrew Home were very happy to hear their beautiful voices! In Miss Kate's Uppers class this week, we had fun continuing our study of rhythm by playing lots of rhythm games like Musical Instrument Chairs, Lightning Sticks, and I Like to Move It. We can't wait to continue having more fun in music after spring break! :)

Primary and inters students were excited to celebrate Spring this week! They created beautiful craft projects requiring them to trace their hands, cut, and glue or tape. Check out their BRIGHT projects outside of Ms. Jenni's classroom!

In Fitness we worked on balancing and continuing strengthening the lower body as well as the upper. Today we had the hebrew home And sang and danced away. All the kids that went danced to the cupid shuffle.

This week our students participated in a fun spring craft project. We created colorful flowers out of handprints. It required us to trace our hands, cut them out, and glue them to a paper plate. We are working hard on improving our visual motor and fine motor skills.

This week during Speech & Language, Ms Kate’s Uppers practiced making predictions and offering solutions to a variety of scenarios. We read Pig Pig and the Magic Photo Album, took turns trying to figure out what would happen based on our previous knowledge, the cover, and the title, and enjoyed when the true story was revealed! We even drew pictures and told stories to one another about what pictures we wish were in our photo albums that could transport us. Ms. Barbara’s Uppers put their irregular past tense verb and other grammatical form knowledge into use by creating Club Penguin Mad Libs. Our favorite part was when we read our silly stories to the rest of the class! The Inters enjoyed playing an exciting game of Headbanz, which allowed us to practice using our categorization and attribute generating skills.
Have a wonderful Spring Break! Enjoy playing the social skills and language games that were provided to Jillian (Pass the Eyes, One Word Story, & Category Horse)!

In art, the Iners learned how to create many shapes from starting out with one small shape. The children drew their shape on the paper, then followed the shape to make a line around it. They continued to draw many lines around their shapes and some even created more shapes! The children later colored in their shapes with crayons.

HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK!!

Friday Follow Up-March 19, 2010

2010-03-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

This week in Social Skills group, the Upper girls spent some time with Ms Jen working on our conversing skills. We created a list of conversation DOs and DON'Ts and practiced acting them out. Then we divided into groups and played a game called Mumble Jumble in which each team was given a list of 10 question/comment sentence strips and had to put them in sequential, logical order. The teams enjoyed acting as judges for one another's conversations. Ms. Shannon and Ms. Deanna's Inters enjoyed learning about semantic attributes using St. Patrick's Day riddles and a categorization game.

In music this week, a lot of us were getting ready for our trip to the Hebrew Home next week! In the Primary class, we practiced songs like "Open Shut Them," "Make New Friends," and "Old McDonald." In the Inters classes, we practiced songs like "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "Yankee Doodle," and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." We are excited to sing at the Hebrew Home next Friday! In Miss Kate's class, we had so much fun making our rhythm band out of our "instruments" that we brought from home! There was so much creativity, and we had instruments like chopsticks and a plate, a rice-filled plastic egg, a spoon in a cup, and an empty milk carton! We made some awesome music. In Miss Barbara's class, we watched clips of the group STOMP and talked about how we can make rhythm with household objects, like brooms, basketballs, and pots and pans. We will be making our rhythm band next week.

This week in Ms. Emily's class we continued our friendship theme. The students invited each other into a "friendship web" and said once nice thing about a friend in the class. We also made froot loop friendship bracelets where the students practiced making requests. Each student was "in charge"of a different color froot loop. The students did a wonderful job asking each other for various colors.

This week in Ms. Jenni's class we continued the class's plant theme by making the yummy dessert Dirt and Worms. The students learned sequenceing words while following directions. They also used a variety of verbs to describe the different actions that went into the activity. At the conclusion, we sat in a circle and used a special "talking stick", which the students used to ask each other what their favorite part of the activity was. Everyone did an awesome job listening attentively to their friends!

In fitness, we worked on and discussed the importance of 3 major leg muscles calf, quadriceps ,and hamstrings. All this week we did exercises involving the lower body, lunges squats steps and using the scooter. No dance this week because of the field trip.

This week during OT, Ms. Jenni's class wrote letters to thier pen pals. Students practiced writing statements and questions to their buddies, and were very excited to tell them about a recent visit to the theatre to see Flat Stanly! Primary students were ready to lean after building and maneuvering their very own obstacle courses. Forget the pencils! We used shaving creme during our handwriting lesson to learn and practice our letter of the week, "G."

Friday Follow Up-March 12, 2010

2010-03-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

This week in science we started working on our science fair projects. The primary class began an experiment about osmosis, while the inters classes conducted experiments about chemical reactions and wind velocity. Our uppers classes had a blast with their top secret projects. Everyone is very excited to continue their research and share all of their findings!

We took advantage of the beautiful spring like weather and went on a nature walk in the Social Club. The kids made observations about the changes in our environment due to the change in seasons. We played Freeze Tag and Hop, Skip, Jump as a group and gave the kids a little time to have free play.

On Wednesday, at the Buddy Program, we 'kicked' it outside and played a big group game of Kickball! The Diener and Green Acres students had so much fun! We played several 'getting to know you' games to help the kids remember the names of their buddies! A name card was also sent home to help our kids remember their Green Acres buddy's name. Everyone is excited about our St. Patty's Day celebration next week!

We got dirty in Beyond Cooking by making Mud Cups! We used our measuring, crushing, blending, scooping, mixing, and tasting skills to prepare and enjoy this unique treat! The kids had a great time making this yummy snack!

This week during our weekly handwriting group, Ms. Jenni's class did a wonderful job practicing their letter writing skills in preparation for writing to their pen pals. We reviewed the parts of a letter, and practiced by writing letters to our classmates.

Primary students had an exciting week in OT. We tested our core muscle strength by completing visual motor and fine motor activities in a variety of positions in the hammock swing. We also continued to work hard in our handwriting books, focusing on our letter of the week, "Q".

This week in Ms. Emily's speech group we learned about friendship and read Making Friends by Fred Rogers. Throughout this wonderful picture book, the students made personal connections that were related to friendship. Some of the personal connections were; naming friends from class and home, relating games that the students like to play with others, and problem solving what one can do if two friends want to play with the same toy. Following the book, the students implemented what was portrayed in the story by playing together as a class while building a tower of blocks. The students did a great job taking turns, maintaining eye contact while communicating, and interacting as a group.

This week in Ms. Jenni's speech group we learned about the social skill of providing encouragement to friends. The students did a great job of coming up with encouraging statements to specific situations (for example, what would you say to a friend who thinks he will never be able to ride a bike) . Finally, we did an activity where the students matched positive options when making decisions.

This week our students focused on paragraph writing. We discussed what makes a good paragraph. We also continued to work on building our upper body strength and endurance.

In art, the primary class had fun painting with popsicle sticks! We added flour to our paints to make them thicker. The students then were able to use their popsicle sticks to paint on their paper and create a design! The inters began learning about abstract design. For this particular project, we used white construction paper, a black marker, and a variety of colored markers and crayons. The uppers first used a pencil to draw a nature scene. Then they used markers and crayons to complete their artwork, creating different landscapes!

Friday Follow Up-February 26, 2010

2010-02-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

In Hands On Science, we discussed the three properties of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. We had a blast conducting two experiments. We mixed different liquids together to make silly putty! The kids enjoyed decribing how the putty felt in their hands. Our second experiment was a yummy treat. We mixed ice cream (solid) and Coca-Cola (liquid) to form a gas (the bubbles)! After recording our data, we enjoyed our delicious experiment!

We had a wonderful time playing getting to know you games in the Buddy Program this week. The Diener Inters were so eager to meet their Green Acres buddies. They asked them a lot of awesome questions to try to get to know them better. We played a number recognition game with the parachute. Everyone had a great time!

Beyond Cooking was fantastically fruitful this week. We made two different snacks with fruit: a fruit parfait and a fruit shortcake. We make comparisons about both and devoured our creations while we listened to the book, Blueberries for Sal.

We had a great time exploring magnets in science this week. The primary and inters classes worked in small groups to test items in their experiment bags to see which items were attracted to magnets. The uppers learned about the strength of different magnets by conducting a Paper Clip Attraction test!

To: Laurie Schwadron
This week during OT, primary students had a chance to practice sequencing and turn taking skills while playing a fun board game, Sequence for Kids. We continued working in our handwriting books this week. Our letter of the week was "C", and we practiced spacing and alignment while writing upper and lower case "C".

During OT this week, Ms. Jenni's class continued to participate in movement activities focusing on Left/Right discrimination, body and spatial awareness, as well as crossing the midline. We were introduced to lower case "h" this week. We practiced correct letter formation and sizing.

This week we continued to focus on left/right discrimination and played "Twisty Moves," a fun and exciting game full of movement. This week was full of movement, improving our gross motor skills and bilateral coordination.

This week in Ms. Emily's speech group we continued the class theme of winter and learned all about polar bears. We then made yummy polar bear treats where we used our description, association and following direction skills. Use the sequencing cards that were sent home to have your child retell what he made.

This week Ms. Jenni's speech group fell on the 100th day of school. In honor of this special day we played a game where we worked together to answer 100 speech and language questions. We had ten questions for ten different categories. Some of the categories included plurals, what's wacky, why questions, and categorization. The students even had a chance to practice their skills by playing the game during centers this week!

We had a wonderful week in Speech & Language! The Uppers worked on word retrieval and increasing expressive vocabulary. We played Headbanz and worked to expand our ability to provide attributes for target vocabulary terms and/or phrases. In Social & Life Skills, we continued learning about nutrition and health. Your children may begin to ask you if they can help choose and pack their lunch items. We ask that you facilitate their independence and encourage them to make healthy choices so that they have sufficient energy throughout our exciting school day! Ms Shannon and Ms Deanna’s Inters learned about categorization and practiced using describing words during poem construction and game playing activities.

We had a lot of fun this week in music! In the Primary class, we continued to play our favorite music games. We also learned new games that we played using rhythm sticks, like “Lightning Sticks” and “I Like to Move It.” In the Inters classes, we had music as one big group this week on our 100th day of school! We learned a special 100th day of school song and had fun singing and playing musical games with all of our friends. In the Uppers classes, we continued to learn about famous African-American musicians. We learned about two very famous groups, The Temptations and the Supremes, this week. We listened and danced to songs by them-it was a lot of fun!

Friday Follow Up-February 19, 2010

2010-02-19T12:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Diener friends!

This week in science, we began our new unit on magnets. The primary and inters classes brainstormed everything they know about magnets and did a very fun magnet fishing activity. The uppers classes worked in small groups at different 'Investigation Stations' where they conducted various experiments to test to see if certain objects were magnetic. We will continue to talk about magnets over the next few weeks.

The Buddy Program got off to an interesting start this week. Due to a communication error, we were buddy-less for our first formal buddy meeting. However, that did not stop the Diener kids from having a great time! We had a short but informative discussion on ways to be a great buddy and we compiled a list of awesome questions and conversation starters for our kids and their buddies. We ended the day by playing a few group games. The kids really enjoyed themselves!

To take our minds off of the cold and snowy weather, participants of Beyond Cooking whipped up some delicious camping treats. We started by making some tasty Trail Mix that had a mix of both salty and sweet ingredients. We read two very cute camping stories while the kids enjoyed their tasty treat! We ended the day by playing campfire games and, last but certainly not least, we made S'mores!

Tuesdays fitness we worked on sprinting and timing how fast we can run a certain distance. On Wednesday, we continued our basketball drills, which we will be doing for the rest of this month. Thursday, in yoga, the kids played a musical mat game. When they stopped on a mat they had to do the yoga pose that was on the mat. Friday dance, we continued the wiggles eagle rock with inters and choreographed dance with uppers.

Primary students participated in a variety of movement activities during OT, after a long break from school. We were ready to learn after we maneuvered obstacle courses including tunnels, trampolines, scooter boards, and wheelbarrow walks.

This week in Ms. Jenni's speech group we made fortune cookies out of felt in honor of Chinese New Year! We learned what a "fortune" is, reviewed sample fortunes and discussed their meaning. Everyone did a great job following directions during the craft activity. At the end, we traded cookies with our friends in class!

This week in Speech and Language, Ms. Barbara’s Uppers class was divided into two groups. The first group continued to work on using irregular past tense verbs. Their ability to maintain this new skill over the unexpected snow-vacation was very impressive! The second group worked on categorization and attributes using the game A to Z Junior. During Social & Life Skills, we began our unit on nutrition using the new and improved food pyramid.

Ms. Shannon’s Inters had fun creating I LOVE YOU Valentines for our loved ones. We practiced using Give Me 5 while following the directions. We look forward to sharing our creations with our families!

After a long break, we are up and moving! The Uppers participated in a fun activity focusing on body awareness and crossing midline. We continue to progress with our cursive midline. This week we introduced lowercaswe "i" and "t."

Friday Follow Up-January 29, 2010

2010-01-29T13:18:00.000-08:00

This week in science, we continued to explore the solar system and discuss the planets. The primary students blasted off and had a wonderful time making Paper Tube Rocket Ships. The inters and uppers made their own personalized models of the solar system and learned new facts about each planet. The uppers also discussed the Planet Poster Project, which is due next Friday, February 5, 2010.

We went on an adventurous walk in the Social Club and we worked on saying please and thank you to our friends. We also worked on creating multiple circles of communication by asking questions and thinking of appropriate responses.

We rocked and rolled in Beyond Cooking this week! The kids had the opportunity to make their own Rice Crispie Treat Sushi Rolls. We talked about how they were the same and different from regular sushi and even made a vin diagram to represent these similarities and differences. Our kids had so much fun decorating their own 'take out' boxes and rolling their sushi rolls. Ms. Jenni and Ms. Abbe added their own creative flare to our awesome treats! Everyone agreed, it was the best week yet!

In Hands On Science, we continued to experiment with sinking and floating. We used eggs to test our hypothesis, which was "Will our eggs float or sink in fresh or salt water?" Even though our experiment didn't quite work how we thought it would, the kids still enjoyed themselves. We created boats out of foil and tested to see if they would sink or float. They ALL floated! We added egga and recorded how many eggs we could fit in our boats before they sank... What an 'egg-cellent' experiment!

This week in Ms. Jenni's class we continued our lesson on facial expressions and emotions. We acted out different scenarios using props and the students had to guess which emotion was appropriate for the situation. Everyone did a great job acting and following directions!

Miss Emily's class had a great week in OT. The letter of the week was "Y" and we made our very own its, bitsy, book of "Y" words. We practiced our cutting, coloring, and folding skills.

This week in Social & Life Skills, the Upper boys learned about the components of play and how they relate to big/little problems. We discussed how worrying about "little problems" such as what color piece you get or who goes first often takes away from our valuable game-playing time. We reviewed what makes a problem a "big problem" and how to try not to "sweat the small stuff."

The Inters read a book called Today I Feel Silly and brainstormed as many feeling words as we could come up with. We worked on nonverbal communication by showing our feelings with our faces and bodies. We also played a speedy memory game using Feelings Faces cards. We had lots of fun!

This week in music, we read an interactive book called "Carnival of the Animals." This was accompanied by the CD of the orchestral recording of "Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saens, a famous French composer. We got to learn a little bit about Saint-Saens to continue our study of composers, and we got to review the instruments that are in an orchestra. With the book and the CD, we listened to each piece and discovered how each one sounded like a different animal-lions, elephants, kangaroos, and even some silly ones like fossils and pianists! We discussed the different instruments we heard and differences between loud and soft, fast and slow. We also continued to sing our favorite songs and play our favorite movement games.

This week we continued to work from our Handwriting Without Tears Workbook. Each student is making wonderful progress. The students then enjoyed a visual-motor activity that addressed spatial awareness and correlated with our math lesson regarding fractions/shapes.

Friday Follow Up-January 22, 2010

2010-01-22T12:16:00.000-08:00

This week in science, we continued to talk about the solar system. The primary and inters classes, enjoyed learning about the Outer Planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto- the dwarf planet) by watching The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space. we created a hands on, visual representation of the solar system, by having the kids pretend to be planets and orbit around then Sun! This helped to solidify understanding the new material. The Uppers worked on their Planet Projects and reviewed planet facts in their Solar System journals.

We had a great time learning about the concept of Sink and Float in Hands on Science this week. We watched a short video on buoyancy and we conducted an experiment to see if our selected items would sink or float. We made predictions prior to the experiment and we were all surprised by some of the results!

We made some delicious creations this week during Beyond Cooking. The kids had fun creating their very own Pizza Bagels! They got to pick their own yummy vegetable toppings to make their pizza unique. While our Pizza Bagels were baking, we blended up a delicious fruit smoothie!

We continued our basketball unit in fitness! We practiced dribbling, keeping our eyes on the ball, and learning the rules of the game.

We learned a new dance called the eagle rock. You can you tube it by the Wiggles. All the kids learned the dance, except the K class.

This week in speech and language, the Uppers continued to learn about irregular past tense verbs and figurative language. Ask your child to share his or her favorite idiom with you and see what they say! Please see Jillian's Friday letter for some samples of our I AM poems that the girls created this week in Social & Life Skills group. Although it is important for us to think about what we need to work on, we also need to take time to remember our strengths. On Friday, Ms. Courtney and Ms. Deanna's Inters worked on using Give me 5 to play Look Who's Listening! We also worked on eye contact while playing Pass the Eyes.

This week in Inters music, we combine Miss Jenni's and Miss Courtney's classes together for one big music class! We played lots of fun games like Count and Move, Freeze Dance, and rhythm stick games. In Miss Barbara and Miss Abbe's class, we continued our study of composers by learning about Tchaikovsky. We watched and listened to The Nutcracker Suite. We were assigned a project to do a little bit of research about a composer to share in next week's music class!

Our letter of the week in Miss Emily's class was X. We designed our very own letters using a variety of tactile media including cotton balls, felt, glitter, macaroni, beans, and stickers. We also participated in a large movement group focusing on right/left discrimination and coordinating both sides of our bodies.

This week in Ms. Jenni's class we participated in a variety of small group movement activities that focused on right/left discrimination and spatial awareness. We continued to work hard during our weekly handwriting group reviewing "tall" and "descending" letters and practicing the correct formation of our newly introduced lower case letters "p" and "r".

This week during speech group in Ms. Jenni's class we learned all about emotions. We studied different pictures of faces and analyzed how a person's facial expression depicts a certain feeling. We also practiced making the faces we studied (happy, sad, surprised, etc..). Each student then constructed their very own face depicting a "surprise" emotion. After they put their emotion face together they were able to guess what emotion it was and present it to the class. For example, the students told about the shape of the mouth and the angle of the eyebrows.

In Art, the Primary class had a lot of fun painting with Q-tips! The materials used in this project consisted of white construction paper, black paint and Q-tips. The children dipped the Q-tips into the paint and created wonderful and very interesting designs (dots and lines) on their paper. They learned about the difference between light and dark (contrast). They have also discovered with previous art projects, that instead of using paint brushes, there are many different kinds of art "tools" to paint with , creating a variety of designs! The Uppers (Ms. Kate's class) will be concentrating on different art techniques that an artist may use. This week, the children learned how to draw "beyond the border" of their paper. This is a type of art technique. The first step was for the children to draw a large shape in the middle of their paper. Crayons and markers were then used to draw a picture, not only inside the shape, but also extending their drawings "beyond the border!" In Ms. Barbara's class, the children learned how to draw by using a grid. The children were first given graph paper which they used as a grid to create their drawing. The children then used a pencil to sketch their drawing on the grid. After this was completed, they used a black marker to outline their drawing. The use of the grid allowed the children to draw lines, and patterns in an organized manner. It became a very different and interesting way to draw!

Friday Follow Up-January 15, 2010

2010-01-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hi Diener friends!!

This week in science, we continued to explore the solar system. We talked about the inner planets and outter planets and their divider, the astroid belt. The primary and intermediate classes learned about the center of our universe, the sun. We identified objects that grown from the suns energy and talked about how the sun heats the earth and other planets. The uppers did a "Planet Scramble" activity and talked about their Solar System Research Project. The Diener students are really "outta this world"!

The after school programs were a big success this week. In the Social Club, the kids had a great time working together to put puzzles together. We tried to do this without taking so the kids could try to use other forms of communication (writing, body language, ect...). They also made creative illustrations and popsicle stick frames for them. We had a great time in Hands On Science, with our snow experiment. The kids made predictions prior to the experiment and checked to see if they were right. We reviewed Scientific Method and all seven steps. Lastly, we used our 'YUCK' Science Kit to make 'Snot Goo'. The kids had the opportunity to touch it and use adjectives to describe what it felt like. Participants of Beyond Cooking learned about measuring ingredients while making homemade Baked Apples and Soy Milk Ice Cream. We put together recipe cards and enjoyed our delicious treat. We made a chart to show who liked what better ( the baked apples or the ice cream). All in all, we had a deliciously fun time!

We worked on passing and dribbling skills in fitness on Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday, we worked on balance and building upper body and core strength. By running in a straight line,walking backwards, and hopping, we learned a new position called the plank, working our way up to doing 1 correct push up.
In dance class on Friday, the Primary class learned the Macarena. The Uppers worked on listening to the beat and clapping to it stepping to it and hearing the beat.

This week in music, in the Inters and Uppers classes, we continued to learn about composers. This week we learned about George Gershwin. We watched and listened to "Rhapsody in Blue," Gershwin's most famous piece. We continued to sing our favorite songs and play musical games. In the Primary class, we kept singing our favorite songs like "Open Shut Them," and played our favorite games like "Bop Til You Drop" and "Beanie Bag Dance."

This week Ms. Barbara and Ms, Kate's Uppers continued to work on their grammar by learning about regular and irregular past tense verbs. Some silly verbs do not follow the -ed rule and we are working to remember what they change to when these action words already happened! Ms. Kate's Uppers had a blast playing A to Z Junior to continue our work on categorization. The boys played against the girls and although it was close, the girls won!

Ms. Courtney's Inters read The Jacket I Wear in the Snow and then created their own individual books to re-tell the story of the boy who wanted to go outside and play during the snow day. We look forward to continuing this project with Ms Jen next week!

In social skills, the boys learned about self-awareness, New Years resolutions, and self-confidence. Instead of making resolutions about what we need to improve, we are resolving to feel good about ourselves, value ourselves, and think about ourselves in a positive manner!

Primary-This week we focused on letter "W". During our weekly OT group we created "W" using our bodies. We also had fun in the sensory room making obstacle courses that helped to improve our core strength and challenged our balance skills.

Inters (Ms. Jenni)- We worked so hard this week during our OT groups! We participated in challenging social groups focusing on motor planning, visual exercises, and social skills. We continued to expand our writing skills this week during our handwriting group.

To go along with Ms. Emily's weekly theme of Eric Carle, this week in speech group we played The Grouchy Ladybug- a Game of Size and Manners. Each student had a chance to spin, move the specified number of spaces, and collect the number of bugs they landed on. But wait! The students had to use the word please in order to collect their bugs. If they forgot to say please, the first person to remind their friend how to request politely got a bonus bug! The one with the most bugs wins! The students did a wonderful job requesting politely and reminding each other to say please if someone forgot.

To go along with Ms. Jenni's weekly theme of Marc Brown, this week in speech group we read the book Arthur's Tooth. Arthur is the only one in his class who still hasn't lost a tooth. Not only is he desperately waiting for his first baby tooth to fall out, his classmates are making fun of him and excluding him from playing in their games! After we finished reading the book we broke up into groups and read a situation from the book where Arthur's friends were being mean. After talking about how it made Arthur feel to be excluded, each group had a chance to change the "mean" comments into positive ones. The groups came up with many wonderful things to say to include a classmate who is being left out. What a great social skill to have!

This week in Occupational Therapy, the students continued participating in group activities that emphasize right/left discrimination, directionality and spatial awareness. In addition, our cursive curriculum was introduced to the students in Ms. Barbaras's class. Keep up the good work everybody!

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Friday Follow Up-January 8, 2010

2010-01-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Diener friends!

The Primary and Inters practiced taking deep breaths and experimenting with breathing and movement using the pin wheels. We did our yoga moves to the story "The Rabbit in the Forest" that told the story of sharing our gifts with others. Then we did some partner moves to "wash windows", row your boat and we made a twisty stair line.
The Uppers worked with breathing and the Sun Salutation. We did a Down Dog Relay and had a surprise yoga pose under our mats that we had to guess.
At the end we all finished with our final relaxation to the song "Peace Be With You"

This week in music, in the Inters and Uppers classes, we started learning about composers. The first composer we learned about this week was Beethoven. We learned a little bit about his life and listened to and watched clips of his music, including parts of his 5th and 6th Symphonies. This month, we will learn about a different composer each week! In the Primary class, we continued to have fun with our favorite songs and movement games.

Primary-We had a wonderful week with Ms. Brook participating in our weekly movement and handwriting groups. We did a variety of exercises with our bodies focusing on body awareness, coordinating both sides of our bodies, as well as coordinating our upper and lower bodies. The letter of the week was "V".

Inters (Ms. Jenni)- This week during our motor group with Ms. Brook we focused on a variety of skills in a variety of different postures. We practiced prone (tummy) postures, supine (back) postures. In addition we worked on rhythm and timing skills while completing brain gym and clapping patterns.

This week in Ms. Emily's speech group we read the book Kipper's Snowy Day . Just like the characters in the story made snowdogs out of snow, we had lots of fun making our very own snowdogs using cotton balls! We even dressed them up so they would keep warm in the cold weather. The students did a wonderful job attending to the project, following directions, and using their language skills to complete the activity. We learned opposites and attributes that related to the book. Everyone had a chance to share their favorite snow activity with the group!

This week in Science, we focused on the Solar System! The primary and intermediate classes had fun watch the Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space and making their very own Outta This World pictures! The uppers took a look at the Sun and visited the planet closest to the giant star, Mercury. Next week, we will continue to focus on the four inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars)

The after school clubs kicked off this week with a bang! We had an awesome time on the social club making snow measures. In Hands on Science, we conducted a color mixing activity and did a fun water experiment with Mr Aaron! Last but not least, we chef'd up some salads this week (Salad People and Fruit Salad) and made comparisions about which ones we like better.

Friday Follow Up-December 18, 2009

2009-12-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Diener friends. Please read below to see what your kids have been learning!!

K class: Emily

This week we enjoyed working together to make home made latkes (potato pancakes) in honor of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. We worked together to peel, grate, and mix the potatoes with the rest of the ingredients. As we worked through each step, we learned new vocabulary and concepts. Social skills were incorporated throughout this wonderful activity!

1-2 class: Jenni

This week we enjoyed working together to make home made latkes (potato pancakes) in honor of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah. We worked together to peel, grate, and mix the potatoes with the rest of the ingredients. As we worked through each step, we learned new vocabulary and concepts. While our yummy latkes were frying we played Latka Jeopardy, which included the categories Ingredients, Utensils, Sequencing, and What Does Not Belong. Social skills were incorporated throughout this wonderful activity!

Monday in fitness we played a cooperation game sharing hulla hoops and trying to catch balloons in them, also sending the hoop from friend to friend holding hands without letting go of each other. The rest of the week we practice our dances for fri.

In yoga, worked on breathing techniques and learning to control our bodies and heart rate after being worked up.

This week in science, we wrapped up our unit on the human body. The kids enjoyed completing their Mini-Me Projects. They learned the difference between the interior and exterior of their bodies. We labeled our bones and all of the major organs in our bodies. We also discussed the functions of our bones and organs and we briefly talked about digestion.

During the last session of the Uppers Buddy Program, the kids had a great time hanging out with their buddies for the last time. We played several group games, as well as, playing Kickball and having a fabulous fashion show!

We had fun making a variety of holiday treats during the Social Club, this week. On Monday, we colored different holiday objects to that represented numerous cultures and their holiday traditions. On Thursday, we had fun assembling our Penguin
Thermometers and singing holiday music.

This week in music, we were busy practicing our songs for the Holiday and Multicultural Festival. Today we all performed our Christmas and Hanukkah songs for our parents! We all sounded beautiful as we sang songs like "Jingle Bells," "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," and "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel." We can't wait to come back in 2010 and keep having fun in music!

We had so much fun this week in speech and language! The Uppers enjoyed exchanging gifts during Social Skills group. All of the students managed to keep their Secret Snow Owls to themselves -- which can be quite a feat! We practiced what to do with big/little problems within gift giving situations and all of the kids were thrilled with the gifts they received! Lots of fun was had by all!

Ms. Courtney's Inters had a blast creating Rudolph puppets. They followed multiple step directions and were pleased with their creations.

Primary-This week we focused on the letter U during our weekly handwriting group with Ms. Brook. We also practiced our fine motor skills, and body and spatial awareness skills by making a tasty snowman craft using marshmallows, pretzels, raisins, and other sweets.

Inters (Ms. Jenni)- This week we participated in a large group activity with Ms. Courtney's class, making a tasty holiday snack. We used a piece of bread shaped like a triangle, and added antlers, a red nose, and other facial features using a variety of yummy treats. We got to practice both our fine motor and sequencing skills. We also worked very hard during our weekly handwriting group with Ms. Brook. This week we started learning about lower case "tall" letters.

HAVE A GREAT BREAK AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE DIENER STAFF!

Friday Follow Up-December 11, 2009

2009-12-21T10:18:00.000-08:00

This week in music, we continued to work on our holiday songs for the concert on December 18th. We are singing a lot of fun songs, including "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah." We also did fun activities with rhythm sticks, such as "I Like to Move It." We are really enjoying learning our holiday songs!

Primary-The letter of the week was L and the kids continued to work on letter formation using a multi-sensory approach. This week the kids experimented with chalk during our handwriting group. They also participated in their weekly motor group dancing with bean bags and focusing on body awareness. In addition, the boys worked on formulating and maneuvering their very own obstacle courses.

This week during speech and language, Ms. Barbara and Ms. Abbe's Uppers continued to further their knowledge of figurative language - specifically, idioms. Not to blow our own horns or anything but we were on top of the world when we realized how much we had learned without having to pay an arm and a leg! :)

Ms. Kate and Ms. Ginny's Uppers are very excited about our Secret Snow Owl project. We spent some time discussing and practicing perspective taking and others' favorite things during Social & Life Skills group. We also had lots of fun learning about and celebrating Hanukkah!

Ms. Courtney and Ms. Deanna's Uppers had a blast reading about Pirate Joe and Pirate Pete but felt badly for them when they lost their ship! After our story, we used Give Me 5 to follow directions when creating our own pirate ships with sticker scenes. The boys especially enjoyed taking turns giving each other verbal directions.

Friday Follow Up-December 4, 2009

2009-12-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

This week in fitness, we worked on balance, directional moving, skipping, hopping, stepping backwards, forwards, and side to side. We finished up our T-Ball unit on Wednesday by splitting into stations, doing target practice, batting practice, and catching.

We did many different dances in dance class such as, The Maccarena, The Cha Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, Hokey Pokey, and many more. The kids had so much fun!

This week in music, we started singing holiday songs! In all of our classes,we sang both Christmas and Hanukkah songs. In the Primary class, we sang "Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer" and "Dreidel, Driedel." In the Inters classes, we sang "The Chipmunk Song," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah." In the Uppers classes, we sang "Rockin Around The Christmas Tree," "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah." "Dreidel, Dreidel," and "Holly Jolly Christmas." We had a great time!

We had another great Thursday of drama. We explored making big choices with our bodies and allowing the actions of those around us to affect our own creative decisions. Some of the classes also explored some new clowning exercises which we hope to use in our production of the Ugly Duckling this spring.

This week in science, we continued to discuss the human body by focusing on one of it's most important parts, our bones! The primary and intermediate classes assembled a skeleton and learned about the major bones in our body ( skull, spine, ribs, pelvic, arms and legs). We learned two important functions of bones in our bodies; 1) to give us structure and 2) to protect our organs. The uppers were excited to start their Body Building class projects. Each student had a friend trace around their body. The students will draw their bones on their body outline. Eventually, we will add additional part of the body to these drawings. What a great way to learn about our bodies from the inside out!

We had so much fun making Gingerbread pops and playing relay games, in the Buddy Program this week. The kids worked with their buddies to decorate and devour their scrumptious creations! Aaron organized some fantastic group games which encouraged the kids to work together.

The participants of the Social Club had fun decorating a snowman and using different objects to make an appropriate setting for their creation! We also talked about Hanukkah and made menorah candles. Hooray for the holidays

This week in art the students learned more about colors and how to blend them using watercolor paints. The students then helped me prepare a 'special project' for a 'secret special Diener School person' (bet you cant guess who)!? Please ask your children what they helped create - they all loved being in on the secret!

Primary- participated in weekly movement group focusing on body awareness and turn taking. Handwriting group- letter K focusing on letter formation, mature grasp patterns, and utilizing non-dominant hand as a stabilizer. Inters-J participated in weekly movement group focusing on upperbody and core strengthening, social skills, and visual motor skills. Participated in weekly handwriting group focusing on lower case e. The kids continued to focus on letter formation, spacing and alignment, pencil grasp, and posture.

K class: This week in speech group we learned how to make chocolate pudding. We covered a variety of language areas during the activity including sequencing, following directions, and turn taking.

1-2 Class (Jenni)- This week in speech group we learned how to make vanilla pudding. We covered a variety of language areas during the activity including sequencing, vocabulary, following directions, and turn taking.

We had a fabulous week expanding our speech, language, and social skills! On Monday, Ms. Kate's class read the book, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. We had lots of fun sharing the parts of the story-the boots that went CLOMP CLOMP, the gloves that went CLAP CLAP, etc We then worked together to sequence and paraphrase the beginning, middle, and end.

Ms. Barbara's class continued to work on our figurative language book. Thus far, each student has completed a homonym, homophone, and idiom. We will work on humor and then put the finishing touches on our book soon.

Ms. Courtney's class worked on their sentence development and using both irregular and regular past tense verb forms. We played Photo Fish and Say and had so much fun finding as may matches as we could!

NOTE TO UPPERS PARENTS-Please check your children's backpacks for letters regarding our Secret Show Owl program. Thank you and have a great weekend!

While working with Kathy, we enjoyed participating in fun but challenging social games. Our games focused on visual skills, motor planning and most importantly, proper social skills!

Friday Follow Up-November 20, 2009

2009-11-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Diener friends. This is what we have been up to...

In fitness, we continued with our T-Ball unit, working on our throwing and hitting. We also focused on catching pop flys and grounders and making double plays. All of the kids had to aim and throw through three circles shaped like a triangle.

We had a great performance at the Hebrew Home today-the kids were wonderful!!

We had a great week in music class. In the primary class we sang our Thanksgiving songs including "5 Little Turkeys" and "Lets Be Thankful." We read two of our favorite musical books, "5 Green and Speckled Frogs" and "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" In the inters classes, we had some new fun instruments to play for our instrument pass. We also did rhythm stick games and practiced keeping a steady beat! Today, the uppers classes went to the Hebrew Home an did an AMAZING job! The audience loved our singing!

We had a WONDERFUL time in Art class this week! To kick off our activity, the students told me about the Thanksgiving holiday and I read them a story, "Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving! The students were then given featherless turkey cutouts that they had to put in disguise to keep them away from the dinner table. All of the kids came up with their own creative costumes and were so pleased with the final products! Please look for Mack Nuggets Turkey Farm and our Turkeys in Disguise the next time you stop inside Diener.

This week in science, we began our unit on the Human Body. The primary and inters classes examined a skeleton and watched an episode of the Magic School Bus, while the uppers identified the parts of our bodies that we use for our five senses. They also watched an episode of the Magic School Bus that focused on the human body and all of its amazing parts.

We had a great time in the Buddy Program this week. The buddies worked together to find 40 different objects on the Diener School Scavenger Hunt! Each team had three minutes to find 10 objects in four different rooms. The kids were so excited to see their buddies and show them around the school.

The social club is going great! We had a great time making candy corn figures, playing freeze dance, and playing Pirate Adventure on the playground.

In yoga, we jiggled to the beat with drumming music and shook our musical instruments to loosen all the tight places. We did our yoga movements to the story "The Lost Bone" and we challenged our bodies with the "Plank" pose. We ended our session with a relaxation and a hearty "yes" to acknowledge our hard work today!

Friday Follow Up-November 13, 2009

2009-11-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

This week in science, we finished our amazing unit on the Five Senses. We did an overview of the senses and discussed how we use them and why they are important. All of the students had the opportunity to make their own playdough! Next week, we will start our unit on Fitness, Nutrition, and the Human Body.

The Buddy Program was wonderful this week. The participants had a great time playing as a team and getting to know the games. The Green Acres students are coming up with some wonderful ideas and activities to do for the remaining weeks. I'm thrilled about how well the program is going.

This week in the Social Club, we had fun making Hand print Turkeys and decorative mugs. We took advantage of the nice weather and had extra recess outside. When the weather turned rainy, we had fun playing an array of physically challenging games in the sensory room.

In drama we have continued to work on using our bodies and voices to communicate information and ideas. We have also been working on our ability to work together as an ensemble with games like "slow motion snowball fight" and "magic word" where performers work together to communicate a word without using their voices.

In fitness, we played balloon volleyball and hit balls in the air with paddle sticks. We also have been working on our softball unit. The kids worked out force outs and began hitting off of the T-Stand. In dance on Friday, we played freeze copy dance and worked on the dance routine for the Hebrew Home.

In yoga this week, we practiced gentle stretches, Downward Dog and Tree pose. e did an activity around the fall; imagining our leaf shapes, blowing leaves with a yoga breath and using a chestnut to roll under our feet. All of these worked on becoming aware of our foundation-our legs, like the tree trunk. Everyone kept their chestnuts as a reminder that fall is a time of year that gives us gifts.

It was another fun week in music! In the Primary class, we played our favorite movement games like "Bear Hunt," "Bop Til You Drop," and "Instrument Pass." We learned Thanksgiving songs, such as "5 Little Turkeys," and sang one of our new favorites, "Open Shut Them." In the Inters classes, we did our favorite games such as "Count and Move" and "Freeze Dance." This week we also got to use the new sets of rhythm sticks to play games such as "Greased Lightning" and "When The Saints Go Marching In!" We got to practice keeping the beat with our rhythm sticks. In the Uppers Classes, we continued to prepare for our trip to the Hebrew Home next Friday, Nov. 20th.

This week in art, we focused on the HUMAN BODY and the way that our bodies are put together. The students took turns giving me the names of body parts and as the parts were listed, I constructed a "new friend" starting with the head and working down to the feet. After my example was completed each student was given cutouts so that they could organize and create a person of their own! Once all of the pieces were glued down and their "friends" were posed, the students made each of theirs unique by creating clothing, faces, and a background! Every student came up with a different idea and I was astounded with the finished products. Please keep an eye out for the new artwork on the walls at The Diener School.

Friday Follow Up-November 6, 2009

2009-11-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome back Diener friends!

This week in art, we worked with Mrs. Gilbertson (better known as Ms. Jackie or Kelley's mom) to create a surprise auction item for this year's Diener School Auction! Each child was given a blank square tile that they painted using many different techniques ranging from stamping to dragging to free hand! The tiles turned out amazing and will soon be fired so that they can be put together to create our finished product! Be sure to look out for the auction item on May 26th!!

We continued to have fun playing all of our favorite instruments and movement games this week in music. In the primary class, we started learning Thanksgiving songs, including, "Five Little Turkeys." We did "Bop Til You Drop" and "Bear Hunt." In the Inters classes, we joined together for one big group music class and had played a lot of fun games, including "The Hokey Pokey," "Count and Move," and Instrument Pass! In the uppers classes, we continued to practice our songs for the upcoming Hebrew Home performance, including "The Star Spangled Banner," "Over the River and Through the Woods," "Oh Susanna," and "Home on the Range."

In fitness we worked on hand eye coordination and color matching by catching different color frisbees and matching the frisbees up with tHe same color cones. We also swatted down the frisbees in the air by hitting them with foam lacrosse sticks. We started out T-Ball unit on Wednesday and have been working on different throws (overhand, grounder, etc.).

In yoga, we learned a new word, Namise (ask your child the meaning!). We also used our eye pillows and learned a new position, a lung and playing baby.

This week in science, we continued to discuss the 5 senses and highlighted the sense of sight. The primary and inters classes had a blast listening to the story, "It Looked Like Spilt Milk," by Charles G. Shaw. In addition to this, we made our very own "spilt milk" pictures. They look amazing! The uppers classes created Five Senses poetry and assembled kaleidoscopes as appealing to the eye as possible. I was very impressed by how hard they worked! Please see end of blog for Five Senses Poems!

Everyone agreed (kids included) that the buddy program was the BEST ever this week! Mr. Aaron organized several group games to play. The children enjoyed working together as a team to keep a soccer ball on a parachute. They had to listen to each other and work together to be successful. We also took advantage of the beautiful fall weather by going outside to play an invigorating game of kickball. We are all looking forward to the rest of our sessions together!

This week in the social club, we focused on completing circles of communication. The kids are continuing to form bonds and friendships with each other and I am striving to asses them with this, sometimes difficult task. I encourage the students to ask friends for help to and to engage in social conversation. We have worked on puzzles, played with Legos, played outside, and created various arts and crafts projects!

MS. BARBARA'S CLASS-5 SENSES POEM:

I SEE MS. PATRICE, PEOPLE, AND BEAUTIFUL SHOES.

I HEAR FIRE ENGINES, WRITING ON THE BOARD, AND THE CREEKY CHAIR.

I TASTE ENCHILADAS, RAMEN, AND DUMPLINGS.

I TOUCH TOYS, PRESENTS, AND WINDOWS.

I SMELL MASHED POTATOES, PERFUME, AND FLOWERS.

MS. KATE'S CLASS-5 SENSES POEM:

I SEE OUR EXPERIMENT, A FLAG, AND CONSTRUCTION SITE.

I HEAR A SIREN, INSTRUMENTS, AN GUM.

I TOUCH THE CHALKBOARD, THE TABLE, AND THE CARPET.

I SMELL CHOCOLATE DONUTS, CHEESE PIZZA, AND SUBWAY SUB SHOPS.

Friday Follow Up-October 30, 2009

2009-10-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome back Diener friends!

We had a great time this week in music! In the Primary class, we enjoyed all of our Halloween songs for one more week-"Scarecrow," "Five Little Pumpkins," "Orange Orange Pumpkin, What Do You See," and "Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Big and Round." We also did the Hokey Pokey and played with some new instruments. We learned that all of the instruments we play in class, such as maracas, wood blocks, rhythm sticks, and bongo drums are all percussion instruments. We listened to clips of the different instruments playing with an orchestra. In the Uppers classes, we started learning our songs to sing at the Hebrew Home next month. We will be singing fun songs such as "The Star Spangled Banner," "Oh Susanna," "You are My Sunshine," and "Over the River and Through the Woods."

In fitness, we went over different passes in basketball and chest passes. On Wednesday, we began T-Ball which unit will be covered next month. In dance class, we learned a new routine for our group dance. The Uppers classes practiced their dance for the Hebrew Home next month. During Yoga class, we made bridges with our feet working on our core muscles. We also pretended to be trees in the fall and shake our leaves!

In Art, the Primary class created wonderful 3-D collages using the secondary colors. In the Inters and Uppers classes, we focused on lines, the basic principle of art. The children discovered that there are lines all around us in different shapes and forms.

This week in science, we are focusing on the sense of touch/feeling. The Primary and Inters classes played with "Feely Bags" and tried to guess what objects were in the bags (without looking)! We also utilized our fine motor skills by completing a worksheet that identified what body part we use to touch things. In addition to this, we read the book, "My Five Senses," by Margaret Miller. The Uppers classes explored the sense of touch by creating "gak." We made predictions about what would happen when we mixed all of the ingredients together. We also made "spooky bubbles" and read a special book!

In the Buddy Program, we had a blast making candied apples and playing "Find the Pumpkin." The students are really getting to know their buddies from Green Acres! Everyone is working together, in a safe, but fun, environment. We couldnt ask for more!

Friday Follow Up-October 16, 2009

2009-10-16T10:15:00.001-07:00

Hello Diener Friends! Welcome back to the blog! Please read below to see what your children have been doing...

This week in the primary music class, we continued singing our favorite songs and playing our favorite instruments. We sang our "Scarecrow" song and learned a new song about Halloween, "Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin, What Do You See?" We were really into the Bear Hunt this week!
In the Inters and Uppers classes, we continued to learn about musical instruments. This week, we learned about the woodwinds family, and saw pictures of and heard the sounds of the flute, oboe, clarinet, piccolo, saxophone, and recorded. We continued to play our favorite movement games!

In fitness, we continued practicing our soccer passes. We also began our second week of kickball. We will eventually be able to have class vs. class kickball games and ultimately, a staff vs. students game! More details to follow!

This week in yoga, we learned new poses such as "lizzard on a rock" and "cobra snake." We moved our bodies into three different poses and everyone enjoyed themselves!

In art, the primary class had a great time painting popsicle sticks! First, we had to make the paint thicker by adding flour. The children put the paint on their paper and used their popsicle sticks to spread the paint and create wonderful designs!
In the inters class, we focused on making secondary colors combining different primary colors. The kids mixed different primary colors together to see which secondary colors (green, orange, and purple) they could make!

This week in science, we explored the sense of taste by conducting taste test(s). In the primary and inters class, we talked about how our tongue helps us to talk and taste things! We stimulated our taste buds by sampling foods (lemon wedge, jelly bean, potato chip, and unsweetened cocoa)from the four major taste groups; sour, sweet, salty, and bitter. The uppers had a blast identifying taste in the Jelly Belly taste test. The kids were delighted to try each jelly bean and match the taste in their mouth to the corresponding picture. In addition to the taste test, the uppers learned about the famous inventor, George Washington Carver, and his discovery of the peanut! We talked about how was use the peanut, products that contain peanuts, and how some people are allergic to peanuts. Overall, it was a very tasty week!!

We had a great time in the Social Club this week, making Halloween finger puppets/bookmarks and tasty carmel apples. We had fun putting puzzles together and building a Lego village! We worked on coming up with polite ways to ask friends to play with us and friendly ways to tell them that we do not want to play. The participants are making social strides and forming tighter bonds with their classmates!

The first week of the Buddy Program started out wonderfully! The Green Acres students took to our kids immediately and we coined the term, "Buddy Power!" Our kids were matched and introduced to their buddy from Green Acres and we jumped right into our activities. Half of the buddies hung out with Mr. Aaron and played a challenging game where they had to work with their buddy to find a pumpkin. The other half of the buddies worked with Ms. Patrice and Ms. Abbe to make delicious caramel apples. The buddies had time to discuss what they like about fall and what they like to do in the fall. Everyone is looking forward to our next meeting on October 28th!

Congrats to the Patrols on their first week on duty! A few kinks need to be worked out, but the more we do our post, the better we will be! Thank you Patrols, see you on Monday!!

Friday Follow Up- October 9, 2009

2009-10-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Diener Friends!
Welcome back to our weekly Friday Follow Up. This is a chance to learn about what the children are doing in yoga, drama, art, music, science, and fitness. Enjoy!

This week in fitness, the kids began soccer! The kids worked on teamwork including, passing and learning how to control the ball. We also worked on passing with soft passes and not hard kicks. At the end of each class, the kids got to play a big game--Kids vs. Fitness Instructors! They had to pass the ball to each kid before they scored and in the end...THE KIDS WON!

In dance, all classes reviewed the dance(s) that we have learned. Ask your kids to show you count(s) 5, 6, 7, and 8 and they will dance for you!

We had so much fun this week in music!

In the Primary class, we continued singing our favorite songs, including "5 Green and Speckled Frogs" and "Old McDonald." We learned some new songs such as, "Open Shut Them" and "Scarecrow." We had a blast playing all of the different instruments!

In the Inters class, we started to learn about musical instruments. This week, we learned about the string family, and got to see and hear what each instrument sounds like. We continued to play our favorite music and movement games like, "Bop Til You Drop" and "Count and Move."

In the Uppers classes, we also started to learn about musical instruments and discussed the string family a little more in depth. We learned about the violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, guitar, and mandolin. We got to hear orchestral clips of each instrument. We continued to play our favrite games and sing our favorite songs.

This week in science, we focused on one of our five senses; hearing/sound. The primary and intermediate classes heard a story called "My Five Senses." We talked about how we can use one of our senses, and we can use more than one at a time. To really grasp the concept of sound, we made personalized noise makers. Students had to unscramble the letters in their names and follow step by step instructions to complete the project. Ms. Patrice made a noise maker that had tissue paper inside, while the students filled theirs with ceramic chips. We made comparisons about loud and soft sounds and we concluded that the students' noise makers made a louder niose than Ms. Patrice's!

The intermediate and upper classes were introduced to the inventor of the week: Alexander Graham Bell. We talked about his infamous invention, the telephone, and how his creation was and still is so important in our society. Linking his creation to our topic of the month, we recreated his contraption the old fashioned way, using cups and string. We used different materials (metal cans, small plastic cups, larger plastic cups, paper cups, oatmeal canisters, etc.). Students had the opportunity to make predictions about which model worked the best. They recorded their obervations and tested their theories.

During the After School Social Club on Monday, we acively participated in a structured peer activity where we constructed festive paper plate scarecrows by following step by step verbal directions. We worked on sharpening specific social skills such as sharing, resolving conflicts, and working together to complete a task (putting a puzzle together). To pay homage to Fire Safety Awareness Week, we had a very special visit from three wonderful volunteer firefighters on Thursday. They came to speak to us about important facts and tips about fire safety. The participants had the opportunity to ask quetions, demonstrate their prior knowledge about the topic, take a picture with a fully uniformed firefighter, and even watch the fire truck pull away with all of its sirens on! It was a very memorable educational experience for all!

In yoga, all of the classes played a game called The Pillow Game. Each child lays their head down on each other's tummy so they can feel each other's tummy rise and sink with each breath. We also became balloons!! We started by crouching down close to the floor and as the yoga instructor pumped the kids with fake air, we got bigger and bigger until we were standing on our tip toes! We released the "air" by running around.

In art class, the Primary class created secondary colors (green, orange purple) by mixing primary colors together! The children has so much fun painting with toothbrushes and are learning about all different kinds of tools they can paint with!

The Uppers class learned about all of the warm colors and created very interesting 3-D designs! In order to create these designs, the children used yellow, red, and orange contruction paper, cutting long rectangular shapes. The children the bent, twisted, and curved these shapes, glued them down on background paper, and out came our 3-D designs! They loved it!

Friday Follow Up! Friday, October 2, 2009

2009-10-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Hello Diener Friends!

Thank you to those who read our blog. We have formally changed our daily update to a weekly Friday blog that we call Friday Follow UP! On this blog, you will find information about our weekly specials including yoga, drama, art, music, science and fitness. All language arts and math information and updates will be distributed via email or your child's folder on Mondays and Fridays! Enjoy!

This week in fitness we worked on balancing on the balance beam, catching bean bags, frisbees while walking through traffic (don't worry, our kids were the traffic!). This improves body awareness and paying attention to their surroundings.

In dance we did the hokey pokey, practiced our dance moves, and had a ball!

In yoga we worked on breathing techniques. We sat back to back with friends and listened to how we felt each other's breathing. We learned yoga positions such as downward dog, sleeping baby, cat, and lion. The kids started and ended each class with our yoga bell.

In art, our students worked with primary colors and "cold colors". Our primary and inters classes made color collages using red, yellow and blue and our uppers used various shapes and colors to create a collage with "contrast".

In drama, our students laughed as they enjoyed several games with Mr. Jim. Some classes played, "The Magic Suitcase" game while others played, "Guess who I am". Please ask your students about their fabulous drama experience!

This week in music, we have been working on the connection between music and movement. Our primary and inters classes have been singing fun songs such as "Bop til you drop" and "Bear Hunt" and "Count and More". In the uppers classes we have been singing lots of fun songs such as selections from High School Musical and "Ol' Time Rock and Roll."

After weeks of investigations and observations in science to confirm our hypothesis on scientific subjects such as weather and tornados, we are currently exploring the five senses. We used our five senses to further examine all 5 senses!

Friday, September 18, 2009

2009-09-18T11:40:00.001-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today during morning meeting we began talking about our classroom jobs (weather helper, line leader, line caboose, schedule helper, and calendar helper. Each week we will be rotating the jobs so that everyone can have a turn. We will begin our jobs on Monday.
2.) Today we had a special trip to the fire station! It was so much fun. We met firefighters, explored the trucks and even had a turn to sit in the driver’s seat!
3.) This afternoon we made our own fire trucks using markers, scissors and glue.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) Ms. Jen from Speech came to our class today. She read us a chapter of Frog and Toad. Afterwards, we played a fishing game with sentences.
2.) In Language Arts, we started our sight word rings. We will add to them daily!
3.) Today was yummy pizza lunch day! Have a great weekend!

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) Today during math we played a fun game that required students to make prediction and use tally marks to record results. Using a plastic cup we recorded how many times out of ten trials the cup landed on its side, upright, or upside down. We then made predictions of what we thought might happen if we tried it for a second time.
2.) We made a rice crispy treats with Ms. Lynn's class to take to the firehouse to thank all the Firefighters for the hard work they do protecting our community.
3.) During Morning Meeting we counted all the way to 60 on our number chart and discovered that we have had just as many sunny days as we have had cloudy days in the month of September!

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) During Social Skills, Ms. Kate introduced the theme, “Think before Acting”, and our class learned (1) to pause, (2) think about what is really happening during a situation/conflict—“gather all the facts”, (3) reflect-- “ think about all the facts” and (4) then take appropriate action. Through a series of prompted skits (role play), and with the help of props, students learned to clarify a situation, understanding their own, and other’s actions/emotions, and be able to ask questions that are not emotion-laden. Students learned they can then resolve a potential conflict without individuals experiencing bruised feelings.
2.) In Science, Ms. Patrice read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was followed by the class performing a storm-related experiment. Students’ enjoyed the accompanying craft project, making awesome storm clouds with individual flair.
3.) During Math class our students cut out construction paper representations of stop lights, roads (straight and curved) and landmarks, as we continued our study of map making. As discussion of dimensions, spacing, sequencing, memory work, (straight vs. curved road on route to the Post Office). We as well learned that many things in life (math or writing or moving around) take many steps to accomplish the final produce. We went over the steps involved in making a map. Step 1: Driving to the Post Office to discover the exact route. Step 2: Cutting out the parts of the map needed (brainstorming process). The following steps will be completed next week. Step 3: Building the map using the parts we cut out (drawing process). Step 4: Testing the final product by having Ms. Jillian drive to the Post Office using only our map!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) Today we played a bean bag game in OT to help us with directionality.
2.) In music we played instruments to “Play That Funky Music” and then sang from our songbooks.
3.) We did a reader’s theater of Double Trouble in Walla Walla.

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

2009-09-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today during math we talked about nearest and farthest. We played a bean bag toss game and talked about where the bean bags landed.
2.) During Drama with Mr. Jim we played lots of games using our imagination. We pretended to ride a train and make several stops, one of the stops was a pretend library.
3.) We continued to work on our “All About Me” books today, and everyone shared pictures of their families.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) We started working on our community! We each picked a building in a town to create and started painting our boxes.
2.) We had drama with Mr. Jim and played lots of fun games like, “The Magic Suitcase.”
3.) We read the third chapter of our Frog and Toad novel. It was about eating lots of cookies and we learned the meaning of “willpower.”

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) In math we completed a chapter review and practiced patterns using foam sticker and dot markers.
2.) We had Drama with Mr. Jim and the students enjoyed such activities as “The Magic Suitcase” and “Night at the Museum.”
3.) We wrote thank you cards for the firefighters at the station next door and read several books on firefighters. Tomorrow we will be delivering our cards to the fire house with a special treat!

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) Fine motor work was the order of the day. A warm-up arrival activity included learning to tie knots, and then knots at several spaced intervals along a line of string. This was followed by sequencing activities and identifying ordinal numbers, which included a great deal of scissor cutting, and printing practice.
2.) Today we created our Post Office word wall by pairing post office-related words with pictures on poster board. Students worked in groups, demonstrated understanding of the art of compromise, and furthered their understanding of the group process, as they sorted through the material together.
3.) Ms. Kathy led a wonderful O.T. class where students utilized gross motor skills. Incorporated during the session was: listening/attentional work, accurate processing of directions, “Form a circle please,” directionality (left-right, up-down, turn around) body awareness, teamwork, and timing/rhythm, combined with very lively sets of music. A “rock star” game served to strengthen the upper body and “cross mid-line” awareness.

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) Today we played some very funny drama games with Mr. Jim.
2.) We wrote a story to picture prompts.
3.) We started working on a 3-D map of Maryland.

IMPORTANT DATES:
· Pizza Lunch TOMORROW – Please send your child in with their snack and drink for the day.

· The following forms are due Friday, September 24th:
o T-Shirt Order (all sizes are adult sizes and NOT kids sizes)
o TaeKwonDo Registration
o After School Social Club Registration

· The School Counseling Group is presenting a Parent’s Lecture, September 30th, 2009 @ 9:30AM to discuss guidelines and ideas when considering schools after Diener and the general admissions process to other schools in the area. More information to follow. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to lois@thedienerschool.org.

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

2009-09-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today we played “Hide & Seek” with Mr. Aaron. We were learning the rules, cooperation, and had a terrific time in the process.
2.) We went on a Bear Hunt with Ms. Deanna during music.
3.) Ask your curious caterpillar to show you how to “Stop, Drop & Roll.”
4.) During science we read, The Snowy Day, and made a snowman

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) In science today we finished our weather mobiles. Don’t forget to hang them up!
2.) We read Frog & Toad. Ask your child, “Why was Toad upset about the garden?”
3.) We also started learning how to write in journals.
4.) In Social Studies, we are continuing our discussion about community helpers and getting ready for our walk to the firehouse Friday!

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) We began building our Diener School Community today. Each child chose a type of building that is important in our community and then began painting their boxes. Tomorrow we will be adding windows, doors and other distinguishing objects to our buildings. Some ideas the students came up with were a movie theater, doctors office and a swimming pool!
2.) During math we continued practicing our ABAB, AABAAB, ABBABBA, and ABC patterns. Everyone did a great job completing these patterns without visual prompts!
3.) All the students are doing a great job in their Language Arts groups. Today as a large group we worked on sorting words by word families -at, -an, -ed, and –et.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) Language Art groups began today. Each Monday you will receive e-mails from your child’s Language Arts teacher, which will include specifics concerning group goals for the week. This is separate from the daily update (paper form in daily folder will not include LA Group information) as it will only come via e-mail. LA group homework will come home Mondays, and is generated by the LA Group teacher.
2.) In Math we continued the direction lesson and geometric shapes, (following yesterdays visual-rich driving experience to the Potomac Post Office), by learning specific written directions for driving from the Diener School to the Potomac Post Office. We incorporated our knowledge of shapes, rectangles and triangles as we created a large map. Once our map is finished we will put accuracy to the test by having Ms. Jillian drive us to the Post Office, using only our map to help her get there!
3.) Our fine motor skills were further honed today. We used modeling clay to mold a representation of the front of a properly addressed envelope. Different colors denoted the outside shape, the stamp, and the address lines.

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) Today we started our language arts groups.
2.) In social group we talked about expected and unexpected behaviors.3.) In math we answered word problems that involve place value.

IMPORTANT DATES:
· Pizza Lunch this Friday – Please send your child in with their snack and drink for the day.
· The following are due Friday, September 24th:
o T-Shirt Order Form (all sizes are adult sizes and NOT kids sizes)
o TaeKwonDo Registration
o After School Social Club Registration
· The School Counseling Group is Presenting a Parent’s Lecture, September 30th, 2009 @ 9:30AM to discuss guidelines and ideas when considering schools after Diener and the general admissions process to other schools in the area

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

2009-09-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today we played fun games with Ms. Brook. We played a movement game putting our bean bag on our head, shoulders and elbows. We also played a bean bag passing game.2.) During Language Arts we read a poem about Firefighters and went on a letter hunt for the letter “S” and a word hunt for the word “fire.” 3.) During Math we talked about the concept of “thick.” We then played a game finding the “thick” fire hose, fire hydrant and ladder.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) Today in math we sorted pasta while working on groupings of 2, 4, and 6.
2.) Fitness continued from yesterday working on eye hand coordination, catching and moving at the same time.
3.) In Social Studies, we discussed how police officers help our community and what their roles are.

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) We continued our community helpers theme talking today about police officers and firefighters. In speech, Ms. Sarabeth read us a story about community helpers and then we played a matching memory game. In the afternoon we read a story about police officers and completed a page in our Community Helpers Book.
2.) Today in science the students were introduced to the water cycle and made ‘Water Cycle Bags’ to see how water turns into water vapor.3.) In math we reviewed sorting and classifying object into categories such as size, shape, color and function.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) During Language Arts we read the book We Need Directions, which gave us a variety of ways to find locations using basic directional terms; left, right, north, south, east, west, turn, and straight. The students then made maps of their own about any place they wanted.
2.) In the afternoon, to continue our LA lesson, we piled in the Diener van to map out the route from the Diener School to the Potomac Post Office. The students had to direct Ms. Kate by telling her to “turn right”, or “go straight”. Upon returning to school, we started to draw out our map of the route. Throughout the week, as we learn more about maps, we will add to our Diener School to Potomac Post Office map by adding street names, landmarks, a key/legend, and the compass rose.
3.) During Math, we continued our lesson on geometric shapes. In small groups, we reviewed that triangles have 3 angles and 3 sides and squares have 4 angles and 4 sides. Today, we expanded on yesterday’s information by learning that squares have 4 equal sides! A shape that looks a lot like a square is called a rectangle, but we examined the two and learned that rectangles have 4 angles, and 4 sides, but the sides are NOT equal. To end the activity we all cut out different triangles, squares and rectangles and created collages of shapes!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) In math we continued to work with place value.2.) In language arts we learned about the idioms and discussed "straight from the horse's mouth".3.) In our study of Maryland we learned about landforms.

FROM THE OFFICE:
IMPORTANT DATES:
* Pizza Lunch this Friday – Please send your child in with their snack and drink for the day.
* Primary Field Trip to Fire Station: Friday, September 18, 2009
* Ms. Emily, Ms. Jenni, Ms. Lynn & Ms. Kate’s class Field Trip to Rose Manor: Friday, September 25, 2009
* No School – Jewish Holiday: Monday, September 28, 2009
* Ms. Barbara’s Uppers Field Trip to State House: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Monday, September 14, 2009

2009-09-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

Ms. Emily’s Primary:

During Fitness this morning we met Ms. Julie. We put together a puzzle while climbing through an obstacle course. It was so much fun!

We began talking about our visit to the Fire Station this coming Friday. We painted a big box red, that we will be turning into our own classroom fire truck.

Ms. Sara came in and red a story about Fire men and other community workers. Then we colored fun pictures of fire trucks, hoses, and fire hydrants.

Ms. Lynn’s Inters:

Today we had Ms. Kathy work with us on handwriting. She will be here every Monday.

We had our first art class with Ms. Gay. We learned about contrast using black and white paper. Please see Ms. Gay’s description attached.

We are learning about helpers in our community in social studies.

Ms. Jenni’s Inters:

In Language Arts today we split up between Ms. Jenni & Ms. Lynn's class for our reading groups. Everyone did a great job working on their new books for the week!

In math we worked on creating our own patterns when given an ABAB or a ABBA prompt.

We are talking about people in our community throughout the next two weeks. Today we focused on Teachers. We talk about the many ways a teacher helps us and read a story about what a teacher's day is like.

Ms. Kate’s Uppers:

During our Math Meeting we discussed, and located, four major items that can be found on a calendar: day, month, date and year. Weather words and their partner sensory words were reviewed. (i.e. The weather looks rainy, cloudy, sunny or snowy, therefore…it feels (temperature) cold or hot, warm or cool.) Students voted on the type weather we experienced today. Using our hundreds board, as a class, we added the numbers 1-30. After each student added a number to the hundreds board, we counted forwards from 1-30 and backwards from 30-1. We ended our math meeting by using a place value pocket chart to record the numbers of days we have been in school.

Language Arts began with a reading of Stone Soup. Students then began to produce their own version of a stone soup, identifying various vegetables, coloring, cutting, and gluing colorful paper equivalents to those ingredients found in the story. A student-led discussion followed, as classmates exchanged ideas about the true meaning of the story and the implications of a generous act.

A Post Office follow-up activity occurred during Spelling. It included a brainstorming session which elicited 16 Post Office terms. Students chose a word, wrote it, and drew a picture representing a definition of the word. Tomorrow the class will follow with actual written definitions – found on the computer – and a post board activity completion with visual/written definitions. A “book dictionary” activity will complete the process.

Mr. Barbara’s Uppers:

We did a binder check to ensure all our papers were filed in the correct subject areas. We will continue to do this every Monday during Organization time.

We learned about place value up to the millions. We practiced writing numbers in standard form and expanded form.

In social studies we used Google Maps to locate The Diener School. We found its location in Maryland, its location in Potomac, and its street location.

FROM THE OFFICE:

This Friday will be our first pizza lunch. We have ordered cheese and cheeseless pizzas from sienas pizza. Please have your student bring a snack and a drink.

Friday, September 11th, 2009

2009-09-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today, we painted the body tracing projects that we’ve been working on.
2.) During cooking, we made edible stop lights using red, yellow, and green apples.
3.) In dance, Mr. Aaron showed us some fancy floor spins and we played freeze dance.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) Today we talked about feelings. We read a very silly book called, Today I Feel Silly. We laughed a lot at the story.
2.) Ms. Jen, from Speech, spent the morning with us. She will spend every Friday in our classroom. We look forward to working with her!
3.) Mr. Aaron also danced the day away with us. It was a great start to the weekend!
ENJOY THE WEEKEND!

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) In Language Arts we read a book about emotions and practiced showing various emotions with our faces and with body language.
2.) During indoor recess, we worked cooperatively to complete several large floor puzzles. The most difficult puzzle was the Prehistoric one.
3.) We painted self portraits in the afternoon. We each had a mirror and painted a picture of ourselves.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) During Science class with Ms. Patrice we read the story The Wind Blew. It described all the things the wind can blow. We made comparisons between windy weather and calm weather, created wind socks, and hung them in front of a fan, in order to replicate windy weather. Streamers on the socks assisted us with a conversation of directionality, and wind’s role in the change of seasons and falling leaves was discussed.
2.) Language Arts-Social Studies – we studied our maps closely, determined geographical locations of grandparent homes, and placed tacks in appropriate places. We spoke of the variety of names we use for our individual grandmothers and grandfathers, sharing a lesson in our rich, cultural diversity. (i.e. Italian for grandma is “Nonna”, grandpa in German is “Opa”, grandparents in Spanish are abuela/o, and other derivations of grandparent, from granny to granddaddy were talked about.
3.) Post Office trip—each student addressed his/her (grandparent) envelopes and we headed to the Post Office! Once we arrived our students went to the counter and purchased stamps. We learned that a stamp for a letter costs 44 cents. We put our stamp in the right corner of our envelope and gave our letters to the postal worker to be mailed off!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) We filled out a K-W-L chart about Maryland. We listed what we knew about Maryland and then made a list of questions about Maryland that we would like to investigate.
2.) We completed a time telling puzzle that matched clocks with the time written in words.
3.) In science we reviewed our bubble experiment and studied the water cycle.4.) We had a fantastic time in music with Ms. Deanna singing a variety of fun songs.

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

2009-09-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) Today we met Mr. Jim during Drama. He had a magic suitcase and pulled out lots of toys for us.
2.) During gym with Mr. Aaron we ran through an obstacle course and knocked down bowling pins with balls.
3.) We traced our bodies for our "All About Me" projects. We will be decorating them soon. :)

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) Today we read the story, “Jack’s Talent,” by Maryann Cocca Leffler.
2.) We talked about our special talents as well as some of our favorite things.
3.) We had fitness with Mr. Aaron & Drama with Mr. Jim. Mr. Aaron made a special tunnel for us today. It was fun!

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) In Language Arts we read a story called Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse and talked about the items in the story that were Lilly's favorite. We then discussed some of our favorite things (many of which were shared in the Personality Bags) and completed an activity in which we colored, cut, glued and wrote our favorite fruit/vegetable, sport, color and type of weather.
2.) In math we practiced ABAB, ABBA, and ABC patterns and identified patterns going from left to right and up to down.
3.) In fitness we played a bowling game with Mr. Aaron and worked our upper and lower body muscles on the scooters.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) During Language Arts students wrote letters to their grandparents. Letter content included information each student gathered during an interview process with a class friend, using the K-W-L graphic organizer. Tomorrow we will learn how to address the envelopes and mail them. 2.) As an OT activity with Ms. Kathy we made birthday cards for Mr. Jim, our returning drama teacher. Mr. Jim received the wonderful cards during our first drama class, in the afternoon. Students used several different mediums, with a variety of colors, textures and shapes, to complete the project. This exercise continues to build upon the concept of contrast taught by Ms. Feinberg, during art class, on Tuesday.
3.) During drama class Mr. Jim had us play a game where we had to introduce ourselves! He also introduced our new classmate to some last year classic drama games, such as Fruit Salad, Statues and the Magic Suitcase!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) In drama we played drama games such as Taxi Driver and Magic Ball.
2.) We finished reading "Monster Manor Frankie Rocks the House," by Paul Martin.
3.) We learned a song to easily remember the 7's table. We sing it to the tune of "Happy Birthday".

Friday, September 4th, 2009

2009-09-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) During Dance today with Mr. Aaron, we found a partner and made a bridge together while our friends climbed under.
2.) We had a special tour of the playground and explored all the different toys outside (houses, bicycles, race cars, jungle gym, fire truck, music center, and sandbox). Later we talked about which one we like the best.
3.) During cooking, we make pancake faces. We warmed up pancakes, and then added blueberry eyes, a raspberry nose, and chocolate chip lips. YUM!

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) We had our first dance class with Mr. Aaron. We did our name dance and it was a lot of fun! 2.) In math we built towers with Unifex cubes following special patterns.
3.) We earned 3 Diener Gold coins for our 1st week and had a party with Ms. Jenni’s class!

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) Today we read the book, “Jack’s Talent” and then made our own classroom talent book.
2.) We talked about our last classroom rule: Be Your Best. The students drew pictures of ways they could be their best such as trying your hardest and being ready to learn.
3.) We had a popcorn party for doing such a great job following the classroom rules this week!

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
Three cheers to Ms. Kate’s Uppers, who came into class greeting others, put daily folders and homework in proper places, and immediately began their work!
1.) During Language Arts our students made a “classroom chain of talents.” Students brainstormed, and then listed personal talents, wrote them on individual chains, connected them to form a chain, and each reach out his/her own to foster positive sense of self, class strengths, and a sense of unity.
2.) Students continued to put their creativity to use and practiced social skills during a small group, team-based activity. They continued to work on their alien planets/creatures. Impressively, they remembered their alien-language greetings/gestures, employing the salutations as they learned more about each other.
3.)During Math small group activity the class worked with time lines using their birth month and birth year, utilizing the concepts of older/younger, ordinal numbers.

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) The students each wrote a letter to their parents for back to school night.
2.) They practiced multiplication facts by playing Prehistoric Times.
3.) This afternoon they will finish a two day bubble experiment with their science teacher, Ms. Patrice.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

2009-09-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) In morning meeting we sang hello to each other while taking turns jumping and singing. We also started learning about our calendar and learned about what month it is.
2.) We took a walk to explore a new playground. It was such a beautiful day outside! :)
3.) During math time we read “We're Going on A Bear Hunt” and talked about over, under and through. We all took turns going through a tunnel.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) We went on a scavenger hunt to the park with Ms. Jenni’s class.
2.) We talked about how we can be kind to another.
3.) We made a picture of our house and wrote our addresses.

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) Today we went on a nature walk and completed a scavenger hunt. We searched for bugs, birds and squirrels. We also found sticks and determined if they were short or long, identified colors of flowers and drew the shapes of different rocks we discovered along the way.
2.) We talked about our second classroom rule: Be Kind. Together we brainstormed the ways we can be kind to our teachers and classmates. The children came up with use kind words, share with your friends, keep hands to yourself, and wait your turn.
3.) We created our house by cutting out various shapes and then gluing them on to a piece of paper. Then each child colored the house to look like the one they live in. We then practiced tracing our address and reading it out-loud.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
1.) Today during language arts we read a book entitled “I’m Special, I’m Me” with an emphasis on content words/comprehension. This lead our students into a whole-group discussion regarding the types of unique, positive attributes we each possess as human beings. An individual writing task followed as students completed a detailed questionnaire about themselves, and then sealed their responses in a year-long time capsule.
2.) Math class included a two-group rotation, with group 1 exploring directionality, (left-right), using assistive color-coded clues, followed by practice. Group 2…..worked on even and odd numbers and identifying the patterns to help figure out an even or odd number.
3.) During Sensory class, we used our sense of touch today! We participated in an activity called, “What’s in the Bag?” Ten paper bags were set up with one classroom item in each. Everyone walked around and had to reach in the bag, feel it, and guess the object. If they were not sure, each student was wonderful at putting descriptive words of what they felt (i.e. round, hard, sharp, etc). At the end we read off our guesses and then pulled each object out of the bag to see if we got it right!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1.) The students wrote their goals for the year which will be opened and read again on the last day of school.
2.) They used logic and problem solving skills to identify and correct a problem on the map of the school.
3.) Students used a large beach-ball type globe to identify continents and countries and then make observations about the differences between them.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - The First Day of School!

2009-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Primary (Ms. Emily):
1.) We met Mr. Aaron today, and climbed through an obstacle course during fitness.2.) We greeted each other during Morning Meeting with a jumping song.3.) We worked together to create our list of classroom rules. 4.) During art, we finished our “What I Like” posters.

Inters (Ms. Lynn):
1.) We officially named our class The Diener Owls!
2.) We did an obstacle course of jumping and hoping to music with Mr. Aaron in fitness.3.) We’re working on The “My First Day of School” packet.
4.) We discussed the first of our classroom rules: “Be Safe!”

Inters (Ms. Jenni):
1.) Today during Math we reviewed the parts of the calendar and practiced saying the date using the month, day, ordinal number, and the year.
2.) We discussed our classroom rules: Be Safe, Be Kind, and Be Your Best. We created a group web to identify 4 different ways we can be safe in the classroom. Together we came up with walk in the classroom and hallways, sit in your chair, keep your hands to yourself and stay with your teachers. The children then created pictures for each safety rule!
3.) During Language Arts we read a story called Summer's End and then shared with the group our favorite summer activity. The students then drew a picture and a sentence about their favorite summer activity.

Uppers (Ms. Kate):
Ms. Kate’s class had a wonderful day, starting the year with enthusiasm!
1.) In language arts we voted on a book to read, (The Boy on the Beach), did a book walk, learned to make predictions, anticipated endings, and discussed the book, with comprehension and “use of prior knowledge” as the emphasis.
2.) The summer- themed book segued into an activity called “me too” which used Popsicle sticks as “memory prompts”. Each student shared specific summer events they enjoyed, and introduction of a Venn diagram helped us sort out activities we had in common from those that were unique.
3.) Fitness class with Mr. Aaron was filled with excitement and plenty of movement, as the students demonstrated their large/small motor skills. First, we went over the Fitness room rules, played a freeze game and practiced our balance by running obstacles hopping on two feet or one foot!
4.) Alien Greeting: During our auditory listening class, we traveled to another planet! We discussed how on Earth, when you greet someone, you shake their hand and say, “Hello!” It involves a movement (shaking hands) and a sound (talking voice). On our faraway planet, we had to introduce each other, especially to Ms. Patrice—our new Science teacher! We each went around the circle and introduced ourselves with our own alien greetings!

Uppers (Ms. Barbara):
1. ) Today we worked with Mr. Aaron and had a fantastic time using the parachute in fitness!
2.) We worked as detectives to find information about all our new classmates.”
3.) To learn more about The Diener School, we interviewed staff, and labeled a map of the building.

Monday, June 8th, 2009

2009-06-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) We had fun in Language Arts using a “Do a Dot” art project. We wrote letters and made a painting with our cool
2.) We read a book called Pull Lift, and Lower. A pulley is a simple machine that helps us lift objects that would normally be too heavy to move.
3.) During Social Skills we read some stories about good manners. Then we discussed and acted out some social situations saying please, thank you, excuse me, and sorry.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Made our '-ing' wheels! We reviewed words that end with 'ing', then made a word wheel that shows different words and pictures of things that end with 'ing'.
2.) Worked on our counting and sorting skills during our classroom inventory! We went through huge piles of games and learning materials in our classroom and sorted them into different piles as we helped Miss Courtney and Miss Deanna organize our classroom for the end of the year.
3.) Sorted our book collection into fiction and non-fiction books! We went through our class library and found some of our old favorites - we had a great time remembering some of the great stories we've read over the year!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Fitness was a lot of fun! We played with net catchers where we had to throw and catch the ball with the net. We also had to do our warm-ups for the last time this year!
2.) In Music, we went on a Bear Hunt and sang “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad!”
3.) We learned about how things that work this afternoon, and followed our water lessons last week by learning what different kinds of boats travel on the water and how they work!

The Golden Owls:
We had a Magical Monday in the Golden Owls!
1.) During our la blocks we had a discussion on President Obama and what we had read and remembered about him from last week. We then watched a PBS special on his life and compared it to what we already knew.
2.) During math we did timed mad minutes before we split up into groups and worked on money, multiplication, adding and subtracting with regrouping and borrowing.
3.) We had our last fitness class of the year today with Ms. Julie! We played some of our favorite games (beamos and boinga) as well as a new game with chirping eggs. We worked a great deal on teamwork and had a really fun time!
*Please note that the only homework for the rest of the week is to read!

FROM THE OFFICE:
If there are any families who had to borrow an extra set or article of clothing this year, please be sure to clean and return the clothing before the end of school next week. We really appreciate your help with this!!
** DISMISSAL TIME THURSDAY 6/11 HAS BEEN CHANGED TO 12PM**

Friday, June 5th, 2009

2009-06-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book about simple machines called “Cut, Chop and Stop”. This book focused on wedges. Then each student traced a wedge and wrote “This is a wedge”.
2.) Identified the value on pennies, nickels and dimes. Trevor played an addition dice game with Debbie.
3.) Had a lot of free time on the very rainy day!
4.) Sang our favorite songs during our last music class with Deanna. We truly loved music with Deanna this year.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Art, we made clay sculptures and then got to color them with markers as well as add wires and pipe cleaners for decoration.
2.) During Math, we split into groups. One group played Dominoes and learned two different ways to play. We had to pay attention to the numbers on each Domino find strategies to match as many sides as we could. The other group played UNO and had to pay attention to colors as well as matching numbers.
3.) Mr. Jim made a surprise appearance to spoil us with one final Drama class for the year! We had such a great time using our imaginations this year, learning games such as: Magic Suitcase, VRRRooommm-vroooom, Taxi and Fruit Salad . These games really challenged us to think more abstractly and sort and categorize in our mind. The categorization games were great games to help us work on several fundamentals in language, such as, prediction, inference, and decision making. Also we had to pay attention to detail and always be focused and listening, otherwise we would miss an important part of the game!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a fantastic Friday!
1.) During our math time we completed our mad minute before taking our final Friday Quiz. We then reviewed different strategies to help us solve multiplication problems, as well as subtraction problems with borrowing.
2.) During language arts we split up into our groups and did our Explode the Code books before wrapping up our lessons on Obama and jellyfish. We used strategies that we have been learning about all year to help write a detailed summary from our webs. We also drew pictures and labeled the different developmental stages of a jellyfish.
3.) We used clay, wire and markers in our last art class to build fabulous sculptures. We always have the best time Ms. Feinberg!

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

2009-06-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Magic Trains used puppetry to act out the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
2.) During Fitness we went on an awesome obstacle course shooting hoops, bowling, crawling through a tunnel and jumping on the trampoline.
3.) We went with Bob the Builder to a construction site. We dug dirt then hauled it away. We dumped sand in a big pile and poured concrete on top. We used a powerful tool called a “kanga hammer” that bounces up and down.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a book called 'How I Became A Pirate'! We loved the story, and after reading it we made our own graphic organizers showing the 'What', 'Where', 'When', 'Who', and 'Why' of our story!
2.) Worked on math review in our Calvert workbooks. We also worked as a team to identify and sort a HUGE pile of coins!
3.) Made our final planet neighborhoods in science - we made Neptune Circus and Jupiter Museum! Our space community is almost complete - we just need a moon and some rocket ships to travel from neighborhood to neighborhood!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) This morning we worked very hard on making our own pretzels! We had several steps we had to follow throughout the day. The 1st step was to mix some water and yeast. While, that mixture sat in a bowl for a couple of minutes Ms. Kathy had us do some OT movement activities. Next, we measured and mixed in the flour and brown sugar. For 30 minutes, while the dough sat, we worked on our Handwriting. Step 3 was mixing in the remaining flour and kneading it until the dough was tough. The dough had to rise for an hour, so we ate lunch and went to recess!
2.) This afternoon, we took the dough and rolled it and shaped our pretzels! It was a lot of fun! In our folders are directions on how to finish baking our pretzels at home. (These are dairy-free pretzels.)
3.) In Drama, we had such a fun time with Mr. Jim! We played the Magic Suitcase game and had to pull out things you could find at your house!

The Golden Owls:
1.) In our last fitness with Mr. Dan we went through an obstacle course which included all of the different skills we have been working on all year.
2.) In speech we first read a book about the ocean and then got to make our own oceans out of blue Jello, marshmallows, Twizzlers and gummies. The Twizzlers represented the “limu” which means seaweed in Hawaiian. The jelly fish and octopus. The marshmallows were the plankton and the gummies were for the fish.
3.) In writing we began working on our favorite things we did this year beginning with a web!

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

2009-06-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book with Ms. Jen called “I Drive a Bulldozer” by Sarah Bridges.
2.) Played “Pizza Pile Up” with Jen. We had to “watch out that Poppa doesn’t wobble, causing the pizza to topple! This was a great game and we practiced taking turns and following directions.
3.) Blew bubbles outside in on this very sunny day!
4.) Practiced doing handstands with Ms. Melinda during Yoga. Everyone did a great job. We all enjoyed Yoga this year.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Broke into groups for language arts - we read sight word books and did an '-ed' review activity in one group and read, analyzed, and reassembled a silly poem in the other group!
2.) Read a book about telling time in math and then worked together on a giant clock to show different times of day to the hour!
3.) Had a great time in yoga with Ms. Melinda and drama with Mr. Jim! We practiced our poses, breathing, and meditation in yoga and played some of our favorite pretending games in drama!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Math, we read a book called Pigs will be Pigs: Fun with Math and Money. The family of pigs wanted to go out to dinner, but the bank was closed. They decided to look all around their house to see if they could find any money! We added up all the money they found and talked about whether we thought that was enough money to go out to eat. At the end of the book it told us what they wanted to eat at the restaurant. We looked at the total amount of money they found in their house and figured out that it was enough for them to eat what they wanted at the restaurant!
2.) We had a gooey great time in Speech! First, we brainstormed what things we could find in an ocean. Then Ms. Jen read us a book that told about the ocean what we could find on each ocean level. We knew so much about the ocean, we had almost all the same things on our brainstorming list! Then, the fun and gooey part! We each got a clear plastic cup to build our own oceans! We used blue Jello for the ocean water, orange and green Jello to make ocean reefs, and different kinds of candy and gummi candy to make plankton, sharks and fish! We had to put them in the refrigerator to harden!
3.) In Social Skills, we played a silly Dr. Suess game called “I can do that!”. Each student had to pick a 3 different puzzle cards and fit them together. When the pieces were put together, the student had to read the phrase on their cards and attempt the challenge. An example of the challenge on one of the cards: “Spin around in circles two times, while holding the dress (it was a prop with the game) on top of your clothes.”

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had a glorious day!
1.) During reading we began the period with "Freedom," one of our favorite games which works on flexibility, teamwork, and cooperation. We then read our nonfiction books aloud before independently brainstorming and working on our webs.
2.) During OT we reviewed our measuring and fine motor skills while making pretzel dough. We saw how long it takes for dough to rise and the patience it takes to cook! We cannot wait to bring them home and bake them! MMMMMMMMMM!
3.) We mastered our dance moves with Mr. Aaron while dancing to "Jump On It!" We also danced to "Jump Jump." Our rhythm and moving to the beat has improved a great deal!

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

2009-06-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Made cards for Mrs. Feinberg. Teddy wrote “Thank you for being a great Art teacher”. Jack wrote “I love you”!
2.) Played fun games and worked nicely together during Fitness with Mr. Chris and Ms. Julie. 3.) Read a story about farm machinery such as tractors, plows and drills.
4.) Painted clay sculptures during Art with Mrs. Feinberg.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Worked on handwriting with Miss Brook - we impressed her with how far we've come over just the last couple of weeks! Then we made '-eep' Jeeps with '-eep' words as wheels!
2.) Made beautiful June calendars to welcome in the last month of school. We're bringing them home so we can cross off the days until our last day of school!
3.) Had a great time in fitness - we reviewed all of the things we have learned throughout the year! We practiced gallups, slides, hopping, running, jumping, throwing, catching, batting, kicking, and leaping - whew!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had a surprise field trip with Mr. Paul’s class this morning to the neighborhood playground and park. We did a lot of gross motor activities, Mr. Aaron conducted a parachute activity and then we got to play on the playground at the end!
2.) In Science, Ms. Melissa read us a book called, All the Planets in Our Solar System. When we finished the book we each told something new we learned about planets from the book.
3.) In Music with Mr. David, we had a great time singing and working on our songs.

The Golden Owls:
1.) During our team activities we played parachute outside with Ms. Kate and Mr. Aaron's class. We took turns running through the parachute and changing places with a friend, while our other friends helped keep the parachute up in the air. We also built Hershey Park with blocks with our peers and had a terrific time working together.
2.) In science with Ms. Melissa we mastered the research of the solar system!
3.) During math we continued reviewing and becoming more fluent with our multiplication facts. We also reviewed adding and subtracting, with regrouping

Monday, June 1st, 2009

2009-06-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Played a really fun Dr. Seuss game called “I Can Do That”. We picked cards and acted out the directions.
2.) Took a walk to a nearby park and played ball.
3.) Some students finished writing their books and we drew pictures to go along with what we wrote.
4.) Reviewed many concepts in Math. For example, we reviewed “top”, “middle” and “bottom”.
5.) Made colorful thank you cards for Mr. Chris, Ms. Julie and Mrs. Feinberg. We will miss them over the summer vacation.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Began our end-of-year review in Morning Meeting! We are reviewing all of the concepts we have learned about in Morning Meeting, including beginning and ending word sounds, rhyming words, word families, calendar concepts, tallies, one more, one less, addition, and subtraction!
2.) Did a fantastic activity with Miss Jen to celebrate her last day with us! She read us a book filled with facts about the ocean. Then we each made our own seascapes using blue jello, marshmallows, twizzlers, gummy candies, and other treats. We created fish, seaweed, coral reefs, and octopuses to make awesome oceans!
3.) Had science with Miss Melissa ~ we read a book about planets together, then finished our planet book and wrapped up our unit on Air, Space, and Water!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness, we played soccer and learned to kick the ball with the inside of the foot, NOT your toes!! We also had to line up and throw bean bags at bowling pins to try to knock them over.
2.) We learned about all the many water words today! Then we cut and pasted/matched the water words to a picture of the water.
3.) In Dance, we practiced our Dance routine Mr. Aaron taught us!

The Golden Owls:
We had a magical Monday in the Golden Owls.
1.) During OT with Ms. Kathy we worked on our individual goals as well as our fine motor skills. We did different stations including rubberbands, eyecatchers, screws, and putty. We also played Memo Zoo and Boggle.
2.) During language arts we began reading a new nonfiction book after we worked independently on our "Explode the Code" books. We began to fill our KWL chart filling in information we knew and wanted to know about either President Obama or jellyfish.
3.) We had a great fitness class with Ms. Julie. We each got a sticker to put on our shoe to help remind us where we are supposed to kick the ball. We practiced our dribbling skills through cones before passing with a partner. We then played a soccer game against Ms. Julie and won! We worked a lot on our teamwork skills!

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

2009-05-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) The Magic Trains typed and illustrated our book covers!
2.) We went for a moon walk and pretended to be astronauts like Neil Armstrong chanting “Eagle has Landed” after reading the book One Giant Leap by Robert Burleigh.
3.) We finished putting the “inner planets” on our solar system window mural.
4.) Today was our last class with Ms. Brook and we played a new, fun game with her called “Sequence”. This was a matching game and the object of the game was to get three tokens in a row. We gave Ms. Brook a present and wished her a very happy summer!
5.) During Fitness with Mr. Dan, we ran through an obstacle course made of hoola hoops and participated in relay races.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Read a poem called 'The Moon'! Then we went through the poem and took turns finding sight words, rhyming words, and science words in the text.
2.) After we read our poem, we each got our own copy to cut apart, reconstruct, and glue back together! We decorated our poems with moon pictures and glitter.
3.) Had a very buggy afternoon! We reviewed our 'I'm an Insect' weekly reader and made fabulous bug masks! We used our amazing creativity to make super scary and super silly bugs.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) This morning, Ms. Kathy had us feel letters! She brought a fun activity where you had to put your hand in a bowl and grab a letter—but not pull it out! When we were holding the letter we had to feel it and describe what shape it was and tell Ms. Kathy what letter it was!
2.) In Math, we read a fun book called Leaping Lizards and learned some more about counting by 5’s and 10’s.
3.) This afternoon we had a fun Music class with Mr. Paul’s class in the Sensory Room! We played musical and movement games such as Hokey Pokey and Going on a Bearhunt!

The Golden Owls:
We had a terrific Thursday in the Golden Owls!
1.) During math we went outside and did math problems with chalk.
2.) In speech with Ms. Jen we played, “What Did You Say?” a game of nonverbal communication including facial expressions, volume, tone of voice and body language. We had a super time in speech.
3.) During fitness with Mr. Dan we worked on our gross motor skills including jumping through hula hoops, leaping, running, and hopping.

Have a fantastic long weekend!!

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

2009-05-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Had a terrific fieldtrip to the Dulles Air and Space Museum. We learned how planes fly and we made our own boomerangs. There were planes from many years ago at the museum and we even saw a spaceship!
2.) Worked on our Solar System pictures in the afternoon with Debbie and Seena.
3.) Listened to a story called “Jack and the Beanstalk”. Teddy wrote this story on his own last night. The class was very excited about it and Teddy was very proud.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Had a FANTASTIC time at the Air and Space Museum! We learned about how planes fly using 4 forces - drag, thrust, weight, and lift. We got to do all sorts of wonderful hands-on activities, and then we made our own boomerangs!
2.) Got to walk around the museum after our class! Not only did we see many different kinds of planes, but we also got to see a huge replica of the Enterprise space shuttle and examples of space suits worn by astronauts! We loved looking at all of the great displays and learning about planes and space ships.
3.) Read a great book when we got back from our field trip! Ben S. brought in a special flying book to share and it was a great way to review the information we learned on our field trip - it had all sorts of cool facts and pop-outs. Thanks, Ben S.!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Social Skills we played Charades and had to ask questions to find out what our friends were acting out! We also finished by playing Hangman with emotions words!
2.) In Yoga, we played a game to see who could hold the Downward Dog and the Bridge poses the longest!
3.) In Speech groups, Ms. Jen read The Flea’s Sneeze and we each made a 3 panel pamphlet where we wrote on each either the beginning, middle or end of the story!

The Golden Owls:
We had a great Wednesday in the Golden Owls!
1.) In dance with Mr. Aaron we reviewed and continued to fine tune our dance to "Jump On It." We worked on finessing our moves, our rhythm and timing.
2.) In writing, we split up into small groups and worked on brainstorming and then drafting a topic of our choice. Some wrote about cars, movies and their vacations while others wrote about their favorite food. We incorporated our five senses and specific details into our writing as much as possible.
3.) Ms. Kathy came in and played Charades with us during our team time. We worked on flexibility, reading body language and facial expressions. We had a fantastic time!

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

2009-05-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did fine motor circuits and worked on our handwriting with Miss Brook! We also colored, cut, and assembled an 'In Fish' ~ a fish that helped us review the '-in' word family!
2.) Reviewed measurement in math! We each got a pile of items and had to measure each item's length using unifix cubes. Then we recorded our lengths on our worksheets and analyzed our data to find the longest and shortest objects!
3.)Had a fabulous time in fitness and art! In fitness we worked together to build a house using blocks and then got to play with Bimos since we did a great job with our teamwork! In art we created beautiful drawing by connecting lines and forming shapes.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Fine Motor in the morning, we rotated through circuits working on, hand-eye coordination, tripod grasp, hand stability, and muscle tone in their hands. This afternoon in Large motor, we ran through an obstacle course working on balance, crossing the midline and utilizing several muscles in the body!
2.) We played a Storytelling game where we were each given three random cards (for example: monkey, car, chocolate cake) and we had to tell a story! Then Ms. Kate asked us some “W” questions (who, what, where, etc) about the story that was just told!
3.) In Science we learned about the different planets and what they look like! We brainstormed the planets we already knew and then looked them up to see what they looked like! We then colored in a worksheet that had the planets on them, so they looked like the pictures we looked up!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls:
1.) We continued our lesson and discussion on planets during our science class. We colored the planet Mercury and learned different facts about it.
2.) During reading, we talked about past and present tense verbs as well as the different reading strategies we use. We talked about chocolate in one groups and Obama in the other, and worked on reading fluently and with expression.
3.) We did centers in the afternoon working on and building our skills in teamwork, Read Write and Type, math and spelling.

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

2009-05-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Reviewed words that start with “v” such as “valentine” and “violin” during Morning Meeting.
2.) Had a wonderful time at “Personal Ponies”. We saw the goats, ponies and chickens and we even painted a beautiful pony named Neatherly. She is white but we painted her pink and purple. Then we let two wonderful ponies out so they could run in the sun!
3.) Sang our favorite songs with Deanna and the Diener Dinosaurs. We shared our instruments such as the triangle, rhythm sticks and maracas.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we read a poem about the penny and the nickel. Using the detail words in the poem, we drew what we pictured the coin to look like. We checked our coin pictures to compare with a real coin.
2.) In Art, Ms. Feinberg read us a story! Then we got to pick our favorite part of the story and draw a picture of it!
3.) During, Auditory Stories, we listened to a short story read by Ms. Kate. She asked us a couple questions about the story, so we really had to listen and pay attention! Then we got a picture that went with the story and listen carefully again as Ms. Kate gave us directions on how to color it!

The Golden Owls:
We had a great Friday in the Golden Owls!
1.) In reading we continued to use our graphic organizers to help us write a summary about the story we read. We also answered questions along the way about our reading. We then wrapped up our reading period while brainstorming about different nouns that describe the main character in the book.
2.) We listened to our peers while they presented their book talks on The True Story of Balto, Sable, and When I am Quiet on O'Ahu! We saw a beautiful poster and a mobile! Wow!
3.) In art with Ms. Feinberg we drew a picture of our favorite part of a book! It was such fun and we were able to pretend we were an illustrator!

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

2009-05-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Worked on punctuation and spelling during Language Arts (Teddy and Jack did this). Trevor worked with Ms. Brook on handwriting while Danielle worked with Lynn on identifying colors and the sounds of the alphabet.
2.) Reviewed the book “Pilot Pups” and discussed that pilots are the people who fly the plane.
3.) Participated in an amazing obstacle course during Fitness with Mr. Dan. The kids had to hop through hoops, crawl through a cave, jump on a trampoline, do ten jumping jacks, go on a pretend surfboard and knock over bowling pins. Then they practiced doing something called “step and throw” which is stepping with your left leg (if you are right handed) and then throwing with your right hand.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Played a fun game in language arts with water squirters and sight words! We each had to listen to clues and find the appropriate sight word on the wall outside- then we had to soak it with water once we found it!
2.) Worked on math review in our Calvert workbooks - we reviewed counting backwards and calendar math!
3.) Continued to work on our space community - we reviewed our plans and built our first two planet neighborhoods, Mercuryville and Venustown!
The Mighty Dieners:1.) In Math we had a great time learning more about money! Some of us identified the differences in the coins (colors, size, pictures on the front and back), we had to put together a collage showing facts about a given coin. Others worked on skipping and skip counting by 5.
2.) During OT group we went through an obstacle course where we had to run through hoops, crawl through a tunnel, forward roll on the mat, jumping on the trampoline while crossing the midline when giving high-fives!
3.) In Music, Ms. Deanna taught us the Star Spangled Banner!!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a Terrific Thursday!
1.) We had a great math class where we reviewed subtracting with borrowing and our multiplication skills. We used white boards and dry erase markers to solve different problems.
2.) During speech with Ms. Jen we read a book relating to Apollo 11, continuing our study of space. We then made predictions about what will happen in the future and closed with an experiment making moon rocks out of salt, water and flour.
3.) We had a great fitness class with Mr. Dan while focusing on loco-motor which included running, skipping, jumping forwards and backwards, the crabwalk and hopping. We finished with a relay race!

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

2009-05-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read “Flying” by Donald Crews. Danielle brought this book from home. Then each student wrote a sentence about the story. The sentences had to do with where the plane flew (over the airport, over the river and over the clouds).
2.) Flew a kite outside and shared one kite very nicely with each other. This was a fun activity to do together on such a wonderful day!
3.) Painted beautiful splatter paint pictures outside with Ms. Feinberg. Then students had a chance to paint something of their own.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Worked on a fantastic end-of-year picture frame project with Miss Brook! We worked on painting and decorating special picture frames, and when they're dry, we will put our pictures in and bring them home
2.) Played some great games with Mr. Chris in fitness! We practiced catching discs, jumping over moving obstacles, and throwing at targets!
3.) Continued to work on our space community! We broke into small groups and worked on our planet neighborhoods - we did a great job brainstorming and using creative thinking!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Today we had an amazing field trip at the Dulles Air and Space Museum learning all about how planes fly and the different types of planes that fly through our sky everyday! During a wonderful presentation we learned about the 4 forces that make planes fly: weight, lift, thrust, and drag. We ended the presentation by making boomerangs that demonstrate how things fly through the air.
2.) A wonderful docent (we learned that a docent is a tour guide at a museum) gave us a tour of some of the many planes that filled the hangar. We learned about the fastest plane called the Blackbird that is so fast it can go to California in 1 hour! It’s job was to take pictures from the air of other countries. We also saw the first freighter plane made by Boeing that delivered things across the country. It was the success of that plane that spread to Boeing creating commercial planes for the public.
3.) When we returned to school, we reviewed the 4 forces and wrote each one on the wing of our boomerangs!
4.) In Music, we sang “The more we sing together….the happier we’ll be”, while using instruments at the same time!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a terrific Tuesday!
1.) On our field trip to the Dulles Air and Space Museum we had a wonderful time. We learned about weight, lift, drag and thrust and how they all work together to help planes fly! We saw one of the first airplanes ever made and made our own boomerangs!
2.) When we came back to school, we watched a movie and took notes on "The Wright Brothers Flying Machines." We also compared the planes we saw on our field trip to the ones in the movie.
3.) During music with Mr. Dave, we learned the song "I've Got Rythm" in more detail. We not only sang but used instruments to further explore the beat.

Monday, May 18th, 2009

2009-05-18T12:16:00.001-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read stories and had some very fun sensory breaks with Danielle’s mom. We also played a game in which a picture card was pulled and each student had to copy movements such as brushing hair, brushing teeth and even making a funny face.
2.) Had some more fun doing sensory songs and a dot to dot lesson. One song that we listened to was called “The Beanbag Rock”.
3.) Worked on graphing different amounts of coins during Math. One student received 4 pennies, one student received 6 nickels, one student received 8 dimes and another student received 10 quarters.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had a great morning in Fitness! We worked on building muscles and stretching muscles by doing sit-ups, push-ups and toe touches. We did a lot of running and played a game like basketball where we had to catch a ball and throw the ball, putting our opposite foot forward.
2.) In Math we reviewed different things we have learned, but bringing them together (i.e. skip counting and money). One groups worked on counting by 5’s using nickels, while another worked on adding change.
3.) We prepared for our exciting field trip tomorrow by talking about the different types of planes that are used everyday! We talked about what they look like and who/how they are used (i.e. commercial planes, military planes, and other working planes—for farming, delivering things, emergency planes, etc)
4.) THANKS TO MY FABULOUS CLASS FOR MY SURPRISE PARTY AND BEAUTIFUL PICTURE!! I HAD SO MUCH FUN PLAYING PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEY J

The Golden Owls:
We had a wonderful Monday today!
1.) During reading, we were introduced to a new non-fiction book. We read either the "Magic of Migration" or "Barak Obama" and reviewed all of the different reading strategies we have learned throughout the year. We were also introduced to a new one called cause and effect. We began to fill out a KWLS chart both together and individually on our book.
2.) During fitness with Ms. Julie we reviewed skills such as throwing and catching a ball and a Frisbee after we had completed our warm up and stretching.
3.) We worked on Read, Write and Type on the computer, our new spelling words, and our math skills during our centers time in the afternoon as well as our fine motor circuit in the morning!

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

2009-05-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) We wrote about the book we read Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch. Bear likes moon so much he wants to buy him a birthday present. He paddles across the river, hikes through the forest, and climbs the mountain to get close enough to the talk to the moon. 2.) Wrote sentences about the story Happy Birthday Moon and then drew pictures to go with the sentences. Jack wrote “The bear went to the woods” and pasted a moon and a bear on the paper. Danielle said “The bear went to the mountain to see the moon”.
3.) Played soccer and then played “keep away” outside during Fitness with Mr. Dan. Everyone ran so much in the grass and then came back to the room to have “Quiet Time”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs…
1.) Finished putting together our 'Sing a Song of Solar System' poem and continued working on our leveled readers in language arts!
2.) Worked on putting together addition and subtraction puzzles in math! We also counted up our Diener Dollars and earned a special trip to the Diener Store for doing such an amazing job on our work.
3.) Put together our Sun Town Center together! We put up our shops and buildings and added roads, trees, and lakes! Now we are ready for our next step - creating planet neighborhoods.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In fitness we went outside and learned how to play kickball and working on playing as a team.
2.) In OT with Ms. Kathy, we learned new gross motor movements using partners to stretch.
3.) During math, we did juggling math where Mr. Aaron juggled dice. When he came to a stop, he would give a die to two different children and they had to work together to add the dots to find the sum. It was fun!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls
1.) We played the Superhero game in speech with Ms. Jen! The point of the game is to defeat as many super villains as we can by offering solutions to social problems and discussing ways we can be helpful members of the community.
2.) During team building time we built different structures out of blocks. We built the famous Hershey Park as a group and worked on compromising and working together.
3.) We had a fun and energetic fitness class with Mr. Dan. We ran, galloped, hopped, and then played kickball against Mr. Dan. We had a great time.

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

2009-05-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book called “Take a Trip to Planet Blip” and talked about whether or not planet “Blip” was real or pretend. We also practiced our chant about the Solar System. Ask your child to see how many planets they can name.
2.) Worked on OT related goals individually with Ms. Brook.
3.) Enjoyed a climbing up the mountain song and positions during Yoga with Ms Melinda.
4.) Worked on word problems during Math. Jack and Teddy had to feed bones to a dog and they used the little bones to help them count. Trevor worked on measurement with Debbie and Danielle worked on counting and addition with Lynn.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read new leveled reader books called 'How Many Legs' and 'My Neighborhood' and reviewed our 'Sing a Song of Solar System' poem from yesterday!
2.) Worked on math review with Miss Kim! We did a great job showing her all of the wonderful things we have learned so far this year.
3.) Started creating our space community! We used our brainstorming ideas from yesterday to create the Sun neighborhood, which will be the town center of our community. Thanks to the parents for sending in the great boxes and containers!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we worked some more with money! We talked about why money is important and brainstormed all the things we need money to buy. Using real coins we sorted them, by color and noticed that all pennies are the same color (brown), but a bunch of other coins are different sizes, but the same color (silver). We then sorted the silver coins into piles by size and talked about the name of each coin and the value of each coin.
2.) During social skills, we plan a situation games dealing with emotions and what your body would look like. We each pick a card from a basket and had to read the situation/scenario it had written on it. Then we had to talk about what we would do in that situation. (Ex. “Your class is going on a field trip. What does your body look like?” If they said they were happy with that situation, then they would explain what your body looks like if you are happy—standing tall, shoulders back, smiling face, etc)
3.) In Yoga, we practiced controlling our breathing and new poses that we had to have a partner for—it was hard, but we did it!

The Golden Owls:
We had a great Wednesday in the Golden Owls.
1.) During writing, we finished revising and rewriting our paragraphs about our planets with our partner. We then made a poster to go along with it. During this time we worked on cooperation and making compromises.
2.) During reading we revisited the 5 w's and summarized the story we are reading. We also made connections and used the strategy of rereading to figure out different corrections that were asked of us.
3.) We had an awesome dance class with Mr. Aaron. We practiced the dance we have been working on and added onto it.
Enjoy this beautiful weather!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

2009-05-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a story called “The Sun is My Favorite Star” and wrote a sentence about the Sun. One student wrote “The Sun is hot” and one student wrote “I am the biggest star”. Each student drew a picture to go with their statement.
2.) Kicked a soccer ball and did a short relay race outside during Fitness with Mr. Chris.
3.) Tore newspaper and used primary colors to paint the newspaper in layers. This was a new kind of art project with Ms. Feinberg.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Worked on handwriting with Miss Brook and read a poem together called 'Sing a Song of Solar System' in language arts! We did a great job on our letter formation and identified sight words, rhyming words, and the names of planets in our poem.
2.) Had a great time in fitness! We practiced kicking and stopping the ball in soccer, hitting and fielding the ball in baseball, and we also worked on hopping and skipping!
3.) Began to plan our space community! We brainstormed and charted our ideas for the community, assigned jobs to our classmates, and learned about the specific characteristics of each planet so we can build our planet neighborhoods!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Fine Motor in the morning, we rotated through circuits working on, hand-eye coordination, tripod grasp, hand stability, and muscle tone in their hands. This afternoon during Large Motor, we played several gross motor activities using a parachute that work on balance, coordination as well as maintaining focus.
2.) In Math, we reviewed calendar information, focusing on months (before and after) and seasons.
3.) Science was out of this Earth! We talked about the different planets in space and started our own planet information books!
4.) **Moms—Look for your Mother’s Day presents!! Sorry they are late—we had to wait for things to dry and pictures to develop :)

The Golden Owls:
We had a fantastic Tuesday in the Golden Owls!
1.) During writing we finished researching our planets on the nine planets website with our partners, alternating writing and researching. We have learned a lot about the computer and researching!
2.) In Math we continued to practice our nine's times table and then played a new game with dice! We rolled two large dice and then had to write down the multiplication problem on a white board before solving it.
3.) In music we mastered the use of a variety of instruments such as the triangle and maracas while singing beautifully!

Monday, May 11th, 2009

2009-05-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book called “Sun Up, Sun Down” and worked on their picture of The Solar System. Now we have learned about the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Earth and we know a chant that goes with it!
2.) Worked on reading, writing and spelling during Language Arts. Jack and Teddy played a word game called “What’s Gnu?”
3.) Enjoyed the nice weather by going outside for an extra playtime during our Motor Break. We played “Bumper Dinos” which is a game that Jack invented.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Created flip books for the '-ip' word family! We colored the pictures and letters, cut out the pieces, and assembled them with a little help from our teachers. Then we worked on our Explode the Code workbooks!
2. ) Made our very own May calendars in math. After we filled in the dates, we talked about different elements of the calendar, the days of the week and the weeks in the month, and took turns identifying special days in May!
3.) Had science with Miss Melissa! Today we worked on making our own planet books! We also learned about Ben K.'s favorite book as part of his Star of the Week project!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we worked on our Calendar Math questions! We had to answer questions such as: “What month was last month?”, “What month is next month?”, “How many days are in a week?”, “What holidays happen during this month?”
2.) During our monthly theme class, we talked about the different types of planes there are and what they are used for (commercial planes, military planes, spray planes, delivery planes, etc).
3.) We practiced identifying the different parts of a face and how we should draw a face. We will next be working on the body and how we should draw a person when free drawing or drawing as a part of a lesson!

The Golden Owls:
We had a great day in the Golden Owls!
1.) We have been reviewing addition with regrouping, subtracting with borrowing, time, fractions, and money during our math time! It is such fun to see all that we have learned and continue to learn! Some of us also continued what we learned last week which is adding two digit numbers without regrouping!
2.) During reading we reviewed our reading strategies and began a new leveled reader. We filled out the K and W of our KWL charts and then read our reader aloud in our small groups.
3.) During OT with Ms. Kathy we worked on individual motor and fine motor skills while working towards mastering our OT goals.

Friday, May 8, 2009

2009-05-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Had an amazing time at the College Park Aviation Museum. We learned about the history of the first planes, dressed up like pilots and mailed our very own postcards.
2.) Made Mother’s Day presents. Happy Mother’s Day! You are all wonderful!
3.) Read a book called “Jack the Builder” at the end of the day.HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Had an amazing field trip to the College Park Aviation Museum! We saw different kinds of planes, learned about the different parts of the planes, dressed up as aviators, sat in and steered a model plane, and got to do hands-on activities! We all had a wonderful time.
2.) Each got a souvenir from the field trip - our very own planes to build! We worked on building them in the afternoon, and as we built them we talked about the different airplane parts that we learned about during our tour.
3.) Got a real treat at the end of the day - we all got to try astronaut ice cream! It was NOTHING like regular ice cream - it was dry and crunchy!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We played an amazing game of categories and similarities/differences games! We were paired up and had to work together to give an answer! Some examples of questions that were asked are: What doesn’t belong? (table, chair, bed, pencil) How are they alike? (farm-zoo) How are they different? (bird-airplane)
2.) In Art, we learned about watercolor painting! We sketched a picture using a pencil, then painted our sketches with the watercolor paint.
3.) Mr. Aaron played a math/OT game with us! We each were given a cone to hold. He would give each of us a math problem. When we gave him the correct answer (we could use manipulatives to help) he threw a bean bag that we had to catch in our cone!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a fantastic Friday!
1.) We had a great art class with Ms. Feinberg! We had the best time working with watercolors and painting on canvas.
2.) We reviewed nouns and worked on our Explode the Code books in language arts before answering comprehension questions from our leveled readers and writing paragraphs from our webs and graphic organizers.
3.) During our teamwork activities we played both Sorry and Blokus. We had such fun working together.
Happy weekend!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

2009-05-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Wrote in their journals. Teddy wrote about trains. Trevor wrote about cars and trains. Jack wrote about a sea serpent.
2.) Acted out different types of animals such as crabs and horses, used their soccer kicks to knock over the bowling pins and played freeze dance in Fitness with Mr. Dan.
3.) Learned more about different money amounts during Math. The students had to buy things such as crayons, markers and sticky notes for 10 cents, 20 cents and 25 cents.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a poem called 'Eight Planets'! Then we each cut apart our own poem, put the lines back together in the right order, and decorated the back of our poems with pictures of the solar system!
2.) Played a fun word game! Miss Courtney and Miss Deanna wore consonant letter vests and each of us got a vowel vest. We had to help them create words by adding vowels to their letters! Then we called on our friends to make new words using different vowels.
3.) Talked all about aviation and our field trip tomorrow! We learned about the parts of a plane, watched a video of the very first flight, and discussed what we are going to see in the museum tomorrow. Then we got to make and fly paper airplanes using the red paper that Micah brought in as part of his sharing for Star of the Week!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had a wonderful morning! Ms. Kathy was here and we worked very hard on our handwriting. During OT Groups, we connected the numbers 1-25 on a Dot-to-Dot to make a beautiful picture for our mom! We also worked on our surprise gifts for our wonderful moms or grandma for Mother’s Day! SHHHH…we can’t tell though—you will have to wait and see J Making the gift involved a lot of fine motor activities!
2.) In Math, we read Monster Musical Chairs which is a math text about subtracting 1. Before we read, we talked about how we have played musical chairs in class and what the rules of the game are. As we began to read we learned that the monsters had 6 chairs to start the game, so we lined up six cubes to following along with them! As we read, we had to pay attention and take one of our cubes away! After the book, we split into pairs and each had 10 cubes. We counted each cube to 10, then took 1 away. Then we counted how many are left. We repeated the phrase, “I had_______. I took 1 away and now I have_________.” We did that all the way to 1!
3.) We also had a full day of specials: Fitness we played tag, and in Music we sang a song about the Sun and in Drama we pulled out things that have to do with the rain from the Magic Suitcase and then we acted them out!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a cozy Pajama Day!
1.) During fitness with Coach Dan, we worked on our bear walk, galloping, skipping, hopping, and jumping before revisiting soccer skills.
2.) In music with Ms. Deanna, we visited our monthly theme and sang songs about the different planets.
3.) During writing we continued the paragraphs we wrote earlier this week and revised them before writing our final draft!

Wenesday, May 6, 2009

2009-05-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read the book “CockADoodleMoo” and came up with their own make believe animals such as a “bearamel” (bear and a camel) and a “monkbra” (monkey and a zebra).
2.) Reviewed patterns and word problems during Math with Seena and Debbie.
3.) Used our imaginations while we took out the magic suitcase and played “ships and sailors” with Mr. Jim.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a new leveled reader called 'Yummy, Yummy'! Then we talked about our favorite foods and worked on venn diagrams about our story. We also worked on creating sentences using the letter M!
2.) Continued to learn about the planets as part of our 'Earth, Air, and Water' theme! We talked about the characteristics of each planet and about what astronauts do in space.
3.) Had yoga and drama! We practiced partner poses in yoga and played some of our favorite imagination games in drama!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Today with Ms. Jen we expanded our repertoire of emotion terms. We read a book called "Hooway for Wodney Wat" and worked to interpret the characters’ feelings, make predictions, and provide rationales for actions and emotions. The feelings we came up with include: sad, jealous, lonely, proud, scared, mad, confident, shy, nervous, relieved, happy, and excited. Parents: ask your children what they feel confident about! Their answers to this question during speech were inspiring! J
2.) In science with Ms. Melissa we learned about the planets. We sang a song and pretended to be the planets and asteroid belt. We moved our bodies in the same ways that the planets move.
3.) After Yoga, we started reading a book about the Wright Brothers! It is a chapter book and we will read a different chapter everyday!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a great Wednesday!
1.) We all looked awesome in all of our costumes!
2.) We took a field trip out to the parking lot to see all the different kinds of trucks and also the people who operated them! We were able to climb inside a Peapod truck and an ambulance. We talked to a policeman who rode a motorcycle and were able to sound the siren! It was a great way to see many different trucks and different jobs that people do.
3.) During writing we continued to work on paragraphs. We began using a topic sentence, then three specific details and a concluding sentence. We wrote about topics such as the summer, the field trip we took yesterday to the aviation park, Disney, our visit to see the trucks, and others.
4.) Yesterday we began to learn how to play the piano with Mr. Dave! We learned where the "c" note was. It was such fun!

Monday, May 4, 2009

2009-05-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) The magic trains worked as a team to put a giant dinosaur floor puzzle together.
2.) Ms. Seena brought a box of rocks, crystals and even fossilized dinosaur poo from millions of years ago.
3.) We went to the Island of Sodor and painted the engines.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a book called 'Floating in Space'! It was all about astronauts traveling to space. What a great way to kick off our 'Earth, Air, and Water' theme for this month!
2.) Played a great emotions game with Miss Jen in Social Skills! We each took turns wearing an emotion card on our head, and our friends had to give us clues to help us guess what emotion we were wearing.
3.) Had science with Miss Melissa! We talked about the planets and started coloring pictures for our solar system project! Then we got to see Micah's fantastic 'Star of the Week' poster and learn all about his favorite things!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we learned about the month of May and labeled our May calendars!
2.) We learned all about the sport, Football in Fitness today! We practiced throwing a ball into a large hoop! During Dance with Mr. Aaron, we practiced a dance step routine (it is a repeated dance pattern) we learned last week!
3.) This afternoon, we learned all about aviation to prepare for our field trip tomorrow! We brainstormed everything we could think of that flies! Then we sorted our brainstorming list into groups we thought fit together, finally we named the categories we put them in (living things that fly, machines that fly, etc).

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had a great Crazy Hair Day!!!
1.) During fitness with Ms. Julie we practiced catching and throwing a football! We worked in pairs and then tried throwing through different size hoops! We ended out fitness time with a game trying to score against Ms. Julie. The trick was we had to pass to everyone before we scored.
2.) During OT with Ms. Kathy, we began working on our special Mother's Day activity. We put our fine motor skills to use during our painting activity.
3.) In math we reviewed time, adding and subtracting using both regrouping and borrowing, and fractions before we continued to work on multiplication.

Friday, May 1, 2009

2009-05-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) The Magic Trains read “Little Shark” by Anne Rockwell. When Little Shark was born with his 49 brothers and sisters, he was only ten inches long. His sharkskin is bumpy like sand paper. He grew into a 13 foot long big blue shark!
2.) Ms. Brook worked with each of us on handwriting.
3.) Monday we will begin to study the planets. Out letter of the week will be “U”.
4.) In music we sang our favorite train songs and learned some new songs about our Earth.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Talked about '-ill' word family words! We read the poem 'Jack and Jill' and then colored and sequenced our own Jack and Jill books!
2.) Played a math memory game - we had to match addition problems to their correct answers!
3.) Had drama and music! In drama we played 'Magic Suitcase' and 'Bippity Boppity Boo!'; in music we sang and played music games like 'Bop Till You Drop' and 'Bear Hunt'!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Brain Gym, we rotated through circuits where we had to run through cones and hop from circle to circle, put designs together using Block Buddies (different color and shape blocks), and Double Doodles (involves using both hands simultaneously in a slightly different manner, mirror rather than same movements. The theory is this stimulates both hemispheres of the brain at the same time, right hand stimulates and is controlled by left hemisphere and left hand is controlled by and stimulates the right hemisphere, thus practicing and improving the connections between them. This is what helps to improve ability to cross the midline and whole brain integration, which helps to improve creativity. This also helps students choose their own best lead hemisphere if they have not already.)
2.) In Art, we told a story by using pictures! We each had to draw horizontal and vertical lines to make 4 squares. We numbered our squares 1-4 (1 beginning of story, 2-3 middle of story, 4 ending of story). Our stories could be made up or real!
3.) In Math, we learned funny names for even and odd numbers! Even Steven and Odd Todd! Then we learned a cheer to help us remember the Even Steven numbers (“ 2-4-6-8…who do we appreciate…Diener!”)
4.) During Star of the Week, we learned all about CORA!!

The Golden Owls:
1.) Mrs. Robin also came in during the afternoon and did a lesson on Poetry touching on quatrains and similes.
2.) We continued with multiplication, fractions, and regrouping in math. In L.A. we are working on non-fiction books while also utilizing graphic organizers to pull out vital information from the text.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

Friday, April 24, 2009

2009-04-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Planted marigolds with Ms. Brook by following step by step directions.
2.) Read poems about the Earth with Ms. Debbie and we talked about the fieldtrip that we went on yesterday.
3.) Sang our favorite songs with Ms. Deanna during Music class.Have a wonderful weekend! The letters for next week are “sh” and the theme is “The Earth and Our Environment” with a focus on oceans.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a poem about recycling! Then we went through the poem and identified different elements, including capitalized words, rhyming words, and sight words.
2.) Talked about two different types of letters - consonants and vowels. Then we filled in the missing vowels from our word family words and played vowel games on Starfall.com, our favorite language arts website!
3.) Worked on our addition facts using really cool Dr. Seuss flashcards, magnetic numbers, and unifix cubes in math ~ we did such a great job that we each earned a fun Dr. Seuss sticker at the end!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Art we made different objects using clay and then painted our sculptures!
2.) In Math, we worked in groups working on: identifying Touch Math points on a number, fractions and using manipulatives to add.
3.) Today is Arbor Day, and we made construction paper trees! We learned about why Arbor Day is important and described the different types of trees we saw outside.4.) We finished our day by writing Earth Day/Arbor Day themed Barebone Sentences on sentence strips!

The Golden Owls:
We had a fantastic pizza Friday!
1.) During art with Mrs. Feinberg we used our hands to mold clay and then we painted it! We are super excited about our art show next week and have worked so hard on all of our projects.
2.) During language arts, we continued to use our graphic organizers to help us remember the important points we read in our nonfiction books. We then used the organizers to summarize what the story was about and put it into paragraph form.
3.) We read The Weekly Reader with partners and talked about different current events that happened this week! Happy weekend!

Thursday, April 23rd

2009-04-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Had a great fieldtrip! We went to the Recycling Center and saw how trash gets sorted and reused. We learned a lot and had a good time with Ms. Courtney's class.
2.) Read a book about the Earth and wrote words such as "trees", "endangered" and "rainbow".
3.) Had Social Skills with Ms. Debbie. We read a social story about sharing.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Went on an amazing field trip to the Montgomery County Recycling Center! We learned about all of the different things we can recycle, talked about why recycling is important, and then got to see the actual facility in action! There were conveyor belts sorting glass, plastics, papers, and trash and gigantic trucks moving huge piles of recycling around!
2.) When we got back from the recycling center, we talked about what we learned on our trip and about what our favorite parts were. Then we colored in the great coloring book that we got as a souvenir from the recycling center!
3.) Played games outside! We worked on our teamwork and listening skills while enjoying the nice weather.The

Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we worked on eye-foot coordination by kicking a stationary soccer ball and tried to knock down bowling pins. We also practiced passing the ball back and forth with partners.
2.) During OT group, Ms. Kathy brought in plant soil, plant pots and Marigold plants. Using a spoon we had to scoop out soil and drop it in our pots. Then we had to put the Marigold plants into the pots and press the soil down into the pots. We finished this fun Earth Day themed activity by watering our plants so they would be ready to take home!
3.) In Math, we read Earth Day-Hooray! It was a book about cleaning up parks, which we will be doing next week (since yesterday was rained out L). The book as well introduced place value. We learned that numbers have a home—we started with the ones home and the tens home!The

Golden Owls:
1.) During speech with Ms. Jen we played a new game called. “What Did You Say?” We worked on reading body language and how different people feel about different things. 2.) During writing, we continued our discussion on recycling and revisited our field trip. We used a graphic organizer to write down all that we know. 3.) During fitness with Ms. Julie we did our warm up of jumping jacks, running and stretching before working on out soccer skills.

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

2009-04-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read the book “Earthdance” and acted it out. We were tall as the mountains, large as Space and we were rushing water from waterfalls.
2.) Learned about rocks and minerals and painted beautiful rocks with Ms. Seena.
3.) We learned the tree pose in Yoga. We rested on our mats with our eye pillows and got a hand massage from Ms. Melinda.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a book called 'From Seed to Plant'! Then we created our own 'Seed to Plant' books by coloring and sequencing pictures and matching sentences to those pictures.
2.) Broke into math groups - one group worked on addition using bears and magnet numbers and the other group cut different shapes out of playdoh and practiced showing halves and quarters!
3.) Had yoga with Miss Melinda and drama with Mr. Jim! In yoga we practiced our poses, sun salutations, and our deep breathing. In drama, we played 'Magic Suitcase', 'What's Different', and other fun games!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Handwriting, we wrote Earth Day words and then colored the pictures that went with the word.
2.) In Social Skills, we read the book Mean Soup and then made our own mean soup! We each wrote different things we thought were mean and added them to the soup. We finished by sharing things we thought were mean and each getting the chance to use the big spoon and “stir the mean things away”!
3.) In Science today we talked about Earth Day and why it is important to celebrate this day. We discussed what things we can do to help the Earth: recycle, reuse things, don’t litter, etc.

The Golden Owls:
We had a EXCELLENT EARTH DAY!
1.) During writing we learned about acrostic poems and wrote one using the word EARTH. We first brainstormed different ways we help our earth before we wrote our sentences down.
2.) During our teamwork activity, we built different things using the classroom blocks. One group built a barn with horses while the other group built a habitat for zebras and dolphins!
3.) We continued to work on comparing fractions and reviewing addition and subtraction with regrouping and borrowing.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

2009-04-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Learned about fiction versus nonfiction during Language Arts. The two books that were used to compare were “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” and “Rocks and Minerals”.
2.) Had a wonderful time outside in Fitness. We walked in and out of a ladder on the ground and we watched our shadows becoming dancing stars, shooting stars, dogs, and bunnies.
3.) Made pictures using construction paper during Art. We ripped up the paper and glued it onto our paper and we only used primary colors.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Planted beautiful marigolds in pots with Miss Brook for Earth Day! Then we broke into small groups and worked on our handwriting and sight words!
2.) Had fitness outside for the first time this year! We played games running through ladders on the ground and then played freeze tag and shadow tag with Mr. Chris!
3.) Had art with Mrs. Feinberg - today we talked about the color spectrum and created rainbows using curved lines!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.)We had a very educational, fun, hands-on and noisy field trip to the Montgomery County Recycling Center! We learned all the different things that you can recycle: soda cans, water bottles, glass, grass, sticks, yogurt containers, paper and so much more! We also learned that we should reduce things we use, such as grocery plastic bags and instead reuse things, such as the linen/canvas bags grocery stores sell now! Then we actually got to walk through the recycling center and watch the huge (and noisy!) machines sort all the recyclable materials.
2.) In Science, we began writing poems about recycling!
3.) In Large Motor, we began our Recycle Games (Earth Day version of the Olympic Games) where we participated in the Trash Can Relays, building Tumbling Towers using soda cans and water bottles! On Friday, we are going to complete our Recycle Games outside with water conservation relays!

The Golden Owls:
We had a terrific Tuesday!
1.) We went on a fabulous field trip to the Recycling Center where we saw and learned about different materials that could be recycled and how we can help our planet! We first had a discussion about materials and how they were sorted and then we saw how it was done first hand!
2.) We continued our discussion on Earth Day and how important it is to celebrate it each and everyday during our science class with Ms. Melissa. We also did a follow-up on our field trip!
3.) During music class with Mr. David, we continued to work on our singing and rhythm while also using instruments!

Monday, April 20 2009

2009-04-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read the book “10 Things I Can Do to Help My World”. One thing we can do is that we should turn off the water while we brush our teeth. Then we did an art project that had to do with water and the fact that we all need clean drinking water.
2.) Reviewed addition and subtraction during Math.
3.) Played “Zingo” as a group with Kathy during Social Skills.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a marvelous Monday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Talked about all the fun things we did over spring break! We had so much fun sharing with our friends and it was so good to see everyone again!
2.) Had social skills with Miss Jen! We played a game called "Who am I?" Each of us wore a mask with an animal face, and our friends had to give us clues about what animal we were. It was so fun!
3.) Read a book about Arthur's family vacation! Before reading, we took turns making predictions about the book based on the cover.
4.) Practiced our addition skills using white boards and Unifix cubes.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we reviewed what we were learning before left for break: fractions, Touch Math or adding using a manipulative.
2.) In Fitness, Ms. Julie set up a rope ladder on the floor. She tossed us colored bean bag and we had to walk through the rope ladder by either hopping, skipping or switching every other foot. When we got to the end, we had to toss the bean bag into a hula hoop that matched the color of our bean bag. We finished by playing a game of balloon volleyball!
3.) We learned about litter and why it is important to reuse or recycle things. We started making our litter bugs out of “trash”. Tomorrow we are visiting a Recycling Center.

The Golden Owls:
We had a great day back in the Golden Owls!
1.) During language arts we continued to work on our reading strategies while reading nonfiction books. We reread paragraphs in order to answer different questions from our reading and we also reviewed why the author includes both a glossary and table of contents in a book.
2.) During math we reviewed fractions, time, adding with regrouping, and subtracting with borrowing.
3.) We had a great time in O.T. doing an Earth Day activity with Ms. Kathy. We planted marigolds in terra cotta pots.

Tuesday, April 14th 2009

2009-04-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Had a fantastic fieldtrip at “Personal Ponies” and met several adorable Shetland ponies, chicken, goals, a cat and a dog.
2.) Painted beautiful sculptures during Art with Ms. Feinberg.
3.) Participated in a Social Skills lesson about feelings.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Had a fantastic field trip to the Personal Ponies farm! We visited, groomed, and fed our favorite Shetland Ponies (Netherley, Nettie, and Nicolas), goats, chickens, roosters, dogs, cats and rabbits! We are each going to write a letter to our favorite animal and send it to the farm as part of our Personal Ponies project!
2.) Had music class with Miss Deanna! We sang some of our old favorites, including 'Doe, a Deer' and 'I've Been Working on the Railroad'. Then we played music games and did the Beanbag Dance!
3.) Had art class with Mrs. Feinberg! We learned about three dimensional art and painted beautiful foam sculptures.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We went over our homework and talked about the nouns and verbs we circled!
2.) During Fine Motor: we stenciled words, used rubber bands to make different shapes on the peg board and used magnetic balls and sticks to build something. Then we finished by listening to “Can’t Sit Still” and had to follow the directions: wiggle your fingers, tap your shoulders, knees and toes, tapping our nose switching hands and many more!
3.) In Music, we sang, “The More We Sing Together” and used instruments to follow the rhythm.

The Golden Owls:
What a fun day we had!
1.) During our language arts time we continued to work on our various reading strategies while reading nonfiction leveled readers. We talked about why a table of contents may be included in a story as well as pictures or photographs. We also played one of our favorite games called "Freedom" to work on our flexibility and following directions.
2.) During math we revisited money; adding and subtracting different amounts, seeing how many different ways to make a certain amount of money, and working independently on math sheets.
3.) We also had a fantastic fitness class with Mr. Chris! We played soccer and not only worked on our dribbling skills but teamwork as well!

From the Office:
** Please remember to return all the proofs that were sent home from Picture Art by tomorrow, regardless of portrait purchase or not.

** Our dismissal time tomorrow will be at 12PM. There is no need to send in a lunch for your child tomorrow due to the early dismissal. We will provide a snack for all the kids in the morning.

THANKS!!!!

Monday, April 6th 2009

2009-04-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book called “Earthdance” and we acted out the book. We were tall as the mountains, we were waterfalls and we were even in Space!
2.) Played many sensory games with Ms. Kathy including “The Hokey Pokey” and we had a lot of fun.
3.) Reviewed the concept of “one more than” and played an addition and subtraction game during Math.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Created sight words out of playdoh, then read different sentences that used our sight words! We also practiced drawing pictures based on descriptions and using the describing words that Miss Jen talked to us about last week.
2.) Made a friendship pizza! We talked about using kind works with our friends, then made a pizza using different friendship words as toppings!
3.) Had science with Miss Melissa! We talked about our new theme, which is Earth and our Environment. We learned about the planet Earth, how it relates to other planets in our solar system, and how we can help the earth by doing things like recycling!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness today we played Red Light, Green Light, but we really had to pay attention because Julie would cal out random colors! We also had to listen for how Julie wanted us to move, we hopped, skipped, or did jumping jacks! Then we learned two different passes in basketball, the chest pass and the bounce pass.
2.) After recess we drove to the Montgomery County Food Bank (MANNA) with Mr. Paul’s class to deliver all the canned goods we collected!
3.) We had a class discussion on how we felt after donating our canned food and why it was important for us to do that. We then each wrote a “Barebone sentence” about the trip.

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had great Monday!
1.) During our OT time with Ms. Kathy we worked on our fine motor skills and following directins while making spring flowers out of pipe cleaners and tissue paper. We also worked on our visual skills while coloring in worksheets and learning more about Passover and Easter.
2.) During our Fitness class with Ms. Julie we worked on teamwork and our gross motor skills while playing a variety of fun games! We are working on perfecting our sit-ups, our push-ups and jumping jacks. We also practiced our basketball skills.
3.) We reviewed time, fractions, money, addition and subtraction during our math time.

From the Office:
** K & K/1 classes have a field trip tomorrow departing around 9AM - please dress your child for the weather!
** Our dismissal time Wednesday, April 8th will be at 12PM. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks!

Friday, April 3rd 2009

2009-04-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Practiced writing “c” and “h” with Brook during handwriting. We also had many fun sensory breaks with Brook.
2.) Played games such as “Memory” and “Caribou”.
3.) Read “In a People House” and added things that start with “ch” to the story. The kids decided that the house could have chairs, a cherry pie, a poncho and cheese.
4.) Learned about different money amounts during Math.
5.) Sang all of our favorite songs during Music with Deanna.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a book together called 'It Is Spring!' and talked about all of the different things that happen in Spring! Then we drew and labeled pictures of 4 things that happen in Spring.
2.) In fine motor we traced, cut out, and decorated our handprints. Then we used them to create flower bouquets!
3.) Enjoyed delicious cupcakes for Ben S.'s 7th birthday - thank you so much to Ben S. for bringing them in!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We learned all about Sandhya—our Star of the Week!!! We will learn who our next Star of the Week is when we return from Spring Break!!
2.) In Art, we learned about abstract art or “weird shapes” as the kids called it. J We learned that contrast is important in abstract art by cutting out different shapes and glued them on paper.
3.) We finished our noun picture books to send home! Then we started learning about “Barebone Sentences” (Noun verb)

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a great rainy day in the Golden Owls.
1.) We began our language arts class with our Explode the Code books which we are all making great progress in! We then continued to work on reading with expression and utilizing our reading strategies.
2.) In art class we are continuing to work on getting ready for our art show on April 30! We cannot wait to have all our friends see how hard we have been working using different mediums. 3.) We shared our amazing research projects with one another. We learned all about the different animals we all have been working so hard on. We learned about snakes, wolves, whales, sharks, dolphins, spiders, lions, and owls.
Happy weekend!

From the Office:
** Please send in your canned and nonperishable foods for The Diener School Food Drive
** Our dismissal time next Wednesday, April 8th will be at 12PM. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks!

Thursday, April 2nd 2009

2009-04-03T05:58:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Learned about taking care of the Earth through recycling during Language Arts. Played a game called “Wild Woods” and we protected the animals from the thunderstorm.
2.) Played an addition game during Math. Each student threw the dice and had to add the amount together. We earned prizes for taking turns and showing good sportsmanship.
3.) Played with Melissa during Social Skills in the afternoon.

The Diener Dinosaurs
Today the Diener Dinosaurs…
1.) Read a book called 'Oliver' and did a book report about our favorite part of the book! Then we worked on our Explode the Code workbooks.
2.) Worked on addition problems using magnetic numbers! Then we worked in our Calvert Math workbooks.
3.) Played music games with Miss Deanna, including “The Beanbag Dance” and “Bop Until You Drop!”

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Ms. Kathy worked on handwriting with us and then built an obstacle for us to go through. We had to bear crawl, jump into and out of a large inner tube, crawl through a tunnel, jump on the mini-tramp and high five Mr. Aaron and then scoot around the bowling pins!!
2.) In Math we worked on either Touch Math points 6-9 or using blocks to add!
3.) In Music, we used a parachute to help hold the stuffed animals, while we sang about traveling down a river!!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had a terrific Thursday!
1.) In Math we continued to work on fractions. We also worked on our fine motor skills while coloring and cutting different fractions which make a whole. We also compared which fraction was the greatest and which was the smallest.
2.) During Speech with Ms. Jen we played a game called Apples to Apples Junior to work on our higher-order thinking skills including: predicting, reasoning, and forming associations. We also addressed social awareness through perspective taking and using supportive language.
3.) During Drama with Mr. Jim, we played a fabulous new game called Taxi after playing one of our favorites, The Magic Suitcase. We had a ball!

From the Office:
** Please send in your canned and nonperishable foods for The Diener School Food Drive
** Our dismissal time next Wednesday, April 8th will be at 12PM. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

2009-04-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read books about Recycling.
2.) Talked more about the Earth & the environment.
3.) Worked on our yoga moves with Ms. Melinda.
4.) We worked on the concept of “1 more than” in math.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read our leveled readers in language arts - today we read about different kinds of animals! Then we played a sorting game with animal figures and drew and labeled pictures of the different animals that we sorted.
2.) Worked on our number sequencing and addition skills in math! We played 'Guess the Number' using our hundreds board and created our own addition problems using whiteboards and colored blocks.
3.) Had yoga with Miss Melinda! We practiced our poses, including Rainbow, Rainbow Bridge, and Happy Dog. Then we worked on our breathing and even practiced handstands! We finished with relaxation time.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Social Skills we talked about what it means to be a friend. Then Ms. Jen showed us our new “Mighty Dieners’ Friendship Box”. If we want to make sure a classmate is recognized for being a good friend, we write on a card who they are and what they did and place the card in the box. On Friday, Ms. Kate and Mr. Aaron will read the cards to the class!
2.) In Yoga, we practiced breathing and holding our poses longer!
3.) We brainstormed a list of nouns, so soon we can learn verbs and start our Barebone Sentences!

The Golden Owls:
1.) During Language Arts we continued to work on our various reading strategies in small groups while reading both aloud and silently. We also played one of our favorite games called "Freedom" to continue to work on teamwork and flexibility.
2.) During Writing we continued to work on brainstorming and making a web; then drafting using our topic sentence, three specific details and a concluding sentence, for our paragraphs. Finally we worked on revising our drafts.
3.) During Yoga we began our class by playing our favorite running game and stopping frequently to do different yoga poses on our mats. We also worked on our breathing in and out through our noses. This helped us calm our bodies.

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

2009-03-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Worked on lots of fine motor activities and handwriting with Miss Brook! Then we worked on our Calvert workbooks in math.
2.) Played lots of fun games with Miss Julie in fitness. We practiced our animal walks and worked on catching and throwing frisbees, and then we used frisbees to knock over cones.
3.) Learned about using outlines to create drawings in art. Then we made beautiful paintings using chalk and paint!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, one group reviewed the touch points for the numbers 1-5 and learned the touch points for the numbers 6-9. The second group continued to work on fractions.
2.) In Fine Motor rotations, the activities included: copying shapes given on a card and making them using rubber bands on a peg board, making designs with pegs and lacing a shoelace through the pegs, using stencils to write words, using different shaped color blocks to recreate a given pattern and using magnet sticks and balls to build with.
3.) In Science we finished working on our animal habitats!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden owls we had a great Tuesday!
1.) We finished our habitats during our science class with Ms. Melissa putting the finishing details in our environments.
2.) During math we continued to review time while also working on fractions of 1/2, 1/4, 1/6, and 1/8.
3.) We had our Tuesday music lesson with Mr. Dave who sang fun music with us and continued building our musical skills while working on both beats and rhythm.

From the Office:
** Please send in your canned and nonperishable foods for The Diener School Food Drive
** Our dismissal time next Wednesday, April 8th will be at 12PM. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks!

Monday, March 30th 2009

2009-03-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) We colored Earth blue and green, cut it out and glued it on another piece of paper. We did this with Kathy and worked on sharing our materials.
2.) Learned about “more than” and “less than” during Math. We used different manipulatives such as Unifix cubes to teach this concept.
3.) Read a book called “I Love Our Earth”. This is a beautiful book that shows kids from all over the world. We saw a boy riding a water buffalo and a girl climbing a huge mountain.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Learned about using description words called adjectives with Miss Jen and took turns describing different objects using creative adjectives! We also played a game called 'Guess What I Am!' - We each wore a mask and had to guess what kind of mask it was based on the clues that our friends gave us.
2.) Worked on skip counting using a calendar in math! We had silly, mixed-up calendars that were missing all of the even numbers, so we filled them in and then practiced counting by twos. At the end we got to draw pictures on our calendars!
3.) Had science with Miss Melissa! We talked about living things and habitats, and then made wonderful animals out of cardboard tubes!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we played Ultimate Frisbee and rotated through fitness circuits including: hop on one foot, sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, etc.
2.) In Math, one group began learning about TouchMath; while another group began fractions.
3.) In the afternoon we worked more on identifying living things vs. non-living things; as well as habitats for different animals (cut and paste activity).
**DON’T FORGET YOUR CANNED FOOD DONATIONS!!**

The Golden Owls:
1.) In Math we will review time and begin fractions. As a class our goal is to begin multiplication sometime in May.
2.) In writing we are still mastering our paragraphs including topic sentences, three details, and concluding sentences. We will be getting back to brainstorming, webbing, drafting, and revising.
3.) In O.T. with Ms. Kathy we continue to work on improving our fine motor skills. We complete our fine motor circuit activities two times a week. In addition, we are working very hard to perfect out handwriting and visual motor skills. We use helpful visual aids and sensory strategies daily.

From the Office:
** Please send in your canned and nonperishable foods for The Diener School Food Drive
** Our dismissal time next Wednesday, April 8th will be at 12PM. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks!

Friday, March 27th, 2009

2009-03-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Went to the Croyden Creek Nature Center and we had so much fun. We learned that animals need 4 specific things which are water, food, shelter and space. We saw a red eared sliding turtle. We also saw a woodpecker way up in the tree. Our nature hike was so great and Amanda our guide shared so much interesting information with us. We walked through three habitats which were the grassy meadow, the wetlands and the forest.
2.) We had Music with Ms. Deanna and her class in the afternoon. We sand all of our favorite songs such as “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a fantastic Friday!! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Had a great time on our field trip to Croydon Creek Nature Center! We saw many animals, including turtles, snakes, birds, and deer. We learned about different habitats and went on a nature hike to see three of these habitats-forests, wetlands, and meadows. We had a wonderful time!
2.) Had a pizza party for lunch!
3.) Had music with Miss Deanna and the Magic Trains. We sang lots of fun songs and played musical games!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Art we cut out shapes and patterns and glued them onto another sheet up paper. We also took a little field trip downstairs and looked at all the paintings in the Art Show at the synagogue.
2.) We learned all about Kylie who was our Star of the Week!
3.) We also practiced our handwriting, graphed the weather for March and had a really yummy pizza Friday!

The Golden Owls:
1.) For O.T. we did our fine motor circuits while also working on visual skills and teamwork.
2.) In Writing I had the GENIUS students pair up and choose what they want to write about. This makes the writing process a bit more fun and also builds communication.
3.) In the afternoon we continued with our National Geographic movie on wolves. The kids took notes and we then discussed what we learned, and worked on attending to and acknowledging each other's ideas.

Thursday, March 26th 2009

2009-03-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Learned more about different types of punctuation. We also read a book about tractors during story time.
2.) Practiced telling time and making patterns during Math. Ask your kids what time they go to bed tonight. Maybe they can even show you on the clock.
3.) Played a new interactive and computerized game called “Swinxs” with Mr. Chris during Fitness. We played tag and we danced around the Fitness room.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Worked on new leveled reading books and Explode the Code worksheets in language arts!
2.) Continued to build our numbers board and work on number sequencing in math!
3.) Talked about our field trip tomorrow to Croydon Nature Center and learned all about ponds in science!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We spent an awesome morning with Ms. Kathy. We learned how to answer questions in a thoughtful, clear manner with the game of, “pick a question.” Students provided answers to such things as, what would they take with them to a deserted island, what they wanted to be when they grew up, and who is their favorite celebrity. We also worked on Handwriting Without Tears.
2.) During drama with Mr. Jim, our class learned a new creative game. We pretended to be sitting on a bench with another person, and acted out on any scene that would make the other person get up and run from the bench.
3.) Music class with Ms. Deanna had the Mighty Dieners acting out a story with the use of musical instruments. We sang some of our favorite tunes and worked on transitioning from one game to another without losing concentration and encroaching in other’s “body space.”

The Golden Owls:
1.) In Drama with Mr. Jim we continued to work on flexibility, teamwork, and cooperation. He provides great activities and games as the kids learn positively.
2.) In Music with Dynamite Deanna we enjoyed using lots of instruments creating a Diener orchestra.
3.) In Speech with Ms. Jen we worked on building on our social use of language and collaboration skills within our habitat collage projects. We worked on respectfulness, listening and attending to each other's ideas, and acknowledging.

From the Office:
Tomorrow, Ms. Debbie and Ms. Courtney’s classes have a field trip to the Croyden Creek Nature Center.

Wednesday, March 25th 2009

2009-03-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read “Making Vegetable Soup” with Ms. Jen. This is a wonderful book by Lois Ehlert. Then we made our very own vegetable soup using only vegetables and water. The best part is that two students even tasted the soup.
2.) Practiced telling time during Math. We talked about our schedule and students had to use our special clock to show when things like Morning Meeting take place.
3.) Played our favorite run and freeze game and practiced yoga poses by looking at cards with various poses on them. We had a lot of fun during Yoga today and we relaxed.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) We played a great game with Ms. Jen. Each student had to put a mask on that had a different animal. The person wearing the mask did not know what the animal was! Classmates had to give clues to the person wearing the mask to help them guess which animal they had on the mask!
2.) In Yoga we practiced the cobra, boat, happy dog and the rainbow poses!
3.) In the afternoon we did a categories game called Granny’s Candies. We choose teams and each team is asked to listen to words in a particular category. The team must decide which one word does not belong with the others. The team must be able to explain why the word doesn’t belong to the category.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) What a fun day we had at Personal Ponies! We saw the biggest chicken ever and learned the chickens lay an egg everyday! We also met several miniature ponies that we fed carrots to and brushed. We will be adopting a pony that we will write letters to!
2.) In Science we worked on our animal habitats! We are at the painting stage and loving designing what our animal habitats should look like!
3.) In Music, we played with instruments and sang, “When the Saints Go Marching In”!

The Golden Owls:
1.) We are going to begin a Book Talk Once a week for the rest of the year. Each student will get the opportunity to discuss a book they have read with the class. You will find the format inside the homework folder.
2.) In Math we are continuing with time and also reviewing money and regrouping. Overall there has been great growth within Math. We are proud of our GENIUS students.
3.) In Writing the students were given the opportunity to pair up or work individually. The topic was favorite foods. At the end of writing some student shared with the class working on eye contact, confidence, and public speaking. J

From the Office:
Tomorrow, Thursday March 26th @ 1:15 we will complete our auction invitation stuffing. Please come by the office if you’re available to help out!
Thanks so much!

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

2009-03-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the magic Trains:
1.) Read books about plants and learned more about the parts of plants.
2.) Played a game about the seven continents during Fitness with Mr. Chris and Ms. Julie. We also acted out being different types of animals.
3.) Relaxed and listened to a book on tape called “Turtle Song”.
4.) Painted beautiful pictures during Art and read the book “Go Dog Go” with Ms. Feinburg. She always brings a stuffed animal that matches the book we read!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Had a visit from Miss Brook! We played beanbag games, worked on a color-by-number picture, and did handwriting activities! We also read a book called 'Diary of a Worm' - it was just like the book we read last week, 'Diary of a Spider', but from the perspective of a little worm!
2.) Played really fun games in fitness with Miss Julie! We traveled around the continents pretending to be different kinds of animals, then we worked together as a team to build a habitat in which an animal could live!
3.) Had art with Mrs. Feinberg - we worked on a beautiful project using lines drawn with markers and crayons!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) What a fun day we had at Personal Ponies! We saw the biggest chicken ever and learned the chickens lay an egg everyday! We also met several miniature ponies that we fed carrots to and brushed. We will be adopting a pony that we will write letters to!
2.) In Science we worked on our animal habitats! We are at the painting stage and loving designing what our animal habitats should look like!
3.) In Music, we played with instruments and sang, “When the Saints Go Marching In”!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a great day!
1.) On our field trip we had the best time. We saw ponnies that we are adopting and their natural habitats. We cannot wait to write them letters! We even got to feed them carrots. We saw the world famous king rooster and learned about his habitat and what he eats as well.
2.) In music with Mr. Dave we continued to sing while playing different instruments like the triangle, bells, and maracas. We also sang the song, "I got music, I got rhythm..."
3.) Science was wonderful with Ms. Melissa while we continued to talk and work on our different habitats. We even got to paint our own!

Monday, March 23rd 2009

2009-03-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Practiced writing our names with Ms. Brook.
2.) Used the computer to write “g” words such as grape, gorilla and galaxy.
3.) Walked to a new playground and have fun playing on the swings and on the slide.
4.) Learned about plants and we will be planting vegetable seeds later this week.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Played a great word fishing game with Miss Jen and worked on sorting word family words in Language Arts.
2.) Cut out pictures of animals and pasted them into their correct habitats in science with Miss Melissa!
3.) Learned all about our new star of the week - Michael! We had a great time looking at his pictures and talking about his favorite things. We are looking forward to learning more about him as the week goes on!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we had a great time playing soccer! We passed the ball in pairs and scrimmaged at the end!
2.) In Math, we worked on the month of March! What month comes before/after March? How many days are in March? What day of the week did March begin on?
3.) We finished our noun picture books today with finding pictures of places and gluing them on construction paper. When we were finished we started writing noun words for the noun books!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a magical Monday!
1.) In math we started working on time using both digital and analog clocks.
2.) We had a fantastic fitness class with Mr. Dan while practicing our soccer skills and teamwork. We worked on passing, shooting, and dribbling.
3.) In OT with Ms. Kathy we concentrated on a variety of brain gym activities working on bilateral integration, hand- eye coordination and gross motor skills. Students practiced their new spelling words while jumping on the trampoline, verbally spelling their words and catching the ball from Ms. Kathy. In additon, the students focused on body awareness skills and crossing the midline of their body.

From the Office:
If there are any parents available to help with the addressing, stuffing, and stamping of invitations tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th – we will start @ 1PM – RSVP with Leah or just come to the office! Thanks so very much to all who are able to help.

Thursday, March 19th 2009

2009-03-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Played academic games such as “Zingo” and “What’s Gnu” during Language Arts. We also worked on writing the letter “Z” with Brook.
2.) Worked on addition and subtraction during Math.
3.) Completed a really cool obstacle course in Fitness today with Mr. Dan.
4.) Sang all of our songs about trains with Ms. Debbie during Music. We sang “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”, “Down by the Station”, “The Thomas Theme Song”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Took turns reading aloud from a book called 'Digging to China'. Then we all did a book report sheet - we drew a picture of and wrote a sentence about what happened in the book!
2.) Went on a math scavenger hunt just like Tally O'Malley! We found all sorts on interesting things in The Diener School and practiced making our tallies on whiteboards.
3.) Built our very own caves and then created different animals and cave creatures with clay!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we went through an obstacle course that was both fun and challenging!
2.) We had a GREEN morning celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! (We were on a field trip on Tuesday.) We started our party by making green pudding! Then we played Shamrock Stomp (the same idea as Musical Chairs, but we walk around on shamrocks). We also played Irish Hot Potato--Lauren won the potato! We then participated in a motor-planning relay (much like leapfrog) and the Shamrock Shimmy, where we had to race and pick a card from the pot of gold that had a direction on it (hop like a bunny, crab crawl, jumping jacks, etc).
3.) In Music we did a really fun Fantasia lesson with Ms. Deanna and had a blast playing “Magic Suitcase” with Mr. Jim!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had a terrific Thursday!
1.) We continued to work on our writing skills during language arts, incorporating the five sentence paragraph while summarizing the important facts we read from our leveled readers.
2.) In speech with Ms. Jen we are finishing our team building habitat collages and sharing our discoveries with the rest of our class.
3.) During math, we continued our money unit while adding and subtracting like coins, making change and working on regrouping.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

2009-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did a really fun motor group with Miss Brook in the morning - we had to find different ways to get around imaginary alligators that were swimming around in the sensory room! Then we worked with her on our handwriting and fine motor skills.
2.) Made a St. Patrick's Day book - it had leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold!
3.) Had a great time in fitness with Mr. Chris! We played games about living things and habitats and ended with a game of freeze tag!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We learned about many different habitats this morning on our field trip to PETCO. We met Chinchillas and Ferrets and learned they both like to burrow in the ground, but they also make wonderful, cuddly house pets! We met some hamsters and gerbils, as well as petted a snake and saw the fish that looked just like Nemo!
2.) In Science, we started creating our habitats of the animals we picked. Can’t wait to bring them home when we are all done!
3.) In Music, we sang “Do-re-mi-fa-so” from the Sound of Music. We as well played different instruments identifying the different sounds they make!

The Golden Owls:
1.) What a great field trip to Petco the Golden Owls had! We saw many different kinds of animals such as birds, reptiles, fish small animals! We also learned about their habitats
2.) In Science class we continued to talk about habitats while working on our own habitat we are making out of shoeboxes.
3.) We had magical music class with Mr. Dave where we worked on patterns while playing our musical instruments. We had to pay careful attention to one another and listen very carefully to our friends!

Monday, March 16th, 2009

2009-03-16T13:08:00.001-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) During Language Arts we learned about farm animals and learned the names for baby farm animals. The animals we talked about specifically were the baby lamb, duckling, piglet and calf.
2.) Mr. Tim came to do some floor time activities with the class. We played with the trains together and had fun.
3.) Played Alphabet Lotto with Ms. Kathy during Social Skills. We worked on asking our friends if they had various letters. We also worked on turn taking skills.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did a great habitats matching activity with Miss Jen and worked in our Explode the Code books during Language Arts!
2.) Played the game 'Pass the Mask' in social skills - the teacher held her hands up like a mask, and when she took them away, her face showed an emotion! We had to guess what it was and then passed the imaginary mask to each other and took turns making that face.
3.) Finished creating our shoebox habitats in science with Miss Melissa! We did a great job painting them, creating habitats out of clay, and placing our animals in their new homes.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Ms. Melissa came and did an activity with us to prepare us for tomorrow’s field trip. We cut out labels for the types of animals we might see tomorrow. Then we could either draw a picture or write/cut & paste a description next to each animal label.
2.) Later, learned more about tomorrow’s field trip by talking about the different animals and the habitats they live in.
3.) Mr. Aaron showed us some dance moves where we had to follow the beat!
4.) We celebrated Ms. Ginny’s birthday with a surprise party!! J

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we:
1.) Watched a social studies movie about bears and their habitats. We filled out a KWL chart in the beginning of class to see how much we knew about bears and what we hope to learn from the movie.
2.) Continued to work on making change for a dollar and more during our math class. We are revisiting regrouping while doing this.
3.) Had a great fitness class with Coach Dan! We played "What Time Is It Mr. Fox," practiced our bowling, and worked as a team to knocked down pins.
It was a great day!

Friday, March 13th, 2009

2009-03-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.)Went on an amazing fieldtrip to “Petco” and saw dogs, lizards, birds, fish and many types of rodents. The children got to pet a ferret and see a beautiful bird with feathers of all different colors. James showed us many different types of animals and explained to us what they eat and where they live.
2.) Shared our new Lincoln logs nicely during Choice Time.
3.) Sang our favorite songs such as “We’re Going On a Bear Hunt” with Ms. Deanna.
The theme for next week is “Farm Animals”. The letter of the week is “Z”.
Have a great weekend and see you Monday!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Went on a fantastic field trip to Petco! Our guide, James, showed us all sorts of animals, including hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, ferrets, snakes, birds, hermit crabs, geckos, and fish!
2.) When we got back, we drew and labeled pictures of our favorite animals. Then we discussed some more facts about the animals we saw and did worksheets about what we learned.
3.) Had music with Miss Deanna! We played some of our favorite music games and worked on telling stories using music.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Art, we colored and traced our hands to make abstract art!
2.) We learned all about Lauren, our “Star of the Week”!
3.) We worked on our noun books by looking for pictures of nouns in magazines, cutting them out and gluing them in our books!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a fantastic Friday in the Golden Owls!
1.) In Art, we are continuing to work really hard to get ready for the art show. We are not only painting but also making collages and learning about different artists!
2.) This afternoon we took our second field trip to the library to check out more books on the animals we are researching. We are learning how to take notes while we read and learning how to find books in the library!
3.) In Language Arts we are continuing our reading strategies and reading with expression and fluency while reading about different animals and their habitats. We are also continuing to learn more about nouns, proper nouns, verbs and adjectives too!
Have a very happy weekend!

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

2009-03-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Played “Zingo” with Debbie. This game is like “Bingo” except students have to slide the “Zingo” machine and when they do, they find two pictures. We worked on turn taking skills and each student had to ask their partner if they had the “Zingo” pictures on their board.
2.) Practiced many poses with Ms. Melinda during Yoga, used our breathing ball and ended class with “Namaste”.
3.) Reviewed addition and graphing during Math.
REMINDER: Tomorrow is a half day!! Have a great night.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Read a story together called 'Diary of a Spider'. Then we broke into small groups - the groups completed story stars describing the book and read new leveled reader books!
2.) Had yoga with Miss Melinda! We started to learn something brand new - handstands! We practiced using the muscles that help us make handstands, and then we did assisted handstands using mats. We did a great job and can't wait to try handstands on our own!
3.) Talked about caves in science! Then we drew pictures of four things we might find in a cave.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Social Skills, we did a great listening and following directions craft activity. We had to listen to the teacher to find out what to color the different body parts of a teddy bear cut-out. We didn’t know what color was coming next, so we had to wait quietly and listen to hear the next color. At the end we were given the direction to cut-out the bear pieces and glue them on construction paper!
2.) In Math, one group worked on adding on, while another group worked on how many different ways can you add to make a number.
3.) In Yoga, we worked on strengthening our poses and working on our breathing!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we:1.) Talked about giving in social studies and how it made us feel when we gave compliments to one another. We read Stone Soup as a class and talked about teamwork and being thoughtful and kind. 2.) Had dance with Mr. Aaron and worked on finding the beat in songs and matching it with our bodies and how we move them!3.) Continued working with money; creating change, adding like and unlike coins, and naming the values of coins.
We had a super day!

From the Office:
HALF DAY TOMORROW – DISMISSAL @ 1PM

Tuesday, March 10th 2009

2009-03-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a story called “I Can Share” and we talked about ways that we can be good friends. We even talked about ways that teachers can help each other.
2.) Reviewed “Curious George Visits the Zoo” and played “Memory”. Jack and Teddy completed a worksheet about the Curious George book and they had to remember what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story.
3.) Played where does this animal live. We skipped, bounced and ran to the yellow (sky, sun), green (land) or blue (sea) hoola hoops putting the animals in their natural habitat. Some animals lived on land and sea so the blue and green hoops intersected during Fitness with Mr. Chris and Ms. Julie.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Read 'Mr. Seahorse' together, then drew and labeled pictures of our favorite characters! We also worked on writing our letter 'I' and using it in different words!
2.) Started working on animal habitats in science! We each picked animals, looked up their habitats and environments online, and started to build their homes using boxes, clay, and paint. 3.) Learned about our new star of the week - Ben S.! We learned so much about him - we talked about his favorite things, his family, and activities he enjoys. We are excited to continue learning about him as our week goes on!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had an amazing nature filled field trip this morning! We started our experience by talking with our guide about habitats, seeing a stuffed squirrel, the fur of a fox and meeting a live box turtle! Then we walked through the woods, which we learned was the habitat of squirrels, birds, deer, and groundhogs. While in the woods, we walked on a bridge over a creek and learned about another habitat, the creek! The creek is a habitat for fish, turtles and frogs! We had SO much fun!
2.) In Music we sang “The More we Get Together…” and using instruments to play to the beat!
3.) During Large Motor groups, we played Simon Says and had to get through an obstacle by different animal walks!

The Golden Owls:
What a great day!
1.) We had a fantastic field trip to the Croyden Creek Nature Center where we learned even more about habitats and experienced them! We went on a nature hike and saw all of the different markings that animals make in their own habitats. We saw a wetlands habitat, a forest habitat and a tall grass habitat. We also saw turtles, snakes, an owl and other animals back in the nature room.
2.) In science we continued talking about our monthly theme of habitats and even began making our own!
3.) During language arts we continued using our five reading strategies while also beginning to learn how to summarize what we read. We are reading different nonfiction books about a variety of animals in different habitats!

Monday, March 9th, 2009

2009-03-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a story called “Curious George Visits the Zoo”. We talked about different animals that are found at the zoo. This is our theme for the week. Our theme for the month is “Animals and Habitats”.
2.) Learned about one to one correspondence during Math and we worked in our Calvert Math books. We practiced counting but we also learned that if there are three crayons and four markers then there is not one crayon for each marker. You can do this with any object. Try this at home tonight for homework.
3.) Played “Zingo” and “Caribou” during Social Skills. We worked on using our words to ask our friends questions and we worked on turn taking skills.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Read 'Mr. Seahorse' together, then drew and labeled pictures of our favorite characters! We also worked on writing our letter 'I' and using it in different words!
2.) Started working on animal habitats in science! We each picked animals, looked up their habitats and environments online, and started to build their homes using boxes, clay, and paint.
3.) Learned about our new star of the week - Ben S.! We learned so much about him - we talked about his favorite things, his family, and activities he enjoys. We are excited to continue learning about him as our week goes on!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we learned to play hockey, using a hockey stick! We also learned that hockey can be played in the ice or a field! Then we played a game where we had to keep a balloon in the air using paddles!
2.) In Math, some of us worked on before/after and filling in the missing numbers. Others worked on “How many ways can you add to make… (5, 6, 7, 8)?”
3.) Mr. Aaron started our Dance class today where we learned about rhythm!

The Golden Owls:
Today in the Golden Owls we had a fantastic Monday!
1.) During our modeling time, we continued to read Patricia Polacco's stories and use our reading strategies of predicting, summarizing and connecting. We read Just Plain Fancy and just loved it!
2.) The Golden Owls participated in a group social activity led by Kathy. They enjoyed Twister and Boggle while focusing on body awareness, turn taking and higher level motor planning skills.
3.) We had fitness today with Mr. Dan and Ms. Julie and worked on teamwork, hand eye coordination, crossing the midline and strengthening our bodies! We played hockey, chased their tails (made out of rope), and also a form of badminton! We had a great time!

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

2009-03-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Practiced walking through a plastic ladder on the floor (forwards and backwards) with Mr. Dan during Fitness.
2.) Sang songs such as “I’ve Been Working On the Railroad” with Ms. Debbie during Music today.
NOTE: Please bring in a recipe for tomorrow! It can be simple but we really need them for our Diener School cookbook. Thanks!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Worked on calendars in math. We reviewed our calendars for March, and then we had to fix some funny calendars that were missing all of the even numbered days!
2.) Continued to talk about homes as part of our new theme - Living Things, Homes, and Habitats! Yesterday we each picked our favorite types of homes (castles and log cabins were quite popular), and today we made clay models of our favorite homes!
3.) Read the book 'You Look Ridiculous', made story predictions, and discussed the characters and setting of the story in language arts. We also worked in our Explode the Code workbooks!

The Mighty Dieners:
1) In Fitness we played tag and we used a rope ladder to walk forwards and backwards through it!
2) With Ms. Kathy, we worked on our Handwriting, and moved around in OT groups to "Bean Bag Rock", which works on listening and following directions; "Pass the Bean Bag", which works on passing left to right and following directions; as well as finishing with the "Hokey-Pokey"!! We all did an awesome job! :)
3) We will be moving Calendar Math to Thursday, therefore Ms. Kathy can help with our handwriting when answering the questions, as well numbering the calendar.

The Golden Owls:
1.) In class writing we are continuing with Topic sentences. They are going to use 3 examples from their library books to use in their writing. This allows them to incorporate this month’s theme which is Living Things.
2.) In the afternoon the Dynamite Deanna came in to perform a 3- 4 symphony. She worked with the class on several different songs and also gave them lots of instruments to enjoy.
3.) In speech with Ms Jen we used our active listening and categorization skills to do an activity based on this month's theme: Habitats and Environments. We split into small groups and compared and contrasted different types of animals and their homes. We also talked about how animals have adapted over years and how we often need to adapt socially depending on the different environments we are in.

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

2009-03-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Children watched the caterpillar grow bigger and bigger in a jar in their classroom.
2.) In yoga we learned new poses from Ms. Melinda. She showed us pictures of a bear doing yoga!
3.) In Math we added up all the fruits that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate and there were 15.
4.) We went on a magical walk with Mr. Jim and found a rocket, a birthday cake and Thomas and Friends in our magic suitcase.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Worked on our -en words with Miss Kim! We read a poem together called 'I Want to be Ten' and answered questions about different parts of the poem. We did a great job!
2.) Colored a beautiful spring picture using a color-by-number key. We practiced following directions and paying attention to detail - we all created lovely pictures of spring flowers!
3.) Had yoga with Miss Melinda! We learned 4 new poses including the Rainbow Bridge, practiced our breathing, learned a new meditation, and ended with relaxation.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Social Skills we talked about emotions and thinking about appropriate reactions. We role played situations and talked about how they made us feel and how we would react if that had happened to us.
2.) In Speech we split into teams and played a glass game of Granny’s Candies! It is a fun language game that focuses on semantics. Each team would be read a list of things and asked one of the following questions such as: “What belongs in this group?”, “What do these have in common?”, “What is this used for?”, “How are they alike?”, or “How are they different?”
3.) In Yoga we practiced our breathing and making poses more difficult!

The Golden Owls:
1.) In Language Arts we have begun a few new books. We are continuing with the new leveled reader building our vocabulary, comprehension, and also fluency.
2.) In Writing we are beginning a new story. The Genius Kids will choose what they want to write about and use lots of specifics, details, and of course our topic sentences.
3.) In Yoga with Ms. Melinda they are enjoying the process of calming their bodies while also becoming flexible in a varied of poses.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

2009-03-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Used big Styrofoam “lollipops” and mitts to hit plastic disks and “birdies” in Fitness with Mr. Chris and Ms. Julie. Then we gathered all of the birdies and disks with our scooters. We had a lot of fun in Fitness today.
2.) Read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” This is a book that we will focus on a great deal this week. Tomorrow we will make caterpillars out of play dough. Every day we will do at least one or two activities related to the book.
3.) Drew pictures using different colored chalk and black construction paper during Art with Ms. Feinberg.
Tomorrow Jen our Speech Therapist will be in our class from 8:45 – 11:30 AM.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Had fitness with Mr. Chris! We worked on our tennis skills using big foam rackets and foam hands to hit discs and birdies. Then we had to use teamwork strategies to help clean up!
2.) Read a book called 'Hooray for Reading Day!'. Then we drew a picture of and wrote sentences about our favorite part of the book.
3.) Had art with Mrs. Feinberg! We worked on a very cool project using scissors and glue.

The Mighty Dieners:
We enjoyed our 2 hour delay!!
1.) We started our March Weather Calendars and Calendar Math!
2.) Today in Sensory Rotations we moved in circuits working such things as: categorizing (days of the week/months of the year), making shapes on a peg board with rubber bands, made patterns with colored pegs and then had to weave a shoelace through the pegs.
3.) In Music we sang “The more we get together…” and made sound patterns with instruments!
4.) In Science we started learning about non-living vs. living things.

The Golden Owls:
1.) In science with Ms. Melissa we began to build and put together our habitats. As a class we also discussed different types of environments and living things.
2.) In Math we are continuing with money. We are beginning as bankers writing money amounts correctly. They will then add and subtract different amounts.
3.) In the afternoon the kids chose their movie of choice: Dinosaurs, Penguins or Sharks. We then began a KWL, what we Know, what we Want to know, and what we Learned.

From the Office:
PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO BRING IN YOUR HEALTHY RECIPES FOR OUR COOKBOOK! PLEASE HAVE THEM IN BY FRIDAY, MARCH 6TH! THANKS!

Thursday, February 27th, 2009

2009-02-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) We continued talking about the food pyramid and healthy foods.
2.) We practiced writing our numbers and we worked on addition.
3.) Ms. Deanna came into our classroom and we played instruments and sang songs. We loved it!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Finished reading 'Letters from a Desperate Dog' - we loved this book! After we finished, we checked our predictions and then drew and labeled pictures of the beginning, middle, and end of the story. We also read our leveled readers out loud to each other in small groups.
2.) Worked on turn-taking and following directions by playing Chutes and Ladders and Candyland together!
3.) Played 'The Instruments Dance' and 'Musical Puppets' with Miss Deanna in music - it was so much fun!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we started with partner warm-ups then we played Freeze-Dance and Freeze-movements (running, skipping, jumping jacks, etc).
2.) We split into 2 groups and one group worked on Handwriting with Ms. Kathy and the other group worked on adding details to Fitness pictures and expanding on our labeling. Then we switched groups.
3.) In Drama we talked about when we pretend to be animals or silly people only during Drama time! We have to act like people when we are in school! J We then played the “Magic Suitcase” game and had to pull out things that were made by humans!

The Golden Owls:
1.) Continued to work on our topic sentences, three specific details and our concluding sentences during our writing time. We are working to answer the w questions as well as incorporating our five senses into our writing.
2.) Had a great time with Mr. Jim in drama! We played different games incorporating our gross motor skills like the suitcase game.
3.) In speech with Ms. Jen we worked hard and had a blast! We played a game called Plunk's Pond to work on a variety of language skills including: word retrieval, auditory memory, providing higher level attributes for target items, and making predictions. The students were required to immediately recall auditory input and integrate the clues to determine the next step in our game. They practiced some of our auditory processing strategies such as verbal rehearsals and Give Me 5.

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

2009-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a poem called 'Wiggly Tooth'! Then we went through the poem and picked out sight words and rhyming words.
2.) Did fine motor circuits - we played with PlayDoh, made letters and shapes out of rubber bands, and hunted for treasure in theraputty!
3.) Had drama with Mr. Jim today! We played some of our favorite games, including Zookeeper's Keys and Night at the Museum.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math we worked in small groups--each group working on different lessons. Some worked on before, after and in between; while some worked on adding numbers.
2.) In Social Skills we were split into 2 groups. Each group working on either a puzzle or a game. While working together, we had to make sure we were giving compliments to our friends. When then made a compliment ice cream cone. On our scoop of ice cream, we each wrote a compliment. Then we glued the scoop to the cone. We finished social skills by sitting in a circle on the floor. We passed a ball around to a friend and gave our friends compliments.
3.) In Yoga, we practiced poses we have learned such as: boat pose, rainbow pose, happy dog, table pose and cobra. We ended by using a breathing stretchy ball to practice breathing in and out of the nose.

The Golden Owls:
1.) In math we continued working on mastering our money skills; adding like and unlike coins, differentiating between the coins and giving the value to each one.
2.) We began drafting our letter to Mrs. Obama, describing who we are and how we would love for her to come to our auction.
3.) During our yoga class with Ms. Melinda, we played our favorite freeze game where we ran around and the room and when the music stopped we had to do a yoga pose.

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

2009-02-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a story called “Larry Loses a Tooth”. This tied in nicely with our trip to dentist and we spoke about what would happen if the students lost a tooth.
2.) Worked on gross motor skills by jumping over plastic blocks in Fitness with Mr. Chris. We also learned about magnets. A negative and a positive stick together!
3.) Continued to learn about measurement using standard and non standard units of measurement in Math. You can try this at home by measuring objects using paper clips or plastic manipulatives.
4.) Learned about different types of lines and made pictures using straight lines, horizontal lines and diagonal lines in Art with Ms. Feinberg.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Practiced our handwriting with Miss Brook and created a storyboard for the three little pigs in Language Arts.
2.) Read 'Animals on Board', a great Mathstart book about addition! Then we worked on writing our numbers and adding with counting bears.
3.) Had art with Mrs. Feinberg! We created 'abstract art' by drawing and coloring beautiful pictures using only straight lines - then we read a book called 'White Rabbit's Color Book' together!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We went to the National History museum in D.C.! We saw fossils, big whale jaws and beautiful diamonds and jewels! We even saw the Hope Diamond! Then we stood next to the log bone of an elephant and had to see if we were bigger or smaller than the elephant leg! Most of us were much smaller than the leg!!
2.) We had a pizza lunch when we got back to Diener School!! J
3.) We had music class with Mr. David today! We had to listen and follow the instruction and then we danced and played drums!

The Golden Owls:
We had a great day in the Golden Owls.
1.) We began our day with a field trip to the Salt Ocean Hall where we saw a huge squid which was being preserved. We also saw an enormous whale and fossils! At the end of our trip, we visited the gems and precious stones exhibit and explored what beautiful things come from our earth!
2.) We had our first music lesson with Dave and sang some wonderful songs! We began with "The More We Get Together" to introduce ourselves to him.
3.) We learned about the author Patricia Polacco and how she could not read until she was fourteen! We learned a little about dyslexia and how everyone learns differently. We ended our lesson by reading Mrs. Polacco's book, "My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother." During this time we continued our reading strategies of predicting and connecting.

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

2009-02-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Learned about words that start with “L” and practiced writing the letter “L”. Danielle played a memory game and Trevor played “Go Fish”. All students worked in their “Explode the Code” books.
2.) Danielle and Trevor worked on their turn taking and eye contact skills by playing “Candy Land” with Ms. Kathy. Jack and Teddy worked on turn taking and eye contact skills by playing “Chutes and Ladders” with Debbie.
3.) Finished an art project about nutrition. Last week we painted different types of fruits and vegetables and are making a food pyramid mobile with those fruits and vegetables.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Had a morning chat with Miss Jen! We talked about the fantastic birthday parties from this past weekend and each shared our favorite memories from the parties!
2.) Learned about our 'Star of the Week' in social skills with Miss Melissa. Next week we will learn about the Star of the Week in our classroom - our new friend Dale!
3.) Read a story together called 'Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!' Even though the cover did not seem to give us much information, our predictions were all spot on - we are getting VERY good at making story predictions!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we had SO much fun! We practiced a lot of hand-foot coordination. We started by kicking a ball at bowling pins and trying to knock them over. Then we got in a circle and had to pass a soccer ball to a friend. First we had to say a friend’s name so they knew to be ready for the ball. The friend had to stop the ball with one foot and then pass it to another friend! We finished by playing a passing soccer game. We played in groups of 3 and we had to pass the ball to each team member before shooting the ball in the goal.
2.) We played the game, “I’m going on a picnic…” and had to name something that starts with a letter (in alphabetical order). When we finished the whole alphabet, we drew pictures of what we said we would bring on our picnic.
3.) We read a book called Eating Well. We learned about choosing healthy foods to eat, and then we brainstormed all the healthy foods we could think of!!

The Golden Owls:
1.) We have begun a daily edit sheet from education world. These are paragraphs which contain several errors, allowing the kids to work on grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Thanks to Ms Kate from the mighty 1-2 this will be incorporated weekly.
2.) Today we also had a visitor. The Husband of the Great Mrs Maisie! Austin Branson came in to read a few books to us. THANK YOU. Mondays will officially be a day where ALL parents are welcome to come in and read to the class. Let us know what dates work for you.
3.) Today we also went over a few subject areas. We continued working with money in math, we also had several O.T. activities, we comprehension in Language Arts, and topic sentences in writing. As a class the Genius kids are improving in teambuilding, communication, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, how they treat and speak to one another.

Friday, February 20th, 2009

2009-02-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Worked on handwriting with Ms. Brook from OT. We practiced writing the letter “W” in our “Handwriting Without Tears” book, and also worked on writing numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4.
2.) Sang a “Berenstein Bears” book called “Going to Camp” with Ms. Deanna. Everyone listened to the entire book and enjoyed hearing it sung this way. Afterwards, we all sang “Going on a Bear Hunt.”
3.) After recess we had quiet time for five minutes and then played academic games such as “Go Fish” and “Caribou”.
4.) Learned about nutrition by reading a book about the food pyramid.
Have a great weekend! Next week, the letter of the week will be “L”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
1.) Read a book called 'My Lucky Day' and did a mini book report - we drew a picture of our favorite part of the book and wrote a sentence describing our picture!
2.) Went on a quick field trip to drop off the donations that The Diener School has collected! Thanks to everyone for their generous contributions.
3.) Made a food groups book and wrote down one thing we like to eat from each of the food groups!
Have a wonderful weekend!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Art we learned all about Picasso and each painted a Picasso style painting using blue, black and white paint.
2.) In Math we graphed our weather for the week. Then we worked on what comes before or after a number, what comes between numbers, i.e., “what comes between 5 and 9?”
3.) After lunch and recess we were wonderful community members when we gathered all our school donations and personally delivered them with Ms. Courtney’s class to the National Center for Children and Families.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

The Golden Owls:
1.) For O.T. we did several brain gym activities to break up L.A., Writing, and Math. We also did some visual and fine motor circuits.
2.) In math we are continuing to work with Money. Martin from the 1-2 class will be joining us now on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The kids are becoming more familiar with the types of coins and also improving with addition.
3.) As a class through teamwork and listening we earned a trip to Baskin Robbins. Thanks to our mom’s we each got a free kids cone. Have a great weekend!

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

2009-02-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a book with Ms. Ginny called 'The Mysterious Tadpole'. We wrote down predictions regarding what was going to happen in the book based on the cover and then drew pictures of what happened first, next, and last in the story!
2.) Reviewed our food diaries in science - we are getting really good at identifying the food groups and matching different foods to their groups!
3.) Played lots of fun games in fitness with Mr. Dan and continued to practice our numbers in our Calvert Math books!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we played tag and had to throw bean bags into different hula hoops placed on the ground!
2.) We practiced our Handwriting with Ms. Kathy, and had to match an uppercase letter to its lowercase match!
3.) In Music, Ms. Deana taught us “Surfin’ in the USA” and we sang “Going on a Bear Hunt”.
4.) In Drama Mr. Jim let us play “Magic Suitcase”! It was so much fun!!

The Golden Owls:
1.) In speech with Ms. Jen we read a story called Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Throughout the story we made predictions, sequenced steps, and worked on our flexibility for understanding incoming language such as figurative language (idioms, metaphors, humor), homonyms, and subtleties.
2.) In Drama with Mr. Jim we worked on a lot of fun games and activities which reinforced communication, flexibility, and also teamwork. This gave the GENIUS children an opportunity to get out of their seats and move around the room.
3.) In writing we broke up into groups and continued with our paragraphs. We are utilizing topic sentences, three specific details, and also concluding sentences. As a class our writing is improving and becoming more detailed :)

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

2009-02-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Played a bingo game involving words starting with “wh” with Ms. Jen. Students had to listen to clues so that they would know which word and picture to find.
2.) Learned about cubes, cylinders and cones in Math. Danielle and Trevor worked on writing the numbers 1-6. They played a game with the dice to help them count and identify the numbers.
3.) Acted like goldfish in Yoga and learned a couple new yoga poses. We ended with our breathing ball and “Namaste”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a terrific Tuesday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did an obstacle course, worked on our handwriting, and did fine motor circuits with Miss Brook!
2.) Created numbers out of wiki sticks and played number memory in math.
3.) Made our food journals in science - we are going to write down what we eat every night and talk about our meals each day as part of our Health and Nutrition theme!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we started graphing our toothpaste results! We also played a game where a ball was thrown to you and you were given a number. Then the teacher asked “what number comes before/after (the given number?”
2.) In Social Skills we worked on teamwork and following directions.
3.) In Yoga we played the Freeze game and practiced the “boat” and “flower” pose!

The Golden Owls:
1.) Ms. Melissa came in for social skills and is having the Genius students work on listening, following directions, and respect.
2.) In writing we are continuing with Topic sentences. We began to use sound and questions beginnings. This is giving the kids a different way to hook their readers.
3.) In dance with Mr. Aaron the girls and boys separated and worked on dance battles. They choreographed a variety of moves as the boys tried to get the girls to dance with them. The girls of course played hard to get and had a great time!

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

2009-02-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
Today the Magic Trains:
1.) Put the parts of the body together using a skeleton puzzle during Fitness with Mr. Chris. We practiced walking backwards inside of a long, plastic ladder. This was a great exercise to build gross motor skills!
2.) Trevor and Danielle reviewed the basic shapes including ovals and they worked in their Calvert Math books. Teddy and Jack also worked
in Calvert Math but reviewed shapes and then learned about polygons. We will talk about polygons as a class tomorrow.
3.) Made pictures during Art class using chalk and white paint. First the students painted an entire piece of black paper and then used
chalk to make a beautiful creation.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a terrific Tuesday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did an obstacle course, worked on our handwriting, and did fine motor circuits with Miss Brook!
2.) Created numbers out of wiki sticks and played number memory in math.
3.) Made our food journals in science - we are going to write down what we eat every night and talk about our meals each day as part of our Health and Nutrition theme!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had a wonderful visit to Dr. August's office and learned all about being a dentist! We learned about what healthy foods and drinks are good for your teeth and that you should brush your teeth twice a day! Did you know you are supposed to visit the dentist 2 times a year? We learned that today too! :)
2.) In Large Motor we played "Red Light, Green Light" and "Follow the Leader".

The Golden Owls:
1.) We sojourned to the office of Dr. August today continuing with Health and Nutrition. We learned the importance of maintaining good brushing and flossing habits while also observing a professional work environment. THANK YOU.
2.) As a class we discussed what we know about Health and Nutrition. We went over the five food groups and broke up into pairs beginning the creation of our classroom food pyramid.
3.) With Ms. Melissa we also worked in partners working on teamwork, communication, and experimenting scientifically :)

Friday, February 13th, 2009

2009-02-13T11:10:00.001-08:00

The Magic Trains:
Today we made Valentine’s for our friends and the Diener School staff, and made Valentine heart people. We learned about taking care of our teeth on the field trip to Dr. August’s office! We had a great session with Ms. Brooke in OT. It was a great end to a great week!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a fantastic Friday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Made special valentine’s for our parents. We drew pictures of our favorite things to do with them!!
2.) Read our Weekly Readers – we learned about Lincoln’s birthday, and President’s Day!
3.) We visited Dr. August’s office - He is a dentist. We had a great time learning about our teeth and talking about what a dentist does.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) Today has been filled with Valentine’s creations!
2.) We made Valentine’s cards for our loved ones.
3.) We had art with Ms. Feinberg and worked on Valentine’s themed art.
4.) This afternoon, we traded Valentine’s cards and made placemats to eat our yummy Valentine’s treats on!
HAVE A HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!

The Golden Owls:
1.) In speech with Ms Jen we talked about Valentine’s Day and the ways we can celebrate this special day with our families and friends. We sequenced steps to create our own valentine cards and practice recognizing and responding appropriately to a variety of emotions.
2.) In writing we are beginning to learn several ways to construct topic sentences. We will be using different beginnings such as Action, Questions, Dialogue, and Sound. This will help us hook the reader keeping it interesting and fun.
3.) We had a GREAT visit from all the parents and lots OF Candy, crafts, and cards from the Heart. HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

FROM THE OFFICE:
All the staff would like to thank the parents of Mr. Paul’s class for the delicious and much appreciated staff appreciation lunch! THANK YOU!!!

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

2009-02-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Jillian!!

The Magic Trains:
1.) Played phonics and memory games during Language Arts.
2.) Continued to classify shapes by color and size during Math.
3.) Our Magic Trains joined the school in singing “Happy Birthday” to our wonderful director, Ms. Jillian.
4.) Played “red light, green light” during fitness class, and “parachute”. Both activities tested their listening skills, coordination, and gross motor movement.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a thrilling Thursday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Played a game of 'What's GNU' and made our OWN leveled readers! We did a great job creating and reading our books.
2.) Colored in a story called 'Eat a Rainbow' - it was all about different colors and which fruits and vegetables fit in with each color. We learned that eating different colors of food gives you different vitamins and minerals! We also played a food groups matching game on the computer.
3.) Made a wiggly Valentine's Day person in fine motor! We did a great job cutting, coloring, and assembling them - then we got to play with them!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We had so much fun in Fitness! Today we played soccer!
2.) We had such a fun OT Valentine’s party! We made bouncy heart people where we had to cut, fold paper and draw the faces! We played 2 fun games of Sharing Musical Chairs. When we walked around the chairs we had to follow Ms. Kathy’s instructions and walk on our toes or heels, walk with our hands on our heads, etc. When we took a chair away and a friend didn’t have one, we offered to share our seat! By the end, we were all happily sharing one chair together! We finished our OT fun by decorating Valentine bags to collect our Valentine’s tomorrow!
3.) We ended our hands-on OT day with Music and Drama. In Music, Ms. Deena started as our new music teacher and we were so happy to have her. J

The Golden Owls:
1.) In math we are continuing our learning of money. We have been using $20, $10, $5 and $1bills within our classroom store. We are also beginning with the use of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.
2.) Throughout the day we take several breaks to work on gross and fine motor skills. We play a variety of games to work on teambuilding and communication too. Today Ms. Dynamite Deanna provided an awesome music class.
3.) In Language Arts we are continuing with contractions, verbs, nouns, adjectives along with our comprehension strategies.

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

2009-02-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
We had a fantastic (but short) day today. Before our early dismissal, we worked with Ms. Jen in speech, and Ms. Melinda in yoga and were able to enjoy the beautiful weather outside.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a wonderful Wednesday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did language arts circuits with Ms. Kim. We played sight word memory, word and spelling games.
2.) Built shapes with our bodies in math and then worked on writing and identifying numbers.
3.) Had yoga with Ms. Melinda and practiced our sun salutations, learned three new poses, and did our breathing exercises.

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math, we worked on one more and one less in our Calvert Math books.
2.) In Social Skills, we interviewed a friend in our class and shared what we learned—everyone’s full names, birthdays, if we had brothers and/or sisters, our favorite food and if we had a pet!
3.) In Yoga, we played the freeze game and then had to do a yoga pose! Today we did the boat pose and flower pose!

The Golden Owls:
Today we had a wonderful day in the Golden Owls.
1.) During language arts, we continued working on our reading strategies of rereading, thinking aloud, predicting, connecting, and the five w's. We also continued to work on listening closely to one another as a friend reads with expression.
2.) In social skills with Ms. Melissa we interviewed one another and practiced following directions. We also played nutrition bingo continuing to explore our theme of the month.
3.) During dance class with Mr. Aaron we worked on our gross motor skills and rhythm while learning new moves!

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

2009-02-10T11:50:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Danced and sang to “The Ants Go Marching”. Everyone enjoyed reading the story “The Ants Go Marching” while listening to the music that goes with it.
2.) Used scooters to find pieces of a Solar System puzzle that were hidden under cones around the room. At the end of the activity, we were able to put the whole puzzle together. We also learned the names of some of the planets while we participated in this fun activity.
3.) Made a balloon inflate by putting it over a bottle filled with baking soda and vinegar during Science with Ms. Melissa. The kids really enjoyed this fun and easy experiment.
*REMINDER* Tomorrow there is a 1PM dismissal for Kindergarten students!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a terrific Tuesday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read 'Jack and Jill' together. Then we each colored a piece of the story and created a storyboard! We also made puppets and took turns acting out the story in our puppet theater.
2.) Made heart people and worked on our handwriting with Miss Brook! Then we used vinegar and baking soda to blow up balloons in science - the same ingredients we used to make our volcanoes during the science fair!
3.) Had a great time in fitness with Mr. Chris - we put together the entire solar system! Using our scooters, we rolled around the room and searched for puzzle pieces under cones. Then we all came together to assemble a puzzle of planets and stars - it was so much fun!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Sensory Rotations, we worked on fine motor activities. We practiced our number formations, threading shoe string through wooden sticks, and using rubber bands to make shapes or letters on a peg board.
2.) In Science, we worked on a magic balloon activity with baking soda and vinegar!
3.) During Large Motor Group, we ran through obstacles and played “Red Light, Green Light”.
**DON’T FORGET TO SEND IN YOUR DONATIONS!!**

The Golden Owls:
1.) For math we took a field trip to the grocery store. Each student worked on addition and subtraction to figure out which items they are able to purchase. This gave the GENIUS kids a chance to apply what we are learning in class to the real world.
2.) In Social Studies we KNEW that in older civilizations houses were made out of stones and rocks, and are now broken or mostly destroyed. In regards to Greece and Athens we WANTED to know about their schools, what they used to carve, are their famous people there, and how long ago was it. Without finishing the movie we have LEARNED there are famous people called philosophers, it was about 4,000 years ago, they were rich and had a lot of treasure, and have an impact even in our lives today.
3.) In science with Ms Melissa we are learning about Health and Nutrition. Miss Majestic Melissa gives the kids an opportunity to do several fun activities to go along with this month’s theme.

From the Office:
1.) Please make sure to send in your donations!! The deadline has been extended, so there’s still time!!

Friday, February 6th 2009

2009-02-06T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Practiced writing their names with Ms. Brook. First, they traced their names and then they had to take their time and write their names on their own.
2.) Went to the Hebrew Home and sang at least ten different songs to the residents there (including “Little Red Caboose” and the “Thomas and Friends” theme song). The residents loved the music and our students enjoyed the trip. When we arrived back at school we relaxed and then had lunch.
3.) Learned about healthy foods with Ms. Debbie. We also spoke about sweets and how they are fine to eat once in a while.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! The letter for next week is “N”.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a fabulous Friday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Did an AMAZING job singing at the Hebrew Home! We sang BINGO, If You're Happy and You Know It, Fifty Nifty United States, The Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, several train songs, and a few of our old favorites! When we got back, we drew pictures of our favorite part of the field trip.
2.) Since we did such a fantastic job at our sing-a-long, we took a break from singing during music class today and continued to talk about telling stories without words. We watched another part of Fantasia and talked about what the story was telling us through music.
3.) Started working on our new 'Health and Nutrition' theme by discussing our lunches - we talked about what we ate and what kind of vitamins our various foods were providing for us!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Math we graphed our weekly weather. It was interesting to see how everyone’s was different! When then worked really hard in our Calvert Math books.
2.) In Art we had a lot of fun learning about contrast! We got to choose between a black paper and using white paint or white paper and using black paint! We also learned about the French painter Georges Seurat who painted using contrast. He as well painted with the “dot” method which we tried. We wrote our names using chalk and dotted over our name with the contrasting color.
3.) We started our new theme for this month: Health and Nutrition! We began our lesson on healthy vs. sick.

The Golden Owls:
1.) In writing we are continuing with topic sentences using lots of details and examples and also a concluding sentence. We are splitting up into groups where Maisie works with the girls and I work with the boys. Smaller groups gives us more time to work individually with each GENIUS in our class.
2.) In math we are completing regrouping with an assessment and a few fun games. We will start working with money next week. I will be setting up a Diener Flee Market inside the classroom. This will gives the Kids an opportunity to be an employee and also a customer working on addition and subtraction.
3.) We also had each GENIUS choose a book and read to the class. This gives them an opportunity to work on fluency, expression, and also public speaking. I plan to continue this every Friday afternoon.

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

2009-02-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Read a book called “Beady Bear” during story time. The kids really seemed to like this book and they listened very nicely.
2.) Practiced rolling on the mats and played tag during Fitness with Dan.
3.)Played “Magic Suitcase”, went on a “trip” and acted out being different kinds of animals during Drama with Jim.
4.) Prepared for our field trip to the Hebrew Home during Music with Deanna. We practiced the songs that we will sing tomorrow.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a thrilling Thursday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read one of our new book fair books, 'The Perfect Nest', together! Then we drew pictures and wrote sentences describing the beginning, middle, and end of the story. We also played a very fun game of charades and worked on our handwriting with Miss Brook!
2.) practiced our songs for the Hebrew Home visit tomorrow - we are ready for our performance! We are singing train songs (in honor of the Magic Trains) and one of our favorite new songs - Fifty Nifty United States!
3.) read a poem called 'Examination' and took turns identifying different sight words in the poem. 4.) had fitness with Mr. Dan - we played a great game of kickball together! We also played some of our old favorites, like 'What time is it, Mr. Fox?'**Parents, please have your child bring one of his favorite books to share with our class next week - thank you!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Fitness we had a great time practicing somersaults!
2.) During OT groups we danced the “Hokey-Pokey” and “Can’t Sit Still” where we had to identify the different parts of the body and know our left side from our right side.
3.) In Handwriting some of us worked on out letter formations, while others used letters already learned to write words.
4.) In Math, we worked in our Calvert Math books. Some continued to work on patterns, another group worked on the concept of one more.
**PLEASE REMEMBER TO USE PENCIL AT HOME WHEN DOING HOMEWORK. ALSO, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR STUDENT WRITES THEIR NAME ON THE HOMEWORK.--THANKS**

The Golden Owls:
1.) In math we are continuing with subtraction regrouping. We are incorporating the game around the world, war with cards, and utilizing flashcards.
2.) Today we had a farewell festival for Ms. Marilyn. Unfortunately today was her last day with the class. Dynamite Deanna will be taking over music on Mondays.
3.) In writing we are continuing to work on topic sentences and filling our paragraphs with a lot of details. We are also working on mastering our concluding sentences which finalize our paragraphs.

Reminders:* Tomorrow is the last day of the Book Fair. It is open all day until 4PM.*Dara Feldman/ Virtues training for parents - Friday, February 6th at 9:15AM

Monday, February 2nd 2009

2009-02-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Learned more about following directions during Social Skills with Ms. Melissa. They also learned about Groundhog Day and they made their own little groundhog by following step by step directions.
2.) Worked in their “Explode the Code” books to practice writing “CVC” words such as “mad”, “mat”, “gas” and “wag”. Danielle and Trevor worked on writing their name and reading sight words. They also worked in “Explode the Code” for a couple minutes today.
3.) Played the game “Chutes and Ladders” with Ms. Kathy. This helped the students work on taking turns and following directions.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a marvelous Monday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read a great book with Miss Jen called 'The Jacket I Wear in the Snow'. Then we made our own versions of the book and worked on identifying the beginning, middle, and end of the story!
2.) Had social skills with Miss Melissa! We talked about Groundhog Day and each made our own little groundhogs!
3.) Worked very hard on our science fair preparations! We also did some really cool science experiments - we made eggs float and sink, flew balloons across the room, and made soap chase pepper across the surface of water!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) It is a new month! In Math, we started our February calendars! We learned that February only has 28 days!
2.) In Handwriting, we practiced writing February and Monday in our neatest handwriting!
3.) In Science, we got our projects ready for tomorrow’s Science Fair! We are so excited for the parents to see our experiments tomorrow!

The Golden Owls:
1.) We continued with our math mania increasing the difficulty. We also are beginning to regroup in subtraction. We also played subtraction war with our decks of cards.
2.) In L.A. we began a few new books making prediction and taking book walks. We also addressed the 5 W's while reading.
3.) We again prepared to finalize our science fair project and are using magnets and electricity while making educated guesses or hypothesis.

Friday, January 30th, 2009

2009-02-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

The Magic Trains:
1.) Practiced handwriting skills and cutting skills with Ms. Brook. After we read about a spaceship in “Professor Noah’s Spaceship”, two students cut out spaceships with Ms. Brook.
2.) Worked on following directions while listening to a song called “Pass the Beanbag” with Ms. Brook. Each student had to pass the beanbag and follow directions such as “place the beanbag on the floor”.
3.) Made bubbles with Seena and the kids really loved blowing bubbles. We also talked about our Science Fair and each student told the teachers which experiment was their favorite and why.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a fabulous Friday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Read 'The Little Red Hen' together - the story didn't have any illustrations, so we created a poster-sized picture of our own to go with it! Then we made puppets of the characters in the story and each took turns putting on a puppet show acting out the story.
2.) Had Social Skills with Miss Melissa! We helped her put her friend Clowny back together - we did a fantastic job following multi-step directions!
3.) Checked on our ice cube science experiment. Our water remained in liquid form after a night in the refrigerator, so we moved it to the freezer to see what that would do. Some of us predicted that the water would turn to gas, some thought it would turn to ice, and some thought it would remain a liquid. We can't wait to see what happens!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) In Brain Gym we worked on circuits including cross-crawls, running around cones, jumping jacks and jumped in place.
2.) During teamwork activities we split into groups of three and had to help each other put a puzzle together! There was a lot of talking to each other and helping each other out!
3.) In math, we finished adding our weather pictures to this week and then graphed the weather for the whole month.
4.) In art, we drew shapes using one line and then colored the shapes in using different colors!
5.) In science, we started putting together our presentation board for the Science Fair. We also, started a new experiment where we had to make a prediction of what shape the sponges would turn into when they were added to water. We tallied the results and compared our predictions to the actual results of the experiment.

The Golden Owls:
1.) In math we are continuing with subtraction. Even though it has been a short week our Math Mania results have improved. Students are getting quicker with their math facts and processing the problems with less difficulty.
2.) During OT we played one of Ms. Kathy's cd’s and worked on laterality and gross motor skills. We also did several Brain gym activities and our regular sensory circuits.
3.) In writing we are focusing on Topic sentences. Ms. Maisie and Mr. Paul are modeling several examples for the students to follow. The students then decide on their own topic sentence and use lots of details and examples as support.