100th Day of School

On the 100th day of school students created a necklace with exactly 100 Cheerios.  Students placed the Cheerios in groups of tens for easy counting.

I hope you are well.  Room K-3 students did a lot of great learning last week, please thank them for their hard work.  Here is the update for the week:

March is Reading Month
This year for March is Reading Month A2STEAM will be doing some school-community-building literacy events. The first is the Read It Forward program, where we will attempt to have all students and staff at A2STEAM read the same book. The book is currently a mystery, but will be revealed on Tuesday, March 1st!

The second big event is the first-ever Used Book Sale, happening on Saturday, March 12 from 2-5pm in conjunction with the Heritage Festival. All items will cost a quarter and all proceeds will go toward building a Little Free Library for A2STEAM! For more information, or if you would like to volunteer, please visit this link. Let's READ!

100th Day Projects
Thank you for helping your students with those 100th Day of School projects, they were great!  I might send those back home this Friday just because we need a lot of space for our next STEAM expo unit.

Box Tops for Education
Thanks for sending in those box tops!

District Wide STEAM Expo
Last week, the snow day that canceled school also postponed the District STEAM Expo.  The new date is this Thursday, March 3rd at Huron High School. The kindergarten team wanted to showcase some of our weather work from our November Expo. I have two Room K-3 students who are going to go to the Expo to help present what we learned about clouds, our anemometer, and some of our other work. Let me know if you would like to participate too, now that the date has changed.  I will be there to you set up.

Curriculum Overview
Science - For our current Project Based Learning unit we are studying the needs of plants and animals and how plants and animals adapt to and change their environment to meet those needs.  Last week we studied the parts of plants (stem, leaves, roots, and flower).  This week we are going look at the specific function of each of the plant parts and start an experiment to show that plants need water and light to survive.

Math - Last week we did a lot of counting by tens, both for the 100th day of school as well as for measuring the height of our peers (see photo below).  This week we will review addition and introduce subtraction and the subtraction symbol.

Literacy - As we begin our next Project Based Learning unit on plants we will be reading about plants and taking a close look at the features of non-fiction books like headings, captions, a table of contents, an index, etc.

Writing - This week students will be writing about what we have learned about plants.

Word Study - Identifying the vowel sounds found in simple words.  We will compare the short o and short e sounds as well as the short o and short u sounds.

Students worked collaboratively to measure each other with blocks.  The blocks are grouped by tens for easy counting.  The student in this picture is about 62 blocks tall.

New Gym!

Students visited the new gym last week for presentation on pedestrian safety.

Hello!  I hope you enjoyed the mid-winter break!  The students were really rested and focused for today’s lessons.

New Gym
The new A2STEAM @ Northside gym is open!  Student began using it today.  Remember, all students will need gym shoes in order to keep the new gym floor looking amazing.  The goal is for students to bring a set of shoes specifically for the gym, not shoes that they wore outside that day.  You can leave the shoes here at school if you wish.

Box Tops for Education
We are having a school-wide Box Tops For Education collection.  If you find any box top cut-outs on your groceries please bring them in.  If possible put them in a plastic bag and write "Mr. Luxon, Room K-3” on the outside.  There is a big school wide push to get them in this week if you have them.

A2STEAM Used Book Sale
As I wrote last week, this year at A2 STEAM we will be having our first-ever Used Book Sale in conjunction with the Heritage Festival on Saturday, March 12! Please start gathering your used books and other materials to ready them for donation! The Media Center will begin accepting donations to the sale Wednesday, February 24th through Tuesday, March 8th.  For more information on what donations we are accepting and how you can volunteer please check out this flyer.

Valentine’s Day Cards
Thank you so much for helping your children create these.  All of the students really enjoyed exchanging them.

District Wide STEAM Expo
I sent some emails about this already, but I wanted to make sure the message gets out to everyone: The Ann Arbor School District is hosting a district wide STEAM Expo at the Pioneer High School Annex on Wednesday, February 24th from 6PM to 8PM.  The kindergarten team wanted to showcase some of our weather work from our November Expo. I have two Room K-3 students who are going to go to the Expo to help present what we learned about clouds, our anemometer, and some of our other work.  Now that the mid-winter break is behind us, are there any other families that would be interested in attending a portion of the night?  I will be there to you set up.

Curriculum Overview
Science - We are getting ready for our next Expo!  During this unit we will study how plant and animals adapt to an change change their environment.  We are starting this week, learning about plants, plant parts, and plant needs.

Math - This week we will celebrate the 100th day of school and with that practice counting and grouping quantities by tens.  We will also review addition and introduce subtraction and the subtraction symbol.

Literacy - As we begin our next Project Based Learning unit on plants we will be reading about plants and taking a close look at the features of non-fiction books like headings, captions, a table of contents, an index, etc.

Writing - This week students will be writing about what we have learned about plants.

Word Study - Identifying the vowel sounds found in simple words.  This week we will compare the short o and short e sounds as well as the short o and short u sounds.

The new gym has our school mascot painted in the center.

A2STEAM Used Book Sale After Break

Students modeled 3D shapes with playdough.  We studied spheres, cylinders, cubes, cones, and pyramids.

Hello!  There is a lot for this week:

A2STEAM Used Book Sale
This year at A2 STEAM we will be having our first-ever Used Book Sale in conjunction with the Heritage Festival on Saturday, March 12! Please start gathering your used books and other materials to ready them for donation! The Media Center will begin accepting donations to the sale Wednesday, February 24th through Tuesday, March 8th.  For more information on what donations we are accepting and how you can volunteer please check out this flyer.

Valentine’s Day Cards
Don’t forget to work on those valentines cards.  Students will pass them out this Friday, February 12th.

Pedestrian Safety
Officer Tom Hickey will be speaking to our students Tuesday morning at an assembly regarding pedestrian safety. This was organized to support our goals of the Safe Routes to School program and our very own A2Steam Traffic Brigade.  We have been concerned all year about student safety as they walk to school and exit their cars.  We are looking forward to teaching our students some important safety tips.

District Wide STEAM Expo
The Ann Arbor School District is hosting a district wide STEAM Expo at the Pioneer High School Annex on Wednesday, February 24th from 6PM to 8PM.  The kindergarten team wanted to showcase some of our weather work from our November Expo.  I was wondering if there were a few Room K-3 families who would be interested in attending the District Expo to present what we learned.  It is a two hour interval, but we wouldn't want you to stay the whole time.  Email me if you are interested.

Curriculum Overview
Science - As a conclusion to our forces, pushes, and pulls work we are designing a machine that can move rocks.  Our next unit will be a life sciences study of plants and animals—more to come.

Math - This week we are studying the measurement of length using both standard (inches and centimeters) and non-standard (blocks, paperclips, etc.) units.

Literacy - We are reading books and tracking how character’s feeling change throughout a story.  We will also read some Valentines books.  Ask you students about Julius the Baby of the World.

Writing - To compliment our study of what makes a complete sentence we are studying ending punctuation, the period, question mark, and exclamation mark.

Word Study - Identifying the vowel sounds found in simple words.  This week we will continue work on short vowels with a new sort.

Send in your home reading book bag for new books this week!

Sorting Words By Their Vowel Sounds

As part of our vowel study students are sorting words pictures by vowel sound; in this case short a and short e words. 
On the left you have: bat, jam, fan, man, rat, and hat.  On the right you have: net, sled, bread, bed, nest, and leg.

Hi, here is the update for this week:

Parent Involvement Day is Monday February 8th
In honor of National African American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID) we invite ALL parents, guardians and adult family members to visit A2 STEAM.  Please consider spending an hour or the entire day with our classroom and school! This day is a celebration of the importance of family in a child’s education.  This flyer has the complete schedule and more information.

Homework Sheets For February
A packet of practice activities for February will go home with students tomorrow.  The cover sheet is a calendar which guides you as to which activity to complete on which day.

Valentine’s Day Cards
Don’t forget to work on those valentines cards.  Students will pass them out on Friday, February 12th.

Curriculum Overview
Science - As a conclusion to our forces, pushes, and pulls work we are designing a machine that can move rocks.

Math - In math we are studying addition and understanding what the equals (=) symbol means.  We will also be studying 3 dimensional shapes and there attributes: cubes, spheres, cylinders, pyramids, cones, and rectangular prisms.

Literacy - We are reading books and tracking how character’s feeling change throughout a story.  Ask you students about Owl Babies and Big Al.

Writing - To compliment our study of what makes a complete sentence we are studying ending punctuation, the period, question mark, and exclamation mark.

Word Study - Identifying the vowel sounds found in each word.  This week we will continue work on short vowels. See the photo at the top.