Friday, October 16, 2015

Highlights of the Week 10-16-15

Hello families,

We had a wonderfully productive short week together. I am so happy to be healthy and back again. With the seasonal weather changing many people are getting colds or flu-like viruses. Make sure to keep sending a water bottle in with your child so we can all stay hydrated and healthy! Please also make sure to send your child with appropriate outerwear and footwear each day. We go outside for recess unless it's pouring rain or below 0 degrees.

This week we looked at our finished drafts of our small. We edited them to make sure our sentences made sense, to have capitals at the beginnings of all sentences and punctuation at the ends. We also did a little bit of work fixing spelling of commonly used words (from our word wall) and also tried out a few puzzling words. When we write spelling is not our main focus--the point of writing is to communicate our thoughts, ideas, and stories. If we don't spell everything right, that's okay! First and second graders are not expected to use "dictionary spelling" for all of their words; rather they write the sounds they hear and the word chunks they know. On Friday our buddies helped to type our stories so we can begin the publication process next week!

Second grade mathematicians have been working on fractions of a whole (halves, thirds, fourths/quarters). They are also practicing addition strategies and using those fact families to gain fluency in addition and subtraction facts to 20. Currently we're reviewing and practicing Number+1, Make 10, Number+10, and Number+9 fact families. First grade mathematicians are also working on addition strategies to gain fluency for addition facts. They are learning about place value in numbers to 100.

On Thursday we got to help our school again by scrubbing and chopping the potatoes we harvested from the garden. Our class did all this work with guidance from staff and garden parent, Talitha. The kids were so excited to use special crinkle cut knives that are designed to help children (ages 2+) practice knife skills (they are from Montessori School Tools). These crinkle cutters can't cut skin but were perfect for potatoes. Our class loved using them and they were so proud of how much they were able to do. On Friday Deb cooked them up in the kitchen for a school-wide garden snack!

 

 


On Friday we welcomed another new family to Rumney and gained another first grader in our wonderful classroom community. This week we also welcomed a new student teacher from UVM to our class. Her name is Sarah MacDonald. See the following blog post for a brief message from Sarah.


Reading Scholastic News articles with Sarah.

Parent/Teacher conferences are coming up, Wednesday afternoon Nov.4 and school hours Friday Nov. 6. Remember, there is no school for students on Friday Nov. 6! Please follow this link to sign up for your 20 minute conference slot. Please record when your conference is. Conferences are back to back so prompt beginning and ending times are crucial!

Enjoy this autumn weekend!


Dates to Remember
Thursday October 22: All School Meeting 2:00-2:45
Wednesday November 4: Parent/Teacher Conferences scheduled 3:15-5:00
Friday November 6: Parent/Teacher Conferences scheduled 8:15-3:20

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