Friday, October 28, 2016

HOW 10-28-16


Hello families!

We've had a fabulous week together. This week we began talking about another type of story we can read and write--small moments. These are stories from our real lives that tell about a small moment in life where we had a big feeling. There are lots of big feelings in life: joy, sadness, frustration, excitement, surprise, fright, anger. A small moment story can be about any of these! This week we zoomed in on our big feelings, planned out the beginning, middle, and ending parts of the story, and began to write our first drafts by stretching out each part of the story and adding details! We also read a bunch of great small moment books: Kitten's First Full Moon, The Snowy Day, Knuffle Bunny, The Paperboy, and various small moment stories written by some of my past students!

We finally got to add our last Literacy choice this week--Listen to Reading on the Computer! Last week our two student desk top computers were set up. This week we learned how we can listen to picture books, non-fiction books, or read along in chapter books using Tumblebooks. There is a link to this website always in the right-hand bar of our blog. You can use this at home, too, if you have a computer or tablet connected to the internet. Just plug in our username: rumney and our super-secret password (books). The site has a lot to offer--books your child can read along to or be read as well as videos and games to play (that we don't do during our Literacy choice).

The weather changed a lot this week from last week! Many kids at Rumney were cold at recess. Even though it's early in the season, please do help your child come to school prepared for the cold weather and snow. Please send coats, mittens/gloves, hats, boots, and snowpants. Additionally, during the long Vermont winter we like to have a pair of indoor shoes to wear in school so our floors don't get wet and muddy (making extra work for our custodial staff). If your child has an extra pair of sneakers or indoor shoes they can leave them here at school each day. Otherwise please send your child to school each day with a pair of indoor shoes they can change into while we are indoors.

Coming up next month is our school Artist in Residency, No Strings Marionettes. We'll be making puppets over 3 weeks during our Art classes on 11/7, 11/14, and 11/28. There will be an in-school performance on Thursday 12/1 (more info to come!).

Fun Fact! This is my 100th blog post! I began this blog as a way to communicate with families in my class 2 years ago. Over the years I've built it up more and added links to resources you can use at home and more information about our work here at school. This year we added our "Fox Kits Corner" which has turned into an amazing writing piece for our students as they learn to synthesize the events of the week and tell about the important learning and experiences they have at school. We learn about editing by adding to each others' ideas and how to relay the message more clearly with punctuation and font choices. I hope you are enjoying the blog and able to read it each week. It is really important to us!

Fox Kits Corner

Here's what's important to us this week:
  • We were happy that costume day was today (Friday).
  • We had squash as a garden snack today. Some of us liked it (or even loved it)!
  • We liked our jobs.
  • We got a new champ. His name is Flo Yo and we upgraded him today!!
  • There is snow on the ground! Soon we can play in it at school at recess! We need snow pants, hats, boots, mittens, jackets, scarfs, and layer to keep us warm!
  • We liked our writing this week because we all got to start writing our drafts for our small moment stories and added more details to make it even better. Some of us got to finish the writing part and started editing (this is when we check our writing).
  • We started to think about what we know and what we wonder about sound. We are going to be learning about sound starting next week!
  • It was fun having Mrs. Joslyn guess what we have for snack!
  • It was fun learning about computers and having a turn during Literacy and Choice Time.
  • We had games on Friday for math. In second grade we liked learning the "Math Man" computer game--everyone in Mrs. Fox's 2nd grade math class got a turn.
  • We liked all doing Fox Kit Corner this week (which is right now)!


Dates to Remember

Next week it's our turn again for Lunch Bunch!
Monday October 31 - Low Key Halloween Party 2:50-3:25 - wear orange and black to school today if you want to!
Wednesday November 9 - Parent/Teacher Conferences (After School)
Thursday November 10 - 4 Winds 1:30-2:40
Friday November 11 - Parent/Teacher Conferences (No School for Kids)
**Sign up for conferences on-line, http://grades.wcsuonline.org/rumney/conference/

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