Highlights 4-29-16

Happy Arbor Day!

We continued reading about the 6 types of animals this week. We read: Mammals: Hairy, Milk-Making Animals by Laura Purdie Salas, About Insects: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill, and Who Eats What?: Food Chains and Food Webs by Patricia Lauber.

On Friday (in celebration of national Arbor Day) we also read 2 books about people who helped cultivate an appreciation for trees and helped trees grow in their communities: Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter and Johnny Appleseed by Jodie Shepherd. We also drew pictures, wrote poems and messages of appreciation for trees with our buddies and posted them all around the school. We may have even hugged a few trees!

 

   


This week we took the next steps in our animal research process. In Literacy groups students researched their final unanswered questions with me using the search engine Kiddle. Then students assigned colors to each of their guiding questions and color coded their notefacts depending on what kind of information it is. This will help us organize our facts into topics for our reports! On Monday students will begin carefully cutting out their facts. In order to keep these facts safe we will be putting them into gallon ziploc bags. We only have 6 in our drawer now. Please send in any spare gallon size ziplocs into class on Monday so we have them for our next step in writing that afternoon!

Have a great weekend!

Dates to Remember:
Friday May 13th -- Field Trip to see "Henry and Mudge" at the Flynn Theater
Thursday May 19th -- All School Meeting 2:30 (Primary Singers performing!)
Thursday May 26th -- Ben's class plays
Friday May 27th -- Book Buddies Field Trip at U-32
Monday May 30 -- NO SCHOOL (Memorial Day)
Tuesday May 31 -- 4 Winds 2:45-3:20 (Contact Honi if you can help out!)
Friday June 3rd -- Mrs. Fox's class plays 2pm
Wednesday June 15th -- The Last Day of School (1/2 Day) 12:30 dismissal

Happy Spring Break!

Hello families,

Another whirlwind week has gone by. This week was chock full of animal research. Students worked independently, in pairs, and/or in small groups with a teacher to do this research and writing information in their own words. We read a variety of nonfiction texts and explored more of the text features that help us get information from both the words and pictures in this type of text.

We continued our learning about the 6 classes of animals, this week reading about birds (A Place for Birds), fish (What's it Like to Be a Fish?), amphibians (Amphibians: Water to Land Animals), and reptiles (Snakes Are Hunters).

We've noticed some changes on the playground and are happy that it's much drier and warmer now! Hopefully we won't need to have our winter outerwear at school after vacation! All extra clothes, shoes, snow pants, jackets, boots etc. are coming home today to be washed or used over vacation. Hopefully they won't need to come back to school this year! Cross your fingers for the warmth to stay!

A classmate also found an interesting bit of nature on the playground this week.
Do you know what it is?

On Friday we were delighted to visit our buddies in their Cardboard Village. There were tons of cool creations, games, and activities to explore with them! Check out a few of them in the pictures below:

Now onto a bit of important class news and announcements.

Parents, please note that the placement input forms for next years classes are due the Monday we return from vacation, April 25th. We will begin reading them and using the information that week to help us create balanced class communities for next year.

For the upcoming Henry and Mudge field trip to the Flynn on May 13th, we have very limited tickets. We are so thankful for the plentiful volunteers to chaperone but unfortunately we don't have enough tickets for everyone who volunteered. The parent volunteers for this field trip will be: Kyle Landis-Marinello, Charis Churchill, and Aimee Sumner.

There are two upcoming performances that I'd like to tell you about. The Primary Singers will be performing a song at the All School Meeting on May 19th at 2:30. Also, though it seems like a long time from now, I wanted to let you know we'll be having our class play on Friday June 3rd at 2 p.m. (Add it to your calendar--we'd love you to attend!) We'll be choosing our plays and practicing beginning in May!

Let's hope this warmth and sunshine are here to stay. Have a fun, relaxing, and safe spring break!
~Theresa

Highlights 4-8-2016

Hello again friends and families,

Another full week of fun and learning. This week we dove head first into our nonfiction reading and writing. Mrs. Woodard helped us collect books from the library (and a few more from our classroom library) on the 22 different animals that students chose to research! This week we learned how to read just a page or a paragraph at a time and then stop to check for understanding. Students then put any important information, or a new fact, into their own words before writing it down. This can be a big challenge but it is important work. Students are able to do research on their own during literacy, during small group time with support from me during literacy, and also during our writer's workshop. Everyone is excited and learning so much about these animals!

We read a news article in science about four different habitats and worked to describe the habitat (while a desert is dry and hot a swamp is wet and shady). We brainstormed what types of animals would want to live in the different habitats. Why do animals live only in certain places? What makes a habitat a good fit? We also started to learn about the 6 types of animals: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and insects. We are learning to classify animals as we identify how they are all part of an ecosystem.

After finishing Clementine by Sara Pennypacker on Wednesday we switched gears and began to read books to learn more about the 6 different types of animals. To introduce us to all the classes of animals we read Many Creatures: A Song About Animal Classification by Laura Purdie Salas. We also discovered the wide spread of habitats that different kinds of birds can live in by reading A Place for Birds by Melissa Stewart.

On Thursday we were wowed by the amazing students who are in the school's drama production of Willy Wonka. The show will go on again Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. This really is an amazing show. Many kids in our class were excited to see their sixth grade buddies acting, singing, or helping with the set and lights for the show! It's worth seeing Willy Wonka again for family enjoyment and to support our amazing students and parents who made it happen! (Tickets are $6 for adults, $4 for children.)

We have one more week before vacation. The weather continues to vary to please keep sending in all outerwear, boots, and indoor shoes!


Dates to Remember:
Thursday April 14 -- All School Meeting **Time Change -- 11 a.m.**
Monday April 18 - Friday April 22 -- SPRING BREAK
Monday April 25 -- School resumes
Tuesday April 26 -- 4 Winds 2:45-3:20 (Contact Honi if you'd like to help out!)
Friday May 13th -- Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see Henry and Mudge

Rumney's a Cool School!

Hi families,
Today we had a news team at the school from 5 a.m. til 9 a.m. checking out some of the many things that makes our school cool. Thanks to Mr. Rosen and all the brave (and early rising) community members, staff, and students who presented today! Check out the news clips using the link below.

http://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/cool-school-rumney-memorial-school