Mid-November Highlights

Hello parents!

It was great to meet with all of you for conferences in the past two weeks or so. Your children have been busy learning and growing this year! I'm thrilled to experience this with all of them! Here's our news from the past two weeks. Also please note there will be no blog post next week since it's such a short week!

This past Monday I sent home new Scholastic Book Order flyers. Please submit orders online or send in your order with a check by this upcoming Monday 11/21. If you order anything that you'd like to stay secret for a gift please let me know! Books make great holiday gifts and there is also a big selection of various holiday themed books that could be fun to read together as a family. Check them out!

We've done more science explorations about sound. We've been noticing and describing sounds, guessing about what is making the sounds, and experimenting with how sound is produced. On Friday we made kazoos with 3 different covering materials (tin foil, waxed paper, saran wrap). We compared how the sounds were the same and different and which material produced the best sound. Thanks for sending in all those cardboard tubes over the past few weeks--we couldn't have done this activity without them!

We shared our first small moment stories with one another and also read them to our 3/4 buddies on Friday. We began writing our next small moment stories during Writer's Workshop. First graders are focusing on adding more details and juicy words to describe what is happening. Second graders are encouraged to add many descriptive details about what people of feeling and thinking as well as dialogue to make their writing come to life.

This week we finished reading the compilation of short stories entitled, Rhinos and Raspberries: Tolerance Tales for the Early Grades. I read the class 3 versions of the same small moment story I wrote entitled, "Logan's Loose Tooth." We also read Scholastic News articles about Thanksgiving both from the perspective of the Native Americans as well as from the Pilgrims. Before Thanksgiving break we will also have read Oh, What a Thanksgiving! by Steven Kroll, Thanksgiving Is... by Gail Gibbons, and 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.

We finished creating our puppets this week, with our artist in residence Barbara Paulson and also in our classroom on our own. We practiced singing our song with Dan Paulson. We had an All School Meeting on Friday.

Here's a link to an interesting article I came across this week about engaging your child in meaningful conversation about school. Check it out if you want to!

After Thanksgiving Break our "Lunch Bunch" will be changing. This new group will meet in a quiet space outside of the lunchroom to eat while practicing social skills. Your child may or may not be involved in this.

Fox Kits Corner
Here's what's important to us this week:

• It was Myles' and Adam's birthdays.
• We got a new champ named Om Petalhead in GoNoodle.
• We didn't have buddies but had an All School Meeting instead.
• We made kazoos because in science we were studying the vibrations.
• We made puppets with Mimi and Barb and sometimes Dan and also Ms. Campbell. We had 3 sessions to start and finish making our puppets! We were very, very excited.
• In Spanish we played a game like London Bridge is falling down, but in Spanish.
• We liked our new jobs this week.
• In first grade math we played a new game called Shut the Box--we can teach you at home!
• Some of us got Rumney CARES awards.
• We got a lot of sight words done. Next week we'll look at our tallies and think of how much bonus recess time we've earned so far!
• Lots of us got new sight word books to practice at home and at school!
• We used great cooperation in our class!
• Some of us finished writing our thankful hearts for Thanksgiving. We wrote in the hearts what we're thankful for. Look in the hallway by the classroom!
• A lot of us finished or got close to finishing our next small moment stories.
• Writing the Fox Kits Corner News today together was fun.

Dates to Remember
Wed-Fri Nov. 23-25 - Thanksgiving Break - No School
Thursday December 1 - Puppet Show 1:45 p.m.