Highlights of Our Week 3-30-17

Hello families,

I've gotten to meet with some of you so far in parent/teacher conferences and I look forward to seeing the rest of you tomorrow. Our class is just amazing and I'm thrilled to share your child's hard work and accomplishments with you.

This week we sadly said goodbye to our friends in Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. The characters in this book taught us a lot about friendship, empathy, and the joy you can find in helping others. 

Our research into PLP topics has been going smoothly. Students are becoming more adept at summarizing information or rephrasing facts in their own words. We are always so excited to share the cool things we are reading so we make sure to take time at the end of each writer's workshop to share cool things we learned with our friends. Here are a few pictures of students working and sharing information this week.

Light and Shadow Exploration Stations

For a few weeks student groups will rotate through these four stations to explore different properties of light and matter. They will discover how light affects different materials, how light travels, and about the availability of light and how that affects sight. Here's a look at what this work looks like at our hands-on exploration stations!

At this station students explore the properties of shadows using cube creations they made.
They make and measure the longest and shortest shadows they can.
Students are prompted to think about how does how you use the flashlight change what happens?

In this exploration students use mirrors to reflect light. They observe what happens when the angle
of the light or mirror changes. Together they might try to find ways to make the path
of the light change directions or even turn a corner!

At this station students test different materials for reflective properties.

Students try to have "X-Ray Vision" and figure out what traits of materials make it so that
some or all light can pass through them while other materials let no light pass through them.

This week we had a ton of fun on the soggy, snowy playground. Many kids came in with soaking wet snowpants, mittens and coats. Until it dries out sending in an extra plastic bag for soggy gear and/or a spare set of clothes is a good idea! We also keep a stash of extra plastic shopping bags here in the room for anyone who needs them. If you have some at home you'd like to donate to the cause please send them in!

On Thursday we had a visit from a sixth grade frog expert. He shared with us all about how he learned about Australian tree frogs, what he does to take care of these frogs that live here at Rumney with Ms. Gretchen, and he showed us the actual frogs too! This is a great connection to our informative writing unit because we ourselves are becoming experts on topics so we can then teach others.

We also made time to visit the Rumney sugarbush and sugarhouse this afternoon. We collected some sap and visited Brian Prendergast in the sugarhouse who was setting up for the first boil of our sugaring season. Our school collected about 40 gallons of sap just this week! Here are a few more pictures from this adventure.

Wow. It's been a busy week! 

❤ Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Friday March 31 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - No School for Kids
Thursday April 6 - Wizard of Oz dress rehearsal/in-school performance 1:30-3:15 pm
Whole week April 17 - 21 - Spring Break
Monday April 24 - School resumes
Friday May 19 - Our Class Plays, 2:00 seating, 2:15 showtime!! (I know this is a ways out but mark your calendars to attend our shows that afternoon!)

HOW 3-24-17

Hello everyone,

Our week together zoomed by. We've been busily reading about our PLP (personal learning project) topics and writing down new facts about them. We also brainstormed questions to help us think about what kind of information we wanted to learn on our topics. On Thursday we took a closer look at some nonfiction text features in a Scholastic News article. We've been talking a lot about how these special features help us as learners as we read nonfiction texts and organize the information we are reading in our brains.

We are nearly at the end of Charlotte's Web. It will be hard to say goodbye to these friendly, brilliant, sly, courageous characters. Charlotte just had her "hour of triumph" at the fair during our read aloud time on Friday. Ask your child what her triumph was--what had she accomplished?

The weather this week has been nuts. Thanks for continuing to send your kids in with all their winter gear. I had thought mud season was starting and then it turned to winter again! Eventually the mud will return and we will still need to wear our boots and snow pants to keep our clothes and school clean and dry. Please remember to keep sending this important outdoor gear in until the ground is dry!

I look forward to meeting with all of you next week to check in on your child's progress!

Fox Kits Corner News

• We started writing facts on our PLPs (Personal Learning Projects). We learned the facts by reading in nonfiction books.
• Upgraded our GoNoodle champ, Rad Chad, again!
• We are going to learn about light. Next week we’re going to use flashlights to learn about light, energy and shadows.
• We learned new and different things.
• We celebrated one birthday this week!
• We did our new jobs this week. We switch jobs every week in our classroom.
• Our principal, Mr. Schneider, is doing a good job!
• We had the BEST week ever!

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Wednesday March 29 - Parent/Teacher Conferences after school
Thursday March 30 - 4 Winds 1:35-2:35
Friday March 31 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - No School for Kids
Thursday April 6 - Wizard of Oz dress rehearsal/in-school performance 1:30-3:15 pm
Whole week April 17 - 21 - Spring Break
Monday April 24 - School resumes

Highlights from a Wacky Week

Hello families,

What a wacky week! It's hard to believe that Spring officially starts on Monday when we just got this fresh batch of snow! Luckily the kids are still pretty excited for it and it does make the playground more fun than the sheet of ice it was before!

This week students chose their PLP (personalized learning plan)/report topics for our big informative writing project. We wrote down facts we already know on the topics and brainstormed the questions we want to answer to help us learn about our individual topics.

We are still reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White but we took a break on Friday to read a funny book to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace.

We wrapped up our social studies unit on feelings. Of course this work will continue in our daily interactions with each other but we will switch to a new science topic at the end of next week--relating what we learned previously about sound waves to light waves and the way that light travels.

Second grade mathematicians continue working with coins and counting money. They sorted coins to find the total in each counting bin (upwards of $5.00 each). They also used two 20-sided dice to play Collect $5.00. This week we also began a transitional addition strategy called partial sum addition. This uses expanded form to break numbers in a vertical equation apart to add by place value. You'll see what this looks like next week in the math homework!

Fox Kits Corner News

• We are doing PLPs (Personal Learning Projects). We are picking out books, picking our final topic, writing what we know and writing what we want to know. We are glad to be done with our planning.
• We upgraded our champ, Rad Chad.
• We got new tables in the lunch room.
• It was St.Patrick's Day today! Lots of people wore green to celebrate. They want to find the leprechaun's gold.
• We learned about doing Jumprope for Heart in P.E.
• We had 2 really awesome snow days!!! We could hardly believe it!
•  Last week we got to meet the prinicipal, Mr. Schneider, who will finish the year with us.
• In P.E. we did Thunder Road! There is a race track outside the basketball court and you run around it 5 times. There are 2 detours, a gas station, and a pitstop. You go through them until time is up. Ms. Caswell plays really good music too, Kids Bop!

Have a great weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Monday March 20 - All School Meeting (rescheduled) 9:15-10:00
Wednesday March 29 - Parent/Teacher Conferences after school
Thursday March 30 - 4 Winds 1:35-2:35
Friday March 31 - Parent/Teacher Conferences - No School for Kids

HOW 3-10-17

This week we began to think of research topics for informative writing. We began collecting books on our topics on Friday.

We are still reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. We also read Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson. This was another empowering story of leadership and peaceful change.

Today our class came up with a HUGE list of ways we can calm down when we notice clues in our bodies that we are having a big feeling (i.e. mad, worried, scared, sad, jealous). Here are our ideas!

• -         Hold hands with mom.
• -         Talking to someone.
• -         Think about your family.
• -         Think about a happy memory.
• -         Take deep breaths.
• -         Go outside and play.
• -         Think about happy things that could happen.
• -         Tensing and relaxing muscles.
• -         Go to my room to be away from people.
• -         Think of something happy.
• -         Drink some water.
• -         Take some space away from people.
• -         Take a walk inside or outside.
• -         Spend time with a pet.
• -         Snuggle with a stuffie.
• -         Give a hug. Get a hug.
• -         Count down from 10.
• -         Run around outside in the fresh air.
• -         Do some 5 finger breathing.
• -         Squeeze a stuffie very hard to get anger out.
• -         Get fresh air.
• -         Yoga/Brain Gym, like melting.
• -         Listen to calm music.
• -         Coloring to calm down.
• -         Writing in a journal.
• -         Snuggle with mom or dad.
• -         Read a book.
• -         Get your mind off your feelings.
• -         Rest your body, maybe take a nap.
• -         Stand somewhere and do nothing.
• -         Chew gum.
• -         Sit on your bed and take deep breaths.
• -         Go to your quiet space.
• -         Sit in a chair and watch someone cook.

We hope that you have a great weekend!