Highlights of the Week 5.1.15

Hello families,

Here's a quick snapshot of our week:

• In writing students finished organizing their notefacts, wrote introductions with a hook to get readers interested in their topic, wrote conclusions to leave the reader with the big idea, found words readers may not know and defined them in the glossary, and created an index for readers to look up details from the report. Many students worked on editing all their writing to get ready to be typed next week. It was a busy and fruitful week!
• Book buddy groups have been going nicely during literacy. Many students are developing their verbal and written response to literature during these groups.
• In social studies we are learning about the cardinal directions. We came up with a few mnemonics of our own:
• ·       Never ever say what
  ·       Never eat sour wheat
  ·       Never eat sour watermelon
  ·       Never ever sever watermelon
  ·       Never eat soggy watermelon
  ·       Never electrocute stupid wigs
  ·       Never ever say watermelly
  ·       Never electrocute snowy wheat
  ·       Never eat snowy watermelon
  ·       Nocko eats simple wheat
  ·       Never eat soggy wheat
  ·       Never eat stinky walnuts
  ·       Never eat smelly wheat
   
  

•  We read a few more books about human body systems, this week focusing on the nervous and circulatory systems.

We've had a busy, fun week together. It's amazing how focused these students can be and how much they accomplish each day. Writing this week has been a special highlight since we're all so excited to be nearing the end of the writing process for this project. Next week we'll type but there's still a little more to do. Once I get a better idea of when we'll be done I'll send out news so we can celebrate our authors and share these wonderful reports!

Have a great weekend!

Highlights of the Week: April 17, 2015

Hello families,

We've had a busy, exciting week. Students worked hard to organize their notefacts into topic sections. Sounds simple, but it's a lot of steps. After we sorted our color coded facts students organized one color at a time. Reading the facts and then deciding what order to put them in to sound good. Sometimes students needed to add a transition sentence or change some words to make it sound smooth. 

We read Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch it, Shape it and learned about all the parts of a brain, what they do, and how they work together. We learned about how the first 10 years of life are the most powerful for a brain to stretch and grow--the more you work hard to learn and make new connections in your brain, the more powerful your brain can be and the more you can learn throughout your life. We talked about how making mistakes is part of learning and how important they are. Making mistakes actually makes your brain stronger because it creates more connections between ideas and experiences. We also shared examples from our own lives about how we've made mistakes and persevered to learn new things. We talk a lot in our room about accepting how every person learns and how it's okay to make mistakes. This week we added to that idea by talking about perseverance. Talk at home about this--give your child an example from your life.

We continued working on map skills this week, especially about using map symbols and map keys to locate things on a map and how to interpret map symbols. We used the terms near and far to show the relationships between things on maps and also ourselves and things in our room.

Second grade mathematicians continued working on two and three digit subtraction. They also began using their geometry knowledge to learn about fractions. First grade mathematicians are working on the number+9 strategy with all numbers, using the doubles two apart addition strategy, and looking at number patterns.

We had many special events this week: storytellers, special music classes, All School Meeting, and Four Winds. All the 1st and 2nd graders did an amazing & courageous job singing "Old Texas" for the whole school at the ASM.

On Friday lots of gear went home with students as we did our big before vacation clean-out. We're very hopeful that the snow will melt over vacation. However, if there is still snow on the ground we will wear snowpants. Boots we need until the ground is dry, so this may take a bit longer. Please continue sending in indoor shoes as well as the necessary outdoor gear. 

With the warmer weather this week we also talked about spring footwear. It is Rumney policy that students have sneakers or sandals that stay on their feet for P.E. and recess (i.e. not flip flops). Mr. Rosen says flip flops are okay for indoor shoes as long as they have secure footwear for recess and P.E. Thanks for your help in making sure your child is ready for each day's activities!

I hope you all have a wonderful vacation week and enjoy the holidays--Earth Day and Arbor Day-- that occur over this break.

Highlights of the Week 4.10.15

Dear Families,

Time flew by this week--I don't know how it's already Friday!

This week we finished our sound unit. Did you see your child's scientist journal come home with all of our observations and ideas from our sound experiments? We also began a new social studies unit on Maps. We talked about what maps are and why they are important. We made our first map of our bedrooms and practiced drawing a map from a "bird's eye view." This is a really hard concept so we'll be making lots of maps to practice this skill.

In literacy we talked about the general rule for vowel teams--"when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." However, we also talked about how there are always rule breakers. We reviewed the most common vowel teams for the long a and long e sounds on our vowel team poster. This is a resource always up in our room, having the letters-keyword-sound for each vowel team. Having a picture clue and keyword help us to remember the sound each vowel team typically makes.

In writing we finished color coding and cutting out our facts. On Thursday I did a mini-lesson showing how to use all the facts from one topic and try to put them in an order that makes sense and sounds good. Sometimes we needed to add words or change them to make it sound right. This editing process is a challenging piece of writing but important to begin to practice even in first and second grade. Next week we'll continue working on organizing all of our facts into "topic pages" for our reports!

On Friday we cashed in 82 sight word tallies that we'd banked as a class for 41 minutes of bonus recess! On Thursday we got to see the dress rehearsal of Honk! which has performances here at Rumney on Friday and Saturday. Check it out if you're around this weekend--it was an amazing production!

This week I was part of the hiring committee for the new music teacher. Our class was selected to be the "demonstration" class so we can see the teacher candidates in action. This means that next week our class will have some extra music time!

We have one more week before vacation and a lot in store--academics and special events, too! On Tuesday Mrs. Woodard has a duo of fabulous story tellers coming in to share their art with us. Don't forget we will be performing a song at the All School Meeting on Thursday (2:30-3:15). We'll also have 4 Winds on Friday next week.

Have a great weekend!

Highlights of the Week 4.3.15

Hello families,

It was great to meet with all of you this week at conferences. We had fun during our school days too. 

One of our biggest projects this week was designing cup telephones as a culminating activity for our sound unit. Students worked in pairs to design a cup telephone with these materials: fishing line, twine, dental floss, small waxed paper cups, medium thin plastic cups, big heavy plastic cups. Students measured the lines so we could test each phone over a distance of 3 yard (9 feet). They did a great job designing, constructing, and improving their phones. They were amazed at how well they worked, too!

We also did the next big step in our PLPs. We used our guiding questions to think about the topics we will write about. Then students color coded their facts to match their topics. We'll use this system to help us next week to organize our facts into topics for our reports.

We also had 2 special buddy activities: sugaring and an egg hunt!

The best thing of all was that on Friday when we went outside, we got to wear boots and snowpants but no jackets--it was a beautiful 54 degrees! However, even as the days get warmer, please do still send in boots, snowpants, mittens/gloves, and jackets/sweatshirts. While there is snow on the ground you can be sure your child is playing in it, crawling through it, and building with it. We wear boots and snowpants to recess until the ground is dry--so please continue sending them in!

Thanks for checking in on our classroom news. Have a fantastic weekend!

Highlights of the Week 3.27.15

Dear Families,

This week we "made" a sound wave by scattering around the room and raising hands when we heard a ball bounce on the floor in the middle of the room. Students noticed how the people nearest the ball heard the sound first and then it traveled to the outskirts of the room with a wave of hands going up. It was very cool to see. We also did a daylight study for the beginning of spring. We looked at how the location of the sun in the sky has seemed to change through the seasons. We also read Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art by Thomas Locker to notice more differences in the sky throughout the seasons.

We also read more books about the Earth, the moon, and the solar system. We listened to a song about the planets and tried to think of a mnemonic to help us remember the names of the planets. Here are a few we came up with:
1) My very eager mother just served us noodles.
2) My very excellent mother just served us nachos.
3) My very energetic mother just served us nuts.
We read one more funny but informative book that gave us more information about why Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet--the book was Pluto Visits Earth!  by Steve Metzger.

Students made a ton of progress in researching their PLP topics. If you haven't done any online or book research at home yet, please make some time to finish this over the weekend. Next week we'll be beginning to organize our facts into topics to create a rough draft of our report.

Many students finished the second lowercase letters handwriting packet this week. We've been tackling the "dive down" letters: p, r, n, m, h, and b.

Second grade mathematicians began a new unit on geometry and fractions with Mr. Hedler and are practicing their addition and subtraction skills with travel story problems. First grade mathematicians are working on fluency for addition/subtraction fact families for combinations of 5 or 10, working on the concept of subtraction with larger two digit numbers, and learning about measurement.

Don't forget next Thursday and Friday are half-days for students. School lets out at 12:30 those days. Parent-Teacher conferences are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday after school. I'll post the schedule outside our door. Please be on time because most conferences are booked back-to-back.

One more note: On Thursday April 16th our class and Ben's class will be performing a song we learned in Primary Sing at the All School Meeting, 2:30-3:15. If you'd like to hear our song, please join us at the meeting!

Highlights of the Week 3.20.15

Hello families,

This week we read from The Really Big Universe, Light up the Night, and Me and My Place in Space. We also were excited to get some new books for our classroom library. Some class favorites were from the "Elephant and Piggie" series--great books to read with a partner and practice expressive reading!

Our research and writing for PLPs is going very well. Students are reading non-fiction books on their topic, either on their own or with help from an adult, and taking notes about important facts they've learned. We've been working on the summarizing skill--reading a page or paragraph and summarizing the information in our own words. On Friday I sent home a PLP notefact paper packet in case you want to help your child do some research online--they are really excited to do research!

We explored sound with stringed instruments and "found" instruments in the classroom this week. Students formed bands and performed their own songs. We also watched some great videos--slow motion sound and kitchen drawer drumming. If you want to check them out with your child, here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoanOlb3-w&noredirect=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osFBNLA7woY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prYK1hu-exg

In Team Building with Ms. Caswell the students were excited to do some new movement activities and watch a jump roping competition (they are doing a jump roping unit in P.E.). Here are the links if you want to try them out at home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX9SMn9Hwjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3Z3z8t-RIQ

https://www.gonoodle.com/#play/koo-koo-kanga-roo/roller-coaster

Also, don't forget to sign up for a conference if you haven't done so already! (The link is in last week's post.)

Have a great weekend and happy first full day of spring tomorrow!

Important Dates:

April 2 & 3 -- 1/2 Day for students-- Parent/Teacher conferences in the afternoon

April 16 -- All School Meeting 2:30-3:15

April 20-24 -- Spring Break

Highlights of the Week 3.13.15

Hello again families,

We've been busy in our first 8 days back since vacation. In writing students got their research books from Mrs. Woodard and we began reading and writing down facts we know for our Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). To do this we practice the comprehension strategy of summarizing to say the important information in our own words. The goal is to find facts on our topic to answer some or all of our guiding questions. Thanks so much for helping your child get ready with these guiding questions and prior knowledge facts!

In science we've continued our sound unit. This week we experimented with various materials to see what kinds of sounds we could produce. We decided that moving objects to create vibrations is how we can produce sound. We also made our own kazoos with different materials (waxed paper, tin foil, plastic wrap) covering the end of the tube. Students tested which material created the best kazoo for air to bounce around--causing buzzing vibrations. Most students brought home their tubes so you can try it out at home with other coverings and see what happens!  With amazing coincidence--the topic for our 4 Winds class this Friday was the nature of sound! Thanks to Honi and Dina who came in to help us with more sound experiments that deepened our understanding!

This week we read two dog sled books, Bravest Dog: The True Story of Balto and Akiak: A Tale from the Iditarod in honor of the beginning of the Iditarod race this week in Alaska. We also continued to read from A Child's Guide to the Night Sky and learn more about our universe and beyond! I also read a sample first grade report--All About Grace Potter-- written by my 6 year old step-daughter!

In second grade math we've made great progress in the standard algorithm for addition and subtraction. We continue to practice borrowing/regrouping with two and three digit numbers. Second graders have also become masters of telling time to 5 minute increments! If you have an analog clock at home, have your child check the time at home too to solidify and expand these skills. This week we did a culminating time project--an All About Time book. These should come home soon so take a look--they did amazing work!

In first grade math they've been noticing patterns in numbers, working on the number line, and practicing skip counting (counting by 2s, 5s, 10s--forwards and backwards).

This week was full of special events too: in Team Building, the class participated in an Outdoor Walking event with Ms. Caswell; we cashed in some bonus recess points (earned by mastering sight words) and had 10 minutes and 30 seconds of extra recess on Thursday, and we had an All School Meeting.

Last week we went to the Rumney sugarbush to tap trees. This Friday morning we went with our buddies to see if there was any sap to collect. We're excited to help make maple syrup!

With sugaring season also comes mud. This week we've had some very wet recesses. Please consider sending in an extra set of clothes or gloves for your child in case they get soaked through snowpants. Also, having a plastic bag to help transport home very wet things can help save backpacks and folders from getting soggy. This is also the most important time of year to have a dry change of shoes for school so we don't get mud in our rug and carpet. Nobody likes sitting on a wet rug! 

Lastly, parent teacher conferences are coming up. On Thursday and Friday April 2 & 3 we have half-days for students. The afternoons are slotted for conferences. Please check the list of available times and sign up for your conference!  
Here's the link: http://grades.wcsuonline.org/rumney/conference/