Highlights of the Week 5.22.15

Dear Families,

It was wonderful seeing so many of you yesterday at our Author's Tea. I can't celebrate these amazing first and second grade authors enough! Not only did we get to share our reports with all of you but we also read them to the Kindergarteners on Tuesday.

On Monday we did our last seasonal daylight observations and then compared data to see what happened to the length of the days through the seasons as well as the position of the sun in our sky. Did your child show you his/her daylight journal and explain this to you?
We also began our last science unit on plant life. We read Bean by Barrie Watts to look at the life cycle of a bean plant. We also compared the bean plant life cycle to that of carrots. In one of our classroom gardens we planted green bean and carrot seeds to see how far into their growth cycle they'll get during our school year. We also talked about how plants make their own food in the process of photosynthesis. We learned a song about Chlorophyll to help us learn more about photosynthesis, too. During this plant unit we'll be doing some plant experiments, too. We started to learn the steps of the scientific method to help us with our experimentations and tests. Our first test as a class is to see if it's true that plants need water and sunlight to grow. We planted 3 green bean seeds in soil: 1 gets only water (no sunlight), 1 gets only sunlight (no water), and 1 gets both (this is the control plant). Every day we look to see if there has been any change.

Most of our read alouds now are related to our science topics. We've finished up reading about different body systems and are diving head first into plant life. Along with Bean we've also read Plant Secrets by Emily Goodman, Our Tree Named Steve  by Alan Zweibel, and A Tree Is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla.

Honi came on Friday and we did a 4Winds class on clouds. Coincidentally we read a book Cloudette earlier this week--a fictional book about a little cloud who dreamed big and found out she could do things other clouds and people had always said were impossible for such a small cloud. We've had a science filled week! Hopefully next week we'll get our hands dirty in the garden, too!

In book buddy groups the exciting activity this week was choosing plays. Each group will be working together on short plays. Next week during literacy they'll choose parts and do "table readings" to work on reading fluency for their lines. Keep your eyes peeled for notes coming home about needs for costumes, too!

Thanks for another great week. Enjoy the long weekend!

Dates to Remember:
Monday May 25 - Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL)
Thursday May 28 - Book Orders Due
Friday May 29 - 1st graders to U-32   9:15-1:00
Friday June 5 - K-1-2 End of Year Celebration @ Wrightsville Beach  11:30-3:30
Thursday June 11 - 1/2 T Plays  1:30-2:15
Thursday June 11 - All School Meeting 2:30-3:15
Friday June 12 - K-6 Field Day @ Wrightsville   9:30-3:30
Wednesday June 17 - Last Day of School - 1/2 day dismissal at 12:30

Highlights of the Week 5.15.15

Hello families!

We were so excited this week to see our typed reports! Ms. Caitlin and Ms. T bound them into hard covers and we worked on writing in the page numbers so readers can find the information in our books. We also worked on careful illustrations to add detail to our reports.

Our writers have been working on the research, writing, editing, and publishing feverishly since March. I hope you're planning to attend our Author's Tea next Thursday so we can celebrate their amazing work! Thanks for all the food offers--now we have 2 batches of cookies (thanks Jocelyn & Honi), 1 bottle of juice (thanks Honi), iced tea (thanks Ursula), cups (thanks Dina), and napkins (thanks Dody). We already have plenty of plates.We are all set. Now we just need you to come be our audience!

Second grade mathematicians continue to be story problem detectives and are working on comparison problems. They are also learning about rows and columns. First grade mathematicians are looking at place value to help them as an adding strategy.

We wrapped up our maps unit this week with a penny scavenger hunt around our classroom. Students first made maps of our classroom then hid pennies all around and used each others maps to find the hidden pennies. This was an energetic and fun activity--a fantastic culminating event. On Wednesday students brought home the Map Skills workbook we were using for some of our map work. There are some geography pages left that they can do at home if they want to. Next week we'll switch gears to look at plant parts and help out in the Rumney garden. In the coming weeks we will be spending some time getting the garden ready for planting so don't be surprised if your child comes home a little dirtier than usual!

On Thursday the final book order of the year came home. Orders are due Thursday May 28!

On Friday Ben and I sent home an end of year event calendar. Here's the info again:

As we approach the last weeks of school there are many special events and trips planned. We’d like to tell you about some of the special things happening in our ½ classrooms in these weeks.

Forms will be coming home for each field trip, but here is some of the general information in advance:

• ·         One of the 7^th grade writing projects each year is to write a children’s book and present it to an elementary student for “book buddy day.” This year the 7^th grade class is much smaller so while both first and second grade have gone to this event in the past, this year only the first graders are able to go. So, on Friday May 29^th, all first graders will go to U-32 with Ms. Theresa. We will attend the 7^th grade book buddy event as well as visit Randy Brown’s AP Physics class’ “Physics Museum.” Meanwhile, all second graders will stay back with Ben and have a special activity day all together with him.

• ·         The Primary Unit (K/1/2) will be celebrating the end of our year together on Friday June 5^th. We’ll be spending the afternoon playing, building, and swimming together at Wrightsville Beach. Plentiful parent chaperones are welcome, but all parents will have to drive separately as there will only be enough space on the bus for students and teachers.

• ·         The whole school will also take a trip to Wrightsville for our end of year celebration on Friday June 12^th—but this time there will be many more planned activities so beach time is limited. This will be a whole day event and more information will come from the office as we get closer to this date.

• ·         Ben’s class will perform their plays on Thursday June 4^th (more info coming from Ben closer to that date). Ms. Theresa’s class will perform their plays on Thursday June 11^th (more info coming from Theresa closer to that date).

• ·         The last day of school is Wednesday June 17^th. This is a half day with dismissal at 12:30.

We also sent home a field trip slip for the first grade field trip to U-32. If you have a first graders, please look for this and send it in by Thursday!


Dates to Remember:
Thursday May 21 - Author's Tea   2:30-3:15
Friday May 22 - Four Winds
Monday May 25 - Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL)
Thursday May 28 - Book Orders Due
Friday May 29 - 1st graders to U-32   9:15-1:00
Friday June 5 - K-1-2 End of Year Celebration @ Wrightsville Beach  11:30-3:30
Thursday June 11 - 1/2 T Plays  1:30-2:15
Thursday June 11 - All School Meeting 2:30-3:15
Friday June 12 - K-6 Field Day @ Wrightsville   9:30-3:30
Wednesday June 17 - Last Day of School - 1/2 day dismissal at 12:30

Highlights of the Week May 8, 2015

Hello families,

What wonderful spring weather we've had this week! I hope you've been enjoying it at home, too. I was happy to see so many students bringing in water bottles to stay hydrated. Kids are free to keep a water bottle at their tables all day to help us all drink enough as the days get warmer. Our north-western exposure room gets a lot of afternoon sun so it's toasty in here after lunch!

Students finished up the writing and editing process for their PLPs and on Thursday our sixth grade buddies help us type them. I'll finish formatting and printing them and we'll be ready for the last few steps next week! The first and second graders have been working tremendously hard on this long writing project so I'd love to celebrate their accomplishments with all of you. Please mark your calendar with the date of our Author's Tea--Thursday May 21 2:30-3:15. We'll read our PLPs in small groups and enjoy some iced tea & cookies! I hope someone (parent, sibling, family friend) can make it so each of our author's has someone special to them to read their PLP to. (We have 1 bottle of juice already but can someone make a pitcher or two of iced tea? Also, please let me know if you can bring in some cookies to share.)

We practiced moving in the cardinals directions all over the United States in our NEWS game on our US rug. We reviewed some map skills and made maps including land and water, looked at maps of the whole world, North America, and the United States. On Friday we also made block buildings and practiced drawing maps with a "bird's eye view" instead of map symbols.

In math second graders have been working with geometry, fractions, subtraction, and addition. They've also been dissecting story problems--being detectives to look for clues about which part is unknown (start, change, or result).

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. Happy Mother's Day!

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!