Highlights on May 20, 2016

Hello friends and families,

This week we finished reading The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker. We switched back to some read alouds about underwater life (the habitat our class chose to learn about together). These are the books on this topic we read this week: In the Sea by David Elliott, In the Swim by Douglas Florian, Ocean Babies by Deborah Lee Rose, and Ocean Seasons by Ron Hirschi. The first two books in this list were books of poems about ocean animals and freshwater animals. During science time students began writing their own poems about sea animals!

First grade mathematicians are doing numberline work to 120 (crossing over the 100 marker), working on various addition strategies, and practicing giving more evidence for their opinions or strategies during math talks. Second grade mathematicians are working on being excellent story problem detectives. This week we looked especially at story problems that give extra information that is not needed to answer the question as well as multi-step story problems. Here's an example of each (written by a second grader!):
Extra information: Angus had $600.00. He spent $268.00 on an xbox . He plays 62 games on it. How much money does he have left?
Multiple steps: Allie had 48 shopkins. Kiersten had 59. Each girl got 40 more shopkins. How many shopkins do they have altogether?

During writing this week students added headings to their animal topics and also searched their topic paragraphs for juicy words. They worked on putting these words in alphabetical order and defining them in the glossary. We're gearing up for the final steps in the writing process in the next two weeks!

Our class was also very excited to begin play practices this week. On Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays the play casts have 2 blocks of time each to practice with me during literacy. This week we worked on fluency and timing with table readings. We also began to talk about what color clothes they'll need for their costumes. (More on costumes next week!)

We were also lucky enough to have a local author as a guest teacher during Library on Monday. Check out the Rumney newsletter to see a picture with her!

Ben and I are also happy to announce plans for our grades 1/2 end of year fun day! This year we plan to walk down to the Shady Rill picnic area for lunch and an afternoon of fun in the sun, water, and all being together! Plentiful parent chaperones are wanted and needed so let us know if you can join us. The date is set for Thursday June 9th from 11:00-3:15, with a rain date of Tuesday June 14th from 11:00-3:15. We'll send home permission slips for this trip next week.

Dates to Remember:
Thursday May 26th -- Ben's class plays
Friday May 27th -- Book Buddies Field Trip at U-32
Friday May 27th -- Final book orders due
Monday May 30 -- NO SCHOOL (Memorial Day)
Friday June 3rd -- Mrs. Fox's class plays 2pm
Tuesday June 7th -- 4 Winds 2:45-3:20 (Date change! Contact Honi if you can help out!)
Thursday June 9th -- 1/2 end of year fun day at Shady Rill Picnic Area 11:00-3:15 (rain date Tuesday June 14th)
Friday June 10 -- All School Field Day at Wrightsville Reservoir (rain date Monday June 13th)
Wednesday June 15th -- The Last Day of School (1/2 Day) 12:30 dismissal

Highlights May 13, 2016

Hello families,

Another fantastic week has flown by. Can you believe we have only 22 school days left?

This week our writers organized their facts into topic paragraphs, added juicy and transitional words, and some even started copying them over into a second draft! We also chose plays this week and on Thursday scripts went home. These can stay at home for practice. Depending on the play your child chose there are few or many lines to learn to read fluently or hopefully memorize to recite fluently and with expression. Play casts will begin practicing with me during literacy next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. If you could also look through it with your child to see what (if any) support they need for practicing at home too, that would be great!

Second grade mathematicians are consolidating all of their knowledge about adding, subtracting, and solving story problems. They are reviewing some money work we did earlier this year too. First grade mathematicians are continuing number line work and mastering addition strategies.

Today was our trip to the Flynn Theater to see "Henry and Mudge." Thanks to the PTO who funds this incredible opportunity for each class once each year!!! We took advantage of our school spirit fancy dress day to also dress up for the theater. I think we all clean up pretty nicely!

I'm still waiting for a few field trip slips for our upcoming field trip to U-32 for the 7th grade book buddies event. At the field trip each of our students in first and second grade will be paired up with a 7th grader at U-32 who wrote, illustrated, and published a children's book to give to them! It's a very fun day and one to remember. Please return the slip next week if you haven't yet!

Please also remember the Rumney spring footwear policy. Students need to 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!

Finally, I forgot to mention that on Friday I sent home our last book order forms for this school year. If you'd like to order books for the summer, please submit orders online or by returning the slip and a check for Scholastic back to me at school by Friday May 27th.

Have a wonderful weekend!
~Theresa

Dates to Remember:
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
Friday May 27th -- Final book orders due
Monday May 30 -- NO SCHOOL (Memorial Day)
Friday June 3rd -- Mrs. Fox's class plays 2pm
**Tuesday June 7th -- 4 Winds 2:45-3:20 (Date change! Contact Honi if you can help out!)
Wednesday June 15th -- The Last Day of School (1/2 Day) 12:30 dismissal

Highlights on a Beautiful Friday

Hello everyone!


Ms. Elizabeth and Mrs. Joslyn were the dream team in our room on Monday and Tuesday. They will continue to run the show in 1/2 Fox on those days while I am out. I got great reviews from both teachers about how supportive, kind, and cooperative all our students were. Hooray!!!


This week everyone in our class has been reading books from the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant. Next Friday we'll be going to the Flynn Theater in Burlington to see a play based on 3 Henry and Mudge books: "The First Book," "Sneaky Crackers," and "Careful Cousin." Just a reminder, Ben and I only had 3 parent chaperone tickets available so the parents joining us will be Charis Churchill, Aimee Sumner, and Kyle Landis-Marinello. Also, these are the students who are signed up for a bag lunch from school: Anes, Chloe, Emilyn, Kiersten, Lilly, Meriah, Myles, Tanner. If you didn't sign up on the permission slip and need a bag lunch for Friday please let me know by Wednesday so I can tell our wonderful cooks, Deb and Sabrina!


We have all the permission slips back for this first field trip--thanks! On Thursday Ben and I also sent home permission slips for our next field trip to U-32 for the 7th grade book buddies event on Friday May 27th. We don't need additional chaperones for this event. For this trip we'll be gone just for the morning and be back at school for recess and lunchtime. =) Please send back this permission slip next week!


This week students began cutting out and organizing their color-coded notefacts into topic paragraphs. Each author tries to organize their facts into an order that sounds good. We talked about "smooth" transitions vs. "choppy" transitions. While we organize we're also editing--changing or adding words to help our writing sound smooth, like the water when sailing on a sunny, blue bird day. We will continue this work all next week, too!


Second grade mathematicians are doing some money skills review work and continue to practice various strategies for "efficient subtraction." This week most students worked on using expanded form as a strategy to demonstrate understanding while subtracting using the vertical algorithm. Other students are using "thinking strategies" about place value and showing their work in a way that will be very familiar to you! First grade mathematicians continue learning various addition strategies, having math talks, and completing number line work.

With the warmer weather it's time to talk 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!


This has been a wonderful week and I hope you have a great weekend. Happy Mother's Day!

~Theresa

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