Valentine's Day Love

Happy Valentine's Day!

The whole day was full of love and kindness. We were excited because a Valentine's Phantom came to Rumney during the night and left us a trail of hearts on the snowbanks!! They were exciting to see as we came into school today. We also had a great celebration and had fun seeing all the mail from our friends. Thanks to all of you for supporting our Valentine's Day celebration!

HOW 2-10-17

Hello families,

We've been working on opinion writing for a few weeks now. Sometimes our opinions are alike but sometimes they are different. We've talked about how it's okay to disagree and have different opinions than our friends. We have to be respectful of other people's opinions and accept that not everyone is the same. To help us think about this we watched this Kid President video on youtube about "How to Disagree" and had a good conversation about it. Watch it again at home if you can! The main points that we learned are:
1) Treat people like people. Treat them with respect.
2) Listen to the other person.
3) Pause, Breathe, Love. - Don't say anything back unless you can say something nice.
4) Accept the other person's opinion. You don't have to agree with their idea, but you do have to accept that it is what they think.

On Thursday we read a really powerful Scholastic News article entitled "How Kids Changed the World." This directly linked to our writing topic this week of "What would you do to make the world a better place?" We had great class conversation about the amazing thing the kids in this article did and how we all truly believe that kids can make a difference. Ask your child what he/she could do? Lots of small things can help with big problems.

In second grade math we've begun to work with money. We studied the different US coins this week and have begun counting money. (This is a great, and easy, thing to practice at home, too!) We are also using number line strategies to add numbers within 100 or within 1,000. In first grade math they've been doing lots of work on the number line. They are using what they know about making numbers to 10 to help add numbers greater than 10 by decomposing numbers, getting to the next 10 (decade) and then adding on what's left.

We continue reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White during read aloud. In science we compared the daylight data we've collected from Summer, Fall, and Winter. We noticed many patterns about daylight and made predictions about what will happen to the daylight in our next season, Spring. In social studies we've begun learning about "I Statements." This is a system for talking about our feelings when trying to solve small problems. Here's what we know so far.

How To Use I-Statements:

Start by identifying how you feel: mad, sad, frustrated, etc.

I feel __________

State the reason you feel this way or what happened that led you to those feelings.

when __________

Try to identify the reason the person’s actions led to those feelings for you.

because __________

Let the person know what you want instead.

I would like __________ .

Just a reminder that we will be having a Valentine’s Day card exchange on this upcoming Tuesday Feb. 14^th from 2:00-2:45. We will exchange cards and play a game together. Bringing valentines is a choice, not a requirement. If your child would like to bring in valentines please make sure there is a valentine for each child in our class. 

We also have our field trip to the Flynn onThursday! I have all the permission forms so we are all set to go! It's going to be a great week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

❤ Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Winter Wellness/Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 17, 24 (make-up date since we didn't go on 2/10)
Tuesday Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange 2:00-2:45
Thursday Feb. 16 - Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see "A Year with Frog and Toad," departing Rumney at 10:30, back to Rumney around 3:00
Monday Feb. 27 - Tuesday Mar. 7 - Winter Break
Wednesday March 8 - 1st Day Back from Vacation

Happy 100th Day!!!

Hello friends,

What a fun week we had getting ready for our 100th day of school celebration--which was today, Thursday February 2nd. This week we wrote an opinion piece about what we'd like 100 of and why. (A harder to answer question than you might think!) On Thursday we wrote 100 words; counted out 100 items (cubes or pattern blocks) and created things out of these 100 items; found things we can do 100 times (cross crawls, jumping jacks,write our name); did a 100 second challenge; and a few more 100 arts and activities to boot! By the end of the day we'd counted to 100 so many times! Here are just a few photos from our 100 celebration today.

Happy 100th Day of School!!!

Lilly and Juliana look through books to help make a list of 100 words.

Erin and Alyson make 3D towers with the 100 pattern blocks they counted out.

How many times can Olivia, Chloe, Willoughby and Franki hop on 1 foot in 100 seconds?

Franki's 100 pattern block snowflake.

Myles records his 100 cube creation.

Chase records his 100 cube creation.

Adam carefully counts out 100 by making 10 groups of 10.

Courtney builds with her 100 cubes.

Ira builds a big cube with his 100 cubes.

Benicio records his 100 pattern block 3D creations.

With Mrs. Joslyn we do the 100 second challenge. Here a group counts how many times they can clap in 100 seconds.

Alyson completes the 100 second challenge.

Chase and Myles make many things together with their 100 pattern blocks.

Juliana and Lilly make their 3D pattern block creations.

Wow, look at this tall tower. It's even taller than us!

Franki is the Statue of Liberty!

Look at our tower now--it's even taller than Mrs. Fox!

This week we also began a new chapter book, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Most children in our class are familiar with the story (either having read a version of the book or seen a movie adapatation) but not all. We talked about how not to give spoilers to ruin the story for kids who don't know it yet. We will be using this story to talk about many story elements as well as to help expand our vocabulary. E.B. White writes with a great variety of words and we are talking about the meaning of many of these new, unique, and juicy words.


Please remember that tomorrow is a teacher inservice day--no school for kids. Enjoy the long weekend. I will be out on Monday but will see everyone again on Tuesday!
💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Winter Wellness/Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17
Friday Feb. 3 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Tuesday Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange 2:00-2:45
Thursday Feb. 16 - Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see "A Year with Frog and Toad," departing Rumney at 10:30, back to Rumney around 3:00
Monday Feb. 27 - Tuesday Mar. 7 - Winter Break
Wednesday March 8 - 1st Day Back from Vacation

HOW 1-26-17

Hello families,

This week we began to study how to share our opinions with others in writing. We are learning how to introduce a topic, give our opinion, and share reasons why we think/feel what we do. This week we wrote about our favorite animals. Some of us finished on Thursday so our new writing pieces are hung up outside our room. Read to learn about our favorite animals!

We also read more books about many cycles that affect us--the 24 hour Earth rotation cycle which makes a day; the 365 day Earth revolution which makes a year; and the about month long moon orbit. We also read a few books about the phases of the moon. We've been having great conversation about this science topic during our read aloud times!

On Thursday we had a fun 4 Winds with Karen. Our focus this month was on the seasons--particularly winter. We noticed differences in animal and plant behavior in the seasons. We also went outside and made a winter plant bouquet to bring home. We were amazed at how many kinds of plants we could find even with our new snow covering!

Many of our friends have coughs and colds. We've been trying to drink extra water and make sure we wash our hands often to stop the spread of germs. I hope you all get lots of rest this upcoming weekend to fend off any illness! Speaking of not spreading germs, we are running low on disinfecting wipes. We work as a class to do Community Cleaning in our classroom each Friday. We "clean it like we mean it!" If you have a spare container of wipes you could donate to the class, please send them in! We are also running low on snack/sandwich size ziplocs and napkins--please send any in if you have some to spare.

I also wanted to update you that report cards will be coming home on this upcoming Monday, instead of Friday. Look out for them then!

Tomorrow is another Winter Wellness day. Don't forget to send your child to school with any items they will need!

💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Winter Wellness/Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17
Thursday Feb. 2 - 100th day of school (as long as we have no more snow days til then)
Thursday Feb. 2 - Scholastic Book orders due
Friday Feb. 3 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Tuesday Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange 2:00-2:45
Thursday Feb. 16 - Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see "A Year with Frog and Toad," departing Rumney at 10:30, back to Rumney around 3:00

HOW 1-19-17

Hello families,

What a whirlwind week! During the early part of the week we put the finishing touches on our star myth presentation. Students had opportunities to volunteer to read or show parts of their myths for the presentation. Not all students chose to get up in front of the school to present but everyone helped write the procedure of what we did and give some background information about our project. We put this information into a PowerPoint presentation (see a video of this below). 

The students who volunteered to read this presentation in front of the school really showed Rumney CARES Courage! They practiced reading their parts fluently and did a beautiful job at the All School Meeting on Thursday. Everyone should be proud of this accomplishment!


We continued reading books about our Solar System. Some of the titles we've read recently are: Floating in Space by Franklyn M. Branley, Light Up the Night by Jean Riley, Me and My Place in Space by Joan Sweeney, Going Around the Sun: Some Planetary Fun by Marianne Berkes, The Night Sky, and I Fall Down by Vicki Cobb (a book about gravity).

We also began a new writing unit about expressing our opinions. To get started we practiced writing answers to questions as whole sentences. We used some words from the question as a sentence starter. We also did some practice about punctuation--thinking about the meaning of the sentence and how that shows us if we need a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point. Finally we found a topic we were all really excited about: Animals. On Thursday and Friday we learned how to plan for and write about our opinions. There were a lot of steps! We had to introduce the topic, give our opinions, and give reasons why we feel that way. We all got to choose an animal we like and give reasons why we like that animal. It was super fun!

Tomorrow is another Winter Wellness day. Don't forget to send your child to school with any items they will need!

💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Winter Wellness/Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17
Wednesday Feb. 1 - 100th day of school (as long as we have no snow days til then)
Thursday Feb. 2 - Winter Concert (chorus, band, ensembles - not classroom performances) 6:30 p.m.
Friday Feb. 3 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Tuesday Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange 2:00-2:45
Thursday Feb. 16 - Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see "A Year with Frog and Toad," departing Rumney at 10:30, back to Rumney around 3:00

Highlights of the Week 1-13-17

Hello families,

This week I got a chance to finish reading one-on-one with our class. I love doing these reading check-ins and getting to meet with each child individually. Everyone has been working hard and making great reading progress! I'll be using this information, as well as classroom observations, when writing our 1st semester report cards. These will be sent home on January 27th.

In writer's workshop we finished illustrating our star myths. Then the class worked together to write about our process so we can tell the school about it. We are presenting our project and sharing two of our books at next week's All School Meeting! These great books will be sent home after that. Hopefully you got a sneak peek by reading your child's first/edited draft that was sent home earlier this week! If you're free, join us at the All School Meeting next Thursday!

On Thursday and Friday we read about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and about the hard and important things he did to make our country a better place. We talked about things we can do to make life better for ourselves, for the world, and for our community. We wrote our own dreams for how to make the world better. These "I Have a Dream Catchers" will be hung up on the boards outside our room next week--check them out!

This Friday (tomorrow) is our first Winter Wellness Day. Our schedule will be pretty different on Fridays during this time! Our morning will be the same (Arrival, Morning Meeting, Buddies, Snack, Literacy, Read Aloud, Spanish) but then we'll have lunch in our classrooms from 11:30-12:00. Since we're eating in the classroom please try not to send peanuts or tree nuts on Fridays for lunch. After lunch we'll get packed up and ready to board buses at 12:45. We'll be at our Winter Wellness/Fitness Friday activities for the remainder of the school day. We'll be returning to Rumney just before dismissal for the usual bus, CC, or pick-up routines. If you are chaperoning and want to pick your child up at the activity location please let Ms. Matthews and Mrs. Danyew know this ahead of time by emailing the new rumney attendance email address, RMSattendance@u32.org

Here are our activity groups:
Snowshoeing: Myles, Adam
Skating: Alyson, Chase, Courtney, Willoughby, Ira, Chloe, Lilly, Olivia (all skaters must wear a helmet)
Swimming: Juliana, Benicio, Erin, Franki, Cooper (all swimmers must bring a swimsuit and towel--to save time students may wear swimsuits under their clothes at school that day but then be sure to pack underwear in the swim bag for changing into dry clothes after swimming)

For the weeks we have our Fitness Fridays I'll be posting our news on Thursdays instead--our Fridays will be full of other activities! Have a great long weekend and I'll see your great kids back on Tuesday!

💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17
Monday Jan. 16 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Thursday Jan. 19 - All School Meeting 9:15-10:00
Thursday Feb. 2 - Winter Concert (chorus, band, ensembles - not classroom performances) 6:30 p.m.
Friday Feb. 3 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Tuesday Feb. 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange 2:00-2:45
Thursday Feb. 16 - Field Trip to the Flynn Theater to see "A Year with Frog and Toad" (more info coming soon)

Happy New Year!

Hello families,

I hope you all had  a great holiday break. We've had a wonderful first week back. This week we reviewed many of our school and classroom rules and routines. We also did a handful of team building activities throughout the week, including making a big spiderweb all together. Without any one of us, our web would be different--we are all important members of our learning community. Throughout all of our games and activities we focused especially on cooperation, respect, and acceptance.

In second grade math we've been looking a lot at +2 and -2 number patterns, solving number riddles, and working with equivalency (100 ones = 10 tens = 1 hundred, 400 ones = 40 tens = 4 hundreds). In first grade math students continue to work in stations on varied adding strategies (add 10, add 9, doubles), number patterns, and visual clusters (seeing numbers in different compositions).

In addition to our regular art class we had some special arts integration times this week with Ms. Campbell. She taught us how to make accordion books. We folded our pages, used shiny paper to cover our covers, and used ribbon to bind our books. Then in writer's workshop we added the text to our books and began to illustrate our star myths! We'll be finishing these next week, presenting about them at the next All School Meeting and sending them home shortly after that.

This week and next week Rumney teachers will be doing reading assessments individually with students. We will also be checking progress in student learning of spelling patterns and rules. I will be doing this tomorrow, Friday, so we'll have a guest teacher in with Mrs. Joslyn for the day.  

There is still a cold and tummy bug floating around school. Keep washing hands and getting plenty of rest! Enjoy your Friday and weekend!💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17
Monday Jan. 16 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids
Thursday Feb. 2 - Winter Concert (chorus, band, ensembles - not classroom performances) 6:30 p.m.
Friday Feb. 3 - Teacher Inservice -- No School for Kids