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

Happy Holidays!

Greetings families!

This week we read many holiday books during read aloud. We read: So Many Gifts by Anne Marie Pierce, The Winter Solstice by Ellen Jackson, Hershel and the Hannukah Goblins by Eric A. Kimmel, and Jingle Bells as told by Iza Trapani (looking at Christmas celebrations around the world).

We finished writing and editing our star myths. We also looked at samples of star myths written by former first and second graders. Students worked together to read these samples to see if they had all the right parts to a narrative and then to give advice for what the author could do to make his/her writing even better. This will help us to give writing advice to each other when we do our peer conferencing during each editing process.

It was a week of special events! We had an All School Meeting on Wednesday where we sang "Zum Gali Gali" to celebrate the Winter Solstice. On Thursday we visited the fifth/sixth grade classrooms to check out their science projects--they were awesome! Friday afternoon was our Winter Solstice celebration. We included many of the same aspects to our celebration as many cultures around the world have in the past: gathering together for joyful feasting, celebrating the return of the sun with candlelight, decorating with evergreens, and giving gifts to one another (Secret Snowflake). Thanks to all of you for helping to make this celebration possible!

I hope you all have a happy and healthy holiday break. See you back in the new year!

💗 Mrs. Fox

Dates to Remember
Mon.- Fri. December 26-30 - Holiday Break --No School
Mon. January 2 - 1st day back in the new year
Fitness Fridays - 12:30-3:30 on Jan. 13, 20, 27; Feb. 10, 17

Highlights 12-16-16

Hello families!

This week we wrapped up our sound unit with a fun engineering project: making cup telephones. Students worked with a partner to made different models, testing different types of strings and sizes of cups. They had a great time!

We continued reading star myths as well as informational books about stars and constellations. We read a few star myths that my past classes have written as well as a few student examples. A few of the read aloud books this week were: Rainbow: A Sioux Myth, When the Sun Fell from the Sky: A Yurok Story retold by D.L. Birchfield, What Are Stars? by Carmen Bredeson, and The Big Dipper by Franklyn M. Branley.

As a class we wrote our own star myth story about how the unicorn constellation came to be. Here it is!

How Unicorn Became a Constellation

By The First & Second Grade Fox Kits 2016-2017

                A long, long time ago, a unicorn, a giraffe, a flying squirrel, a crab, a bunny, a monkey, and a great dog were flying friends. They lived in a land called Jungle Land. Jungle Land was a huge, fun animal village. They all knew each other and protected each other. It had a beach near the cave so Crab could have its own happy place. In the jungle there were lots of trees so Monkey could swing from vine to vine.

The flying friends wanted to have a party in a cave. They wanted to decorate the cave with vines and flowers from the jungle for the party! So Monkey went to find vines, Unicorn went to find flowers, and the rest of the animals went to find leaves. When they all got back to the cave they found out that Unicorn’s hoof had gotten stuck between some rocks in the cave. The cave was dark and rocky. It was hard to see and walk in there! The animals tried to help Unicorn get out. They tried and tried but they couldn’t do it. So Unicorn tried again. She tugged again so hard that when her hoof got free she fell and bumped her magic horn and dented it. She tried to light it up but she couldn’t.

Unicorn didn’t know what to do. Suddenly she had an idea! She flew up into the sky and became a constellation. It lit up the whole cave and the night sky. The friends rejoiced for the unicorn and all the light and happiness she gave them. Finally the flying friends decorated the cave and had the party. Now it was a goodbye party for Unicorn! They could still see and talk to her in the night sky. Take a look at the night sky—you might find her there!

At the end of this week students chose a constellation of their own and began to plan their own star myth narratives!

We also worked on some fun holiday crafts this week. On Friday children took home snowpeople and snowcreatures they made. Here are pictures of a few of our creative kids and their handiwork!

This week our school had quite a few children and adults sick with a stomach bug. Be sure to drink plenty of water, wash hands, and rest up! Please remember to keep sick kids at home. Students must be fever free without medication for 24 hours before returning to school. If your child has vomited, please wait a full 24 hours after the last incident before allowing your child to return to school. Please contact the health office if you have any questions or concerns at 223-5429 x 2114. Thank you!


Dates to Remember
**Wed. December 21 - All School Meeting 9:15-10:00 **date change!
Fri. December 23 - Winter Solstice Celebration (a couple of days after the real Winter Solstice) & Gift Exchange 1:45-3:15
Mon.- Fri. December 26-30 - Holiday Break --No School
Mon. January 2 - 1st day back in the new year

Highlights 12-9-16

Hello families!

What a wonderful, snowy week!

This week we finished reading our Magic School Bus chapter book, Space Explorers. We learned a lot about the planets and other things in our solar system. We read a related (but very fictional) story, Skippyjon Jones: Lost in Spice by Judy Schachner. We also began to learn about stars and constellations. If you're out with your kids at night see if you can spot any constellations! We read Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton. This is a beautifully illustrated National Geographic book! We also have begun reading a few Native American star myths about how some constellations ended up in the sky in the collection of stories entitled Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories and Environmental Activities for Children collected by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. We'll continue reading stories in this theme next week.

Second grade mathematicians have been working on: even/odd number patterns; doubles, near doubles, 2 apart numbers; place value review work; subtraction strategies; and relating missing addends to subtraction.

We did a few more sound experiments this week--noticing how sound travels, where sound travels, and how sound affects other things. We also learned about bird migration during 4 Winds with Karen and Abby!

We have finished illustrating our next small moment story. We learned that small moment stories are just one kind of narrative. Narratives can be real or made-up. All narratives have a beginning, middle, and end. They all have characters and a setting. Sometimes they have a problem and a solution. We're looking closely at what makes a story a narrative as we get ready to write our own fictional narratives!

On Thursday many kids in our class were having a very interesting conversation about where words come from and how people understood each other before there were words. Since so many were interested in the topic we made some time on Friday to listen to an episode of the VPR podcast "But Why?: A Podcast For Curious Kids." In case you're also interested, here's a link to the episode and accompanying article: Who Invented Words?


Fox Kits Corner
Here's what's important to us this week:

• We had a good week.
• On Friday, today, we upgraded Om Petalhead. She's our champ in GoNoodle. (We don't really know if it's a girl or a boy champ.)
• We made cards for Veda this week because she's moving to Virginia.
• We had all of our regular specials this week.
• Some people finished writing and/or illustrating small moment books this week. It was great to learn people's stories.
• We watched videos about vibration. We learned that if you make a sound things can move because of the sound.
• We learned that there should be a lot of people a long time ago who invented words. These words have changed over time.
• We got new classroom jobs.
• We rolled a big, giant snowball out at recess.
• In Spanish we highlighted fruit words.
• We had 4 Winds and we studied birds. We played a game about bird migration and how birds might crash into things if there are distracting lights while they migrating.

Dates to Remember
**Wed. December 21 - All School Meeting 9:15-10:00 **date change!
Fri. December 23 - Winter Solstice Celebration (a couple of days after the real Winter Solstice) & Gift Exchange 1:45-3:15
Mon.- Fri. December 26-30 - Holiday Break --No School
Mon. January 2 - 1st day back in the new year