Hello

Hi all,
I hope you are having a fun and restful vacation from school with your family. It is cold outside, but I hope you get a chance to go outside anyways for some winter fun.
I also hope you remember to read.

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

Winter Solstice and Lunar Eclipse tonight

Tonight, or very early tomorrow morning, we will be able to see total lunar eclipse. This lunar eclipse happens to coincide with our Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Please view the video below for a lunar eclipse.

Our Small Moments as MP3 files

The students' Small Moment writing pieces are being recorded this week and some have already been uploaded to our podcasting site (podbean) and to our podcasting library. Here is the direct link to the library.

Our favorite books by Kevin Henkes

4 Winds videos

We had another educational and informative 4 Winds class last week. We learned all about predators and how animals protect themselves and their young in nature. Here are some videos of the students acting out some of these scenarios.

Video Thank You for David Martin

We received a poster story from David Martin and it is very special to us. We will frame it and hang it inside our classroom. As a thank you, the students decided to record a video, which we sent to him. Here it is. They practiced very hard and did an amazing job.

Parent Resources

Dear families,
I just wanted to infor you that i have updated the team wiki for your convenience. many additional links have been added into our "Link Library", where we keep printables for you all.
For math, I have added information regarding Bridges, our new math program regarding expectations for 1st and 2nd grade. This document will be familiar to you as we shared it with you at conference times in November. Click here to access directly.
For Literacy, I have updated our "Word Study" link, with printables sight word ("trick word") lists for 1st and 2nd grade. Dolch and Frye lists are added for you convenience. Click here to access directly.

Please remember that weekly newsletters contain valuable information on units of study in literacy, mathematics and the sciences. Links are provided so you can "peek" into our learning in the classroom every week as I link to podcasts, videos and digital pictures. If you forget to read or fall behind, please know you can always access our digital portfolio to see what is going on in our classroom. The direct link is www.digitalportfolio2010.pbworks.com. please click here to access directly.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

I cannot believe that we are almost ready for our winter break, but this week is quickly coming to an end. Next week, we only have school until Wednesday, December 22nd. The students return to school again on Monday, January 3rd. The weather is getting colder again, so please make sure your child comes prepared for outdoor recess every day. Warm jackets, snow-pants, boots, hats and gloves will keep our students warm outside. Thank you.

We received a very special package today in our classroom. It was a present from David Martin, the author/illustrator we have been skyping with. He sent us a beautifully illustrated story as a poster. It was signed with a message from him as well. The students decided that we should frame this very special gift, so I will look for a suitable frame so we can display this inside our classroom. The story Mr. Martin sent us is also special to us because he read it aloud to us once. Please visit our classroom to see this special gift. We are busy creating a holiday present for Mr. Martin as well and we hope to finish it tomorrow so I can mail it this week. Ask your child to explain what we are working on.

Next week, Team Harmony will have a Winter/Solstice party before vacation and we have asked parents to bring in treats for each classroom. Thank you, Keri, for organizing this party and thank you all volunteers who so generously donate food, drinks and supplies for our parties.

Reminders and Updates:
• Team Harmony’s field-trip to the Flynn Theater is scheduled for January 25th. We will see “Seussical: The Musical”. We are still missing permission slips for some students so if you find a permission slip inside your child’s Thursday folder this week, please sign it and return it as soon as possible. The students must return these forms before they can go on a field-trip. Thank you for your help.
• Please check the blog, the wikis and the podcasting sites over vacation next week as I hope to communicate with students during vacation. It would be great if your child could post some pictures and share about his/her vacation fun.
• The Blue and Gold newspaper, the school’s newspaper was published a little while ago and features work completed by over 100 students at our two Williston schools. It is linked on the school web-site, but can also be accessed by clicking here. Thank you.

Have a great rest of the week.
Regards,

Marias McCormack

Our New Harmony Sign

 

Our new Harmony sign is up in our team space. Thank you Ms. Beeken for working with our students to finish this great sign. We love it.

Skyping with David Martin again

 

 

We had the wonderful opportunity to skype with the author/illustrator David Martin again. This time, we shared some songs. We sand "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" in both English and Swedish to Mr. Martin and he played us a song on his guitar. He also read some books to us and even showed us illustrations from a book that has not bveen published yet.. It was fantastic. We had our first read aloud on skype too!

VSO Assembly

Our new math movie in 1st Grade

Here is a link for our new math movie. Click here to see the wonderful work created by our 1st grade mathematicians.

More podcasting

We have added many new songs and poems to our podcasting library this week (Click here to access). Every week, we have a job in our classroom to be the podcaster. This person can choose a partner or two to podcast different things to the world. This week our podcaster has chosen to record poems and songs. Please note that published poems cannot be published on our podbean account before permission from the publisher has been granted due to copyright laws. Hence, many times these audio files will only be share inside our classroom or on our kidblog. Please encourage your child to check every day! Most podcasts are also available for RSS feeds on my podbean page at www.mmccormack.podbean.com Click here to access directly. Happy Listening!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

Another great week is almost over. Time flies when you are having fun learning in our 1st and 2nd grade classroom. Learning is taking place in all areas. I hope you see progress in reading, writing and math at home as well as our students become more efficient critical thinkers.

In Reader’s Workshop, the students started their partnerships. In partnership reading, we are very careful to use quiet whisper voices when we share our reading with our partners. We also start by reading quietly to ourselves and use Private Think Time to think about the text before we are ready to share our reading. The students also learned to “Stop and Jot” down their ideas this week. I introduced the concept of a “Reading Pencil” a few weeks ago as the students practiced their reading stamina. A Reading Pencil is simply a regular pencil, but it is easily accessible during the reading process and part of the experience. It allows the students to read and jot down ideas and questions they have throughout their reading. Many times jotting down questions or observations on post-it notes and index cards help us with our comprehension. Please ask your child to explain how jotting down ideas and observations help us understand better.

In Writer’s Workshop, the students continued to explore small moment stories with clear beginning, middle and endings. They used pictures to go along with their writing pieces, clearly connecting the various elements of their stories.

In math, 1st graders recorded their sea star and crab number stories. We used the video camera used for skyping and unfortunately I have not been able to publish it yet as I am trying to compress it. I will share the movie as soon as it is in the right format. The students did a great job sharing their number stories.

The students are busy reading and listening to books written and illustrated by Steven Kellogg. Please note that I have added many new sites to our Team-based Author Web-site lists. Steven Kellogg and David Martin are both there for easy access. We will skype with the author David Martin again this Friday. We will sing the song “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” to him in both English and Swedish. He will also share why one of his books was inspired by a song. We are very excited to have this wonderful opportunity again.

Lastly, as the weather gets colder, please make sure that your child has warm clothing every day as the students have outdoor recess every day. Warm winter jackets, snow pants, gloves and hats are necessary every day so the students can stay warm and healthy. If you wish, your child can keep an extra set of gloves and socks in his/her locker in case they get lost.

Have a happy and great rest of the week!
Regards, Maria

Special Weekly Shares

Saying Good-Bye to Megan

 

 

It was Megan's last day on Friday and our team said good-bye to her in the Kiva. We will miss her very much and wish her the best of luck in the future. Please visit us again, Megan!

Skyping with David Martin

 

 

We had the opportunity to skype with the author/illustrator David Martin last week and here are some pictures for you to enjoy.
We learned so many things from this wonderful person. We learned that he lives in Vermont and has written many books for children. He grew up in New York City and wished to be a dairy farmer when he was young. It takes a long time to write a book, even if it is a short book. Sometimes it can takes months, or even years. He showed us what it looks like when you start writing a book-it looks just like when we write! It starts on paper with a pencil. As the story grows, more pages are added. They can even be taped together.
The students asked questions and even shared some of our books!
We will skype with David Martin again next week. We are going to sing songs together because one of his books was inspired by a song. Please visit our blog again next week for another update . Thank you!

Weekly Update

Dear families,
Can you believe this weather we had yesterday? It was so windy it was very difficult to make it to the buses at dismissal. I also heard from many that getting home was quite challenging, and some even experienced substantial damage to their houses and properties. Our thoughts are with you all and we hope you get a chance to clean up quickly. Being without electricity is quite challenging as well. Challenge your child to think of all the things we rely upon in our daily lives that requires electricity. Also challenge your child to think about all the things we can do without it.

Today, we skyped with the author and illustrator David Martin. He is the author of the "Lucy and Bob" and "Piggy and dad" stories. He has also written countless other books, including "All for Pie and Pie for all" and "Piggy and dad go fishing". The students created their own questions and chatted with David Martin for almost 40 minutes! We had such a great conversation that we decided to do it again next week. Please ask your child what we learned about being an author. Please also ask your child to tell you what David Martin wanted to be as a child (dairy farmer). We also discovered that David Martin lives in the same town as one of our students' uncle! It turns out they do not know each other, but since the town is small, they might run into each other one day!

In math, 1st graders continued working on money and time concepts. They also finished another math story problem book. This book is published and on display inside our classroom. We will video-tape the book shortly so please return for an update and link at a later time.

Our Kevin Henkes author study ended this week. The students ended the unit by voting for their favorite book and writing a small piece on why they picked that book. Our results will be published as a Voicethread shortly, and the link will be provided on this blog. I have also linked many new authors to our team web-site for your convenience. Please click here to access this page where you can link into Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House), Eric Carle and many others.
Our next unit will be on Steven Kellogg, illustrator of hundreds of books for young readers. Steven Kellogg is known for creating very detailed pictures as he "tells stories on paper." The students will use various forms of graphic programs on the computer to tell their own stories. We hope to present some of these to him as I have the opportunity to meet him next week.

Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,

Maria McCormack