Fundations 2 words on the wiki

Dear Families,
I wanted to inform you that I have updated our Word Study printable section on the wiki with Fundations 2 words up until Unit 8. As 2nd graders participate in different spelling groups, I hope these lists will provide additional resources for you all at home. They are voluntary but reflect the work we do together in class.
Here is the link.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
What an eventful week we have had! It is hard to know where to start.

On Tuesday, we had our Math Open House. What an incredible success! Thank you all for showing up and playing games with your children, asking questions about our math program Bridges and attending the meeting in the gym. For those of you who missed it, please know that you are welcome to visit our math classroom anytime. Please contact me via email or phone and we will arrange something. We understand that parents are busy with work commitments and coming in early in the morning is hard. Here are some pictures for you to see from this event.






We also celebrated another school-wide Swarm Party this week. Our pre-schoolers taught us how to dance in the gym. What incredible teachers and role-models they were! We had so much fun together.


We also had a very special surprise visit from Kuwait this week. While we were all dancing in the gym, Alexis's dad "snuck" into our school. Her mother and brother joined our class and showed us how to skype with Kuwait, where Alexis's dad has \been stationed for many months. As the camera zoomed out, we all realized that he was not in Kuwait but at our school! Wow, what a surprise! We learned so many things about Kuwait as well. Ask your child. For example, we learned that it actually can get quite cold there, especially at night. Thank you Sam for allowing us to be part of this special day!





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Lastly, I wanted to inform you all that we started a new reading log this week. On Team Harmony, we will follow the dog-sled race "The Iditarod" for the next few weeks. Information went home with the students today so please read the letters. During this Iditarod unit, students are expected to use the Iditarod Reading Logs instead of the regular Reading Logs in the homework folders. I will pack the new reading logs in the homework folders on Mondays. 3 new Iditarod Reading Logs went home today with your child (if you missed this information, all materials are listed on the wiki, under printables, Literacy). Your child is expected to write about at least 3 books per week (just like before). Throughout this unit, the students were assigned a musher,and we will follow this professional dog-sledder until the end of the race. Your child, however, will earn points and "travel" the Iditarod trail (just like his/her musher) by reading books and writing about them. Since the Iditarod race starts during our vacation, we decided to send home the new reading logs in case your child wishes to start this week. There are 24 check-points in total. Your child does not have to complete 24 reading logs in the next few weeks, but if he/she wishes to read extra and write about the books, we encourage that. The more books your child reads and the more books your child writes about (using the new Iditarod reading log), the farther he/she will travel on the map. There are some special prizes associated with the check-points as well, to encourage your child to read even more. Ask your child to explain.
Today, in the computer lab, the students explored the official web-site about the Iditarod. The address is www.iditarod.com (I would hyper-link it but blogger does not allow it at the monent). Please explore this incredible site together and read along with the Iditarod Race of 2012!
Have a safe and restful vacation. I will miss the kids!
Regards,
Maria

What I did this week

This post was written by Emma:

It was Valentine's Day. We had a party with our friends . We had lots of treats, like lolly pops and lots and lots of candy.
They were good . I loved the cupcakes because they had lots of frosting and sprinkles and lots of hard work . I also loved the cookies because they had lots of hard work in them to . That is what we did this fun good week regards Emma

Valentine's Day Party

Here are some pictures from our fantastic Valentine's Day celebration. Thank you for sending in goodies! We could not have done it without you all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning about Non-Fiction

Thank you Ms. Wentz for teaching us about non-fiction books and for inviting us to the library to play games on the smartboard so we could learn even more together!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

First of all, I want to remind everyone about our school-wide Math Open House, which is taking place next Tuesday at 7:45am-8:30am. Parents and family members are invited to visit their children's math classes to see math materials and math games used in our new math program Bridges. We are very excited about this opportunity to meet with all of you and hope you will stop by. At 8:30am, parents and family members are invited to an open "Questions and Answer" session at the ABS gym, where Caitlin Bianchi, our school math coordinator, will answer any questions you might have about your child's math program. I look forward to seeing you on Tuesday morning but please know that you are always invited to visit our classroom. Just email or call me. We are so fortunate to have so many involved and interested parents in our class and enjoy having you join our class. Thank you for all of your support and all you do to enhance your child's education at ABS.

Our author study on Jan Brett is coming to an end. Throughout this unit, the students have explored Jan Brett's breadth of artisitc talent as we have attempted to make connections between reading, writing and art. By reading her books, the students have carefully studied her illustrations to learn how they themselves, as authors, can extend their stories through detailed illustrations. For example, we learned that we can give hints, or foreshadow, what will happen by creating additional pictures in the margins. We also learned that her stories often include many different animals, always set in a specific setting. As a class, we finished our own interactive story, which we are now illustrating using the online application storyjumper. We have created many storyjumper books in the past, some of which I have shared with you in both hard-cover format but also as an online book format (please scroll down for older posts to see these books). I have set up a class account, which the students access in partnerships. When the book is finished, we will of course share it with you. We also hope to share it with Jan Brett herself. If your child wishes to use storyjumper at home, please let me know and I will help you set up an account. It is easy, but for now, please refrain from using our class account, in case your child remembers the log-in information. Thank you.
Here is a picture of some of the story-quilts we completed in class as we carefully looked at the characters, the setting, the problems and the solutions to Jan Brett's books.

 

This week, the students continued their study of non-fiction elements. We visited the library twice to learn more as Ms. Wentz shared some smartboard tools and interactive games. We had so much fun and many new features of non-fiction books. Ask your child to explain what a heading is. Also ask your child what a caption is, wny glossaries are important and how the index can halp us navigate these types of books.

In math, 1st graders continued their integrated unit of penguins. Students continued to learn about measurements and number sense, through our new games and work places. We hope to share some of these next week at the Math Open House.

Thank you all so much for contributing to our wonderful Valentine's Day party this week. The students had so much fun sharing treats and cards with each other. We also enjoyed special snacks with each other. What a terrific day we had. Thank you all for your generous contributions.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend.
Regards,
Maria

What I did this week

This post was written by Ben:

This week i went to workshops i went to Mrs.Crowly's class. We were split into four groups. We were going to melt ice in a balloon. Our group chose salt, paper, towels.
The whole thing melted.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
What a wonderful week we had!

We celebrated our 100th day of school on Wednesday, February 8th. We started the day with a scavenger hunt. The students were challenged to complete 100 things on their q100th day of school. Some of the things we did were clap our hands 100 times, say hi to a teacher and give a friend a big, friendly smile. I hope you saw these completed scavenger hunts in your child's Thursday folder. Many students also brought in terrific projects from home to share the number 100. We saw incredible creativity. The students displayed their projects at the desks and after our "100th Day Museum" was created, we invited Mrs. Thyng's class to come and visit our display. We also traveled to her classroom and saw all the incredible projects her students had completed. Here are some pictures for you to see.

















In math, we also celebrated with special math activities designed around the number 100. Please visit our math blog for more details and pictures. You can click here to access directly. Thank you.

We also had Lindsey's mom, Christine, join our classroom this week for a very special learning activity on money and saving. As many of you might recall, and perhaps you are also participating in, the program entitled "Reading is Investment." (Information about this reading program went home a few weeks ago in the students' folders). Lindsey's mom read two books to us, "The Penny Pot" by Stuart Murphy and "Trouble with money" by Stan and Jan Berenstain. We discussed money, how to spend it wisely and how to save. We also received a brand new Vermont State Quarter. Thank you, Christine! We learned so much.



Have a great rest of the week and weekend,
Maria

Vermont Writes Today

Today, school children and teachers around the state celebrate writing in the annual "7 minute write". The project, sponsored by the Young Writer's Project", celebrates literacy by encouraging school children to stop and write for 7 minutes today. We will do that in the classroom as well. Ask your child today what he/she wrote about, and if you would like, please continue this wonderfully interactive idea, and "stop and write" often!
Click here to access information on Vermont Writes. Thank you!

What we did this week in school

This post was written by Sloane:

What I did this week. We had kiva share and I shared my groundhog and it is made out of a toilet paper roll and popsicle sticks and paper. I colored the toilet paper roll green.



We had a Swarm Party on Thursday and we danced "The Hokey Pokey."

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
This has been another terrific week in our classroom with many new changes in our units of study.
As you know, we ended our unit on the author Helen Lester a couple of weeks ago. We started reading the books written by Jan Brett, an author study that we are doing together with our Blogging Buddies in Ms. Davison's Kindergarten class. While we are reading Jan Brett's books, we are also seeing the connections between reading and writing as we continue to read as writers. In writer's workshop, for example, we are now writing our own "trouble stories" with characters and settings. "Trouble stories" are stories with problems, or challenges, that the characters have to overcome. We are currently writing a story together as a class. It is called "Sara's Backpack." In this story, the main character Sara loses her backpack when she is playing in the snow and three different woodland animals find it. Ask your child to explain more to you. We will certainly share this story with you as soon as it is published.
In math, first graders continued to explore measuring and number sense. Our current unit on penguins allow students to fully see the connections between reading, writing, science and math as we make connections every day together. So far, we have learned about the Rockhopper penguins, the King Penguins, the Little Blue Penguins and the Gentoo penguins. Please visit our math blog for pictures and videos, or click here for our new penguin wiki. Thank you.
Team Harmony started a new science unit this week as well (we will begin our ocean unit later this school year). For the next 4-5 weeks, the students will learn about solids, liquids and gases. Every Thursday afternoon, the students will rotate through the four classrooms on our team to learn about the different characteristics of solids, liquids and gases. For example, in Mrs. Thyng's class, the students learned through experimentation with obleck and in Ms. Crowley's class, the students learned about how solids, such as ice, can turn into a liquid. Ms. Munt and Ms. Benoit's class explored gases through the uses of rice and soda. In my workshop, the students learned about how liquids flow, require a container and how all liquids take the shape of the container they are in. We used jello, among other things, to learn about these properties. Ask your child to explain.









We also had a school-wide Swarm Party today, celebrating our safe, kids and responsible choices. The entire school met in the gym and danced the "Hokey Pokey". He are some pictures and a video from you-tube if you wish to try it at home as well. Click here for the link.




Have a great weekend,

Regards,
Maria