Classroom News

Thank you

Thank you to all of the parents that have donated time and/or materials to our Mighty Makers project!  Students are having a blast finishing up the year by making our playground a better place!

Eric Carle as a Mentor

Eric Carle is a prominent children's book author.  Students in the classroom have become acquainted to his work.  This week we learned how Eric makes his painted papers.  On Tuesday, each child demonstrated their new knowledge by making four different types of painted papers (splatter paint, wet on wet, sponge paint and straw blown paint).  Students are now in the process of making stories, just like Eric Carle's.  We have octopus stories, cat and dog stories, spider stories and so much more!  It is great to see students using their imagination to make up their animal/insect themed stories.  When stories are complete, students will use the painted paper that they made earlier in the week to illustrate their stories through collage.  Everyone is extremely excited to see their stories come together!

Enjoying the Sunshine and Practicing our Skills

Important Dates

Mighty Makers Open House: Friday June 3rd at 1:45 

Step Up Day; a visit to First Grade: Monday, June 6th

Last Day of School: 1/2 day June 9th and BBQ (more information to follow)

Classroom News

May Disclaimer

The month of May is an extremely busy time of year in our school.  I will be out of the classroom a handful of days this month for Kindergarten Screening and for assessment days.  I will be testing students on their literacy and math skills in the next couple of weeks. I have been impressed by the skills that they have already shown me. I have seen a lot of improvements and children making tremendous gains throughout the year. Please continue to practice reading with your child at home. Being read to, and listening to your child read, is a crucial piece of the puzzle! 

Literacy and Math

As the Spring testing time quickly approaches, the class has been working vigorously with their sight words, math equations, Writer's Workshop and Daily 5.  We have been meeting with our "Book Buddies" from the second grade to help prepare us to be better readers.  This allows for a broader range of discussion of books and ultimately leads to students challenging one another. 

Science

During the month of May, we will be completing the our Five Senses unit.  Students have been enjoying learning about the sense of sight.  They LOVE to do "eye tests" on the Smart board! 

Tie Dying

Thank you to all of the parent volunteers that came in on Friday to help students tie dye.  It was a wonderful experience for them all and I know that they enjoyed having you here :) 

Classroom News

Maple Sugaring Field Trip

I thought you'd all love to have a glimpse into our adventure at the Audubon in Huntington on Wednesday.  Thank you to Melissa and Tricia for helping us out on our field trip!  

I spy a sugar house!

Going out into the sugar bush to collect sap from the trees.

Pouring our sap into buckets to bring to the sugar house.

Watching Jamie boil the sap.

Jamie is teaching us what a Hydrometer is.  It helps the sugar maker know when the sap has turned into syrup!

Best part of the day...TASTE TEST TIME! 

Of course our day had to end with a game of Duck, Duck Goose!

Ready, Set, Run 2016

I will be helping as a coach for this years Ready, Set, Run program.  I would love to see students in our class sign up for this great program!  It runs from 3:00-4:00 pm every Thursday (except over April break), starting next Thursday, April 7th.  For more information and to sign your child up, please visit: 

http://www.runvermont.org/youth/ready-set-run/

Classroom News

Interruptions/Behavior Update

We have been noticing a significant increase in interruptions during teacher explanations and read aloud's.  We will be conducting an experiment next week where students will be getting a dojo point taken away for interrupting every time it is observed.  I want it to be clear that it does not mean that your child is having a terrible day if you see a lot of red (negative) dojo points.  After conferencing with children, we are hoping it can provide a visual for those children that are having a particularly difficult time controlling their voices and interrupting throughout the day. 

Daily 3 Literacy “Rounds”

This week, students were introduced to a new literacy structure that will be in addition to what we are currently working with.  This structure teaches independence and gives each child the skills they need to create a love of reading and writing.  It currently consists of three tasks (read to self, read to someone and work on writing).  Children work on one of these tasks each “round.”  I spent time in the beginning of the week observing students and keeping track of when there stamina was waning.  This gave me a good idea of how long each round should be.  We are working in 10 minute rounds and after each round, students come back to the rug for a new mini-lesson.  When all children are fully engaged in their task, I am able to pull small groups and work on differentiated reading groups.  It also gives me time to work with students one-on-one, giving them exactly what they need.  Ask your child about Daily 3 and see what he/she says! 

Field Trip Reminder

We will be going to be Audubon Center in Huntington, VT on Wednesday, March 30^th.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately, as I am anticipating that it will be muddy! 

Classroom News

Literacy

This week we our Literacy discussions focused on Circular Stories.  A great example of this is the series “If you give a Pig a Pancake” by Laura Numeroff.  We looked at eight of her books and wrote about them using First, Next, Then, Finally.  These four words give a base for students to start writing at least four sentences in his or her responses.   Students enjoyed writing their own circular stories! I am pushing students to work on the formation of their lowercase letters and proper capitalization while writing during literacy.  It is important that they have substance to their writing, but also that it be legible and begin to look like first grade work!

Recess

Please continue to pack your child with appropriate attire for the day.  The temperature can fluctuate on any given day in our room, so please have them dress in layers! Spring means mud season in Vermont.  Students will continue to go out for recess and will be instructed to stay away from the mud puddles.  I know that wet, muddy clothes are a hassle, so I will work with you to make recess a better experience for us all!

Math

During math we have been continuing to work on addition and subtraction problems.  We learned how to use dominoes to make addition problems and learned a new game called Disappearing and Appearing Train.  This game had students adding and subtracting various numbers from their train.  The object of the game was to be the first one to get to zero! 

Science

As a cumulative project for our Animals in Winter unit, students worked in three rotations to share their knowledge of animals that hibernate, adapt and migrate!  Below are pictures of each station.

Students on BrainPop Jr. learning about how animals migrate, hibernate and camouflage. 

Students making animal tracks.

Students sharing their knowledge of how animals adapt to their environment.

Classroom News

On our very short week back to school we tried to pack in a lot of information and fun activities! 

Hibernation

This week we continued our unit on Animals in Winter by learning about the black bear and other animals that hibernate in the winter time.  A lot of students had great background knowledge of what hibernation means.  Students shared their understanding by making a cave for a hibernating bear!  

Dr. Seuss

We celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday in our class by reading many of his books.  We practice the -at word family after reading Cat in the Hat.  On Friday we read Horton Hears a Who, which went along with the school's monthly theme of acts of kindness!  Students finished the prompt "If I were a Who, I would tell Horton..."  Students wrote thank you notes to Horton and some friends even wrote the word "appreciate," to tell him how thankful they were for saving their lives in the story!