Week ending 5/13/16

We've had a great week!  The weather has been nice, the class has been working so well together today and we have finished up some units, such as math for place value…and we started some new ones, such as poetry for reading and writing.
We had an in school creative arts presentation today from the Museum of Science on life cycles.

Here's some things the class wanted to share with you that we learned today at our in school presentation:

• The animal life cycles are not always the same as humans.
• Pine trees, the Sequoia,  start out as seedlings and the grow to pine cones with seeds in it.  
• The Sequoia trees need forest fires for the sap to melt so the seed pods can open up.
• The Sequoia trees could be as large as three blue whales stacked on top of each other, 350 ft. high.
• The life cycle of a reptile is an egg, hatchling, juvenile, and then adult.
• When mammals are born, you can tell it's a bird but maybe not which type of bird it is.  
• Frogs have a big change in their life cycle, metamorphosis.
• The life cycle of a butterfly is an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and then butterfly.  
• The whole group practiced growing as trees too.  
• We saw a reptile, the Chuckwalla.
• We saw the largest living thing…a Sequoia…well, we actually saw a seedling of a Sequoia.
• We also saw Caatinga Horned frog.

Here's some pictures from today's presentation as well:

 Museum of Science Life Cycles presentation

 Chuckwalla lizard

Sequoia seedling

 Practicing growing as a tree.

 Sequoia full size

 Egg stage

 Caterpillar

Chrysalis

 Butterfly

Caatinga Horned Frog

Week ending 4/29/16

We are just about in May!  We have less than 40 days left!  It's amazing how fast time has gone by!  This week has been very busy with practicing money in math, summarizing in reading workshop, learning about the Earth in science, and finishing up our opinion recommendations in writing workshop.
Important information:

• Tuesday the 3rd and the 10th, CAP will be here to present to our class.  Please be sure the permission slip is returned.  
• Thursday, the 5th is an early release day with dismissal at 12:30.  

We had a fabulous visit from our Ghana friends Joe and Vida!  They are fantastic and love to share the history, geography, games, and an idea of what it would be like to be in Ghana for a day!

Important facts we learned about Ghana…

• The capital city is Accra.
•  There are 40 different languages.
• The biggest man-made lake in the world is located there.
• The Northern region is the largest region.
• Aburi - city where you visit after landing and riding a small bus
• Adinkra symbols are important and on the drum we saw today.
• Villages will drum from village to village to send messages.
• Gourds are used to make a variety of items such as bowls, spoons, and games.
• Children in the villages must do their chores before the sun comes up.
• In Ms. Vida's village there is no electricity so the rooster wakes them up!  
• Malls just started being built there in the last 10 years.  
• Students in Ghana wear school uniforms.  
• Kente cloth is important in Ghana culture…but we'll learn more about that in our Ghana unit!

The kids LOVED trying out carrying a baby or the water bowl!

Here's some pics from today:

 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Ask your kids to show you their new dancing moves!

Week ending 4/15/16

We had a fabulous day at the Chinese Cultural Center!  We learned about the Chinese calendar, have a bookmark with our name written in Chinese, made lanterns, put dumplings together, watched Chinese dances, added on an abacus, practiced writing, and learned a bit about Mah-Jong.  

Be sure to ask you child all about it!

Hope everyone has a fabulous vacation!

Here's some pics from today!

Week ending 4/8/16

It's Friday families!  It was so nice to see many of you here this morning with us to read to your child!  Thank you to those of you that welcomed another student to read with you when their family couldn't make it.  Very much appreciate that!

Important information:

• Monday, the 11th, is the first home game for the Red Sox.  If your child has any Red Sox gear, they should wear them to help celebrate!  If not, they can wear red, blue, or white.  If not…now problem!  
• Next Friday, the 15th, is our field trip to the Chinese Cultural Center.  Please be sure your child is on time and ready to go.  Getting a good night's sleep and having a good breakfast can be very helpful! 
• For the field trip…be sure to send your child in with a bag lunch either in a brown paper bag or plastic bag from Shaws or Target, etc.  Please do not send your child in with a regular lunch box to take with us for lunch.  
• You may send your child in with a snack to have when we return from the field trip.  

3, 2, 1 things you need to know about our week…

3 skills we've worked on in math are measuring with a meter stick, a tape measure, and what linear measurement is.  We used students to measure the length of our classroom by laying down head to feet.  We found out that our classroom is 8 kids long!  We also talked about how I could not go to the store and ask for a rug 8 kids long.  They wouldn't know what I meant!  Ask your child why that doesn't work.

2 writing activities we've been working on writing workshop are completing a graphic organizer for our ideas to write a book recommendation.  Some of us are on the next step of beginning our book awards.

1 activity we've learned this week is "Double Double This This".  Ask your child if they remember how to play.

Here's a few pics from this mornings activities….

Week of 3/28/16

Welcome to April!  Even though we had a few nice days this week...it won't feel like April this weekend.  We're moving to the 130th day of school!  It's amazing how fast the year goes.

Important information:

• With the weather changing so quickly these days be sure your child is prepared for outdoor recess.  
• Friday, April 8th is our school's literacy morning beginning at 8:30 in the auditorium and ending in our room about 9:30.  The focus is on building a reading relationship with your child.  
• Our rescheduled field trip to the Chinese Cultural Center is scheduled for Friday, April 15th.  If your child can not attend, please let me know as I'm making groups and planning for the day.  

3, 2, 1 things you should now.  

3 skills we've worked on in math have been naming fractions, recognizing equivalent fractions, and trying our best while taking our time on the math tests.  Overall students did very well!

2 literacy activities we worked on were identifying the moral or lesson in multiple fables and writing our own class fable.

1 thing we did in library was choose books that are just a little bit more challenging  for us so we can use them during our upcoming literacy morning! 

Week ending 3/18/15

Hello families!
I can't believe we are half way through March already and will be in April before we know it!  We've been working hard this week and have been getting into new units.

Important information:

• Monday, March 21, is our field trip to the Chinese Cultural Center.  Please be sure your child is on time for school as we have items to go over before leave.  If you are chaperoning, please refer to the email sent for some other information.   Be sure to send your child in with a brown paper bag lunch, in a plastic bag, or a zip-loc.  They will not be able to bring lunch boxes and there is no lunch there to eat.  
• Friday, March 25, there is no school.
• If you'd like to donate some tissues and paper towels to our classroom...it would be very much appreciated!  

3, 2, 1 things you should know...

3 skills we've worked on in math this week are story problems, mental math, and doubling numbers, as well as challenging ourselves to half the number.

2 facts about China we've been talking about are the population and where China is located.

1 thing we're working on in reading is making inferences from poetry.  

Week ending 3/4/16

Welcome March!
I can't believe we've hit March already and Spring is just around the corner!  We've had a busy week and back in the swing of things since vacation 2 weeks ago.
Important information:

• Thursday, March 10, is an early release day with dismissal at 12:30.  
• Conference information is on Sign Up Genius at the site below.  If you have not signed up yet for one, please do.  
• Conference sign up: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4ea8a928a20-spring

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week...

3 math skills we've worked on were adding numbers easily by finding combinations that added up to familiar numbers (such as 10, 20, etc), solving word problems and identifying if we needed to add or subtract, and quick fact practice of adding three or more numbers.

2 writing activities we completed this week were writing about our favorite special and favorite place.  We have started our opinion unit and will begin writing book and character reviews next week. 

1 special day this week was Wednesday...it was Read Across America week.  We were lucky to have some very special visitors.  On Tuesday, my mom came in and read to our class.  On Friday, my daughter Lily (who had a half day) Face Timed in to read us a story and at the end of the day, my sister-in-law and I shared stories with our class and her Kindergarten class in Upstate NY.  The students loved it all!  

Here's a picture of Lily with her book:

Here's one of my sister-in-law's class reading to us: