Punctuation Takes a Vacation!

During work on writing, writers' workshop, letter writing, and during our phonics instruction, you can hear students in my classroom reminding one another, "don't let your punctuation take a vacation!"  Whether your child is learning about periods, exclamation points, colons, question marks, quotation marks, commas, or apostrophes, students are remembering not to leave these important parts of writing out.  INQUIRE with your child how their work would sound if those marks, "took a vacation."

Flip the Sound

Every day, students are listening to stories and watching me model various reading strategies that are posted on our C.A.F.E. menu.  They are then working independently to practice this strategy in a small group or in their individual reading.  Today, a new strategy was introduced - Flip the Sound.  We use this strategy to help us accurately read words. 

Have you ever taught your child a rule from the English language to then have them point out an example where it doesn’t work?  Many words in the English language don’t follow basic phonics rules.  For example, children learn that ch makes the /ch/ sound we hear in chip.  However, this rule does not apply when decoding the word school.  Children need to be given tools to use when reading so they are not stumped when common rules don’t apply.  Flip the sound is a strategy good readers use when they come to a word that doesn’t sound right or make sense.  Knowing the multiple sounds a letter or letter combination can make and being able to flip the sounds around is an essential skill.

How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1. When your child reads a word incorrectly, wait until he/she gets to the end of the sentence.  Then, stop your child and ask, “Did the word you just read sound right?”  Put your hand palm-down and flip your hand over while saying, “Try flipping the sound.”

2. Remind your child that when good readers use the strategy of flip the sound, they listen for a word they recognize.  They then check to make sure that word makes sense in the sentence.

3. When sounding out words, review the different sounds letters make.  Ask your child, “What other sound could that letter make?”  Encourage your child to use the strategy of flip the sound to try different words until he/she is successful.

4. If your child is still struggling with this strategy, give your child the kinesthetic prompt of flipping over your hand as a quiet reminder to try the strategy.

5. This strategy can be compared to the strategy of cross checking.  Remind your child to look at the word and ask, “Does it look right, does it sound right, does it make sense?”  If it doesn’t sound right, they will then know to flip the sound and try again.


Written by: Allison Behne © www.thedailycafe.com
• Ideas and strategies are taken from: The CAFE Book, written by Gail Boushey & Joan Moser

Bounciness

Students continued to compare the bounciness of different balls today.  As a class, we determined that in order to figure out which ball actually was the"best" we needed to conduct a fair test. The children realized that different variables affected the results from last week's test. Some students had been bouncing on the table, while some on the desk, and some on the carpet. Also, some students were applying more force than one another, and students were dropping the ball from different heights. We concluded that a fair test had to be given to determine which ball actually was the, "best." INQUIRE with your child which variables remained constant. Unlike last week, this time we decided to measure the height each ball goes after the bounce to determine the "best" bouncer as opposed to attempting to count the number of bounces each ball had. The results were recorded on a class graph. We used the results to determine 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.

Fundraiser

The fifth grade teachers and students would like to invite each classroom  to visit the fifth grade wing on Friday, December 9.  The fifth grade students will be hosting a craft fair/bake sale.  Items to be sold will include, (but not limited to), baked goods, popsicle stick baskets, t-shirts, earrings, necklaces, pencil holders, rose pens, duct tape wallets, ribbon barrettes, crayon discs, bookmarks and a used book sale.  Some students will even play their instruments as you shop!  Items will range in price from about 25 cents to $3.50.  All proceeds will go to their Boston trip in the spring.

Publishing Party #2

Before our Thanksgiving break, students from Mrs. Koch's class and our class celebrated the end of their 2nd writing unit.  Students shared their published small moments with peers from the opposite class and enjoyed a snack prepared by Mrs. Koch's class.  After the publishing party, students had choice time together.  INQUIRE with your child who their partner was and what their published writing piece was about. These are located in our classroom library for all to enjoy!

Our next writing unit is focused on learning how to write letters. We are integrating this with a focus on feeling thankful and will continue to explore small moments within this unit. This month, all students will be thinking of a special person in their community, home, or school that deserve to be thanked. In this letter, students will be encouraged to add a, "small moment" they've experience with the chosen person. 

This week, we will be exploring a range of texts that include letters in them and taking notice of what is included in these letters.  We will also be doing some interactive and shared writing as a whole class to help us practice the language used in creating a powerful thank-you!  

Helpful Homework Info

The transition from kindergarten to first grade is a big one. While perhaps not as momentous as starting kindergarten, children have a lot to adjust to when starting first grade. First graders often spend more time at school and deal with increased academic demands, especially in terms of homework. That means that, while your kindergartner often had little or no homework, homework expectations for your first grade are ramped up: first grade homework often consists of multiple parts, including language arts, math and independent reading, and teachers may assign homework daily or in weekly packets.

Beginning first graders are sometimes put off by having more homework than they did in kindergarten. While dealing with a more intense academic program during the day, children may not be inspired to do their homework after school, and, homework can become a struggle. But the good news is that parents can help! Use the following tips to help avoid homework battles.

Break homework into small chunks
First graders have already spent all day at school. Make homework more manageable by allowing first graders to do small bits of work at a time. If your child has daily homework, let him take breaks in between each activity. If your child has weekly homework, decide which parts will be completed on each night. Remember to pile on the praise and make your child feel great about all the hard work he is doing!

Work together on homework
Homework is not only a time for first graders to practice what they are learning in school; it’s also a great way for families to communicate about what is going on in their lives. When doing homework, ask your first grader to tell you more about what she is learning in school. Make doing homework a time when you are completely focused on your child: if homework is associated with special family time, your child will come to look forward to it. Focus on what your child does right instead of stressing the mistakes she makes. Try to keep your tone positive and upbeat even if homework becomes a struggle. Homework will just become harder if it becomes a high-stress situation for you and your child.

Be consistent
Find out from your child’s teacher what strategies are being taught at school, then reinforce those strategies at home. For example, if first graders are practicing addition using hands-on manipulatives, find beans or blocks to help your child solve addition problems at home. Whenever possible, use the same language and materials that are being utilized by the school.

Make independent reading engaging
Oftentimes first grade homework includes a requirement to read for a certain amount of time each night. But first graders are often beginning readers and may not yet be able to decode many books independently. If you are reading to your child, ask him to read easily decodable words, or sight words he has learned, in the book. First graders can often decode leveled reading books independently, but many first graders find those books boring compared to those they are used to being read by their parents. If this is the case, write your own easily decodable book for your child to read and illustrate - just get a few pieces of paper out, write the words and have your child read and draw a picture! Some kids become much more inspired to read when reading becomes interactive.

Info written by Lily Jones - www.education.com

First Day Back after Vacation

Today we lirned how to writ a letter. We read Click Clack Moo and learned how the cows and Farmer Brown formed their letter with an opening and closing.  It was Mrs. Vance's last day at morning meeting so we wrote her a thank you note.

Miss Clements, the school's math coach, came to our class to teach us how to play  a game. We practiced counting backwards from 100-0.

We read another book by Cynthia Rylant.  On some pages there were no words so we pretended to be Cynthia Rylant and create words that matched the pictures.  Good readers make sure the words mach the pictures.

we had indoor recess.   

writin by Veronica and Autumn.

Holiday - NO SCHOOL WED, THURS, FRI

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families. Travel safe, eat well, relax, and enjoy time with your family.  See you next week!

N.A.P.

INQUIRE with your child about the plot to the story of the old man and his painted ducks.  This story, told by Mrs. Giffen, explained the day's project...to build a debris hut that could keep someone warm, dry, and protected if ever lost in the woods. The class worked cooperatively in two groups to construct 2 different debris huts in hubbard park.  Prior to building, students set out to find a, "backbone," and then a a sturdy backdrop to place the backbone. Once this was set, the children added the ribs (sticks) and the cover (moss, pine needles, ferns, leaves, etc). INQUIRE with your child what their favorite part of the day was. If you have free time over Thanksgiving break, head out on a hike and have your child show you the debris hut they constructed!

The first box is a video...enjoy!

NAP

Don't forget to dress warmly and appropriately for N.A.P. tomorrow morning (Monday, 11/21).  Theresa Giffen will replace Amy tomorrow and teach us how to build debris huts.

http://www.natureskills.com/survival/primitive-shelter/

WELCOME!

Our class community welcomed a new student, Leaf, who is transferring from another classroom to ours on Monday. As a class, we decorated our door and helped him move his belongings into his new space on Friday afternoon and enjoyed some free choice time with him. We are excited to have him and his family join our class community!

Giving Back

The PBIS team is excited to announce that once every class reaches 500 hoots (we've reached this goal as a class), our next all school celebration will focus on giving back to our community. Beginning last Tuesday, November 15th, each class began collecting non-perishable items that will be donated to the Montpelier Food Shelf.  We will collect items until the morning of Friday, December 2nd.  This celebration will help us be mindful our our school rules, which we identify with the CARES acronym: COOPERATION, ASSERTION, RESPONSIBILITY, EMPATHY, and SELF CONTROL.  INQUIRE with your child which CARES rule they are working on as an individual.  

Force and Motion

Students have been exploring balls in a variety of hands on, inquiry based experiments.  This week, students explored the differences between balls of different sizes and materials.  They compared specific properties - size, weight, bounciness, and ability to roll and recorded their results in their journals.  During this process students are being asked a variety of questions and encouraged to raise questions themselves while conducting these experiments.  Some of these questions that guide their learning  in this lesson include: is the bigger ball always the heavier one? what are the balls made of? how do you know?

We also focused this week on the bounciness of different balls  and looked closely at the relationship between the action of the ball and it's physical characteristics.

Birthday Breakfast

It's a joy to have families visit our classroom and help to celebrate the children's birthdays each month. I hope you are enjoying  this time. Thanks to those families who brought in the delicious bagels, fruit salad, and juice and thanks for taking time out of your busy week to share in this celebration.  If you couldn't make it this time, we look forward to having you join us in future breakfasts this year.

Writer's Workshop

We are working on editing our chosen small moments this week so they can be ready to publish by next Tuesday.  Our focus this week has been on readability and what we have learned that can help us ensure our readers can read and understand our story.  Some of these lessons have focused on using resources in our classroom to help us fine tune our best guess spelling - word wall, friends, word book (child dictionaries). We have also been working on going back and making sure we have spaces, are using lower and upper case letters where appropriate, and writing neatly.  To practice this, students have been playing, "detective" and editing my sentences that I 'forgot' to make readable and correct.  Give this sentence to your child and ask them to, "be a detective!"

thE hal wuz a BiG miss?

Floss in Class?

Maybe not, but students are learning about the floss rule this week in spelling. We are learning that when we come to a one syllable word with a short vowel sound in the middle, and the word ends with f, l, or s, we have to double it. We call this letter a bonus letter. INQUIRE with your child how they mark this letter when they are practicing spelling it.  Some common words that follow this pattern are miss, cuff, hill, puff, bill, kiss. We are also learning about the glued sound -all. INQUIRE with your child how they tap words with this sound with their fingers.  Examples to use include: ball, call, tall, mall, etc.

Afterschool NAP

Amy Butler and Zach will be holding an afterschool program this winter for 8 to 12 year olds!

In the same spirit of NAP, we will create a space for children to explore and unwind afterschool, one day a week, for 8 sessions.

 

WINGS  is an afterschool program for children 8 to 12 years old who love to be outdoors. Every WINGS session we will spend time exploring the wintery landscape at NBNC while learning how to take care of ourselves and others! We will also learn how to build and tend fires, construct winter shelters, track animals, eat food we have prepared, sing songs and tell stories. Sounds like fun? We think so too!

For more information please contact NBNC at 229-6206.

www.NorthBranchNatureCenter.org

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving Lunch-Dinner will be held next Wednesday, November 16th at 12:00. All families are welcome to attend. Please let me know if you'd like to attend. I'm trying to figure out space and whether or not we will have the lunch in the cafeteria or the classroom. Thanks for giving me a heads up!

11/11/11

What's a better way to celebrate 11/11/11 than having 11 center time choices all revolving around the number 11!  Throughout the day, students participated in many different movement breaks involving the number 11, read for 11 SILENT minutes, and enjoyed an extended "choice time."  During the choice time, students explored number combinations for the number 11, made pictures with 11 stickers, wrote 11 thank you cards, particpated in a scavenger hunt to find the number 11 - 11 times, and many others. As a finale, we proposed the challenge of dancing to a song with 11 moves. We turned on our favorite, "kids just wanna have fun" and danced the afternoon away.  Mr. Bradley must have heard the music and laughter from afar as he joined us for 11 moves!

4 Winds- WE HAVE THE BEST VOLUNTEERS!

Thanks to Shannon, Heidi, and Amanda for a wonderful, informal, engaging lesson on the life cycle of trees today! (we missed you Heather and Bridget!)   Students learned all about the life cycle of trees while watching a puppet show, slide show, observing rings, creating a tree, and observing the oldest tree in Monteplier (on liberty street). 

Force and Motion - Differences between Balls

(Pictures are blurry from the movement!) 

We have launched our inquiry science study of force and motion. Besides working cooperatively with partners, students are learning to question and wonder why balls move and what the difference between balls are and how they move. Throughout this study, we will pose questions for students to help guide their explorations with a range of balls. This past week, we made blind observations of how a table tennis ball and a rubber ball felt and then explored their movement, making observations by comparing and contrasting their features, sounds, and movement characteristics.

Author Study

One way students are learning to become better and better and better readers and writers is by studying (reading and re-reading together and independently) the writing of important authors. Our visit to the Flynn Theatre to see Henry & Mudge served as the launch of an author study about Cynthia Rylant.

This week her work is helping us notice how she makes her writing easy to read, and how she writes story endings so we can finish our own stories and prepare them for publishing soon!  

INQUIRE with your child what they have learned about Ms. Rylant and her writing so far... a few hints: 

       *Is she a fiction writer or non-fiction writer, or both? 

       *What topics does she like to write about? 

       *Does she write books with humor and feelings? 

       *Can she write picture books only, or does she also write chapter books? 

       *Where does she live?

       *Why does she write?

       *Where does she get ideas for her books?

       * Who lives with her? What do they look like...names? 

       * Which book is your favorite?

After you inquire with your child about Cynthia Rylant, share your responses for all to read in the comments section of this post. I look forward to having you share your conversations with me! 

      
 

Thanksgiving Dinner at UES

UES would like to extend an invitation to all families to join your child for a thanksgiving day 'dinner' during lunchtime next Wednesday, November 16th.  Exact time will be determined but will likely be around our regularly scheduled lunch. 

Tuesday

Screech gave as popsicls! Becose every classroome got at least 100 hoots. Hootrae!

Today we stoutid lerning about Fours and Moushin.

Writin by Autumn and Sarah.

Good-bye!

Our class prepared a surprise good-bye celebration for our friend, Isaac, last Friday. The students presented him with a banner and many cards.  We will surely miss him but hope to see him around town!

NAP

Today we went  to nap at hubrud  park .when we colected stix we went back to our sit spot. then we biult a teepee  wich was fun. we made tea wich was good.  next week we will make a shelter with sticks and leaves.

written by Nora and Kelley-D

Make your own photo slideshow

Force and Motion

In the upcoming weeks, we'll be studying force and motion by doing a variety of experiments using balls and ramps. If you have any recycled tubing or materials to make ramps, please let me know. We are also looking for a variety of balls differing in size and weight.  If you have any that you wouldn't mind clearing out of your house (and don't expect to be returned), I'd appreciate any donations! Some of the objectives covered in this study include but are not limited to:

• observing, using, and comparing different balls.
• By making balls students will learn about materials, size and weight.
• Children explore how balls are affected by gravity, inertia, momentum and friction.
• Children develop and practice observing, exploring materials and phenomena, and organizing, communicating, and applying their experiences.
• Children explore, observe, discover, and describe characteristics and properties of balls and their motion.
• Children predict and experiment, draw initial conclusions, connect ideas and apply their knowledge.

NAP Tomorrow!

PLEASE remember to dress your child appropriately for NAP tomorrow and to make sure they bring a water bottle!  We will begin to learn about how to safely use sticks in preparation for building debris huts. 
http://www.natureskills.com/survival/primitive-shelter/

Students Turn to Post

Today  and yesterday we practist visuowlising. It meens mackeing a moovy in youyr mind.

Today  we aulsoe  choes new  books.becose we wer chalinjing arsvs.

We had art. We  wer macking slipers.


writin by Bryn and Autumn.