End of Year Post

December 22, 2014

I am writing this in between 27 other things… to which I am sure you can relate at this time of the year.  I have started volunteering at a food pantry in my town on Mondays, (now that my children are grown), and it is SO rewarding.  I love it! But this particular Monday was challenging!

A few “nuts & bolts” first…

• Yes, your child is correct, there is no homework tonight!  I did tell them to have an imaginery “Reading Log” in their head all week, and be sure to find a book they really love and look forward to reading.  Family reading nights can be delightful!
• In case you didn’t see the note, please send in a small paper bag tomorrow with a snack for your child.  You can send in a salty snack, a sweet one, a drink, and if possible a can for the Parmenter Food Pantry.  We will deliver them in time for the holiday!
• If anyone would like to co-adopt our class pet, “Sammy Bubbles” (a beta fish) please contact me.  I neglected to find a home so he might spend Christmas in the classroom, with me feeding every couple of days, until I find a “vacation home” for him!

I hope your child enjoyed the ever-so-thoughtful compliments that were given to them by their friends in our class.  I told them it is my favorite activity (right up there with bread baking)!  As I type them up I am almost brought to tears with their specific, sometimes funny, usually right-on descriptions of their peers.  I appreciate all that went into the completion of these, since I know it is a bit time consuming.  I hope it was worth it!

Finally, as 2014 comes to a close I stop to reflect.  It has been a year of making friends, being stretched in our thinking, accomplishing more than we ever thought we could, laughing and singing, and feeling loved by those around us.  In a world of turmoil and uncertainty we must gather our strength and perseverance, and make a difference every day.  I feel blessed that we can do that together, in the lives of these wonderful children. Thank you for your support and dedication!

Class News

December 7. 2014

Brrr!  Winter is definitely upon us!  Please remember to send in hats and mittens with your child… recess can get quite chilly.  We ask them to store items in their pockets or sleeves when they take them off, but they frequently make it on the floor or in the lost and found.  Therefore it is essential to put their names in everything they wear...  I know how costly those items can be.

You will also see a Scholastic Book Order form coming home this week- we hope to get many orders, which result in more reading options for your child and points for more books in the classroom. We are focusing on books in class that have strong characters, because we are starting a new Writing unit on Opinions.  It is fun to see children really engage in the stories through their connections with the characters.  You can discuss this at home too… it helps with Reading Comprehension and inspires great family dialog!

Our math lessons have been on learning to tell time.  I am always so happy when students acquire this skill, because they can become so much more independent.  I can now say things like… “Let’s do a Time-Check…. how many minutes before we have to be in the Library? OK… what do we need to do to get there? Great! Let’s do it!”  You can try this at home.  This is also a great time to think about getting your child a watch or a clock for their bedroom.

Finally, I so appreciate the wonderful compliments that children are writing to the other students in the class.  I see a real appreciation for the gifts that we all bring to the classroom community. I will be creating a little keepsake for each child.  It is one of my favorite activities; you will see why.  Thank you for all of the support and love that you show to your children every day.  Kindness truly does matter!

Class News

November 29, 2014

First, for those of you who celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The cold weather is a good excuse to enjoy cooking, reading, and enjoying family indoors!

On Wednesday the students enjoyed our very special tradition of baking bread for our families.  They read the recipe, used math to measure and count out ingredients, and cooperated with their group to make some delicious loaves. I hope you enjoyed them at home! Here is a link to a cool Slide Show of the activity.

A huge thank you goes out to our room parents, Cinin Syed and Erin Gibbons (Erin provided ALL of the ingredients for 24 mini-loaves!), as well as the parent volunteers: Neha Chaudhry, Eric Bennett, Seta Abrahamian, Kelley Loughran, Christine Roberts and Carla Stafford. I hope you all had as much fun as we did!

We have some very special news... we have officially become a GOLD STAR CLASSROOM! What does this mean? It means we have worked very hard, since September, to build a respectful classroom community where we work hard, make good use of time, and show kindness to one another and the world. The star will be on display outside of our classroom.  We will have to continue this effort in order to keep it!!

Finally, a few other interesting facts about our school life:  We are wrapping up our Personal Narrative writing by publishing our stories (making Final Drafts) and we are sharing them with our class. We will begin a unit on Opinion Writing in December!  We are also beginning a new unit in Math: Fractions and Time , and in Social Studies we have begun our unit on Maps.  Show your child any of the maps you use, in driving, getting around a mall, or looking at the world around us.

Class Update

November 17

I hope you all stayed warm this weekend! As we approach the winter months, please make sure you are sending your child in with all of the outerwear for staying outside 15-20 minutes, twice per day.  Also please label it so we can identify things that appear in the hallway.  We know how expensive this clothing can be!

Speaking of outdoors, we just completed our study of weather, but we will be tracking it all year.  Ask your child about clouds and what kind of weather they bring; talk about the water cycle and why we conserve water, and watch weather forecasts - particularly when storms are approaching.  They love this!

We also just completed our study of Place Value in Math.  I will be posting some good Math Games on our site to help reinforce these skills.  Ask your child to help you count change and add hundreds, tens and ones to keep practicing.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Annie and Liz McQuilkin, and Arpi and Seta Abrahamian, for helping to “put our gardens to bed” this past Thursday.  We rolled up the fencing, pulled up all the plants (including some HUGE carrots!) and put them into the composter, cleared and raked the soil, covered them with shower curtain liners to keep the snow and salt out, and said goodbye and thank you for another year of great harvest.  Watch for notices in the spring of seed planting and LOTS of volunteer opportunities to do with your children!

OTHER VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:

• November 26: You have probably heard that we will be continuing a wonderful second grade activity, baking bread.  We need lots of help- 6 volunteers in the classroom, and many others to collect and send ingredients.  Please sign up on the document that Erin Gibbons sent out if you possibly can help. It is great fun!

• Ongoing:  Math Stations:  We have a wonderful system of meeting the needs of all learners through small group instruction.  I have assistant teachers who help out twice per week, but I need one parent on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays, every week.  If you can volunteer please contact our room parents:  

• Cinin Syed (Amu’s mom) <aamersyed319@gmail.com> and
• Erin Gibbons (Taylor’s mom) <engibbons3@gmail.com>

Class Update

Greetings!

This past week was a busy one for sure!  I hope you enjoyed your Friday Letters.  Please remember they are not edited, so if there are ever any questions please let me know.

We have begun our “Math Shuffle” where students are grouped with others across the grade and meet with their group for 6-8 weeks to focus on a topic.  This session our focus is on math facts to 20… hoping that students use strategies to get better at solving quickly and easily.

On Friday we met with our Buddies (Ms. Aronian’s class) and read our small moment stories to them.  We also played a game called “Buzz”.  It is so much fun for me to see my students from two years ago, and the progress they have made!  We love having buddies.  I will be posting a couple of pictures from the day!

Speaking of our Small Moment stories, they are just about done and ready to edit!  Soon they will be published, read to the class, and will be hanging on the wall in our classroom.  Feel free to help your child continue to think of other “Personal Narrative” stories and put their ideas in their “tiny writers’ notebooks”.  Keep writing, at home and at school!

We are wrapping up our study of Weather, and I have included a couple of links here on the website.  It is fun to watch the weather all year round.  

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES!!  

• First, this Thursday we will be putting the Happy Hollow gardens to bed for the winter.  It is a great way to enjoy the outdoors AND help your child to see the wonder and cycle of backyard gardening. Such a healthy alternative!!  Please check out the Volunteerspot site that the Room Parents have created, or email me with any questions. You could also just show up on November 13 at 3:30. Thank you!!
  

  

• November 26, 8:30 am: You have probably heard that we will be continuing a wonderful second grade activity, baking bread for Thanksgiving.  We need lots of help- 6 volunteers in the classroom, and many others to collect and send ingredients.  Watch for an email from our Room Parents!

Please do not hesitate to contact me anytime with questions. This is truly a wonderful profession and I feel blessed to teach these children!!

Field Trip Summary

We finally made it to the Blue Hills Weather Observatory! That shows what Perseverance can do! We had a great day:

• First we hiked up Blue Hill, starting at the Trailside Museum, where we learned about many animals that live there. On the way our guide told us some facts about the rocks and trees of the Great Blue Hill.  (Ask your child what kind of pine tree we saw, and how they can tell what kind it is!)
• When we got to the top we had a quick lunch, then toured the inside and outside of the Observatory.  The anemometers on the tower we spinning like crazy! We also saw a "Weather Cam" that you can view online!  Here is the link: 
• http://bluehill.org/observatory/webcams/
• Last our class sat in a small room and put together nice strong kites, with the help of our Blue Hills Guide and our Parent Chaperones.  We can't wait to fly them this week!

We will be writing a "Friday Letter" together this week so you can hear about all of the other wonderful things we are doing in Second Grade.  

Dear Parents of Students in Room 6,

There is so much going on in school these days!  We are settling in to routines, completing benchmark testing, and ramping up our learning in all academic areas.

Our first field trip will be this Thursday, October 16 to The Weather Observatory in Milton, MA.  They have a great website so you and your child can read more about it before (or after) the trip.  http://www.bluehill.org/. Fall is a perfect time to go outside and begin observing and talking about weather.  The crisp air and beautiful foliage just draw us to the outdoors!

In Reading we are working on Monitoring for Meaning in our texts, and using Readers’ Theater to practice reading with expression! Soon we will be ready for videotaping our skits!

Second graders are finding wonderful “seed” stories by carrying little notebooks around with them at home and at school, and using these ideas to generate beautiful writing about the small moments in their lives.

Math is all around us!  We see it in the recording of weather, in cooking, time, money and many other places.  We have started the year off with a unit on addition and subtraction, and learned many strategies to perform these operations on small numbers.  Ask your child how they tell odd and even numbers, and quiz them on their doubles facts!

You will be receiving Friday letters approximately every other week, and I hope you enjoy these first efforts at detailed communication.  We will see amazing improvement as the year progresses!

Thank you for all of your support, and I look forward to setting goals for each student during  your child’s fall conference.

Students Explore the Happy Hollow Gardens

In September the students in Room 6 explored our classroom, inside and out!  Here is a picture from the Herb Garden in front of our school, and students smelling the marigolds that are blooming like crazy to help keep critters out of the vegetable gardens: