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Friday, March 25, 2016

Classroom News: Happy Spring!

In math, second graders continued learning about two-dimensional shapes.  We read the book Shape Up, which led us through some fun exercises that helped us explore the features of polygons using graph paper, a homemade "angle measurer", and pretzels!  We also worked on Cover and Count sheets where we covered larger shapes using different combinations of pattern blocks.  Very fun!

We have been working with Ms. Arlyn on our KidBlog posts during our Technology Integration times on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Students have been blogging about their animal groups, favorite Red Clover books, and the book The Matchbox Diary.  It is exciting, but challenging to write, revise, and edit a blog post directly on the computer. Soon, we will start commenting on each others' posts.

In literacy, second and third graders read Scholastic News magazines that focused on animal adaptations.  The second grade article focused on adaptations that help snow leopards survive in their habitats. Third graders read about the ways that coyotes have adapted to live in cities.   After reading and answering questions, our whole group talked about the main idea of each article and gave details that supported the main idea.  We also watched a short Scholastic video about adaptations.  

On Tuesday, March 28th, we will have our next E.C.O. lesson.  Please help your child come prepared to spend the afternoon outside.  

Other spring E.C.O. dates are on the following Tuesdays:
March 29th
April 12th
May 3rd
May 17th
May 31st- Final lesson of the year

Please let me know if you are interested in joining us for a lesson.

Thanks to Mrs. DeForge for teaching us about the "eagle cam" that is currently focused on an eagle's nest in Washington, D.C.  There are two newly hatched chicks in the nest who are frequently fed by their mother, First Lady.  We have not seen the father, Mr. President, but one student who checked later on in the day saw him bringing a fish to the nest around 6:00 pm.  If you would like to check out this website at home, here is the link:

Eagle Cam

Thank you to everyone for returning your conference sign-up forms.  I am sending home a conference schedule.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Classroom News: Geometry, BeeBot, Writing Celebration, and E.C.O.

Another busy week in the second and third grade!  On Monday, our second grade class started a new geometry unit with a discussion about the features of two-dimensional shapes.  We talked about the names of various polygons, such as triangles, quadrilaterals, hexagons, and octagons and counted the number of sides, angles, and vertices on each polygon.  This was a great opportunity to talk about the meanings of word parts, such as "tri" and "quad".  Throughout the week, students created shapes on geoboards and sorted polygons based on their number of sides. 

On Friday, we also used our geometry shape cards in a sequencing activity using BeeBot.  Students were given a description of a shape on the mat and then created a short program with a sequence of steps that would lead BeeBot to that location on the mat.  BeeBot also made an appearance during our greeting in morning meeting on Thursday.

On Tuesday, both 2/3 classes went outside for E.C.O. lessons that focused on Becoming Coyotes.  We played a food chain tag game that helped us to understand the relationships between the populations of rabbits and coyotes, as well as the importance of plants in the food chain.  Students worked in groups to create skits that told about events that often happen in coyote's lives, such as the birth of new pups, finding food, or rejoining the pack.  We learned about the many different sounds that coyotes make to communicate with each other.  Then, we moved from the field to the woods for a "coyote scent" game, in which groups hid a "pup" and then used a spray bottle with a balsam or mint scent to mark their path.  Other "coyotes" in our class had to follow the scent to find the pup.

The third graders invited the second grade writing classes to join them for a writing celebration on Wednesday afternoon.  It was a wonderful opportunity for second graders to hear the interesting "expert books" written by their classmates in Mrs, Christy's writing class and to learn about some ways to "lift the level" of their own writing.  

Groups finished performing their animal plays for each other this week.  Each group also led the class in a Moving Through Space movement activity, in which we moved according to the verbs they had selected for their animal group.  We were very busy scurrying, slithering, fluttering, hopping, and moving in many different ways.  Students also worked on their final animal group and adaptation assessment.  I have been so impressed the ways that students have been demonstrating their understanding about animal groups, features, and adaptations through their artistic creations and in writing!

On Friday, I sent home information about our upcoming student led conferences and a sign up sheet. Please return the form or email me with your first choices for times as soon as possible.  I will send a conference confirmation note home by next Friday.


Animal Verbs Movement Activity







Writing Celebration






Math Games and Geometry Sorts





Math with BeeBot


E.C.O. Lesson:  Becoming Coyotes














Sunday, March 13, 2016

Third Grade Writing Info from Mrs. Christy


Third grade writers have completed their informational writing unit.  Students made great progress writing as teachers. An important part of this type of writing development was to organize writing into topics or sections.  Once students determined subtopics, it was important to elaborate with specific details and use text features to help teach their readers even more.  

Third graders continue to need a lot of support in regard to writing conventions.  Although they often know about using capital letters, commas, endings and quotation marks consistency remains challenging.  Students can make great progress with subtle reminders that hold them accountable.

During the next two weeks, we'll be doing a mini-unit on poetry writing.  We'll be looking at many different poetry styles from mentor texts and trying out a variety of formats.  Following that we will begin a very exciting opinion writing unit. This unit will focus on writing persuasive speeches, it is always a really popular one with passionate third graders! 

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Classroom News: Food Drive and Celebration of Learning

Thanks to everyone who was able to visit our classroom for the Celebration of Learning!  It was so wonderful to hear students sharing their learning with their family members and friends.  As we return from vacation, we will be putting the final touches on our scripts and groups will start presenting them to each other. 

Our classroom did an amazing job collecting food for the food drive!  The second grade math class sorted the food we collected and created a word problem to figure out how much food we collected in all.  We discovered that 30 boxes of food + 60 cans + 13 other food items = 103 items of food in all! We also learned that we brought in the most food of any class.  At morning meeting time, we talked about how food drives are an important way for our school community to help others in the East Montpelier community.

A big thank you to everyone who donated food!  Nice work, team!




Flapjack Fundraiser at Morse Farm!



This Sunday, March 6th there will be a Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser at Morse Farm to benefit the E.C.O. program.  Hope to see you there!