Mrs. Giammusso's Class: May 2016

Classroom News

Green Up Day:

On Friday, our class we worked with our buddies from Mrs. Shedd's class to "green up" our school grounds. We had fun working together on this special project!

Staff Appreciation Week:

A big thank you to everyone who sent in flowers, notes, and food for the staff breakfast! You brightened my week!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Edith! She won a third place award in the PBS Go Writers Contest for her book, Poems: VT's Five Seasons. Thanks for sharing your beautiful poems and illustrations with us, Edith!

Upcoming Events:

Thursday, May 12th: K-3 Spring Concert 2:30 pm in the EMES gym
You are welcome to join us for this special event!

Tuesdays, May 17th and 31st: E.C.O. Lessons
Please help your child come prepared for an afternoon outdoors.

Monday, May 30th: Memorial Day (No School)

Friday, June 10th: Field Day

Writing Update

Third grade writers will be wrapping up their opinion writing unit this week. Students have been working on creating persuasive pieces that have a clear claim. The claim is then supported with relevant details and evidence. As a class, we have worked on convincing readers which book is the best in this year's Red Clover Award competition, and what Vermont tree is the most noteworthy: the apple, maple or fir.

During the last few weeks of school third grade writers will be working on a traditional literature reading/writing unit. This work will be integrated into library and technology classes with Ms. Arlyn and Mrs. Christy. Students will be writing either an original fairy tale, trickster tale or a "fractured" fairy tale in collaborative teams. The final writing projects/stories will be done on iPads using a storybook creator app. This promises to be a wonderful integrated project!

Second grade writers have continued to work on their opinion writing. The focus for this week has been elaborating by adding specific details and examples for each reason. Students have been thinking about their audience as they write and figuring out evidence that might convince their readers . For most of this opinion writing unit, second graders have focused on writing about books: a favorite book or series, a favorite character, or a favorite part in a book. This week, we started to write about our opinions on a wider variety of topics, such as:

* Which animal makes the best pet?

* If we could pick a super power, what would we chose?

* What is our favorite sport?

* What time should we go to bed?

It is exciting to share our opinions with each other!

Classroom News: E.C.O. Field Trip and Spears Lesson

E.C.O. Trip to the Liebermann's house:

We saw baby goats, chicks, frogs, frog eggs, and insect larva. It was exciting to learn about life cycles for many different animal groups! A big thank you to the Liebermann family for inviting us to visit their home and frog pond!

When we returned to school, students created blog posts on Kidblog telling about a "small moment" from our visit. Check out our blog posts on Kidblog, which can be accessed via the EMES library webpage.

E.C.O. Spears Lesson:

This Tuesday, we participated in an action-packed lesson that focused on forces and motion. First, we played motion tag. Our main lesson activity was spear throwing, which was so much fun! Students worked in teams to figure out the best throwing techniques, take photos on iPads, and record data about the distance of each throw.

Here are some photos from our last two E.C.O. lessons: