This week the Tiger-Ospreys had the opportunity to check out static electricity from a first hand point of view. Check out the Animoto video below-it is a sight to behold!
In reading we have been working on making inferences. I describe this to students by telling them that good authors don’t spell out every last detail for the reader. Instead, readers need to pick up on the hints the authors drop and combine that with their own thinking to infer what is happening in the story. It is a tough skill, but we will work on it for the rest of the year. Next week we have poetry-themed week and we will continue to make inferences when we read poetry.
In math, we finished up unit 9, Multiplication and Division. We will have the unit test on Monday and start the next unit, Measurement and Data, on Tuesday.
We had another busy week. In fact, we were so busy today, we didn’t even get to take our spelling tests! This morning we had an assembly. A trio of amazing brass musicians from the Vermont Symphony Orchestra came and played us some dramatic songs. We continued to experiment and talk about static electricity, we read books and went to the computer lab to write about our field trip from yesterday.
Speaking of our field trip… what a great day. We got up close and personal with chickens, lambs, sheep, and donkeys. We learned how the wool on a sheep’s back can end up as a pair of mittens or a sweater. See if your child can tell you more about the following steps: shearing, washing, drying, carding, spinning, dying, and knitting. Check out the pictures from our day.
On Wednesday we also had a visit from team USA’s National Women’s Hockey Team. They were an inspiring group of ladies that spoke our students about the importance of hard work and dedication. It was quite an honor to have them come to our school and it was nice for our kiddos to hear these important messages from folks that are at the top of their game! Check out the Wordle we created with some of the messages we heard from these dedicated athletes:
Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s class and our class presented their biographies over the last two days. We all learned about some fascinating people along the way. I hope you enjoy a glimpse of what the students did in the short video below:
Today I sent home a permission slip for an upcoming field trip to Shelburne Farms. I am sure all of your kiddos are headed outside to enjoy the weather, so I wanted you to know to check in with them about the permission slip form!
Boy did we have a busy week. All of the Tiger Ospreys worked hard to finish taking notes on their famous person and to turn those notes into a speech, written in the “first-person.” Today we went to the computer lab and used some new technology called Voki to help us revise our work. Students created an avatar and learned to paste part of their speech into the program. Then they could listen to their own speech. They were a blur of technological marvels as they navigated back and forth between their Microsoft Word Programs and Voki, listening to where they needed to make changes and then making them. I have included two Vokis below so you can see how they work. Obviously I gave the kids the freedom to create their avatars as they wanted. Since our purpose was to revise our writing, not to publish them, it didn’t matter to me what their avatars looked like.
I hope your students are having fun working on their costumes and props for their big speeches. Students will come home with the final copies of their speeches on Monday. I suggest they practice 2-4 times per night to become really familiar and comfortable with them. Thank you for supporting your child for this educational and fun project. We have learned a lot about determining what is the most important ideas for a text and using our own words to summarize our learning.
We also continued our study of magnets this week. We wrapped up with some free play time to show off our new learning. Check out the video I put together showing some of the things we learned. Next week we will begin studying static electricity.
We had a great first day back. Lots of kids were excited to share about their vacations, new pets, or great experiences. During math we had some special visitors from Merchants Bank. They were here to talk to us about the importance of saving money. Each student got a folder that they should be bringing home today. We didn’t look at everything in the folder, so you might want to peek at it with your kiddo sometime in the next few days. We talked about strategies for saving money, wants vs. needs, and ways to earn money. We played a fun game that highlighted how saving a few dollars at a time can add up to larger amounts quickly.
Other highlights from our day:
** We started cursive! We won’t spend a ton of time on cursive, but the flow of cursive helps some students with their writing and it is important they learn to read cursive, so we’ll do that by learning to write cursive!
** We started our biography unit today. Each student picked a person to read about and write a speech about as though they are that person. Students will do all of the reading and writing at school, but I sent home a letter today outlining the ways you can help from home. I could tell they were excited to begin because as they started it was so quite you could hear a pin drop.
Here are just a few updates:
*** Please remember to call or email Jeanne in the front office to sign up for a conference. They are scheduled for Tuesday, March 6th from 12:00-8:00 pm. email: Racicotj@csdvt.org phone: 264-5900
*** We are not doing spelling this week. Instead we are focusing on a poetry project. We have learned about quatrains, diamantes, haiku, and acrostic poetry. Now we are putting our poems in PowerPoint presentations while simultaneously working on word processing skills such as cut and paste, click and drag, copy, insert Clip art etc,!
*** I added a link to my web page called APlus math. It is a great site for playing simple games to practic basic math facts. We are all doing subtraction on Xtra Math (unless your student has passed it), but it is important not to forget addition facts. Automaticity at basic arithematic, frees up more of the brain to work on the tougher concepts in math!
We have been learning about the solar system and were thrilled to perform Interplanetary Jammin’ last week. It seems we have some stars right in our very class!
This play was a great opportunity to practice the life skills of working as a team, being prepared, staying focused on the task at hand, practice makes perfect, and knowing when to be big and showy versus letting someone else have a turn to be big and showy!! I was so proud of all of the Tiger-Ospreys as they really pulled together and put on a great show. We hope you enjoyed it!
Our fabulous 4-Winds volunteers were in last week to teach us about different types of precipitation. Students created skits to show how sleet, hail, freezing rain and snow were formed. We also watched a puppet show about the six different kinds of snowflakes. Although we haven’t had much this year, snow was our favorite topic of conversation for the day. We learned that all forms of snowflakes have six sides. We even made our own “stellar” shaped snowflakes. Maybe if we make enough paper flakes, winter will get the hint!!!
January has gotten off to an icy start on the MBS playground. Our kiddos haven’t made it outside all week, but we hope for better next week. Here are some things we have been up to recently:
*** Our study of the Solar System is in full swing. We have some rockets in our classroom, a scale model of the solar system hung in the hallway for all to see, and we have started a tour of the solar system where students are completing small projects to advance their rockets along the planets.
*** In math we have are deeply involved in a geometry unit. We have been learning about the difference between lines, rays, segments, obtuse angles, right angles, acute angles and more. See if your child can tell you the difference between a cute little acute angle (< 90 degrees) and a great BIG OBTUSE angle (> 90 degrees). Also watch out for your child making a ray or a line, they can go right through you and on forever!
*** In reading we have been spending more time with nonfiction reading. We read several articles from Scholastic News and talked about the different features that might be in nonfiction text: captions, maps, diagrams, index, glossaries etc. In particular we spent some time reading and writing about Martin Luther King, Jr. We learned about some heavy duty words and concepts such as civil rights, nonviolient protests, segregation, and equality. We even listened to part of his famous, “I Have a Dream” speech. You may want to talk with your children about these important concepts.
*** Reminders: Recycled Rockets/UFOs/Spaceships are due Tuesday, January 17.
*** February 9th: Our class will perform in an amazing musical – be prepared to be shocked and awed!
The Tiger Ospreys had a fabulous time preparing for and performing the Great Gingerbread Kid Caper! Thanks to all of the families and friends who could make it, or sent in frosting, toppings, drinks, plates, napkins, etc. I hope everyone has a safe, happy vacation, and happy holidays. Ask your friends how they did with the Yankee Swap too!
I am having some technical difficulties getting the video of the performance updated, but check back soon because I will figure this out!
