November Recap

The month of November was a hectic one, filled with holidays, parent conferences, Grandfriends' Day and lots of learning packed in. 

Since my last post, we've celebrated Halloween, completed our Leaf Projects, molded and painted our world maps and learned about the first Thanksgiving. 

In math, we've been practicing telling time to the nearest 5 minutes, measuring to the nearest inch and centimeter, and reviewing place value to 1,000. We'll begin our written facts tests when we return from Thanksgiving break. 

Our reading minilessons have focused on inferring as we read. We'll continue this study through the month of December. 

After finishing our spider reports, we began a review of grammar, specifically nouns and verbs. Have you heard the "Verb Rap" yet? We'll be performing it in December at our monthly Shindig. I'll be sure to post a video.

Remember the Square of Life Project? We met several times with our 4th grade friends to compare our squares with one from another state. Each group recorded their comparisons using a venn diagram, then used the PicCollage app to share their results and important pictures. You can view the project on our class site or by visiting the Student Gallery at the Square of Life Project at http://ciese.org/curriculum/squareproj/gallery/

Grandfriends' Day is one of Swasey's best-loved traditions! Our classroom was full of grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, and family friends. Everyone was busy after our Reader's Theater performance, as children and their grandfriends measured out ingredients for a turkey soup mix, played Gobble Bump, played Give a Dog a Bone on the Smartboard, illustrated a square for our Memory Quilt, created a vase of "flowers" and added a poem about grandfriends, and viewed turkey projects. It was a wonderful hour!

Below you'll find the Readers' Theater video "T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving" and a separate slideshow showcasing the month in our classroom.

I hope your family had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Create a digital slideshow

T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving Readers' Theater

Slideshow made with Smilebox

Wonder What We've Been Up To?

The last couple of weeks have been very busy in our classroom! Here are just a few activities that have been keeping us actively learning. 

At the beginning of the month, we welcomed musician Randy Armstrong to our school. His residency began with a whole school concert, where he played a variety of instruments from around the world. We had the opportunity to spend time with him during our regular music class, learning more about these instruments and how to play the drums. Many thanks to the PFG for funding this Artist in Residence Program for our students. 

We are wrapping up our second unit in Math with a test on Friday. In this unit we’ve been reviewing strategies for remembering our math facts, working to explain our thinking in solving math problems, and understanding when the turn-around strategy works. We finished our second week of 2nd Grade Math Skill Building. During this time our whole grade level is on the move. Two days per week, from 2:30-3:00, the children meet in groups with others from all 2nd grades. Depending on the week, they may find themselves with Mrs. Peterson, Mrs. VanderMale, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Swasey,  Mrs. Babcock, or me. Grouping is flexible and based on teacher observations and pretest results. The goal of this time is for all students to advance in their understanding of particular math concepts.  

During reading, we’ve been reading Anansi folk tales which have been a hit! All seem to love the trickster. As we read fiction, we are focusing on identifying story elements and retelling stories. Several students recorded the readers’ theater story, “What a Skunk Needs to Do” after practicing their fluency. You can download it on our class page. 

Believe it or not, the first quarter ends this Friday, October 24th. Parent conferences are planned for Wednesday, November 5 and Wednesday, November 19. I have posted a sign up schedule on Volunteer Spot at: http://vols.pt/JeYirR. I appreciate that many of you need to leave work early or have to coordinate child care in order to attend the conference, and I will be sticking to scheduled appointment times.  I have planned 20 minutes for each conference, so if possible please arrive a few minutes early so that we can begin on time.  If you feel that 20 minutes will not be sufficient to discuss any questions or concerns you may have, please send a note and we can schedule a meeting for a different date.

Just a reminder, the children should be collecting fall leaves as part of their homework. On Thursday, October 30, they should bring in their clean, flattened leaves for a special art project, based on the book Look What I Did With a Leaf. You are welcome to join us from 2:00-3:00 on October 31st to create leaf animals with your child. I’m excited to see the beautiful designs.

Happy birthday wishes go out to Alexa, Mackenzie and Zach who all celebrate October birthdays! 

On Tuesday, October 28, our school is celebrating Book Character Day. Students and staff can dress up as one of their favorite book characters for the day. Hmmm, time to start planning now!

Finally, October 31 is Black and Orange Day at Swasey.

Be sure to bundle up this week, it’s going to get chilly!

Create your own digital slideshow

September News

Our first month of school has quickly passed! We’ve been busy, busy, busy now that we are settled into our classroom routines. Here are a few highlights of our month. 

In Science, we spent time, both indoors and outdoors, with our 4th grade buddies in Mrs. Brown’s class working on the Square of Life Project. First, students gathered to discuss the project guidelines and meet “team” members.  Next, each group staked out a 1-meter square area where they expected to find many living and nonliving things. Then groups returned to trail to observe the squares. Slugs, termites, ants, salamanders, spiders and caterpillars were seen. Finally, we gathered as a group to combine findings and submit our data to the project site. Currently, we are waiting for other project members from around the country to add their data, so we can continue our work by comparing our squares with others in different geographic areas. 

Our Painted Ladies larvae arrived to our room at the beginning of the month, and the caterpillars quickly grew and formed their chrysalides. It was fascinating to observe each stage in their life cycle. The excitement was high as each butterfly emerged and we released it.

Our visit to The Butterfly Place last Friday was wonderful. After viewing a short video, we spent time in the garden where over 400 butterflies are living, along with a few quail and finches! Butterflies landed on our arms, shirts and pants. Outside the garden, there was a case which contained about 50 chrysalises. We also saw many types of larva.  Our day ended with lunch with our friends. Many thanks to Mrs. Hill, Mrs. King, Mrs. Hollister and Mrs. Morgado for chaperoning the trip.

In Math, along with developing our math routines, we’ve been practicing and testing our addition facts. We’ve also started counting mixed coins. Thank you for sending in coins for your child to use during this time. Other lessons involved skip counting, identifying odd and even numbers, and working with number grids. Our first unit test is on Monday. 

We had our first Skype of the year with Mrs. Saykaly’s second grade class in Jones Bridge, GA. Both classes took part in the Oreo Challenge 2014. The children shared the data we collected, and asked and answered questions about our school and state.  We loved learning about each other and have decided our classes will continue to connect with one another throughout the year.

Finally, last week the students took part in our first engineering challenge of the year. The purpose of these challenges is to take advantage of children`s natural curiosity and incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) concepts into our classroom. Additionally, students develop creativity, collaboration, and problem solving-important 21st Century Skills. This month’s challenge was build an apple container that met certain criteria and constraints, in groups of 3 or 4 students. To be considered successful, the container had to: be easy to carry, have a handle, hold 3 or more apples, and be carried ten steps without apples falling to the floor. 

Initially, the children explored the properties of the materials available to use to build the container. Each child sketched multiple plans to share with members of their group. Each group then developed one plan together. On Thursday, teams had 45 minutes to build the container. All groups ran into problems at various stages of building and needed to work together to make adjustments to their plan. Some groups were quickly able to make changes to their plan when presented with a problem, while others chose not to veer from their original plan, even when the same problem persisted, until time was almost out. On Friday afternoon each group tested their container. If the container met the challenge, we continued to add apples until it fell apart. One group’s container held 10 apples! On Monday, we'll debrief, sharing important lessons learned, and identifying what they would do differently if given the opportunity to repeat the challenge. As a teacher, it’s exciting to watch how the children grow as thinkers and collaborators as we work on these challenges each month. 

Please take a few moments to enjoy the slideshow below! 

Free picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Welcome to Our Class Blog!

Our first two weeks of the new school year are behind us, and we are ready for our first five-day week. We have spent lots of time building our classroom community. While some children have old friends in class, many are just getting to know one another. It was fun sharing our “All About Me” bags and learning new things about our classmates. We’ve developed our classroom rules, wrote our hopes and dreams for the year, and are settling in to our daily routines. 

Thank you to the many parents who attended Thursday’s Back to School Night. My presentation from the evening can be viewed on our class website at https://sites.google.com/site/mrsrushiasclassroom/ . If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to contact me.

 A Request From the Office

If you are sending in a note regarding dismissal, absence or other information that needs to be sent to the school office, please include your child's last name on the note. This way the office staff is clear about any changes taking place during the day.

Dinner Conversations 

How often do you ask what your child did at school each day and the response you hear is "I don't know," or "Nothing"? Here are a few questions you can use to spark conversation to find out what's really happening:

• What are your class rules? What is your hope for the school year? 
• Tell me about the caterpillar you are observing. How has it changed in the past week? What is the life cycle of a butterfly? How long do you think it will be until it is a butterfly?
• What makes a book just right for you? 
• Which small moment did you choose to write about? 

Supplies 

Thank you for sending your child in with the many supplies I requested in my back to school letter. Please remember, there are always additional supplies on hand at school. I've been asked to resend the list, along with the request for coins we will be using during math class. Here's the list of what is needed: 

• 3 New Hampshire postcards (We are taking part in a 50 state postcard exchange.)
• ear bud headphones (We have several ipads and computers so it’s helpful to have your own pair. You may bring in a pair of headphones if you find them more comfortable than ear buds.)
• 1 black and white composition book
• a package of Expo-type markers for whiteboards 
• two packs of Post it notes (3” x 3”)
• a pencil case

These coins are kept in a separate container for each child and will be returned home at the end of the year.

*15 pennies  *10 nickels * 12 dimes *7 quarters

We are also in need of some wipes for those quick clean ups. If you send some in, please make sure the wipes do not contain bleach. Thank you!

 Enjoy your week!