Class News February 8, 2010

Dear Families,

There is so much to do in these next two weeks before our February break! I know I will be seeing many of you over these next two weeks in conferences to discuss your child’s continua and progress in school. This is a great time to see where your child is at and make goals for the rest of the year.

This week students will be bringing in pictures, stickers or magazine cutouts to decorate their new writer’s notebooks. The students are very excited to begin using them in our writer’s workshop. We will begin decorating on Wednesday. I will take pictures of this fun process and put it on the website for viewing.

Speaking of the website, I have recently added pictures of the students’ Native American crafts. The students were very proud to share these with their classmates and have them displayed in the hallway. These crafts will come home before February break.

We have started our Arctic Unit and will be learning about this particular habitat, landforms, animals and the people who are native to this land. We will be going on a field trip this Thursday, the 4^th to the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. We look forward to learning new information to take back with us to school. On Friday, February 5^th we will have artist Kat Gillies in our classroom to instruct the students on creating Arctic animal sculptures. I had sent out a family email on Friday asking if parents were interested in volunteering with this project to let me know by this coming Thursday.

On February 11^th, in the morning anytime between 9-10a.m. I would like to invite parents in to be part of a portfolio celebration. I would like you to have the opportunity to review your child’s portfolio with them. Inside these portfolios you will see pieces of writing, spelling, math and science observations. There will be another portfolio celebration at the end of the year to see even more growth. If you cannot make that time please let me know and we can try to work something else out.

Also on February 11^th, in the afternoon there will be a Valentine Exchange in our classroom for any students interested. I have attached a class list so students can have valentines for each member of our class.

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

Arctic Museum Field Trip Photos February 5, 2010

Please look at our great photos of our Arctic Museum field trip on the page link!

Native American Crafts January 29, 2010

Please check out the page with our great Native American Tribe crafts.

Class News January 17, 2010

Dear Families,

It was great to see everyone return from vacation rested and ready to jump right back into our school routines! The students were excited to share many great things they did over the break and seemed happy to see friendly faces.

This week we finished up our Native American Unit. The students learned about different Native American regions by splitting into four tribes. The students read about the Abenaki, Hopi, Sioux or Nez Perce tribes. Then students from different tribes met in groups to share their learning. We followed that activity by playing a Jeopardy game and creating Tribal crafts. Pictures of these great crafts will be on our website soon and they are hanging in the hallway for all to see!

Next we will be moving into our Arctic Unit next week. Your child will be coming home with many arctic facts to share with you. They will also choose an animal to research and can use home time to help with this project. More to come soon!

As the winter months are upon us please make sure that your child’s name appears on boots, snowpants, etc. It can be quite confusing to match items to owners when so many look alike. Also, feel free to leave an extra pair of shoes at school so your child doesn’t need to bring them back & forth each day.

Our winter conferences will be coming up in the beginning of February. I will send out a notice soon so we can set up a time to review and discuss the continua. This meeting will be parents and myself. I will also be setting up a Portfolio Review time(s) for you to visit our classroom and sit with your child to look over their work so far this year. I like to think of this time as a celebration of how your child is progressing so far this year and to look forward to seeing the portfolio again at the end of the year.

In math we have begun to work on subtracting using the trades-first algorithm in unit 6. We have worked with Base-10 blocks to understand the concept. As homework comes home please let me know of any concerns or questions. We also learned a new game called Double It. This game helps reinforce their quickness at recalling doubles addition facts.

Lastly, I am sending a parents survey along with this newsletter. Each year I like to offer you an opportunity to give me clear feedback on how you think everything is going this year. I will use these surveys to reflect on my teaching practice. I want to thank you in advance for taking the time to help me in this area.

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

Native American Presentation November 23, 2009

Please check out our photos on the Native American Presentation Page to see all the amazing artifacts we learned about with Jean Bissonette!

Publishing Volunteers Needed November 19, 2009

Hello Families,

If anyone is interested in being trained to help with the publishing of student story books, please let me know. The students love to see their stories in print and bound into a book. After being trained (quick process), we can see what times you are available to volunteer with all the wonderful authors in our room.

Thank you for all your support!

Class News November 5, 2009

Room 208 News

 

Dear Families,

We had a great day last Friday by celebrating the pumpkin! All of us arrived at school wearing shades of orange, which brightened the day. We begin by estimating the weight, the circumference and the amount of seeds. After that, weighed and measured the pumpkin and it was 19 pounds and 39 inches around. The students listened to a great book titled, How Many Seeds In A Pumpkin? Then we took a peek and made a new estimate. We charted our guesses and made a pictograph. Students were put into groups and began the messy process of counting seeds. Most groups decided to count by groups of ten. Our pumpkin ended up having 550 seeds! In the afternoon we read more pumpkin books and poems and made pumpkin muffins. Later the students learned about the pumpkin life cycle and created a fun art activity of painted jack-o-lanterns. It was a fun day for everyone and I have included some photos on our class website for all to see!

In math we have been working on unit three, which focuses on telling time and counting money. On the school website there are some great sites under educational resources that reinforce these important math skills.

Also in our science unit of life cycles, we have learning about the life cycles of different plants and animals. We also will focus on what each cycle needs for survival. This unit will be ending soon and we will be moving into our Native American unit soon.

Recently, we finished a great read aloud called, Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry. The students have made great connections to the unique main character, Gooney Bird. She tells amazing, but absolutely true stories. This book has also been great in helping each of the students discover their own stories during writing time. We have begun the next book in the series, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother.

The students are just finishing up their Nonfiction Features books and will be sharing them with each other. We will keep the books a bit longer on the shelves for reading time and then the books will come home for you to enjoy!

See you soon at conferences!

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

 

 

Reminders:

Book Fair (our dates are today and Wednesday): If you would like to send your child with $ to purchase books

Conferences: I am starting to set them up so please return the times/dates slip if you haven’t done so yet.

P.S. A quick request-Mrs. Weir has asked the students to wear clothes that are not their best for this Wednesday’s art class. A messy project will be happening!

 

Pumpkin Day !!! October 30, 2009

What a great day we had today! We started our day with estimating and measuring the weight and the circumference of our pumpkin. Our pumpkin weighed 19 pounds and had a circumference of 39 inches. After we read a fun book called, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Megan McNamara. After our first seed estimate, we took a peek and made a new estimate. After groups decided how to count the seeds (most chose to count by 10’s) and we had fun counting up all those seeds. Our grand total was 550 seeds!!

Later in the day we read more pumpkin books and poems. Then we mixed up ingredients and made our yummy pumpkin muffins. Students brought home the recipe today in their folders.

Later, we learned about the pumpkin life cycle and created an art activity of Jack-o-lanterns! I know the students had just as much fun today as I did. Enjoy!

Class News October 10, 2009

Room 208 News

Dear Families,

We have really jumped right into learning since starting school just over a month ago. We are finishing up our Community Unit this week, but will continue to work and develop our classroom community throughout the year. We enjoyed learning about Yarmouth and it is related to Maine, the U.S., North America, and the World. It was great to see the students making connections about this to their lives. We have been demonstrating our mapping skills and have created maps of the classroom, the garden and part of Main Street from our recent field trip. (pictures on the website)

After going to the apple orchard we were scientists and completed observations and weigh-ins of three different kinds of apples (unpeeled, chopped, and peeled). On the first day the students predicted which kind would lose the most grams of water in a week. They also wrote observations on how the apples looked, smelled and felt. It was great to see the student’s interest and excitement levels rise each day when we weighed the apples. In case you were wondering the chopped apple lost the most water.

Recently in math, we finished our first unit and the students took the unit one assessment. Every time we take an Everday Math assessment I will send home a copy for you to review and check in on your child’s progress and skills. There will always be a letter attached letting you know which problems and secure skills for second grade. If you have any questions, please let me know. In the homework folders you also received a family letter for the next unit, which goes into the more detail about the concepts covered and offers you an answer key for homelinks that I give the students to complete each week.

Spelling was very fun this week because the students became word detectives for a lesson focusing on the consonant digraphs (wh, th, sh, ch). After teaching the lesson I had the students search around the room and locate and record words that contained those digraphs. They were so excited to go letter hunting and asked when we could do that again!

We also played a compound word Pictionary game that the students really enjoyed. Just a quick reminder, please be sure to check your child’s folder on Mondays for our new core words list as well as a list of words to learn from the previous week’s review.

As a way to continue to get to know each other in class, the students will be chosen to have a week “In The Spotlight.” Students will be given a large white poster to use to decorate with pictures, magazine cut-outs, stickers and anything else they want that lets the class know more about each of the students. The poster will be shared with the class Monday of their special week. Then each of the following days, the students will bring in special shares to show the class. If you have any questions, please feel free to send an email or give a call.

Happily Learning,

Chris Wentworth

Our Daily 5: September 30, 2009

• We read The Art Lesson by Tomie de Paola and learned about his life as a little boy.
• In computer, we practiced the program Clicker Paint and created community pictures.
• During math time we played Beat the Calculator and strengthened our fact power skills.
• So far we have learned 10 ways to say good morning in different languages.
• In spelling, we were spelling detectives and found words that had different spelling patterns for the long (e) sound.