We played 'JeopEARTHY' today!

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science came to McGraw today for an assembly. Game show presenter Lynn told all the children they would win a prize - and the prize was KNOWLEDGE. We learned about the systems of the earth, played 'Energy Plinko', and got to watch our friends participate in some FUNNY skits.

What you didn't know is that we have our own WATER MOLECULE dancer in class. He's got quite the moves, don't you think?

'Tis the season that we're busy...

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la...

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! As a reminder, THE CHLDREN DO NOT HAVE SCHOOL ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30! It is a Teacher Collaboration Day.

We are in the midst of probably one of the busiest times in our school year – I cringe to think of everything I’d like to accomplish between now and December 18. In this posting, I’ve tried to let you know about the major projects and activities that will be going on in our classroom. We have lots to learn about in relation to F.O.R.T. and FORT COLLINS’ HISTORY! There are several opportunities for you to spend time with our class and help...we’d love to have you!

With this holiday season, if there is any reason you that you would prefer for your child not to participate in an activity, please let me know. I’d be happy to work with you. As always, please feel free to contact me by phone, note, or email if you have any questions or comments.

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FIELD TRIPS PLANNED…PERMISSION SLIPS DUE BY FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4!

o  Thursday, December 10 – Avery House

We’ll have a guided tour of the Avery House – and learn who Franklin Avery was and how he was an integral part of Fort Collins’ history. The Avery House is a classic Victorian style home that is decorated for the holidays.

o Thursday, 12/17 – City Hall & Austin's American Grill

Our plan is to visit City Hall in the morning.  We will meet with one of the Fort Collins' City Council members.  In years' past, the children have been able to tour the council chambers, as well as have an opportunity to sit (and speak) from the council bench.  It's a rather cool for the children to see where the City Council does their work for our community!

Lunch at Austin's (downtown) will be our Holiday Luncheon in lieu of a party on Friday afternoon. (We’ll still have fun on Friday!) Children are invited to dress their best – we’ll review what it means to use our best manners and basic etiquette for eating in a nice restaurant.  More information to come...

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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!  If you are able to come in to help, please let me know!

o Wednesday, December 2
   Tetrahedron Kites (9:10am - 12noon)

We will be making tetrahedron kites in class.  They are rather complex (as creating them forces the children to use almost EVERY geometry vocabulary word we've learned!) - and the children LOVE them.  If are are able to help at any time during that morning, please let me know.  PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILD PRACTICE TYING TIGHT KNOTS (Just a plain old knot!) AT HOME! 

o Wednesday, December 9
   Graham Cracker Community (9:10am - 12noon)

As our summative assessment, we're having the children create a graham cracker community in class.  We will address the needs of having  residential, rural, recreational, industrial, and commercial areas within our community.  We will then 'build' the City of Fort Carey in our classroom!

We are also in need of some materials for the graham cracker houses. If you are able to donate graham crackers, white frosting, or assorted small candies – we would be grateful!  Some candy ideas...small candy canes, gum drops, red hots, candy corn, M&M’s, jelly beans, etc...or anything leftover from Halloween!

PLEASE SEND MATERIALS TO SCHOOL BY MONDAY, DECEMBER 7 - Then I'll have time to run out and get anything else we may need.  Thank you.

o Wednesday, December 16
   Victorian Christmas (ALL DAY!)

We are going to recreate some of the items that will be on display at the Avery House.  Our Victorian Christmas will include POMANDER BALLS, CORNUCOPIAS, NUT ORNAMENTS, SOLDIERS & ANGELS.

We are in need of the following supplies:
   - small oranges
   - lemons
   - thin ribbon
   - cinnamon
   - whole cloves (LOTS!)
   - used holiday cards
   - wrapping paper scraps
   - assorted small candies
   - walnuts (IN SHELLS!)
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WE ARE THANKFUL...

 ...for the GOLDEN PLUNGER! New to our school this year - the Golden Plunger is awarded to the cleanest classroom.  When a class carries the Golden Plunger through the school - folks are supposed to stop and salute them.We are proud to say we are the first class to have earned the right to carry it TWO WEEKS IN A ROW! Our City Manager is our line leader and gets to carry the plunger proudly.  (We are also thankful that Mrs. Flemister let us spruce up the GP.  Creativity runs rampant in our room!)

...for MRS. LAMONT

We are fortunate to have Mrs. Lamont working with our class during our Literacy block.  Mrs. Lamont teaches 1st grade in the afternoon.  She helps me do small group instruction - so all of our children have direct instructon in reading 1-2 times per day, everyday.  We are able to accomplish A LOT with Mrs. Lamont's help.  She recently celebrated her birthday. We munched on chips & salsa (Her favorite snack!) and shared a birthday book that we made for her.  Talk about HILARIOUS!  The kids had some hysterical things to say.

...for MR.KULOVANY & THE THANKSGIVING POTATOES

Mr. Kulovany (aka as 'Uncle Bob' to short members of my family) came to read Big Bob and the Thanksgiving Potatoes to our class.  It's a silly little book about some 2nd graders who question their teacher about making turkeys as a class project. 

We used the story to help us learn how to do PERSUASIVE writing.  I posed the question - 'Should turkeys be eaten for Thanksgiving?' The children were invited to choose 'yes' or 'no'. We also learned the word of the week - MNEUMONIC.  Our mneumonic was a hand.  Each appendage represented a part of the writing.  We learned it this way:

      - Take A Stand (State your position)

      - Reason 1

      - Reason 2

      - Reason 3

      - Final Plea

It was fascinating to observe the children think through their position.  Many of them changed their minds (one way or the other) when talking through their reasons.  I had a proud teacher moment. :)  We also made our own Thanksgiving potatoes - just to give us a little incentive to do a great job on our writing!

...for EDIBLE TURKEYS

In our quest to learn while having fun - we also made some edible turkeys out of crackers, candy corn, caramels, chocolate kisses, and frosting.  We used this project to help us learn to do EXPOSITORY writing (How-To's).  The children wrote how-to make an edible turkey. Our mneumonic was a staircase - each step is critical or you fall down!   

                                                         

THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS & FAMILIES... Everyday I count my blessings for having such incredible volunteers! This is an extremely busy time of the year – and I am grateful for all of you who have been able to spend some time with us to help us with projects and activities in class!

While I know that it is not possible for all families to volunteer their time (I feel that way with my own son, since I am a teacher and cannot easily leave my classroom to go to his!) – I also appreciate the support many of you give to our class by sending in items needed for our projects! I value your contributions because you help to make it possible for us to have unique experiences that I might not otherwise be able to afford (since we have to multiply everything by 24)! Contrary to popular belief, we have minimal budgets at school ($200 for the entire year!) - and most of the 'extra' materials/resources we need come out of teacher's own pockets.

Every family in our class has really made a difference! Thank you sooooo much for your constant support! I appreciate you!

A Visit from a Spellbinder

Moose Shattuck, a member of the Spellbinder storytelling group, came to visit the 2nd grade today. The children were entertained with riddles and two stories. One story was about a boy from Japan named Goji. There was a moment in the story that Mr. Moose used tension in his voice to build suspense - and if you could have seen how the ENTIRE group of children jumped - you would have had to laugh. I know I did. :) Maybe it was that I was so startled I couldn't do anything but laugh myself?

Joke of the day? What is black and white and read all over? (The answer is SUPPOSED to be 'the newspaper') Answer from the Peanut Gallery? A zebra with a sunburn. :)

In case you weren't sure...

I have a serious soft-spot for thoughtfulness.  When sharing his TTM (Totally Terrific Me) board - Jacob mentioned his mom helped him choose a picture of himself as a little person sitting in a bed of bluebonnets.  It was supposed to remind me of the time that I called Texas home. :)  It was a very sweet moment in his presentation.   (For the record...My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE time in Texas was when the wildflowers were in bloom!)

My daughter and I were FOLSOM PEOPLE for Halloween (Not the Flintsones!).  The Folsom folks were the first inhabitants in the area - at the Lindenmeier site which was slightly north of town.

My 2nd grade teammates and I had a theme going.  We were depicting our history planner - 'COMMUNITIES DEVELOP OVER TIME'.  I was the prehistoric model, then came 'Auntie Stone' from the Boxelder Days (early 1900's), and finally a Birney Car 21 Trolley Conductor from the present time.  Okay, it's true.  We're a little too academic. :)

WHERE WE ARE IN MATH & LITERACY...

It occurred to me that homework tasks are not always indicative of the depth of our lessons in class.  We use our spirals to record many of the skills and strategies we learn in class - and our spirals stay at school.  This post is an effort to help explain the particulars of what the children are learning in both math & reading.

MATH

In the course of our math block, children usually participate in three groups.  We rotate every 25 minutes.  Our rotations include the following groupings:

• Direct instruction (new skill or concept) with Mrs. Carey
• Reteach/review and games with a parent volunteer
• Independent work time (usually Math Journal pages or supplemental practice both written or on the computer)

CURRENT UNIT -  4: Addition & Subtraction

Here are some of the EVERYDAY MATH things we've been working on:

• Change-to-More number stories (addition)
• Parts-and-Total number stories (addition)
• Change-to-Less number stories (subtraction)
• Estimating costs
• Partial Sums algorithm

In addition, we have been learning:

• place value (ones/tens/hundreds place repeats itself after each comma (thousands, millions, billions)
• expanded notation (to the thousands)
• rounding to the nearest 10, 100 (as an aid for estimating)
• using expanded notation to solve 2 & 3-digit addition problems mentally

The PARTIAL SUMS algorithm sometimes causes undue stress amonsgt parents - as the children are learning to add multiple-digit numbers differently than we did. (I'm a perfect example that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks!)  :) PLEASE KNOW that we'll learn the traditional algorithm during the year - but we're going to focus on Partial Sums for now.

Please review the following link for more details about the Partial Sums algorithm.  http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/parents/faq (You need to scroll down quite a bit to get to the information!)

UPCOMING UNITS

• 5: 3-D & 4-D Shapes (Geometry)
• 6:  Whole Number Operations

MY ALL TIME FAVORITES! Unit 5 is essentially Geometry – We are exploring everything that is 2D &3D. Our superintendent has made a plea for teachers to be mindful of ACADEMIC VOCABULARY. This unit lends itself well to do many projects that will help the children REMEMBER all the vocabulary. We will be creating tetrahedron kites in class that will be a fun activity – as well as serve as an assessment of the children’s understandings.

In Unit 6, we will go back to addition & subtraction, but this time we’ll explore how multiplication is a means of REPEATED ADDITION, and division is the inverse operation of multiplication. I’d like to do the ‘Candy Box’ project with the children (It teaches them multiplication through arrays). If you have empty boxes of candy from the holidays that you can send in…please do!

Cause & Effect Chains

We read the story, 'The Paper Crane' by Molly Bang.  The children then created chains that showed the cause & effect relationships within the story.

LITERACY

We use different types of grouping within our Literacy Block.  The children usually move around 3 times per day - and they are with an adult for 2 of the 3 rotations. We rotate amongst the following groups:

• Guided Reading
• Open Court Reading
• Volunteers (skill-based and/or fluency practice)
• Literacy Lab
• Independent Work

Within each grouping, children are instructed in a variety of ways because children have different needs.  All children are taught the same objectives - just at varying levels and paces.  These are some skills & strategies that we've had direct instruction on:

• differences between summarizing and retelling
• using text features with non-fiction reading
• following WRITTEN directions
• using reading strategies (puzzle, running start, missl) to decode unfamiliar words
• self-assessment stategies when using a rubric
• writing a complete sentence (correct grammar, punctuation, & capitalization) with DETAILS
• how to write a friendly letter (We learned a catchy song to help us remember!)
• cause & effect relationships within a story/passage
• answering the question of "WHY?"

Is it really going to be in the mid-70's today?!?

Whew! I thought we had such wild weather in October - but November is proving to be just as crazy.  The children and I have had to have a number of conversations about how the temperature outside can have an effect on our behaviors.  (You would have thought Spring Fever hit our room the other day!)  I say enjoy it now.  We'll be complaining that it's too cold soon enough.

- MCGRAW ABSENCE LINE PHONE NUMBER HAS CHANGED...The new number is 970.488.8336.  Please make a note of this.  Please remember to call in your child's absences & tardies.

- ROTARY READ FORMS DUE NEXT WEDNESDAY, 11/11…This is an OPTIONAL activity. Forms were sent home last week. Children who return their forms are eligible for gift certificates to Barnes & Noble or Reader’s Cove. The Rotary Club sponsors many great programs for children – I’d love to show our support!

- CALENDAR & READING LOG…Please make sure your child’s calendar (which serves as our reading log, as well) remains in their Homework Folder for the entire month. Your child is encouraged to write the number of minutes they read in the corresponding box on the calendar. There are no restrictions on what type (i.e. oral, silent) of reading counts. We will collect these on the last day of each month.

- RETELLING VS. SUMMARIZING…This is a district-wide focus to help strengthen reading comprehension. You can help your child at home by asking them to retell OR summarize a story, passage, or article you read together. Additional information will be sent home soon.

        - RETELLING: A strong retelling basically tells the story from start to finish. These usually give LOTS of details. Retellings occur in sequential order.

        -SUMMARIZING: These are often shorter in length – a strong summary includes: the beginning/middle/end. Summarizing also occurs in sequential order.

- IB PLANNERS - F.O.R.T. & FORT COLLINS' HISTORY…We are in the final stages of our planner on FORT (Families, Organization, Rules, Togetherness) and moving into a favorite – Fort Collins’ History! These two planners are truly interactive, as we take LOTS of field trips as part of the learning experience. We will break from History in January to do ‘Happy Healthy Kids’ – then resume again for the month of February.

     F.O.R.T.  (Families Organization Rules Togetherness)
     Central Idea: People create organizing systems within a community.
     Key Concepts: function, causation, responsibility
     Lines of inquiry:
                  •the reasons people form communities
                  •the need for laws and rules
                  •areas for citizens to live and work

     HISTORY
    Central Idea: Communities develop over time.
    Key Concepts: causation, change, connection, perspective
    Lines of inquiry:
                 •a study of a local community
                 •similarities and differences of two communities
                 •changes in the natural environment of a community

If you have an interest in our planners - and have a lesson or activity you'd like to share, please let me know!  We'd love to have our own family 'experts' come in to share their knowledge with us.

I hope you all have a terrific weekend.  Enjoy the lovely temperatures! :)

HAPPY FALL HARVEST!

After a two-day hiatus from school - the children were bubbling with excitement about our Fall Harvest Day!  It was a fast and furious 6- hours - but in the end, the children had a ball.  They had the opportunity to write scary ghost stories, graph how well their ghosts could spin, and learn how to 'tell a story' without using words by creating a glyph. 

Our first luncheon was a success.  It was a simple meal, though what could be better than food and friends?  My heartfelt thanks to all the families who were able to contribute money or food items for the good of the cause.  We had happy children will full bellies.  It was a lovely time!

Lastly, a HUGE thank you for all the parents who were able to come in to help throughout the day.  I appreciate all of your support!  Your help enables us to have many fun adventures at school!

Who are these people?!?!

Teamwork...it's a beautiful thing. :)

Let's not talk about that cheese...

She's the reigning pretzel queen!

Happy, healthy kids play 'Musical Chairs'!

A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

It was a beautiful day!  It is hard to believe two days later we were under a blanket of snow.

We had the Blues...

...which is far better than H1N1! :)

The Colorado Blues Society and Billy Branch came to our school.

Thank you to the Bohemian Foundation for sponsoring such an amazing opportunity!

Every child in our WHOLE school was provided with a nifty harmonica to play the blues with Mr. Branch.

It's warm now...

...but snow will come again soon. :)

This is a repeat of the email I sent before we got the heavy snow last week.

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If we do get the heavy snow predicted and we still have school, PLEASE make sure your child is dressed appropriately. We will let the children out for recess if the temperature outside is above 15 degrees and the snow is not too wet and heavy. The children's safety if our first priority.

Should we have outdoor recess, children will be allowed to play in the snow if they have on the following:

- snowpants
- snowboots
- gloves/mittens

If your child is going to play in the snow, please make sure they have an additional change of clothing in their backpacks in case they get wet. Sitting in cold, wet/damp clothing makes for uncomfortable children. (Translation: Lots of complaining! :) )

*****

Thanks for helping your child be prepared and comfortable for snow days at school!

I love to hear children sing...

Here we are on the top of Horsetooth Rock. Never known as a quiet bunch - we're singing about the Horsetooth Giant.

The class that wrote this song graduated from high school last spring. (Yes! That makes me feel old!) The song is based on a legend we had read. I went to a number of graduations - and surprisingly, one student remembered the words to it.

Catching up on our year...

These snow days have provided  me some time to get caught up on things for school. :)  Here are some pictures from our school year.  I have a couple of great videos on my Flip camera that I plan to post.  Of course, I left my Flip at school.  Boo.

Our first day in Computer Lab - Mrs. Carey kept talking and talking!

I think I see something...

Digging for 'rocks' in our Rock Cookie activity

Little Shop of Physics came to our school - and we got to try out lots of their experiments!

SNOW DAY - Part 2

Wow.  I can't believe we're going to be out of school again tomorrow.  I didn't venture very far from my front door today - but I can say that the heavy, wet snow must be causing some headaches around the city.

If we are back in school on Friday, we will have our Fall Harvest Day as planned.  Please note the following reminders:

- VOLUNTEERS...If you signed up to volunteer, please arrive at the time you checked.  (I left all of those papers at school - so I won't be able to send reminder notices.  Sorry!)

- LUNCHEON ITEMS...Since we're not in school on Thursday, I will not be able to make sure all food items are accounted for in advance.  PLEASE send your child with his/her requested item.  With all the activities going on, I won't have time to run out for last minute items that people may have forgotten.  Your help to make sure our class has a well-balanced, yummy luncheon is appreciated.

- PARADE & COSTUMES...Your child is invited to bring his/her costume in a clearly labeled bag.  The children will have an opportunity to change into their costumes at 2:10pm.  Please be reminded that weapons are not allowed - even if it's a prop for a costume.  Thank you.

I hope the roads will clear and the snow will stop in time for our Fall Harvest celebration!  I'm sure this will go down as a 'really fun week' for the children! :)

In the slight chance we do not have school tomorrow - please tell your child that we will reschedule for a later date!

SNOW DAY!

Whoo-hoo! Our first snow day! I hope that everyone was notified by the PSD automated phone caller - and no one showed up for school this morning.

As I look out the window, I believe a safe decision was made. "It's beginning to look a lot like winter" (Sorry! I had to do it!) with blustery winds and heavy flakes falling all around.

I hope your children enjoy their day off and have an opportunity to get out and play!