What are students learning in Ms. Julie’s class?
This week in Pre-K we began exploring Native American folklore with two books:
How Chipmunk got His Stripes and
Thirteen Moons on Turtle’s Back. Students were able to identify that the conversations between chipmunk and bear were fiction, since bears and chipmunks don’t use words like humans! The children enjoyed thinking about and writing/drawing about what animal they might like to be, and loved playing animal charades.
In math we are working to learn number names and the count sequence up to 20, counting to tell the number of objects up to quantities of 10 and counting to answer “how many” questions, and sorting to count the number of objects in each category.
Now is a great time to figure out winter gear that works best for your Pre-K student. Mittens keep all the fingers together, so they feel warmer and most Pre-K kids can get at least one mitten on independently. Many Pre-K students do not have the muscle control/coordination or patience to put on gloves independently. Please practice with your student at home to see which option works best for your child.
What are students learning in Mrs. Baird’s class?
This week in literacy, the kindergarten and first graders wrote out recipes for and made play-doh with Ms. Ellen! First we wrote the recipe as a list, sounding out each of the ingredients and amounts. The next day, we got to go to the kitchen and measure our ingredients and each student got to mix up and take home their own big batch of play-doh!
This week in Math the kindergarten continued to work on addition and ways to make ten. Some of the students worked on subtraction. The first grade started a new unit on story problems and writing equations to go with them. They also played a make ten to add game ,9+7=10+6=16.
What are students learning in Mrs. Hick’s class?
PK – This week we continued work on our song for the holiday show! We are making great progress and are working on making sure that we always sing our best and loudest. We also sang and danced along to some special Thanksgiving-themed songs called “The Turkey Dance” and “10 Little Turkeys”. We continued our study of the steady beat and played freeze dance at the end of class. We had a great class! This week’s Performer of the week is Julian Gellerson-Nellis!
K/1 – This week we continued our work on our song for the holiday show! We are singing it so beautifully and can even sing it without Mrs. Hicks singing with us! We are working on standing straight and tall while we sing and making sure we always sing our best and loudest. We also sang and danced along to some special Thanksgiving-themed songs called “The Turkey Dance” and “10 Little Turkeys”. We practiced the songs that the whole school will sing together in the show and played freeze dance at the end of class. This week’s Performer of the week is Brennan Dearborn!
2/3 – This week we really mastered the Am chord on the Ukulele we are still working on Dm but are making great progress. We practiced singing the song that we will be playing and singing in the Holiday show and did a beautiful job. We are working on making sure we are always holding our Ukulele the right way! We had a great class! This week’s Performer of the week is Caden Gillen!
4/5 – This week we started working on blocking out the show that means we learned where we stand during certain scenes. We talked about where people will enter from and what jobs people will do to help backstage. We practiced the opening song that everyone sings together at the beginning of the show. We had a great class! This week’s Performer of the week is Sienna Russell!
6/7/8 – This week we dug deep with developing our characters and really understanding the feelings that our characters go through in the show. We started blocking the show (that means we learned where we stand during scenes) and have almost made it to the end. We are making tremendous progress. We had a great class! This week’s Performer of the week is Jack Carson!
What are students learning in Ms. Bebell’s class?
6-8 Super Studies
This week, students practiced predicting the genotype and phenotype of the offspring of plants and people by using Punnett squares. They also researched, wrote about and discussed the pros and cons of scientists exploring the possibility of cloning humans.
4/5 Super Studies
This week, students demonstrated their understanding of tides by completing a series of activities, including graphing tide heights, summarizing their reading, drawing diagrams, and reading tide charts. To honor Veterans Day, they watched a short video on the history of the holiday and learned about the Vietnam Memorial and the architect that designed it before helping make a sign to thank Veterans for their service. For Forest Friday, we started exploring the natural materials in the grove by creating our names on the forest floor with sticks, twigs, moss, etc. After that, there were forts to build!
2/3
This week, students demonstrated their understanding of different ways that seeds travel on air, by water, or with animals by writing stories and/or comic strips showing the journey of seeds. To honor Veterans Day, they watched a short video on the history of the holiday and learned about the Vietnam Memorial and the architect that designed it before helping make a sign to thank Veterans for their service. For Forest Friday, the class did a scavenger hunt in the grove, where they looked for objects that start with or look like each letter of the alphabet.
What are students learning in Mrs. Thoner’s class?
2/3 ELA – Students have been reading stories and poems about the four seasons. Many of them have decided they want to visit or live in Iceland. Ask them what they have learned about that island. We have also been reviewing contractions.
4/5 ELA – Students continue to read Bud, Not Buddy. They are writing summaries of each chapter and responding to questions to demonstrate understanding. Ask your child about what is happening in this story.
6-8 ELA – Students have been working on their final project for
A Long Walk to Water. They had three alternatives, and most chose to plan ways to raise money for
waterforsouthsudan.org whi
ch was founded by Salva Dut, the male main character in this book.
2nd grade math – This past week the students finished up the unit on data. We are starting a unit on adding and subtracting within 100. This is a major section of 2nd grade math as the students have to understand place value to be successful with this. Many do not have a solid understanding of place value yet so we will be working with this for a while. Additionally we will continue our work with addition and subtraction with single digits so they can be quicker with double digit numbers. Friday we spent some time reviewing the addition strategies including adding zero, count up 1, count up 2, count up 3, pairs of ten and doubles. The students should memorize the pairs of ten (1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, 4 and 6, and 5 and 5 as well as all the doubles like 2 + 2, and 7+7. These are considered “friendly facts” and once they know these they can figure out many others without having to count. The strategies they are working on are more efficient and often more accurate as they are less likely to make mistakes.
3rd grade math – They continue to work with early multiplication. They are really understanding that multiplication involves groups and size of groups. They worked on how it relates to repeated addition. This week we spent a bit of time working with arrays and how they can be helpful in understanding multiplication. We will be spending a lot of time working with multiplication as it is absolutely vital in upper level math. All too often I have seen middle schoolers struggle because they didn’t grasp multiplication facts and we are working hard to avoid that happening to these students!
4th and 5th grade math – They are continuing their work with fractions. Now that most understand how to determine which fraction is larger, we are working on ordering a bunch of fractions. They have enjoyed doing mystery fractions where they are given a list of fractions. Then they are given clues to figure out which is the mystery fraction. The clue may be – this fraction is less than 1/2 – or – This fraction is greater than 1/2 but less than 1. Right now we are really focusing on practicing ordering fractions as they need a good conceptual understanding of them first. We are doing this through games which they seem to enjoy.
6th grade math – We are finishing up our unit on area and surface area and hopefully will have a test this week. Next we will be starting a unit on ratios. This can be particularly challenging at first so we will be taking it slow. My goal for them is to understand math, not just to get through the curriculum. On Friday we had “fraction friday” where we reviewed some concepts with fractions with the whole 6-8 class. It was nice to work with them all together! Also, I overheard them working in boat building Friday and they were working with scale by drawing and making replicas of boats out of paper! So cool!
7th grade math – We continue to work on ratios using the constant of proportionality. This has been a challenge for them, but I am confident they are turning the corner and will make strides this week. On Friday we had “fraction friday” where we reviewed some concepts with fractions with the whole 6-8 class. It was nice to work with them all together! Also, I overheard them working in boat building Friday and they were working with scale by drawing and making replicas of boats out of paper! So cool!
8th grade math – We worked more with dilations, particularly working on them without grids and then with square grids. This will eventually be moving into work with slope and rate of change. On Friday we had “fraction friday” where we reviewed some concepts with fractions with the whole 6-8 class. It was nice to work with them all together! Also, I overheard them working in boat building Friday and they were working with scale by drawing and making replicas of boats out of paper! So cool!
