What are the students learning…….

Mrs. Courtot

In math this week the Viking mathematicians continued to work on fluency some of us to ten and some to twenty . Some of us worked on those tricky teen numbers and all of us worked on correct number formation. Some of us made our numbers in shaving cream!  We continue to work on our journal work and making capital letters and punctuation at the end of our sentences. We played war with dominos and used a new online math program, Happy Numbers.

Mr. Kennerk

PK/K ART–Students painted with water color over their waxy drawings of a spooky house.

1/2 ART–Students made construction paper bats on Halloween and a waxy leaf form covered with watercolor on Wednesday.

3 – 8 ART–Students finished up a 2 week paper mache project of an autumnal gourd that can be a Thanksgiving centerpiece or, for those who did Jack-o-lanterns, can be a Halloween decoration for years to come.

Mrs. Thalhauser

Prk-K Coming up this week we will be learning the color orange song and designing a dance routine with it.

1-2. This week we will be making snowflakes and and working on how you act in different forms of weather, as well as, putting together a snake dance.

3-4 This week we’re exploring the characterization of farmers and how accents help us convey a character.

5-7 We continue to work on student designed skits. The kids are doing a great job working in groups as well as doing individual projects, learning how to use green screen, and evaluating each performance for quality.

Mrs. Ensworth

Morning meeting: K-2

Two new charts were introduced for November:

1). November by Maurice Sendak

With this poem we reinforced the silent e at the end of a word making the vowel a long vowel sound. as in whale.  We also introduced the new date 11-4-22 as well as, 11/6/22 as well as, Nov. 4, 2022 as well as, November 4, 2022. We sang our months of the year song, popping up on our birthday month.  We also discussed the two holidays in November, Thanksgiving and Veterans Day.

2). Five Fat Turkeys are we…

This song includes contractions which the students are eager to find and point out which two words are being put together. We act this out with 5 turkeys singing the song to the group. The word “five” also has a silent e at the end.  We pay attention to punctuation such as question marks, exclamation points, periods (they don’t always come at the end of the line), and quotation marks.

Also, at morning meeting, we have a message for the day written on the board by a teacher.  The teacher often needs “help” correcting mistakes including spelling and punctuation as well as capitalizations. This is a fun time for K-2 to be together and learn together.

Reading: K

We continue making words that include short vowel sounds.  We review and find punctuation in our stories as we read together.  Students love to read one of their books to the group. We work on reading with expression and fluency. This past week we focused exclusively on the first 20 Fry sight words.  They are making such good progress. Kdg. students were also introduced to the “ing” family.

Reading: 1st grade

Each day we read our leveled books all together or with a partner.  Students enjoy reading aloud to the group.  First graders are learning the first 100 Fry basic sight words.  Some are moving on to the second group of 100 words.

Reading: 2nd grade

This group is moving quickly through their leveled readers.  They are challenging themselves with books that interest them.  At this point, a book that interests them really motivates them.  The books with humor and non-fiction books seem to be the favorites.  Many times these students choose to read from their individual reading bags instead of choosing a book to “look” at. They also did a paper putting the months of the year in order. They are reading the 200-300 Fry basic sight word lists and are so proud of themselves.

Social Studies/Science: 1st/2nd

What a fun week learning about how different animals communicate!  I know many of you were challenged by your child to answer questions about this.  The students were saying that they did not believe that  their parents would know this information.  Don’t feel badly, I didn’t either until I prepared for the lessons the previous weekend!  The students wanted me to give them a test at the end of the week to see if they remembered what they had learned. I hesitated as “test” seemed a little harsh for this grade level.  However, I called it “Show me what you know.”  We did indeed have the test on Friday (You should look for this in their backpacks).  Everyone was so excited and did so well.  I read the questions and all the answers and they circled the answers.  This may become a weekly thing if the students keep insisting on a “test.”  It seems to motivate them and at this point they find it fun.

Ms. Julie

 This week K-2 authors and illustrators continued work on their writing projects they started with Ms. Blake.

During our afternoons together as a PK/K community we have had tears and hurt feelings amongst friends. We are working to give word messages, listen to word messages, and think about how others might feel. One of the ways we have been practicing giving word messages is by role playing situations that frequently occur, with the goal of helping children practice conflict resolution skills while not in conflict. Before asking the students role play, I present a common conflict using puppets, and ask the children to “coach” the puppets on how to resolve the problem.  In Geodes this week, PK/K students practiced identifying characters and settings in books. Characters are who the book is about, and the setting tells where and when the book happens. Students were able to identify characters and settings in their Geodes texts, as well as in favorite read aloud books in our classroom. We finished up Module 1 with the unit Experience Museums, and are moving into Module 2 Once Upon A Farm.

The children are super excited about the Book Fair, which will start on Monday, November 14 with a visit to the transformed Brooklin School library to browse and create wish lists. Mr. Kennerk is with Isle Au Haut students on Tuesdays, so the book fair will not be open for purchases until Wednesday.

Mrs. Eaton

 Pre-K/K: This week we discussed healthy vs unhealthy food choices.  Students shared their favorite “healthy foods” and drew pictures of them.  Students discussed the importance of eating a healthy diet and sorted various foods into either a “healthy” or “unhealthy” category.

1/2-  We continued to talk about the importance of healthy food and students learned that they should be getting 3 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit each day.  We began talking about portion sizes for various food groups.

3/4-  This week we continue to discuss food labels.  Students were taught multiple ways to search food labels including the label on the package or using websites to view product labels.  Students shared their “meals for the day” and we looked at each part of the food labels.

5/6- In class we continued our discussion on food groups and the students that weren’t able to discuss their favorite meal last week had a chance to break them down into food groups this week.  We related each meal to the “My Plate” recommendations and continued to talk about how our daily meals compare.

7/8-  Students finished up their presentations this week! They individually met with me to discuss what parts went well and what parts could have had more content.  Overall 7th & 8th graders put a lot of effort into their mental health disorder presentations!

Mrs. Thoner

 3/4 ELA–Students continued working on identifying and generating common nouns, proper nouns, verbs, adjectives and conjunctions through their written work and through their reading.  Some continue to have difficulty with complete and incomplete sentences, so that will be a focus for this next week.  We have been reading some of Aesop’s Fables and discussing the difference between a fairy tale and a fable.  Both generally have morals or lessons, but fables are more true to animal characteristics.  For example, wolves at the time of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” really did attack flocks of sheep and there had to be someone on hand to keep an eye on them; whereas, the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood” is much more fictionalized – dressing up and having light dialogue with Red.

5/6 ELA–Students are continuing their understanding of different types of figurative language.  Most of them now can discern whether something we read in Chains is an example of simile,  metaphor, or hyperbole.  They are also good at picking out some of the more common idioms, but haven’t had a lot of exposure to others.  Students engage daily in reading the text and working together to interpret some of the more challenging passages.  Each student is curious and engaged, and participate in both the reading and the discussions.

 7/8 ELA– Students have been introduced (more formally) to the concept of formal and informal writing.  We have also worked together on determining what makes a good first sentence for the introductory paragraph based on the specific question or prompt.  Students have also started reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Plus, they continue to impress Ellen Booraem and me with their absolutely fantastic fiction pieces.

Ms. Bebell

 7/8 Super Studies–Students analyzed the data from the state-wide student mock election by making graphs to compare the state results to our school’s results. They also visited the town office where Brooklin Town Clerk Heather Candage showed the students the process for registering and voting and what the poll workers do before, during, and after an election.

In boatbuilding class, students nearly finished planking the boat that they started last year. They worked so well together and had possibly the most efficient and productive boatbuilding class we’ve ever seen!

5/6 Super Studies–The students read about, observed, and made models of different types of clouds this week. These activities reinforce their understanding of the states of matter that water can exist in and how these properties contribute to the water cycle. On Forest Day, the students walked the nature trail and marked places where we will need to add new blazes. Thanks to funding from Downeast Audubon, we will be painting new blazes and trimming some overgrown areas on the trail.

3/4 Super Studies–The students read about the three branches of government and then demonstrated their understanding by making a chart showing the roles and responsibilities of each branch and writing about which branch they would want to work in if they had to choose. We also introduced our next unit by defining what it means for an organism to be alive.

Our Forest Day activity this week was inspired by one student’s interest in the oak leaves she’s been collecting; we found leaves in the woods, cut them in half and glued the half leaves in our nature journals, and then recreated the other half with colored pencils.

Mrs. Sproul

 3rd grade math–Students are continuing their work with area by looking at figures that are not rectangles or squares but rather composite of rectangles and squares.  They are learning to separate the figures and find the areas of the parts then adding them together.  They were assessed on this skill. We also are spending time with math facts.

4th grade math–Students learned about decomposing fractions into a sum of fractions with the same denominator.  They also learned adding fractions using a number line.  They were assessed on both skills.  As always, they continued their work with math facts.

5th and 6th grade math–Students are learning about division of unit fractions by whole numbers.  They were assessed on this skill.  They also continued their work with math facts.

7th grade math–We are spending more time with ratio and proportions to solidify their understanding.  They are doing various activities where they match the graph, with the table and equation.  They are also working with unit rates and using those to determine the varying costs of items.

8th grade math–Students finished up the unit on dilations, similarity and introduction of slope.  They took the unit test on Friday and we will be starting the next unit on linear relationships next week.

Algebra–Students are learning to solve systems of equations by substitution and elimination.  They are learning when they would use the systems and how to set them up as well as how to solve them.  They were assessed on solving them both ways.

Ms. Russell

PreK-K   Demonstrates taking turns and sharing while participating in physical activities. We practiced these skills while playing Freezer and Melter.

Grades 1-4   Demonstrate following directions for safe participation and proper use of equipment (PE)  We have been working on playing the games by the rules and practicing good sportsmanship. We were playing a game called capture the ball.

Grades 5-8   Apply rules and etiquette as an official for physical activities and games. We have been working on playing the games by the rules and including everyone. We have been playing retail detail.

Mrs. Gillen and Ms. Newell

Literacy: This week we focused on the letter “L”, practicing writing the letter with our “wet, dry, try” boards and worksheets. We also did some work with last week’s letter “T”. We played a fun game where we took turns choosing from a variety of items (including a picture of Miss Louanne!) and decided if they should go in the “T” or the “L” basket based on their first letter sound.

Math: We continue to work on counting and recognizing our numbers 1-10. Mrs. Gillen mixed up the 1-10 flash cards but even with them being out of order she hard a hard time “tricking” us. We are also now learning how to write our numbers.

Social/Emotional: This week we are practicing waiting for teacher instruction before we get in line, start our work, transitions, etc.