What our Students are Learning

Mrs. Courtot

This week in Math some of the Viking mathematicians started to learn about money and the different values and names of the coins. One group started to learn about adding double digit numbers with the sum being a three or four digit number. They used their place value chart to help them regroup. They played a couple of ten frame games and an addition game , called SPLAT. The Kindergarten group continued to work on adding to five. They also worked on identifying two dimensional and three dimensional shapes. Some of them continued to work on their journals ,writing two sentences and using capital letters and proper punctuation.

Ms Porter

Social Emotional Learning

7/8 – In the past month our focus has been to establish and practice different skills for managing stress and anxiety. We have been learning about the causes of stress, the difference between good and bad stress, and understanding the thought/feeling/behavior loop. As a positive response to stress and anxiety, we continue to learn about the importance of identifying Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) and thinking traps. We have also practiced applying the skill of Cognitive Coping.

5/6 – This past month we have been thinking about and discussing cyber citizenship and what it means to have digital footprint. We have learned about cyber safety and how to keep ourselves safe online. We have also looked at social media and how it impacts our feelings about ourselves.

3/4 – We have been learning about self regulation as well as identifying and practicing different grounding and calming techniques. We have looked at the causes of stress and how stress impacts our health and our ability to function. The class has been able to earn time every week to play a cooperative game in the gym.

1/2 – We have continued learning about what it means to be a Patient Pirate, and practicing self regulation skills. The class has learned about square breathing as a calming technique and plays games every week that give them an opportunity to practice self control.

pk/k – every week we talk about feelings in order to expand our vocabulary and our ability to identify feelings. Every week we read a book that relates in some way to how we experience feelings. We have also been playing games that give us an opportunity to practice controlling our bodies.

Mrs. Ensworth

Morning meeting: K-2  A new chart, “Five Little Trees” was introduced.  What fun to say the specific parts for the trees while holding the decorated trees!  As always, we look for and find words and letter sounds in these poems. We also reviewed ordinal numbers.

Reading ALL levels:  The paper copy of “Five Little Trees” was a delight to fill in missing words and draw the setting, then decorate the five trees.!  We paid particular attention to the punctuation.

Reading: K Our new book this week at Level B was,  “Who Has Whiskers?”  We read words with the short and long vowel a in them, with emphasis on listening to the sound they hear.  We practice Fry words (sight words) weekly. We continued “making words” with individual letter cards.

Reading: 1st grade  This group continues to work with short vowel sounds and some long vowel sounds as well.  The new book introduced was, “The Good Dog.” (Level D). This week we practiced reading words with the short and long /u/ sounds.  We focused on the silent e words which made the /u/ say its name.

Reading: 2nd grade  In this group, we reviewed ang/onk/unk word endings and worked on ank/onk/unk words. The new book this week was “Dinner For Maisy.” (Level H) Students also were introduced to the “gh” sound in words. Depending on where the “gh appeared in the word, determined the sound it made.

Social Studies/Science: 1st/2nd  The unit of study this week focused on Wind: Book 1:  Seed Scatter,  How seeds are lifted and scattered by the wind-The setting was in the Badlands National Park (South Dakota). Book 2:  In Motion, In this book, students learned how wind is created and measured. Anemometer was a new vocabulary word! A wind gust was measured on Mount Washington, (New Hampshire) at 231 miles per hour.  Book 3:  Crafted By The Wind, This book focused on how rocks and landforms are crafted by the wind. A new vocabulary word was “Yardangs.” Yardangs (Rock formations crafted by the wind) are found in deserts. (Gobi Desert in Asia).  Book 4:  A Growing Wind, A fable told by two trees with the moral being that strength is gained through struggle!

End of the Day:  As we wait for buses to be called, students are listening to the story, “My Father’s Dragon.”  We finished book one and each student was given a map of the journey throughout this book.  They then traced the exact journey using words such as East, South, North, West and Islands.  We began book two as the students couldn’t wait until Monday!!

Ms. Julie- Kindergarten Meteorologists have been tracking the temperature throughout our school day, and this week we realized that we need to check (and record) the real feel or the “chill” (windchill) temperature as well. We went from having temps in the 50’s and rain on Monday to 20’s and checking windchill before going out for recess.  In Geodes we have moved into books that are 90-100% decodable, and we are improving our shared reading skills while learning about how people built homes, bathed and prepared meals without all the modern conveniences such as power tools, electricity, plumbing, stores and gas powered vehicles.

K-2 Writing  Kindergarten and First Grade writers continue to practice upper and lowercase letter formation, sentence structure and writing different types of sentences. Second graders have been drafting their own stories, inspired by favorite fairy tales. On Friday K-2 writers sequenced and wrote how to make hot chocolate, which will come in handy on Monday when we celebrate filling our good behavior jar by… making hot chocolate!  During their time together in the afternoons, PK and K singers are rocking and practicing their set list for the concert on Thursday. We have been noticing how it’s getting colder and have been discussing how birds and animals adapt, hibernate or migrate to survive.

 

Mr. Kennerk-Music

We have been rehearsing for the upcoming Holiday Performance on December 15th. There will be classic holiday tunes and some songs we’ve selected from our fall song list.

Mr. Kennerk-Library  Though rehearsals took a bit of library time, we still had some story time:

PK-2 “Merry un-Christmas”

3-4 Norse Myths

5-6 “The Odyssey”

While 7-8 made festive decorations to deck our halls and snowflakes for the library windows!

Mrs. Sproul

3rd grade math  Students worked with adding 3 digit numbers to 3 digit numbers using the standard algorithm. They were assessed on their ability to do this.  We will be starting with subtraction larger numbers.

4th grade math  Students continued working with mixed numbers with adding and subtracting.  This involves regrouping whole numbers into fractions and regrouping fractions to whole numbers.  They were assessed on subtracting mixed numbers.

5th and 6th grade math Students are working with multiplying large numbers.  We started using the box method and then moved to the standard algorithm.  Most of the students made the transition seamlessly because they had a good understanding of why they did the steps they did.  They were assessed on multiplying three digit numbers by two digit numbers.

7th grade math.  We continued our work with a short detour with a refresher on fractions and mixed numbers.  They were assessed on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions.

8th grade math  We worked more with linear equations and learned how to write an equation for a line in slope intercept form.  We also learned what exactly that means.  We talked a lot about what we can tell from the graph of a line.  We also learned how slope is not always positive.  We looked at examples of when slope or rate of change is negative and learned how to graph those.  Students were assessed on graphing lines as well as writing an equation from a graphed line.

Algebra

Students are finishing up with inequalities and looking at graphing systems of inequalities.  They will be taking a test this week over the unit.

 

Ms. Bebell- 7/8 Super Studies

The students showed what they’ve learned about digestion by writing a story this week. They had to imagine they were a kumquat that just had an epic journey through a person’s alimentary canal! At boatbuilding, the students completed a major step for their boat’s construction – they applied a fiberglass coating to the exterior.

5/6 Super Studies  The students learned about the geography of ancient Egypt and how the landscape impacted building techniques. They also checked on the progress of the mummification of their hot dogs and found that they have shrunken and gotten darker and stiffer. After being introduced to hieroglyphics, the students practiced writing their own name and then chose a name for their mummified hot dog and learned how to write that too. During Forest Day, students learned how to identify different types of conifer cones (they aren’t all “pine cones”!) and collected some for an activity we’ll do next week.

3/4 Super Studies  The students started the week by demonstrating their understanding of plant and animal life cycles. Then they started learning about the Wabanaki Confederacy, including the names of the five tribes and what parts of Maine each tribe has been living on for thousands of years. They have also been learning the meanings of Wabanaki words that they hear and use all the time, like Naskeag, Eggemoggin, and Penobscot. During Forest Day, students learned how to identify different types of conifer cones (they aren’t all “pine cones”!) and collected some for an activity we’ll do next week.