This week the K-2 mathematicians have been busy! The First grade group has been working on word problems and the steps to figure out what the problem is asking. The first step is to circle the numbers in the problem and then look for clues, like the words all together or how many are left. The second group continues to work on their story that they are writing with Ms. Blake, The Great Train Adventure. They have worked with money and making change and measuring how tall they are and if they could fit on the train seat or if a part of them would be hanging over the seat. They also did an esti mystery about how many dinosaurs were in a cup. This is an online activity that helps with estimation. The kindergarten group has been working on ways to make ten this week and they played a game called 10 Dot Game that involved Ladybugs and spots. If they picked a 1 they would have to think what do I add to 1 to make 10. If they had a 9 they could put the spot on their ladybug.
Grade 1/2 Groundhogs
Ms. Julie
K-2 students kept a close eye on weather conditions this week in anticipation of Groundhog’s Day and the “super freeze” on Friday into Saturday. Writers edited sentences about Groundhog’s Day by using their best handwriting, proper capitalization, punctuation, and leaving spaces between words. Writers listened to and compared two versions of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and noticed that both stories had the same lesson but each had a different sequence of events and character names. Kindergarten meteorologists have been tracking the outside temperature by visiting the school’s weather station all year; on February 1st we started to record temperature, real-feel (with wind chill), playground conditions, and whether it was an inside or outside recess. PK/K students listened to and discussed two different versions of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and then compared the characters and sequence of events in each. PK/K students learned about groundhogs, shadows and the tradition of pulling Puxatawney Phil out of hibernation to help predict how many more weeks of winter. We still want a good snowy day at school to play and build snow people together, so most of us were super happy to hear we will have six more weeks of winter!
PK/K Groundhogs
Ms. Bebell
7/8 Super Studies
This week, the class learned about fetal development, starting by watching PBS’s Life’s Greatest Miracle. They read about milestones throughout human gestation, wrote summaries, and drew diagrams to show these changes. During boatbuilding, the class continued working on the gunwales, and finally got them glued into place!
5/6 Super Studies
After much trial and error and a wide variety of engineering successes, the class has completed their Rube Goldberg machine! It includes all of the simple machines, and will also be used to demonstrate Newton’s Laws during our next physics unit. On Forest Day, it was perfect conditions for tracking animal prints in the snow, as well as for using ice, snow, and trees to build structures needed to advance the kids’ simulated civilization..
3/4 Super Studies
The students are doing a great job applying their new programming skills to a variety of tasks! They programmed their own Flappy Bird game and then used block coding to control the Sphero Bolt robots and start some more advanced coding with the Scratch programming language. On Forest Day, we had perfect conditions for tracking animal prints in the snow through the woods and on their field. The students tracked rabbits, deer, a fox, and some small rodents.
5/6 3D Cityscapes
Mrs. Sproul
3rd grade math-We have been working on finding the nearest multiples of 10 and 100. This leads the students into rounding but gives them a better conceptual understanding of what rounding is. They have put the numbers on a number line and they can visually see that 93 is closer to 90 then it is to 100. They were assessed on their ability to do this.
4th grade math-We have been working on comparing fractions and decimals and putting them in order. Some are struggling a bit with this and we are using the concept of money and dimes and pennies to help us understand tenths and hundredths. They were assessed on ordering fractions and decimals from least to greatest.
5th and 6th grade math-We have been working on understanding decimals to the thousandths place and rounding them. We have been using a number line so students can visually see that rounding is just figuring out which number is the closest. They were assessed on their ability to round to the nearest thousandths.
7th grade math-This week we worked on two step equations and included a review of working with positive and negative numbers. They are starting to get the hang of it. It is very challenging when first introduced to this topic.
8th grade math-Students were looking at equations to determine if they have one solution, no solution or many solutions. They were also working on solving linear equations including a review of negative numbers. They were assessed on their ability to know how many solutions an equation had.
Algebra -Students started their work with functions this week and learned what exactly a function is. They looked at how far a dog walked when the owner left and determined if it was a function. They also learned how to write functions. They were assessed on their ability to determine if something was a function.
Mrs. Baird
This week in kindergarten literacy, we worked on building words with short vowel sounds a and i. We read a book called “Up in a Tree” and practiced building the sentences from the book. In first grade literacy, we built words with short vowels e and a. We reviewed the books in our book bags and switched the ones that have been checked off with new books at each student’s level. In second grade literacy, we read a new book at a level that stretched their reading skills, called “Aggie at School”. We practiced reading skills such as fluency, and that when reading fluently, they have a better idea of what word may come next while reading. We are beginning to do some writing from this book.
In science and social studies, we wrapped up our unit on powerful forces, which was all about wind and storms, windmills and airplanes. We began a new unit called “Cinderella Stories” that will be all about different fairy tales. We will be doing lots of fun writing activities to go along with this!
Mrs. Thoner
2/3 ELA-Students have been using both print material and internet resources to research a country. They have learned about some of the culture, including foods, clothing, and myths, legends, folk tales, etc. They have also learned about some of the landforms and have used Google Earth to zoom into some of the special places. While doing this, students have taken notes and shared some highlights with each other. The culminating project will be to create a two sided 6″x7″ informational tract.
5/6 ELA-Students are continuing their reading of Gilgamesh. They have also continued working on their independent writing and their group plays.
7/8 ELA-Students are studying the musical, Hamilton in preparation for their trip to Boston in March. The focus has been on facts vs fiction and on vocabulary within the songs. Students also continue to work on their Ellen writing and presenting their pieces to one another for feedback.
Ms. Eaton- Health
Pre-K/Kindergarten- We continued talking about water safety this week. Students are working hard on their bathtub safety books. 1st/2nd- We continued to talk about water safety. Each student drew pictures of themselves following one water safety rule at the beach.
3rd/4th- Students who needed to catch up on our germ unit did and completed their assessment. We finished the unit talking about personal hygiene.
5th/6th- Unfortunately with another delay, 5th & 6th graders missed another health class on Tuesday. We will resume our lesson on food labels on Tuesday.
7th/8th- We are continuing to learn about the MyPlate recommendations put forth by the Department of Agriculture.
Ms. Porter-SEL (social/emotional learning)
5-8 grades:-We discussed the definition of consent and considered the FRIES acronym which helps remind us the consent is Freely given, Reversible, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific. We talked about different situations when consent is needed (signing legal documents, body boundaries, borrowing or using stuff), talked about the age of consent (16 in the state of Maine), and considered scenarios when adults have to make decisions for kids – possibly without consent, but hopefully with assent – for the sake of their health, safety, or education. We watched a number of different videos describing consent.
3/4 grade:
we reviewed the definition of a body boundary, watched videos describing consent, and discussed different scenarios that required consent. The class earned time in the gym learning a new cooperative game.
K-2:
we learned new breathing/centering exercises to help us be the masters of our bodies. We reviewed body boundaries, read a few books and role-played different scenarios requiring consent. We talked about how consent is like permission and permission is part of showing respect.
