Sunday, December 16, 2012

Seal Class Newsletter

We are very excited about the holidays in the Seal Class!  We will be stringing Cheerios and cranberries for our hike in the woods this week as well as lots of other fun holiday projects.  We will also get to watch the Teddybear class put on their musical!


                                                                                           

We are learning about:

  • holidays around the world
  • the sound short u makes in words
  • l blends (pl, bl, sl, cl, fl, gl)
  • how to add details to the illustrations in the stories that we are writing 
  • the story elements of fiction
  • how authors develop the characters in their stories especially in a series 


Some activities we did:

  • compared and contrasted different versions of the Gingerbread Man story
  • explored the character traits of the gingerbread man/boy/baby/girl
  • measured things in our room with nonstandard things (gingerbread men, blocks, shoes)
  • measured items with a traditional ruler
  • played roll a gingerbread man
  • got our scooter license
  • played catch the gingerbread men
  • continued to write our books
  • became guest readers in our own class

Upcoming Events:

December 20 

 Night Tree hike through the SMS woods   We will leave our classroom at 1:30.  We will   have treats to share at the end of the hike.

December 21  

 Pajama Day!!  Have your Seal come dressed in their comfy pjs.  They may bring a special teddy or other friend to share the day.






Friday, December 7, 2012

Early release...

Reminder.. December 12 is an early release day.  The students will be dismissed at 12:50.

Thank you

Thank you all for making our performance incredible!  The children were so excited to perform and we are so proud of them.  
The flowers are beautiful and such a thoughtful treat.

Our next special event will be our annual first grade Night Tree hike.  We will leave our classroom at 1:30 on December 20 to sing carols and take a walk through the SMS woods.  We will decorate a tree for the animals just like the characters in Eve Bunting's book The Night Tree.  Everyone is welcome to join us!  We will come back to our classroom to enjoy hot cocoa and a treat.



Tuesday, December 4, 2012

sneak peek.....

We had our dress rehearsal today for the school and the class was fantastic!  We are so proud of them!






We loved seeing all of the family dolls and learning about the countries that they represent.  What talented families we have in the Seal class!

Ireland

Antarctica

Scotland

Italy and France

Finland

Italy 

Canada

Ireland

Ireland

Ireland

Italy

Poland

Ireland

Poland 

England

Scotland 

Lithuania

Monday, December 3, 2012

November 30 Newsletter

We are learning about:

  • the differences between wants and needs
  • editing our writing for punctuation
  • how authors develop the characters in their stories when they write a series
  • the sound the letter e makes in words like bet, sent, yes and egg
  • increasing our reading stamina
  • stopping and thinking about the books we are reading
  • adding coins together (pennies, nickels and dimes)
  • simple fractions (1/2 and 1/3)                                                            


Some activities we did:

  • practiced for the musical
  • played penny, nickel, dime grab
  • decorated ornaments for our room
  • created winter scenes with pattern block templates
  • wrote about our favorites toys
  • categorized and graphed toys according to whether they had wheels, made noise, cuddled or bounced
  • made suitcases to carry our treasures when we "travel around the world" next week
  • visited the book fair
  • traveled to the Music Hall to see Martha Speaks 
  • compared the character Martha with another dog named Oscar

ipad app:  Spit
Poem of the week:  My Favorite Toys

Upcoming Events:

December 1     8-9:30   Pancake breakfast  in the SMS cafe
December 4    2            This Old Gingerbread House performance for the school
December 5   6:30        This Old Gingerbread House performance for family and friends.
                           
                  We will be joining the 5th grade chorus as they present their holiday concert.  It may be very crowded in the cafe.  You may want to come early to get a good seat!  I will be in the classroom at 6.  Please bring your child to the classroom so that they may  get into their costume and ready for the show.  The children can be picked up in the classroom at the end of the 5th grade production.  We are so looking forward to the show.  It will be a fun filled night!





Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thankful Celebration

We had a lot to be thankful for in the Seal Class. Each student wrote about their friends and what they did that made our class so special.  We shared these at our feast.  We even had a toast!

"I would like to make a toast"





What we want to be when we grow up.....

a doctor

a pastry chef

a librarian 

an astronaut

a veterinarian

a scientist

and Celtics team mates.





Thank you Mr. Rocha for being our mystery reader!

Friday, November 16, 2012

Newsletter November 16

We have been so excited about the Seal Class Musical!  Everyone has their parts and some costume ideas.  If you have any questions regarding your child's costume, please let me know. 
We are also looking for any child sized tool belts that we could borrow.  Thank you!


A copy of your child's report card will be coming home in their folder.  There are no grades for the first quarter.

We are learning about:

  • author's craft and how to use it as a model for our own writing
  • h pals (ch, ph, sh, and th)
  • frames and arrows   
  • retelling                                                                         


                       

Some activities we did:

  • made symmetrical turkeys
  • played Scoot with coins 
  • learned how to connect with the characters in our books
  • began writing across many pages in writer's workshop to make our own books



Thank you in advance for all of the Thanksgiving donations.  I am sure the class will enjoy our "feast".

Upcoming Events:

November 21-23  No School   Thanksgiving recess
November 29        Martha Speaks  Portsmouth Music Hall
December 4          2:00  This Old Gingerbread House  performance for SMS students cafe
December 5          6:30  This Old Gingerbread House performance for families and friends  cafe

Volunteer schedule:
Monday       November 19   Erin Pompeo
Monday       November 26   Chris West
Wednesday  November  28   Claire Ellis and Elisa Barney

Friday          November 30   Kelly Lord (9-10)



Friday, November 9, 2012

The Seal Class is blogging!

We have exciting news... we have officially become bloggers!
Come read all of our adventures as we post throughout the year.

Blogging allows students to publish their work for an authentic audience.

Furthermore, students can explore other Kidblogs and respond with comments or questions. An important thing parents should know about our Kidblog site is that it is totally moderated by me. No post or comment will show up on the site unless I have personally previewed and approved it. An equally important thing for parents to know is that because of the moderation set up, our Kidblog site is visible to everyone. Our students will have a real worldwide audience, and I am sure that comments will be coming in from everywhere. 

Lastly, the students are well aware of their responsibility and safety on the Internet. I could tell from our discussion they know to never use the Internet without permission. Moreover, the students understand they can only use first names in their posts. Again, I will approve all posts and comments for appropriateness and user safety. 

You can access our Kidblog right from our Seal Class bolg. Follow the link to our favorite sights!

The students are so excited to have their very own place to write and have it be read. Please spread the word about our blog to friends and relatives from across the country. This is an opportunity to connect people from all over the world!

November 9, 2012

It was wonderful to meet with so many of you yesterday at our parent/teacher conference.  I am looking forward to continued sharing next week too.


We are learning about:                                                 

  • Veteran's Day
  • spiders
  • telling time to the half hour
  • number bonds
  • fact families
  • blogging
  • the sound short o makes in words like shop, owl and pot
  • how to change our voices to match the characters in our books
  • our nations' symbols


Some activities we did:

  • celebrated Veteran's Day with a whole school morning meeting
  • played what time is it?
  • created November is.. books
  • began practicing for the musical
  • wrote persuasive papers to help decide what parts we wanted in the class play 
  • began looking at different authors to help us with our writing
  • played sight word bingo
  • painted bald eagles


Poem of the Week:  This Pretty Spider

Upcoming Events:
November 12  No School Veteran's Day
November 14  Early Release parent/teacher conferences
November 21-23  No School Thanksgiving recess

December 5   This Old Gingerbread House  Musical  6:30 in the SMS cafe

Highlights from the fall festival