January 13, 2012




Ms. Jacy, our student teacher

      

Julia Lamorey shared her ukele



  

                                                                                        

 

Dear Parents,

Happy Snowy Friday!  Many of our first and second graders are departing at 1:30 today for their first day of skiing. In order to not have a dozen green Friday Folders blowing across the  hill  at Cochran’s, I’ve decided this week to send home the Friday Folders on Tuesday (No school on Monday). They have done a lot of work, and I don’t want anything to get lost.  

This week, we focused on handwriting, we started a new read-aloud book, The Littles and the Big Storm,  and we predicted that the problem in the story will probably be about  these little people vs. the big people and about  the big storm coming that might put these little people (who are up on the roof) in danger.

We also read from a book written by a 10-year-old from England named Kenneth, called Asperger’s Syndrome, the Universe, and Everything.  Kenneth has Asperger’s Syndrome and he is so smart he is able to describe what it’s like to be him. We have heard about Asperger’s Syndrome, but we’re not sure what it is, so we’re letting Kenneth himself explain it to us.

Reading Logs: thank you, everyone, for getting the reading logs in this week. We thought about the Reading Log question, and we had fun trying to figure out which "favorite childhood books" matched which parents. For example, Julia's mom, Jessica, loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Mitchell's dad, Chris, liked "How to Eat Fried Worms"; Luna's mom, Deborah, loved "A Wrinkle in Time"; Leo's Grandma Pat loved "Uncle Wiggly"; James' mom, Betsey, liked "The Babysitter's Club", and Neil liked Where the Sidewalk Ends"; There were too many great responses to include them  all here, but thanks for responding, parents.

We launched our unit on Mapping, and we are working on a bird’s-eye view of our bedrooms complete with a key and a compass-rose.  It’s hard to draw straight lines.

In Writing, we are proceeding on our non-fiction research using laptops to access Kid-info-bits on the Library link to our school website. That has been fun!

Next week: we will have a guest teacher on Tuesday,  but I will be in Horizon doing mid-year reading assessments.  

One last thing: we ended the week with Horizon Hurrahs in the kiva (ask your child about this), and we sang two songs – Have a Little Peace (written by former students) and All Together Now (written by former parent, songwriter Larry Dubin) in honor of Martin Luther King.

Have a great long weekend, everyone. See you Tuesday

Mr. Bolger

January 6, 2012

January 6, 2012

Dear Parents,

We got off to a fast start in this shortened week.

In Reading, we read a George and Martha book (the two hippos); the students made hand signals to show character, problem, setting and solution each time they heard those features come up.

In Read-Aloud, we read a Nate the Great story as a way of studying how mystery stories are different from other stories (the author tells you a problem, then she drops clues so that you can try to figure out the solution -- just like the main character!) In Nate the Great, Nate's friend, Rosamond, has lost her special box. We don’t yet know who took it, but we -- and Nate the Great -- are hot on the trail.

Ear Plugs: I gave each child a pair of foam ear plugs and a baggy. We put initials on the ear plugs, and we practiced using them to keep things quiet when we are doing our reading and our writing.

Writing: we are starting a non-fiction unit. We’re doing research and learning how to come up with a couple of focus questions. We’re also learning how to find information from the pictures and the captions, the index and the table of contents. Who would have thought that ear plugs could be so exciting?

Social Studies: we will start a unit on mapping next week.

Math: second graders are studying doubles (ex: 4 + 4 + ?) and neighbors (4 + 5 =?) as a way of getting automatic with their addition facts. First graders will start studying penguins on Monday in their new unit on measuring and computation.

Want to add your email to our Friendship List? Thanks for the energetic, positive response, everyone, to our idea of having a class friendship list. I will put pictures on the list too. Several parents have asked that we include emails in our friendship lists. Please let me know by Monday if you want me to NOT include your email when I publish and send out our Class Friendship List.

Have a restful weekend, everyone. Your kids have worked hard this week. Way to go.

Mr. B.