February 11, 2014

Celebrating our 100th Day of  School  by Counting to One Million!

Hello Parents.

As part of our 100th-day celebration, in Second-Grade Math, we challenged ourselves to count to one million. We did it in 40 minutes! (of course we counted by 100s). Each of us wrote the number "100" in every space on a "hundreds" grid (meaning that each of us "counted" to 10,000 for each grid done!)  Then, we worked 'til together we'd made 100 of those "ten-thousand" grids. Finally, 100 ten-thousands  (or ten thousand 100s) brought us to one million. AJ Beverly glued on our  final grid, and we cheered to have counted, finally, to 1,000,000.

We also watched an amazing video called "The powers of 10" Check it out with your child this weekend!

Take care, everyone.

Mr. Bolger

January 27, 2014

Jan 27, 2014

Hello Parents!

In honor, today,  of the snowstorm -- and the great 4-winds lesson this week -- we began our day making and sharing snowflakes. We shared them before gluing them into our Home-School journals;  

Students observed:

• "some are round and some are square,
• they are easy to do an ok job on but hard to do a great job on,
• it takes lots of tries to be able to know as you're cutting them --where THAT cut will show up when you open them,
• it would be fun to explore with different folds and see what you would come up with.
• you don't have to be a great drawer to make a very-beautiful snowflake."

Most journals went home today.

Some students did not finish their writing, so I decided to give them another day to do it well. You will see it tomorrow.

We worked on our "All-About..." pieces in writing.  They are coming along nicely, We are focusing on the table of contents. For example,  if your piece is about Florida, then, in addition to a "chapter" on the beaches, the hotels, Disney World, and the horses, you need to write a chapter on where Florida is. 

We celebrated Hanna's birthday -- Happy Birthday, Hanna!

And finally, we continued our Sharing theme for the week:

"If you could be endowed, suddenly, with the ability to speak to the animal of your choice,
- what animal would you choose,
- why would you choose that animal,
- what would you want to say to it,
- what do you think it would want to say to you?
Two animals chosen so far have been a whale and a silverback gorilla. 
Ask your child which animal he or she would like to speak to!

Take care, everyone.

Mr. Bolger

January 21, 2015

January 21, 2015

Hello Parents!

Today, as part of our "All-About" writing pieces, we read an array of writing pieces from last year and the year before. We focused on writing catchy titles and on the benefit of using good voice, even in non-fiction writing,

We also went to the library. Now that we are nearly at the halfway point (!) of the school year -- and I have retested your children and have seen their growth -- I am trying to make specific suggestions to each child based on his or her ability and particular interest. Do you have any requests or suggestions for me? Please email me if you do. Time to stretch these kids beyond Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Star Wars. :)

Send Art  smocks, please:  Ms. Beeken does not have art smocks to share this year, so we must rely on your sending in an old  t-shirt. Please send one by Monday so that we can keep your kids' clothing clean and their little art-hearts free from worry.

Send sneakers for gym if you can. It's hard on our gym teachers to have to wait for kids to go into the gym closet and find and put on a pair that fits.Do you need help buying sneakers? I'd like to help. Email me your child's shoe size. I may have a sneaker connection :)

Send an extra pair of dry clothes, too, if that is a possibility, for your  child to keep in his or her locker.

Do you extra gloves or mittens hanging around your house? Would you like to donate them to the classroom so I can have a couple of extra pairs on hand to share?

Thanks, everyone. Have a  great end to your week (already?!)  Report cards will be coming out on Friday.

Mr. B.

January 12, 2015

Hello Parents!

Happy Second Week Back!

1) A quick note to let you know that tomorrow is "Mismatched Tuesday" -- a celebration of our school having filled up our ABS buzzy jar. Kids are invited to come to school dressed in any kind of mismatch they can think of (so long as it won't be TOO distracting. :)

Examples: plaid and polka-dots, one sneaker and one shoe, a long-john shirt with shorts (just for inside of  course). Maybe wear a beach towel for a scarf?

2) Strep throat: we have had several cases at ABS of strep throat. Please remind your child to wash early and often -- even after using the water fountain or a dry-erase marker.

3) Want to help out with our class?   a number of you have offered to help in one way or another in the classroom or with outside projects. Here is a list of some things I'd love help on:

• leading a reading group once or twice per week for about 1/2 hour. Training available!

• helping out during math class one or two days per week (for 45 mins to one hour). You could work one-on-one with a child, lead a small group, or help out with the main lesson. 

• creating and putting up bulletin-boards/posters for the classroom. You could do  most of this at home with my sending you the layout/words. Of course, you would get and use materials we have on hand here.

• help keep our classblog and our Kidblog up to date. I would love to have someone work from home to upload finished pieces to our Kidblog. I could send  you the many great pictures I  have waiting on my phone --and also the ones I receive from all of you --  and you would upload them to one or both of our blogs. 
 

• do YOU have an idea for something you'd like to do that would make this classroom  -- and your child's experience in it -- better? Let me know.

4) Would you like to have your child get his or her teeth cleaned? We  are setting up very-reasonably-priced appointments with a visiting dental  practice. Let me know if you are interested.

5)  Ask your child what WIN group he or she is in for this new rotation.Mrs. Powers, Ms. Rodliff, Ms. Schwartz, and I want the kids to know that we  will do everything in our power to get kids into their preferred WIN class in upcoming rotations if it hasn't happened already.

Ok. That's it for now. Please email me with any questions. Have a nice week.

Mr. B.

Nov. 6, 2014

Hello Parents!

Send extra clothes, please: the nurse wanted me to remind you that she doesn't have back up winter clothes for kids if they get wet outside at recess. So please make sure your child has an extra set of clothes and socks in their backpacks.

A visit from CVU senior scholar-athletes: today for reader's workshop we were paid a visit by a group of CVU senior scholar-athletes. See the attached image below. I had three of them as 3rd and fourth-grade students: Matt Goldsborough (on left), Carly Neeld (3rd from the right), and Lily Schmoker (on the right). It was a thrill to have them back in my classroom reading to your children. Look closely, parents! This is what your children will look like in 9 years.   Ask your child to tell you about one or two of the books these students read to them.

Racso and the Rats of NIMH: Christopher is deathly sick out in Thorn Valley, The humans are getting closer and closer to finishing the dam that will flood the entire valley, and Timothy has a dream that tells him what the Rats need to do to help Christopher live. Ask your child what Timothy's idea is (A: to travel back through the snow and ice to the Fitzgibbons' farm to get a healing potion from Mr. Ages.)  Nicodemus says it's too dangerous and he can't go, but then he thinks of a creative solution. What is it?  

We're going to the Scholastic Book Fair: we are going over to WCS next Wednesday, November 12th to go to the Scholastic book fair. We will be going in the morning.

- I tell the students I'm not allowing them to buy trinkets. Just books.

- I encourage parents to send in no more than $5.00 or $10.00 at the most.

- If your family is experiencing financial hardship and needs help on this, please let me know. We have a fund to help buy your child a book. I just quietly let the cashier know that that particular book will be coming out of the Principal's Fund.  Please don't be shy.  We all need help at one time or another.

- If you would like your child to just browse during our class visit to the book fair and wait to purchase until  you can accompany him or her after school, just let me know that too.

That's it for now.  Happy Friday Eve!

Mr. Bolger

BTW: our sharing for this week is, "If you could  choose to have the power to read people's minds, would you do it? Why or why not? "

October 31, 2014

Dear Parents,

We did a ton of fun learning today!  In the morning, we read a book called "Night in the Country" by Cynthia Rylant. Pick it up at the library if you have a chance. We noticed that Rylant uses a lot of descriptive words,  but more important, she pays attention to the cadence of her prose. She says things in a way that feels and sounds nice to read. She repeats phrases a lot, too,  and that makes us feel comfortable and happy.  In 2nde-grade Fundations, we took it out again after talking about this week's assessment. We thought of all the words we could think of that use "-igh-" to make the long I sound: right, might, fight, and sight, but not bite.

In the afternoon, we got a great surprise with the arrival of 10 huge pumpkins donated by Gardener's Supply (Thank you, Gardener's Supply!). Allison Curtis, Jessica and Mark Lamorey, Kelly Bowen, Heather Burnett, Deborah Miuccio, and Denise Johnson came in and helped with the slimy pumpkins, the scary spiders, and the tasty treats. Thank you, everyone, for your delicious donations! When we finished, we sewed a few bowls full of pumpkin seeds in the brush up on the hill behind the classroom.  Maybe we'll be lucky and find next fall that we have grown our OWN pumpkins.

Happy Hallowe'en , Everyone!