March 15, 2015

Hello Parents! 

Wow! We have been busy. 

Can you help at home with your child's research?  We are hard at work on our animal-research papers. There is a section in your child's classroom research packet that says, "Come up with three cool facts about your animal." By that, I mean, "think about your animal, and think beyond what it eats and where it lives and what it looks like. Think instead about three interesting questions you have about your animal, and write down what you find. For example, if you are studying chimpanzees, you might wonder, "Can chimpanzees learn sign language the way gorillas can? Or you might ask about the dragonfly you are studying, "Are there dragonflies anywhere in the world that are poisonous? Or, do people eat dragonflies anywhere in the world?" Since kids usually need guidance to think out of the box on topics like this,parents, you can really help them -- both with coming up with the interesting questions and with safely navigating the internet to find the answers.  So, please help your child this week on this task.  Then, send in via  email or hardcopy what you have discovered!  I hope we'll have most of our research writing done by Friday. 

The Horizon Band plays to sell-out crowd!   The WSD variety show, Friday, was a blast. The Horizon Band, including Erik Urch and Harry Bowen on guitars, played "I've Just Seen a Face" by  the Beatles, and "The Letter" by the Boxtops. I'll send the link in a follow-up email.  Also, congratulations to Adam Curtis for his violin performance and to many Horizon alumni who performed. Mrs. Powers and I felt so proud. 

The Big Basket Raffle: we need donations!   Because I was busy with the Variety Show, I guess, I fell a little behind on promoting our Big Basket Raffle. I will forward a flyer and an explanation to you right after I send this email.   Please consider donating. We don't have much time left.  Thanks, guys. Every little bit helps. 

Choose Your Own Adventure (last Friday).  I am sure you already heard all about your child's "Choose your own adventure"  adventure  on Friday. It was great fun for the teachers, too. I played snow soccer with the kids, and it was wonderful to interact with them in a whole new way. 

Conferences: see the schedule on our class blog, and email me your preferences for meeting times. 

Have an awesome  week, everyone. Looks like we have a lot of 41 degree days ahead of us. Hooray!  We have a "pool" going in the classroom. Every student has picked a day when they think the snow will entirely leave the  hill from  behind  our classroom. 

Ask your child which day he or she picked (and why). 

Mr. B.

Conference Sign-Up. Updated Sunday, March March 22nd

Hello Horizon Parents!  Here is the updated schedule for Parent-Teacher conferences.  Please email me if you wish to sign up for a slot or if you have any questions.

Looking forward to our conference!      (Updated: March 22nd)

Mr. Bolger

Friday, March, 13th

4:00 p.m. ____________________

4:30 p.m. ____________________

Tuesday, March 17th

4:30 p.m. Jamie Wilson (Megan)

5:00 p.m. Tammy and Kate Sevene (Kylee)

Wednesday, March 18th

4:00 p.m. The Urches (Isabella)

4:30 p.m. The Browns (Audrey)

Thursday, March 19th

3:00 p.m.

4:00 p.m. The Ackerlys (Will)

Friday, March 20th

3:00

3:30 The DeLucas (Nate)

4:00  The Mathises (Audrey)

Mon. March 23rd

7:00 The Curtises (Adam)

7:30 The Stewarts (Miranda)

8:00 ____________________

8:30 The Woods  (Jasper)

9:30 The Johnsons (Phin)  

10:00 The Wolnys (Hanna)  

10:30  ____________________

11:00   ____________________

11:30   ____________________

12:00 The Moreaus (Boden)

12:30 The Lamoreys (Greta)

1:00  _____________________

1:30  _____________________

3:00 _____________________

3:30 _____________________

4:00 _____________________

4:30 _____________________

Tues. March 24th

2:45 The Sheas (Quinlan)

4:00 ____________________
4:30  Jamie Wilson (Megan)

Wednesday, March 25th

3:00 Nikia Drown (Neaveh)

3:30 The Bowens (Deacon)

4:00 The Skapofs (Zoey)

Thursday, March 26th

3:00 Stephanie Martin (Blake) 

3:30 The Burnett-LeGrands. (Taeshaan)

4:00 ____________________

4:30 ____________________

Happy Valentine's Day!

February 13, 2015

 

Dear Parents,

We had a fun and productive Valentine's Day. Thank you for the donated goodies! For Morning Meeting, we turned to someone next to us, and we thanked them for something we notice they have brought to our  classroom. It was a nice way to begin the day.  After Music, we read more from Mr. Popper's Penguins. Ask your child if he or she thinks you should do to your house what Mr. Popper did to his.

In Writing, we worked on our All-About books, and they are nearly done.  Next week, we will be publishing these books and sharing them. They will be featured in our Reading Restaurant

We are also going to begin a new science unit on plants and animals from different habitats on Monday.

Want to sing with us in the Variety Show?
We are bringing together a Horizon Band for the upcoming Variety Show (March 13th). Harry Bowen, Deacon's dad, is going to join us. EriK Urch, Isabella's dad, is going to be part of it too. Ms. Trasciatti-Holmberg and Ms. Reina will also be singing with us. But we need you!  It's a lot of fun. We sing rock 'n Roll standards. We'll probably be singing "The Letter" by the Boxtops (and also sung by Joe Cocker). Check it out and give us a call!

Have a  great weekend, everyone.

Mr. Bolger

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.