Jumping Their Little Hearts Out: Jump Rope for Heart!

Last Friday, all of SMS headed outside to participate in the annual Jump Rope for Heart! With music blasting, students broke into relay teams (as practiced in PE) and jumped their hearts out! 

Take a look at our awesome relay teams!

 Our star jumpers sure have skills!

After about a half an hour of relay jumping, the long ropes were brought out and we all had a blast showing off some skills!

Teamwork!

Much to their surprise---teachers can jump rope too!

Everyone had a BLAST while also supporting the American Heart Association. Ms. Locke let us know that the school raised over $4,000! Way to go SMS! Thanks to all the families that donated, Your donations support important research for heart disease as well as educational incentives to teach others about keeping a healthy heart!

The Owls Celebrate Earth Day!

Last week, our Owl Class celebrated Earth Day with a fun-filled week learning about ways to protect our beautiful, wonderful Earth. 

We began our week by reading an Earth Day favorite: The Lorax! While many were familiar with the 2012 movie, I was shocked to learn that many had never heard the original Dr. Seuss tale!
The story's last line...

gave us a lot to think about for the week!

After hearing the story, students had a great time thinking about how they would help the Earth if they were the Lorax (although they quickly realized they needn't BE the Lorax in order to help our Earth :) ). They had an even greater time creating their very own Lorax mustaches!

With the mantra, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" playing in our heads, we decided to explore the concept of reusing to create beautiful torn-paper hearts. Using only unwanted paper scraps from our bin, students carefully tore and covered their earths creating a lovely craft. These heart earths made a beautiful addition to our Earth Day display!

 A favorite activity of the week happened on April 22nd, the official Earth Day. While reading A River Ran Wild, Lynne Cherry's recount of how pollution affected the Nashua River, we created a simulation to learn more about how our actions can affect our environment. Ask your child about this activity and what role they played.

All set up! Book, tinted blue, clear water, and simulated materials.

At the start of our story, fish swam freely and happily in the clear waters.

As people began settling on the river, waste began to enter the water.

Everything from factory runoff, road salt, hazardous waste, sewage, litter, and soil erosion enter the water.

The fish had such a hard time living in such waste, they could no longer live in the river's water.

After we had affected the water in such a way, it was up to our cleaners to try and reverse the mess.

 As you can imagine, we quickly realized how some of our damage can be irreversible and why it is so important to take care of our Earth the first time around. At the end of the story, they were happy to learn that when the people along the river realized the damage they caused, they decided to change their ways. Years and years later, the Nashua River now flows much more cleanly. 

 I think I can speak for everyone when I say how much fun we had celebrating Earth Day. Our students are motivated and energized to do their part as they reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Apr. 15th News

*****************************************************************************************************

Ms. Arnold’s Classroom News (4/15/15)

*****************************************************************************************************

What We've Been Up To:

           Welcome, Spring!!

*Writing: Thank you SO much to the many, many families that were able to join us last week for our nonfiction, expert book celebration! Your writers have worked so incredibly hard and it was such a treat to have such an audience to share their published pieces!

Our group of proud authors!

Thank you also to the families who donated snack items for us to enjoy at our celebration. What a treat!

After finishing up nonfiction writing, we have switched our focus and aligned with our reading unit to begin fairy tales. Each student is working hard to recreate the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs and is writing their very own adaptation. Ask you child which "Three Little" story they're working on.

*Science Magic: Second graders have begun their second round of "Science Magic!" This cycle features experiments involving earth's materials such as soil, water, air, and rocks. Our class had a blast exploring which materials could retain the most water (rocks, sand, or potting soil). These scientists are becoming quite familliar with the scientific process and had no trouble creating hypotheses, experimenting to collect data, and interpreting results. Way to go, scientists!

Exploring materials to help form a hypothesis.

Setting up the experiment--sure takes teamwork!

Slowly pouring the water over the material. 

Carefully observing until the last drip!

Most scientists found that the soil held the most water, which we concluded to be important for the growth of plants. With all this sunshine we're finally having, we might just have to plant some seeds to test out their results with a real world application!

Our class has also traveled to Mrs. Atherton's class to explore erosion as modeled by skittles and water---that was a tasty experiment! Over the next several weeks they will continue to travel making their way to Mrs. Caporello's room to explore water density, Mrs. Leonard's room to classify rocks, and to Ms. Riley's room to prove a very important question about air: does it really exist?

*Reading: Since the beginning of April, our class has been immersed in fairy tales. This exciting unit is exposing our students to numerous, traditional, wonderful tales. Along with reading classics, we've enjoyed the variety of "fractured" fairy tales out there and have been doing a great job comparing and contrasting the different versions. A bright pink paper was sent home today outlining the upcoming "Wax Museum" project. Please return the paper with your child's top three character choices by Thursday, April 23rd. It is my hope the each child will receive one of their top three choices to use to research and complete their project. If a top three choice is not available, I will work closely with them to select another exciting character! I encourage students to challenge themselves to choose characters they are less familiar with (all the more to learn about!). A list of fairy tale suggestions was sent home as well to help students with their selection. Let me know if you have any questions!!

*Conferences: Spring conferences have been such a nice chance connecting with each of you. It is so nice to be given time to reflect on the year so far and set up goals for the remainder of our year together. As always, I thank you very much for your continued involvement with your child's education. Together we're doing great things!!

************************************************************************

Coming Up:

- Friday, Apr. 24th: Jump Rope for Heart
-Monday, Apr. 27th - Friday, May 1st: No School-Spring Vacation

Pysanky Eggs with Patricia Polacco!

We had an egg-cellent time last week learning about traditions around the world! Did you know that in almost every culture around the world there is a tradition for embellishing eggs?! We read one of a favorite Patricia Polacco story called Rechenka's Eggs, and learned about a Ukrainian-style of egg decorating called Pysanky eggs. After watching the Reading Rainbow clip showing Patricia Polacco's interesting interview and beautiful artwork, we were ready to try out own school version of this method!

After drawing the first design with a crayon, it's time to select the first dye!

Start with your lightest dye first---the longer you wait, the brighter the color will be!

Use a paper towel to dry the egg.

Go back with your crayon and add more details to your design,

Dip into a second color of dye.

When you're finished with your layers of dye and wax, bring to a teacher to begin melting the wax!

Once the wax has melted, you're left with a colorful, Pysanky egg!

Ta-da!!

*********************************************************************************
Hope everyone had a great weekend!!