2H is Racking up IditaREAD miles!

On Tuesday, Mar. 15th, Dallas Seavey became the first musher to cross the Iditarod finish line in Nome! We enjoyed tracking the race and celebrated as Dallas claimed his fourth first place finish, beating his own previous record for the fastest time in Iditarod history. Coming from a family of mushers, interestingly enough, Dallas' father finished this year's race in 2nd place---just behind his son!

 While the Iditarod may be over, our IditaREAD is fully underway! Over the past two weeks we celebrated many more students as they read their way across the finish line.

Almost all mushers have made it to the halfway mark and I encourage them to keep on reading! It's quite an accomplishment to be able to say, "I've read 1,000 minutes!" Thank you for your continued support and for helping promote the importance of daily reading. They've all grown SO much as readers!
                                                            

Pysanky Eggs with Patricia Polacco

We had an egg-cellent time preparing for the holiday weekend.  Did you know that in almost every culture around the world there is a tradition for embellishing eggs?! We read a favorite Patricia Polacco story called Rechenka's Eggs, and learned about a Ukrainian-style of egg decorating called Pysanky eggs.

Pysanky, a craft method similar to Batik, uses melted wax designs to protect areas as they are dyed various colors.

After learning about this interesting and unique method, we were ready to try out own school version!

Start with a hard-boiled egg and a white crayon. 

Draw your first design onto your egg.

Now you're ready for dye! Select your lightest color first---the longer you wait, the brighter your color will be!

Remove your egg from the dye and dry with a paper towel.

Grab your crayon and add more details to your design.

Dip into a second color of dye.

Repeat the process, adding more layers of wax and dye.

After the wax has been melted off, enjoy your Pysanky egg!

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Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Mar. 20th News

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Mrs. Healey’s Classroom News (3/20/16)

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Happy First Day of Spring!

The beanstalks have begun their journey up to the Giant's castle!

*St. Patrick's Day: On Tuesday, our little Owls were in for quite a surprise when they arrived at school!

It seemed as though some small creature (a leprechaun perhaps) visited our classroom and sprinkled the tables (and floor!) with gold glitter and delicious, golden sweets! At morning meeting we worked hard to divide the treats equally among all of our friends. In honor of this holiday, we enjoyed thinking about luck and what we had in our lives that we feel lucky for. This led into our St. Patty's craft where each pot of gold showed who was worth MORE than gold :)

Hope everyone's St. Patrick's Day was filled with lots of luck & love!!

*Fairy Tales: Our reading work continues within our fairy tale unit. This week we participated in another design challenge in which the Owls needed to help Cinderella get to the ball (the Fairy Godmother needed a night off!). Working by themselves, with a partner, or in a group, students used various materials to create a wind-powered coach for Cinderella. These engineers are really getting the hang of designing, creating, testing, and modifying---and they have a ball doing it!

*Rocket Math: We have added an exciting new math fact component to our Everyday Math routine: ROCKET MATH! Rocket Math is a daily, paper and pencil, supplemental, math facts practice curriculum. Each student has an individual goal of how many problems they need to correctly complete in one minute. Each level reviews only two new facts and their inverses. After learning the routines and procdures, each Owl will be given their very first, level A, timed assessment! Some will pass the level on the first try, while others will need continued practice. Any day your child does not meet their goal, he or she will have that day's practice sheet to bring home. In addition to their nightly homework, please have them review their fact sheet. 

                                                  

We plan to begin this math fact work on Monday and will aim to integrate the program three times per week. Learning all the facts is a lot of work, but future success in math is dependent upon knowing the facts so well that the answers come automatically without much thinking. Thank you very much for you support of this critical learning goal. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me.

     For some fun web-based fact practice sites, visit:

Math Fact Cafe

Fact Monster

Math Fact Shoot-Out

*Iditaread: I hope the long weekend provided time for our Owl mushers to gain some serious mileage on the race to Nome. Early in the week, we celebrated another musher making his way to Nome. I suspect that tomorrow, we will see many more racers cross the finish line! Keep up the great work, readers!

Great job, Tanner!

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Coming Up:

-Early Release (Parent Conferences): Wednesday, Apr. 6th and Wednesday, Apr. 13th (SignUp)

-Fairy Tale Wax Museum: Friday, Apr. 8th

Mar. 13th News

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Mrs. Healey’s Classroom News (3/13/16)

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Bring on the spring temperatures! 2H had a ball soaking up the rays this week! 

*Reading: Our Iditaread is well underway! This past week, every musher has made significant progress on their reading journey towards Nome. I have been extremely impressed with each reader’s motivation in this challenge. Keep it up contestants! We’ve also been having a lot of fun closely following the real Iditarod race as those mushers make their way towards Nome as well. We celebrated Friday as our very first student made it across the finish line this week. Way to go, Erik! A few more students are right on his heels, many more nearly reached the halfway point, and a bunch are bring up the rear. The challenge continues until the last musher makes their way to Nome (just like the real race!) Just a reminder, students need a parent or teacher signature for each entry and need to turn their reading log in everyday (they have been doing a fantastic job with this!) Please help remind your child of the importance of reading every night. It has been so fun seeing what books are hooking each reader and helping them make it to the finish line.

*Fairy Tales: Our reading work with fairy tales continues and students did a great job this week really stepping into a character's shoes. We talked about villains and their role in a story and shades of feelings we can use to describe character emotion. Many have been surprised with how much work goes into reading these fun stories! 

WANTED posters for all those evil villains!

Using emoji's to create a feeling scale.

We also began using our compare & contrast skills to explore the multiple versions of some classic tales.  We looked closely at versions of Cinderella as there are over 1,500 versions worldwide! Glass Slipper, Golden Sandal, by Paul Fleischman, is a beautiful Cinderella story that takes pieces of the tale from around the entire world and creates one fantastic story.

                                                                  

Working with their reading partner, students compared a version of Cinderella and compared it to the American version of the traditional tale. They had lots of fun with fractured tales like Bigfoot Cinderrrrellla, Trollerella, and Cinderella Penguin!

  For a fun science connection, the Owls planted their very own "magic beans" and created their own version of the Giant's castle. Will their beans reach the castle providing Jack a way up? Only time will tell!

 In addition, we thought it would be fun to create a giant beanstalk for our classroom! Would you climb up the beanstalk? Ask you child what they would do!

Hope you and your family enjoyed this sunshine-filled weekend! Have a great week!

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Coming Up:

-Early Release: Thursday, Mar. 17th

-Teacher In-Service, No School: Friday, Mar. 18th

-Early Release (Parent Conferences): Wednesday, Apr. 6th and Wednesday, Apr. 13th (SignUp)

-Fairy Tale Wax Museum: Friday, Apr. 8th