Happy Halloween Week! Just a reminder that the Owls will be celebrating Halloween with "Holey" Pumpkin Day this Tuesday, October 31st. Please send your child in with one, small carving pumpkin by Monday, Oct. 30th. Please have the top cut (around the stem) and the guts scraped loose (but still intact!). After a day of pumpkin fun, we'll be culminating with our pumpkin lantern lighting. If you'd like to join us on Tuesday at 2:30 for this special celebration, we'd love to have you!
Highlights from our week:
*Leaf Project: Thanks to everyone for collecting and preparing the beautiful fall leaves that made it into our classroom! With these leaves, each second grader was able to create their very own leaf animal. We have everything from mice, fox, and squid, to birds, insects, and dinosaurs! Of course there were quite a few OWLS in the bunch! These fantastic creations now adorn our hallway---be sure to check them out whenever you're in the building!
*Nature Hike: After being stuck inside for a few days, we had the most beautiful fall weather on Friday and were able to take our first nature hike with our 5th grade buddies!! After being given our very special nature notebooks (ask your child about the secret pocket in their notebook and what they may have put in it!), we set out to explore the trails of Stratham Hill Park. How lucky are we to have this great science resource right in our backyard! Using our detective eyes, we talked about walking slowly and carefully to really be able to notice. With those careful eyes, we were able to spot a two nests high in the trees. With a focus of how the environment changes through the seasons, each scientist was asked to sketch their observations. We also agreed it would be important for us to document the date, temperature, and weather. Mrs. Loh and I were SO impressed by their nature eyes, we cannot wait to take another hike sometime soon!
We look forward to many more hikes with our buddies this year!
*Global Read Aloud: This week, we connected with a group of second graders from Wisconsin. Instead of just hearing the story together, we took our Skyping to a whole new level. Putting on our "Hattie" masks, we thoroughly enjoyed co-performing the story Hattie and the Fox, and "Goodness Gracious Me!" did they do a good job :)
*Reader's Workshop: As we continue with our nonfiction reading unit, this week was all about the Lingo! We learned about the importance of expecting and noticing keywords. We also explored using the WHOLE page to help us "talk the talk"---not just correctly reading keywords, but knowing what they mean! We also enjoyed using Seesaw during our workshop time to check in on our use of headings and captions. Check out your child's Seesaw portfolio to see their work in action. If you need login information sent home again, please don't hesitate to ask! As our year goes on, we'll be using Seesaw a lot more to document our fabulous learning!
*Science: This week in science we worked in teams to create model canyons! Using a mixture of cornmeal, salt, and water, students had to build their mountains and set up a structure to allow for a "rain storm".
After just two rain storms, many models were already showing evidence of a canyon! While we had hoped to continue our rainstorms the next day, instead we learned a hard lesson about science: sometimes your experiment doesn't go exactly as planned. Unfortunately cornmeal canyons are not as structurally sound as real-life canyons! Regardless, these budding scientists learned a little about how canyons are created and a LOT about the scientific process.
*Parent Conferences: With eight weeks of school under our belt, I am eager to meet with you to discuss your child’s progress thus far and develop individual goals for the remainder of the year. Reminder slips were sent home on Friday. Please arrive on time for your conference as many of the conference slots run back-to-back. I look forward to seeing you and discussing your fabulous child!
Have a great, last week of October! This year is truly flying by!
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Questions to promote "School Talk":
-What animal did you make out of your leaves? What did you name it?
-What repeating line did we say when we performed Hattie and the Fox?
-What do you think Mrs. Healey should be for Halloween?
-What did we do with our 5th grade buddies this week? What did you sketch in your nature notebook?
-What happened to Bruno Jenkins and our main character in The Witches?
-How could you use base-10 blocks to add 27 + 34?
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Important Dates (always available at the top of the blog page for convenience) :
-Monday, Oct. 30th: Small, Carving Pumpkin Due
-Tuesday, Oct. 31st; 2:30 pm: "Holey Pumpkin Day" Lantern Lighting
-Wednesday, Nov. 1st: Early Release (Parent Conferences)
-Wednesday, Nov. 8th: Early Release (Parent Conferences)
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