Newsletter 10-10-13

What we've been up to...

Our class has been busy these first few weeks of first grade!

During the first week of school, we went on a "people hunt" to learn more about our classmates.  Students had to find a different person to sign each box on their paper. We found out that lots of children in our class have a brother or a sister, like to dance, and love to eat watermelon!

We have launched the first component of the Daily 5: Read to Self. During this time children independently read the pictures or read the words of a just right book at their level. We're practicing building our stamina in order to reach our goal of reading independently for 20 minutes. Right now, we're up to reading for eight minutes straight!

Counting and number writing has been our focus in Math. Writing numbers with the correct formation, playing dice games, counting out loud, and matching numbers to amounts are some of the activities we've been doing to practice.

ME Bags have been a huge hit! The children have enjoyed sharing the items they brought from home, explaining what each one tells about themselves, and then answering questions from their classmates. This activity has been a great way to learn more about each other. We'll be sharing more ME Bags this week!

More updates about what's happening in our classroom are to come throughout the school year. Be sure to check back soon!

Newsletter 9-6-13

Newsletter 9-6-13

Wax Museum

We presented our biography speeches at the Wax Museum in our classroom on Tuesday. Research was done by each child and lots of information was shared about many important people.

 Jesse as Babe Ruth

 Colin as Bobby Orr

 Logan as Pele

 Katie as George Washington

 Ali as Queen Elizabeth

 Seamus as John F. Kennedy

 Lily as Lewis Carroll

 Emily as Harriet Tubman

 Molly as Amelia Earhart

 Daniel as Michael Jordan

 Sophia as Laura Ingalls Wilder

 Brenna as Rosa Parks

 Seanalee as Sacagawea

 Nathan as Louis Pasteur

 Phaydan as Juliette Gordon Low

 Jameson as Paul Revere

 Madison as Ferdinand Magellan

 David as Harry Houdini

 Elizabeth as Elvis Presley

 Cherokee as Walt Disney

Tatyiana as Ruby Bridges

Thank you to families, teachers, and students who visited us! 

Newsletter 6-13-13

Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon
June 13, 2013

Upcoming & Important Events:

·        Friday, June 14^th – Publishing Party 1:00 – 1:30 PM

·        Monday, June 17^th – Field trip to Middlesex Savings Bank

·        Tuesday, June 18^th – Wax Museum Biography Presentations 1:45 – 2:15 PM

·        Wednesday, June 19^th – Field Day

·        Thursday, June 20^th – Ice Cream Social

·        Friday, June 21^st – Last day of school – Dismissal at 11:25

Classroom News:

Daniel: In Science we learned about food from plants. Some foods are roots like potatoes and carrots. Some foods are flowers like cauliflower and broccoli. Some foods are stems like celery. We are done with plants and we took our Science folders home.

Jesse: We had the third grade concert last week. We sang and played recorder. We watched a movie while we waited. Our parents listened to us on the screen and we were watching the movie. Everyone clapped so loud. Ms. Lilley said we were awesome. She said we did better than the 4^th graders did last year.

Phaydan: In Math we played a time scoot game. We got to pick partners if we wanted to. This is how we played time scoot. We had a paper that had letters up to X on it. We went around and looked at the cards on the desks and then tried to figure out what time each clock said. Then we had to write the time down on the paper with the letters.

Cherokee: For Listen to Reading in Literacy we read Verdi. It is about a snake named Verdi. He was yellow and black. He was really fast and there were two green snakes that were really sleepy and hungry. Verdi didn’t know that one day he would turn green too. One time, Verdi was on top of the tree then he jumped off a high tree and he fell and half of his body turned green. When he was with the green snakes they told him that once they were yellow. Then one day Verdi turned completely green and he found some yellow snakes and they did really cool tricks together. That’s how it ended.

Colin: We are on chapter 14 of Swindle. I like Swindle. Griffin just gave S. Wendell Palomino a ticket to a hockey game to get him out of his house. It was addressed to fake Uncle Archie but Swindle kept it anyways. I predict that Griffin will sneak in the house and light the safe on fire. Have a good day!

Katie: Monday we practiced our biography speeches. First, we glued our speeches to hard paper. Next, we picked a partner and we went with our partner. Then we read our speech over and over again. Last, we switched partners if we wanted to but if we didn’t we could make a different Literacy choice.

Tatyiana: When we made our June calendars we wrote the days of the week. We had to write the dates. We got to decorate the calendar. We also wrote birthdays and special activities. This is the last calendar for the school year.

Madison: In Music we played games the whole time because we have been doing great. We played Highety Piety and Charlie over the Ocean. Ms. Lilley said that the next time in Music we will play more games. We voted for the games we played. We all had fun!

Molly: Last week Mrs. Gulezian came into our class. She is a fourth grade teacher. She came to teach us about Fowler. She asked if we had questions. Some people asked questions like, “Should I be nervous?”

Ali: Last week we went to Mr. Thomas’s classroom to see a play. The play was about the Colonial Times. In their play they threw paper snowballs because they were reenacting the Intolerable Acts. It was a standing and sitting play. A standing and sitting play is a play where the person who is talking stands and the other people sit with no stage.

Seanalee: We finished Spelling and now we don’t have to take spelling tests. We can make up words to do spelling if we want to. We can do any spelling activity with the words we make up. We brought our spelling notebooks home.

Nathan: At the last assembly last week we had a special activity. We had to sit in a line. There was a bucket. We had to pass classroom paws. Once it got to the front, the person would put the paw in the bucket and walk it back and the teacher would give them the paw. Then they would pass it up. Once they were done the teacher would stand in front of the class and hold up the bucket. Once every class was done all the teachers dumped the paws in a big bucket and that would represent all the paws we earned this year.

Jameson: Last week at Library we got to play on the computers. We went on abcya.com, brainpopjr.com, and starfall.com. It is so fun at Library because we get to use the computers to play games. On abcya.com you get to play Snowball 2. On starfall.com you can learn to read. You go on starfall and choose learn to read, and then you can pick a book to read. On brainpopjr.com you can watch science and math videos about things like flowers and seeds or multiplication.

Lily: A bank visitor from Middlesex Savings Bank came to our classroom last week. She talked about what we were going to see next Monday. She also talked about the Fun Club. The Fun Club will give you a snack if you deposit money into your bank account. I like the bank and I can’t wait to go there!

Seamus: This week we are writing final copies for our poetry on sheets of paper. We are going to type some of them and put them in a book. We already wrote 4. The four were Mentiras, Ballads, Free Verse, and Diamante. We also decorated them.

Brenna: We read with our first grade buddies last week. We went to their class. Last week was our last week of buddies. We read with them. We usually go on Wednesday. We have fun because we get to see them.

Emily: Last week and this week we did cursive. Last week we learned the letters Z and Y. This week we learned X, W, and V. After we do the letters in cursive we have to go back and do any pages before that. The letter I think was the hardest was Z.

Logan: We filled up the marble jar again. For the reward we had a special snack and a dance party. We got to pick a song that we wanted to dance to. We all picked good songs. Have a good weekend.

Sophia: In Gym we first did relay races. Then we played a game of tag. Then we did free choice fitness. That is where there is a basketball station, a jump rope station, a bowling station, and a hula hoop station. Music was playing the whole time.

Tyler: Last Monday we got to pick new seats and my table had all of the boys except for two. So we made a plan and decided whose we liked the best. After we made our plan we moved our desks around and we got to sit where we wanted to be. I sat across from a friend and next to a friend and it’s pretty cool.

Elizabeth: On Monday we went to Art. In At we drew butterflies. We were working on symmetrical drawings. Then when we were done we could do eye exercise #5 or the challenge. The challenge was all of these little detailed pictures that you have to draw.

Ms. Little: This will be our last class newsletter.  We hope our newsletter kept you informed and updated as to what was happening in our terrific third grade classroom this year. Enjoy the weekend and have a fabulous summer.

Newsletter 6-6-13

Ms. Little’s Third Grade Beacon
June 6, 2013

Upcoming & Important Events:

·        Tuesday, June 11^th – Field Trip to Middlesex Savings Bank

·        Thursday, June 13^th – Field Trip to Erikson’s

·        Friday, June 14^th – Publishing Party 1:00 – 1:30 PM

·        Tuesday, June 18^th – Wax Museum Biography Presentations 1:45 – 2:15 PM

Classroom News:

Cherokee: Last week we learned a new type of poem called a Cinquain. They have five lines. The first line is the title. It can only have one word. Line two is a description and it has two words. Line three is an action and it has three words. Line four is a feeling phrase and it has four words. Line five again is one word and is a synonym for the title. I wrote mine about models.

Seanalee: We did Tigercast News at recess. Mrs. Duddy’s class did it. I was videotaped and so was Phaydan. There were a lot of people in line. There was a rule that there could only be three people from each class.

David: Yesterday we wrote Ballad poems. Ballads are poems that always have rhythm and usually rhyme. If the ballad is longer than one stanza, every stanza must have the same rhyming pattern. They also have to have the same amount of lines in every stanza.

Phaydan: On Friday last week we went to Mr. Thomas’s classroom to play a trivia game. The questions were all true or false. He had remotes for each group. My group was Emily, Nathan, Tatyiana, Tyler, and me. There were 8 groups. We were group 4. Everybody had a lot of fun. There were a lot of questions.  

Tatyiana: Last week we played our recorders in Music so we needed a music sheet. Then we had to record a video so Miss Lilley was going to videotape me. We had to line up because we needed to leave so Miss Lilley said we had to take one more video so we did. Then we watched the video and it was awesome.

Nathan: Last week we learned about Diamante poems. The first line is the person’s first name. The second line is two words that describe the person. The third line is three –ing words about the person. The fourth line is four nouns that are related to the person. The fifth line is three words that describe how the person felt about the things they did. The sixth line is two more describing words. The seventh line is the person’s last name.

Jameson: An artist named Erin Sweeney came to our class. She taught us how to make booklets. They were autobiographies. We folded a lot of pages. It took a long time to fold the booklets. It was a fun activity.

Logan: We wrote Limerick poems. Limericks are always five lines and are usually funny, and they tell a story. I wrote I saw a black and white soccer ball. I had to call my non-answerable mother. My mother did not answer so I called my brother. Then he said, “Put it in your hall.” Have a good weekend. J

Tyler: Last Friday in Gym we first did a relay race. Then we had some stations to do. One of the stations was hula hooping and one was jump roping. Another station was wall ball and another was a hard wall ball.

Lily: We’re reading Swindle for read aloud. Right now the boys are breaking into S. Wendell Palomino’s house to steal back the baseball card! I think they’re going to get trapped in the house. I like the characters in this book. I can’t wait to find out the ending!

Daniel: On Monday we had Art. In Art we drew face cards. Mrs. Santillo ironed our picture on our coloring bags. Then we got to fill them. Now we can draw wherever we want.

Colin: We made plant mini posters in Science. They had the life cycle of a plant on them. My plant was an apple tree. I like my poster! The order of the plant life cycle goes seedling, sprout, young adult (teenager), and adult.

Seamus: Last week we had Library. Mrs. Patino said that today was the last day to check out books. She also said we could keep our biography books for longer. It’s really fun when we play on the computers. We got to do Type to Learn 3.

Sophia: Last week in Writing we wrote humorous poems. Humorous poems are supposed to be funny. We had to write one about our topic or category. My category was colors. One example of another category is monsters. This is my poem:

Yellow said to red, “Never eat your bed.”

Blue said to green, “Never eat a lima bean.”

Purple and orange are in a movie scene.

Ali: Yesterday one of the pupils in our class made the morning work. The author was Nathan. The problem was there were 237 rocks on the beach. 146 of them got washed away. How many rocks were left? I subtracted and got the answer. It was 91 rocks.

Jesse: Mr. Mark from the Maynard Public Library came in to our class. He talked about reading 2 ½ hours a week and you can get to spin the prize wheel. If you read enough hours a week you are entered to win a bike. Some of the prizes are French fries, donuts, pizza, golf, and Friendly’s. Also we could see animals at the library. When Mr. Mark came in we played games like hangman and blocks. We stacked the blocks up to see who could balance all of them first.

Brenna: We had an assembly last week. Some teachers acted out a play from a book. The book was called Blue. The characters were Red, Blue, Yellow, and Purple. It was a very good play. It was about bullying.

Molly: Last week on Tuesday we had Up Day. We walked up to Fowler. We had a 4^th grade partner. I was in Mrs. Gulezian’s class. My partners were Robbi and Hannah. In Mrs. Gulezian’s class we had Science, lunch, and recess. The cafeteria was cool. I bought something from the Snack Shack.

Elizabeth: We played the I Have, Who Has? game with time. First, everybody gets a card. Somebody has the “start” card and somebody has the “end” card. Then, the person who has the “start” card says, “Who has 9:15?” Then whoever has 9:15 on the clock on their card says, “I have 9:15, who has 6:20?” and so on until the end. And they say, “I have 6:10, this is the end.”

Emily: Last week we went to Mr. Mehigan’s publishing party for their realistic fiction stories. When we went some of the books were very long and some were short. The one that I read first was McKenna’s. Then I read Natalie’s, Becca’s, and Gabriel’s. After we were done reading the story we had to leave a comment on the comment sheet.

Katie: Last week in Math we learned about elapsed time. We played a game that Ms. Little made up. You have a Judy clock and you pick a card that has a time. Next you make that time on your Judy clock. Then you pick another card that says an amount of hours or minutes later or earlier. After that you see what time you got when you change your time to match your number and your partner has to figure out how much time has passed.

Ms. Little: Thank you to families who have contributed shared classroom supplies throughout the year. We are running low on tissues, extra snacks (goldfish, saltines, graham crackers), and pump bottles of hand sanitizer. Any donations would be greatly appreciated.  Enjoy the weekend.