March News: The Iditarod Sled Dog Race and Maple Sugaring

Dear Room 2 Parent(s),                                             Tuesday, March 24, 2015

 

  

    March has certainly been a busy month here in Room 2! Our curriculum provided a rich and diverse set of experiences for these wonderful first graders.

The 2015 Iditarod Sled Dog Race

     Mushers take your mark, get set, HIKE!! I hope your child told you that that’s the way to get your sled dog team to GO!! Our study of the race brought great excitement to our classroom! The Iditarod is an annual sled dog race that is run in Alaska. This year was the 43rd running of the race that celebrates the ”1925 Serum Race To Nome”; a relay of dog teams that ran life-saving medicine to children dying of diphtheria in Nome. Balto, a dog who’s well-known for his position as lead dog in the final leg of the relay, helped to get the serum to the sick on time, saving the town of Nome. This year, 79 mushers travelled with their teams of 12 to 18 dogs across the incredibly beautiful and treacherous land that is called the Iditarod Trail. Here are some questions to facilitate discussions at home:

1.     What is a musher? A man or woman who guides the sled and team of dogs.

2.    Where does the race start and end? The race is run from Anchorage to Nome.

3.    How long is the race? According to “Checkpoints and Distances on the Iditarod.com website, 1,049 miles is a symbolic figure. The distance is about 1,000 miles and 49 was added to signify Alaska, the 49^th state. In even numbered years, the Northern Route is run and in odd years, the Southern Route is run. This year, the Southern Route measured in at 998 miles.

4.    How long does the race take?  Anywhere between 8 and 35 days.

5.    When does the Iditarod begin? The race begins on the first Saturday of March.

6.    What are booties and why are they important?  Booties are protective socks worn by most sled dogs. They guard the pads of their feet from ice, rocks, and snow. Each team goes through about 1,000 booties during the race!

7.    Do the dogs and mushers prefer warm weather or cold weather during the race?  COLD weather! The dogs have extra-thick fur that is suited for cold weather. Warm weather puts dogs in danger of overheating. The dogs like it best when it’s about 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The cold weather also helps to preserve the snow that may otherwise give way to jagged rocks on the trail. The cold weather also freezes a small stretch of the Bering Sea and the lakes, which are easier to cross when solid!

8.    Who checks out the health and well-being of EVERY sled dog at each of the checkpoints along the trail?  Veterinarians

We read several great books to introduce the race and its history: The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto by Natalie Staniford and Mush! Across Alaska in the World’s Longest Sled Dog Race, by Patricia Seibert. The children also enjoyed Akiak and Big Enough Anna.  We learned 2 new songs, “Take Me Out to Alaska,” and “Northern Lights.” We followed the race on a daily basis, tracking the leaders and other notable mushers on our race route map in the classroom. 

We were very excited to hear that Dallas Seavey won this year’s Iditarod in 8 days, 18 hours, and 13 minutes. He also holds the record for the fastest race time in Iditarod history (2014 Iditarod)! He won the race three years ago and was then crowned the youngest musher to ever win the race. Congratulations to all the mushers and their brave, strong, teams of dogs. We’re sad that the race has ended but know that the mushers will soon be training again for next year’s race after a nice rest at home!

Maple Sugaring:

     Children have enjoyed learning about the process of maple sugaring. We discovered that people have been making maple syrup and maple sugar for hundreds of years! Native Americans first discovered how to make maple syrup and taught the art of maple sugaring to the early colonists. We  tapped a sugar maple tree in front of Happy Hollow with the other first graders and have rotated the daily collection of sap. Yesterday we collected 52 cups of sap! Ask your child about the process of tapping the tree, the tools used, and what kind of weather is needed for sap to run in the trees. Did you know that you need 40 cups of sap to make one cup of maple syrup? Once the sap is collected, syrup is made by heating the sap until it boils. Water in the sap turns to steam. The sap becomes darker, thicker, and sweeter as the water is boiled away, and it eventually turns into syrup. We saw maple sugaring in action on our filed trip to the Land’s Sake Sugar Shack at the Weston Middle School. We are also very excited about our Pancake Breakfast next Wednesday, March 26^th! If you are interested in joining us on Wednesday morning, please let me know. It’s a great way to celebrate our unit of study and to enjoy one of nature’s many treats here in New England!

Math

We have had loads of fun and hands-on experience working with a variety of addition and subtraction activities over the past month. We have also moved into studying about money (pennies and dimes) as well as place value. We’ve been building 2 digit numbers and one digit numbers and have been adding them together during math stations.

We hope you all have a lovey, springy weekend ahead. Thank you all for your continued support!

Take care,

Lise Weig J and Mary Ann O’Loughlin J

February News: The Wonderful World of Penguins

Dear Room 2 Families,                                                           February 2, 2015

     We’ve been so busy in the classroom during the past month! The children have been working hard and are very invested in the many topics we’ve been exploring. It’s been wonderful watching them as their reading skills have strengthened, thus helping them to learn more about the world around them. It’s such an exciting time in their learning!

Science

    

     I hope you had a chance to hear all about our penguin studies these past several weeks! The children learned so much about these funny little creatures by reading a variety of books, including Penguins by Gail Gibbons and Seven Weeks on an Iceberg, by Keith Potter. Our penguin unit offers such rich selections of nonfiction literature to first graders. We also learned two new poems called, “Peter Penguin” and “Regurgitate.” Ask your child to sing our “Seven Continents” song to you; they’ve reinforced their knowledge about these land masses by coloring in maps where penguins live. Your child illustrated copies of the poems and song for his/her poetry and song notebook. Some of our other favorite books include, “and Tango Makes Three…” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, Lost and Found, by Oliver Jeffers and If You Were A Penguin, by Wendell and Florence Minor. We spent a portion of each day reflecting on what we learned about these birds. Here are a few questions that you may want to ask your child during a car ride or a dinner conversation:

1. What is the biggest penguin called? (Emperor Penguin)
2.  How tall is it?  (4 feet tall)
3. What is the name of the smallest penguin and how tall is it? (Little Blue or Fairy Penguin; 1 foot tall)
4. How many different types of penguins are there? (18)
5. What do penguins eat?  (fish, krill, squid)
6. What are some of the penguin’s predators? (killer whales, leopard seals, fur seals, sharks, sea lions)
7. Where do penguins live?  (All penguins in the wild live south of the equator. Penguins can be found in Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, Africa, and the Galapagos Islands)
8.  What kinds of animals are penguins? (They are birds. They have feathers, wings, and a beak, and they hatch from eggs.)
9.  Can penguins fly? (Penguins lost their ability to fly millions of years ago; they use their wings when they swim as sturdy paddles or flippers.)
10.  How do baby penguins get their food? (I’ll let your child reveal this one to you!)

     We’ve learned about the penguin’s body, its predators, nest building (though not all penguins build nests), the brood pouches of the King and Emperor penguins, and the penguin’s eating habits. We’ve talked about the similarities and differences in some of the 18 species. Some highlights during activity time have included:

• 4-square posters titled, “What We Know About Penguins”
• world maps, showing where penguins live

·      Penguin mini-books

   Many thanks to our parent chaperones who helped to make our field trip to the New England Aquarium a HUGE success: Jen Altreuter, Jackie Crawford, Sarthak Das, Jen DeGrenier, Stephanie Leong, Danielle Meade and Jill Zukerman. We saw a wonderful variety of sea creatures including rockhopper penguins, African penguins, lionfish, sea dragons, jellies, sharks and rays in the shark and ray touch tank, an octopus, sea turtles, eels, leopard seals, sea lions and much, much more. The children did a wonderful job sharing their knowledge of penguins in our penguin workshop; the aquarium class instructor was quite impressed! I was so proud of the first graders! The field trip was a wonderful way to enrich our studies of these amazing creatures.

Social Studies:

      We’ve had many conversations about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his continued importance in our world today. I wish you could have been present for the discussion we had about this important leader and famous American who truly made a difference in the world. The children put so much heart and soul into their comments and gave thoughtful insight as to what they wished their future would hold for them. We created posters representing these dreams and wishes as an extension activity after reading the book, We Dream Of A World.  They’re consistent reminders of how we’d like to be treated, what is fair and just, and how we can work together to make a better, safer place to live and grow.

Reader’s Workshop:

      During Reader’s Workshop, we’ve been exploring nonfiction text. We’ve looked closely at the conventions, or features, of nonfiction literature, including captions, maps, photographs, labels, types of print, comparisons, cut-aways, the table of contents, the glossary and more. Children have worked independently and with partners to peruse nonfiction texts on a variety of topics. The interest level is quite high when studying nonfiction. Children are always eager to share their books and newfound knowledge with the group! Children have learned that nonfiction books don’t have to be read cover to cover like fiction. A reader can look through the book by reading the table of contents or the index and then find the sections of text they are interested in or focused on. He/she can also look through the pictures and read the captions to learn about the topic.

Math

 Our work with addition and subtraction has continued. We’ve been working on automaticity of math facts through 10 and solving addition and subtraction equations through 20. We’ve also been focusing on solving story problems, showing our work using words, pictures, number labels, and number models or equations. We’ve practiced solving equations with missing addends. We’ve even been working on equations with 3 addends! I hope you’ve had a chance to see some of the practice packets that your child has worked on in class; they’ve had a nice description of each addition and subtraction strategy. Some of the addition strategies have included plus zero, plus 1, tens partners, turn-around facts, doubles and plus ten. 

Author Illustrator David Biedrzycki:

    Last week, we had the pleasure of having author/illustrator David Biedrzycki share his craft with us here at Happy Hollow! He told us about her experiences of becoming a writer and how a book goes from idea to printed product. It was fascinating to listen to her talk about what/who inspires her to write. He read his book, Dory Story to us during his presentation. Other books children have enjoyed include The Beetle Alphabet Book and Ace I encourage you to visit his website for other titles and further information: davidbiedrzycki.com.     

Progress Reports and Conferences

     We hope you received your child’s progress report that was sent home last week. Conferences begin in early March and will run for 4 weeks. We’re  scheduling conferences through a Volunteer Spot Sign-Up set up by Jill Zukerman. Many thanks to Jill for organizing the sign-up online. Please let us know if you did not receive an email from Jill about the conference sign up. We are very eager to share your child’s progress with you and we look forward to chatting more in person during our spring conference. Please let us know if you have any questions about your child’s progress report in the meantime.

Please let us know if you have any questions about the information in this newsletter.  We hope you all enjoy the vacation ahead!

Take care,

Lise Weig and Mary Ann O’Loughlin