Dear Room 2
Parent(s), Tuesday, March 15,
2016
The beginning of March
has certainly been busy here in Room 2! Our curriculum has provided a rich and
diverse set of experiences for these wonderful first graders.
The 2016 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 has brought great excitement
to our classroom! The Iditarod is an annual sled dog race that is run in
Alaska. This year is the 44th 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, 85 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 (or child in the Junior
Iditarod!) 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? About 1,000 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. We also viewed a
documentary about the race~the kids loved seeing sled dogs on the trail! We
learned 2 new songs, “Take Me Out to Alaska,” and “Northern Lights.” We also talked about character traits of lead
dogs. We’ve followed the race on a daily
basis, tracking the leaders and other notable mushers on our race route map in
the classroom. Check out Iditarod.com for more about this
exciting race!
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. Last Wednesday, we
collected 14 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’ll see maple
sugaring in action on our field trip to the Land’s Sake Sugar Shack at the
Weston Middle School. We are also very excited about our Pancake Breakfast on
Wednesday, March 23rd at 8:45 am. Parents can come to help serve
pancakes, take pictures, and clean up once the breakfast is finished. Please
let me know if you’re interested in joining us. This is a fun event and 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. This week, we’ve started to explore
place value. We’ve been building 2 digit numbers with cubes in a variety of
activities.
Open Circle:
We’ve been doing
lots of work with the Zones of Regulation. Ask your child about the different Zones,
green, red, yellow, and blue, and how he/she may be feeling in each of these
Zones. To get in the Green Zone, we’ve practiced some 2-minute meditations and
deep breathing. Visit calm.com with
your child and try one of the meditations! We like to put on one of the calming
background scenes with quiet music during our work time; it definitely helps to
keep us in the green zone!
Below is an
excerpt from Lynda Kuypers’ website about the Zones:
“’Life is
10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.’
Charles Swindoll
Self-regulation is something everyone continually works
on, whether we are cognizant of it or not. We all encounter trying
circumstances that test our limits from time to time. If we are able to
recognize when we are becoming less regulated, we are able to do something
about it to feel better and get ourselves to a better place. This comes
naturally for some, but for others it is a skill that needs to be taught and
practiced. This is the goal of The Zones of Regulation (or Zones for
short).
What are The Zones of Regulation?
The Zones is a systematic, cognitive behavior approach
used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel
and states of alertness we experience into four concrete zones. The Zones
curriculum provides strategies to teach students to become more aware of, and
independent in controlling their emotions and impulses, managing their sensory
needs, and improving their ability to problem solve conflicts.
By addressing underlying deficits in emotional and sensory
regulation, executive functions, and social cognition, the curriculum is
designed to help move students toward independent regulation. The Zones
of Regulation incorporates Social Thinking® (www.socialthinking.com) concepts and numerous visuals to
teach students to identify their feelings/level of alertness, understand how
their behavior impacts those around them, and learn what tools they can use to
manage their feelings and states.
The Four Zones: Our Feelings & States Determine
Our Zone
The Red Zone is
used to describe extremely heightened states of alertness and intense
emotions. A person may be elated or experiencing anger, rage, explosive
behavior, devastation, or terror when in the Red Zone.
The Yellow Zone is also used to describe a
heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions; however, one has some
control when they are in the Yellow Zone. A person may be experiencing
stress, frustration, anxiety, excitement, silliness, the wiggles, or
nervousness when in the Yellow Zone.
The Green Zone is used to describe a
calm state of alertness. A person may be described as happy, focused, content,
or ready to learn when in the Green Zone. This is the zone where optimal
learning occurs.
The Blue Zone is used to describe low states of
alertness and down feelings, such as when one feels sad, tired, sick, or bored.
The Zones can be compared to traffic signs. When
given a green light or in the Green Zone, one is “good to go”. A yellow
sign means be aware or take caution, which applies to the Yellow Zone. A
red light or stop sign means stop, and when one is the Red Zone, this often is
the case. The Blue Zone can be compared to the rest area signs where one
goes to rest or re-energize. All of the zones are expected at one time or
another, but the curriculum focuses on teaching students how to manage their
Zone based on the environment and people around them. For example,
when playing on the playground or in an active/competitive game, no one would
think twice about one being in the Yellow Zone but that would not be same in
the library.
Creating a system such as The Zones to categorize all the
complex feelings students experience eases students’ ability to recognize and
communicate how they are feeling, as well as tap into strategies to aid them in
self-regulation.”
You might want to try using the language of zones at home!
You may find it very helpful in identifying feelings and using the strategies
and language that we have used in class. Visit http://mrsduranteszones.weebly.com/the-zones-of-regulation.html for more information.
In addition to focusing on the zones and practicing 2-minute
meditations on calm.com, we’ve also
been practicing calm breathing with stories like “Sea Otter Cove” and “A Boy
and a Bear”, both by Lori Lite. We’ve read the books and listened to a guided
breathing practice on You Tube. This morning I asked the kids how they felt
after “A Boy and a Bear” and the responses were, “calm, relaxed, I’m in a good
mood, I’m in the Green Zone, I’m ready to learn, I feel peaceful.” When I
asked, “What would Mr. Lee think if he came in and all the lights were off and
we were lying on the rug, breathing in rhythm with a boy and a polar bear?”
kids replied, “He’d be proud of us! He’d think we were all calm. He’d think we
were ready to learn. He’d think we were good listeners. I think he’d want to
join us!” No kidding, these were their actual responses!!! They’re amazing! We talked about how this
kind of learning gets us ready for other kinds of learning like math and
reading and writing; kids were ALL in agreement that we should invite Mr. Lee
in for an Open Circle soon, soon, soon!! THESE KIDS ARE ABSOULUTELY AWESOME!!!!
Welcome to the newest member of our classroom…Blueberry
the Beta fish! Our old friend Strawberry passed on to greener fish waters on
Friday. We said a nice goodbye to him and read a book called, “The Tenth Good
Thing About Barney” by Judith Viorst, which tells of a family’s goodbye to
their cat. After sending good wishes to our dear fish, the children were
excited to hear that we’d be having a new finned friend arrive on Monday since
many kids have talked about how watching a fish can help us be in the Green Zone.
We’ve also learned from our chapter book about Humphrey the hamster, that “You
can learn a lot about life by observing another species!"
Many thanks to our fabulous classroom
volunteers! The children loved having Lauren Alongi, Carla Sanches, Deb Dyson
and Susan O’Neill in class! Please email me if you’d like to join this
fantastic community of learners during the school week.
I hope you all
have a lovey week ahead. Thank you all for your continued support!
Take care,
Lise Weig J
