Dear Room 2
Parent(s), Sunday, March 19, 2017
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. We wrapped up our penguin
studies, embarked on our maple sugaring unit, and have started a new unit of
study in math!
Welcome, Ms. Bullard!
We’ve
had a fabulous time getting to know Ms. Markiyah Bullard! Ms. Bullard is a
student at Framingham State University. She is working on her Field Study placement
so she spends several hours, one day a week, with us. The kids are so excited
to see her when she arrives each week and have warmly welcomed her into our
Room 2 community!
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. 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 (warm days and
cold nights). 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. On
Friday, we had a chance to boil 12 cups of sap. After boiling all day, we were
able to taste some super-sweet syrup. I cooked it a little longer than usual so
it was a little more like the consistency of maple taffy…..yum! Kids came back
for seconds and wished for thirds! It was such a popular activity that we may
try to boil some more later this week.
We are very excited about our Pancake Breakfast on Tuesday, March 21st. If you
haven’t had the chance to send in a check for your child’s breakfast ($3.50,
made out to Happy Hollow School), please do so tomorrow. A pink notice was sent
home last week; let me know if you need another and I can send one to you with
details about the breakfast and volunteering. Thanks so much to the many
volunteers that will be joining us! Parents can come to help serve pancakes,
take pictures, and clean up once the breakfast is finished. This is a fun event
and a great way to celebrate our unit of study, enjoying one of nature’s many
treats here in New England!
Math
We have had loads of fun working on many hands-on
experiences with addition and subtraction activities over the past month. Last
week, we started to explore place value. Here are the concepts that we will
focus on during our unit of study:
·
Read, write, and represent numbers
within 120 and count on from numbers within the sequence
·
Understand place value of two-digit
numbers
·
Mentally find 10 more and 10 less of a
two-digit number
·
Compare two 2-digit numbers using place
value understanding and the <, >, and = symbol
·
Add a 2-digit number and a 1-digit
number and add a 2-digit number and a multiple of 10 using place value
understanding
· Subtract a multiple of 10 from a
multiple of 10 using place value understanding.
Open Circle
To get into the green zone, helping
ourselves get ready for learning, we’ve practiced some 2-minute meditations and
deep breathing during our Mindful Moments and Open Circles with Mrs.
Santomenna, our school Guidance Counselor. We use calm.com in class, putting on
one of the calming background scenes with quiet music during our work time to
help us stay focused.
We’ve also continued our work learning
about ways to defeat the Unthinkables. In addition to Rock Brain, Wasfunnyonce,
Worry Wall, and Brain Eater, we have talked about Energy Hare-y, Glassman,
Space Invader, and Body Snatcher. Ask your child how these Unthinkables can get
in the way of his/her learning and what strategies he/she could use to defeat
the Unthinkables.
Kids have been doing an amazing job
during Writer’s Workshop this past month! Our focus has been on writing
nonfiction pieces. They’ve finished their All About Penguins books and have
worked on writing letters and How To books as well. Children used
graphic organizers to write their How To Tap A Tree book. Kids will be
choosing their own topic for their next how-to book, thinking about something they
are good at that they could teach to a friend. We’re still working on our
Monday journal writing as well, which is a reflection of your child’s weekend
or another event that he/she has been eager to share on paper.
Our next unit of study will focus on
some magnificent creatures…WHALES!!
It’s a great opportunity to incorporate aspects of reading, writing, math and
science into an exciting learning adventure.
It has been such a pleasure to meet with
so many of you for our Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences. I look forward to meeting with those of whom I’ve not yet met during
the next 2 weeks. As always, please contact me with any questions, concerns or
other information that will be helpful to me in supporting your child in
his/her school experience.
I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead.
Thank you all for your continued support!
Take care,
Lise Weig J
