Alpha House - Giving Project for December

A couple of the Eve Bunting books we will read deal with homeless families - Fly Away Home and December. In a very gentle way, students will learn that not all children have a place to sleep each night. Chances are, your child has already seen homeless people - usually men or women who are laden with shopping carts or asking for money on the streets. But homelessness can and does happen to all sorts of different people, including parents and children. Above all else, it is important to teach kids that homeless people are not below them in any way but situational - and all people deserve respect and to be treated with dignity. Because children often feel powerless to do anything, it is my goal to give them an opportunity to feel helpful by supplying an personal care item most of us take for granted.

Over the next few weeks, I will have a basket available for them to place donations for Alpha House. Please consider bringing in one or two items for our toiletry basket. Suggestions for toiletries are:

Shampoo
Conditioner
Soap
Toothpaste
Toothbrushes
Floss
Deodorant
Lotion

Thank you so much!

Graham Cracker Cottages

On Friday morning, December 17th, we will be decorating houses made from graham crackers. It is my FAVORITE winter holiday tradition to share with people I love. I will provide each child with a house that I’ve made from graham crackers and frosting, and I will also provide lots and lots of white frosting to use as “glue”.

In the next few weeks, please consider contributing a bag or two of candies to use as decorations. I’ve listed just a few ideas of candies that have worked well in the past. Please remember that S-K is a nut-free school, even when decorating with candy!

Thank you so much!

CANDY IDEA LIST:

Dots
Gum Sticks
Necco Wafers
Silver dragees
gum drops
Sugar cubes
Red Hots
mini marshmallows
thin licorice ropes
Skittles
gummy rings
jelly beans
Good and Plenty
square pretzels (for windows)
colorful cereal

Carolina Chocolate Drops performing "Hit' Em Up Style"

In case you are wondering who we will be seeing on Friday, December 3, you can take a look and listen now! I'm so excited!

December's Theme - Author Study

When we return back to school from Thanksgiving break, we will head right into a brand new theme. I have to admit, as much as I love science and history themes, I have a particular fondness for our author or literary genre studies months! For me, the only difficult piece is deciding on an author. This year, I picked a very special writer, Eve Bunting.

Eve Bunting is the author of more than 100 books for young readers, She was born in Northern Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1958. She has written picture books, novels, and even some nonfiction. I like Bunting's picture books because she never shies away from addressing difficult issues, including death, troubled families, homelessness, racial prejudice and war. However, her books are not dark - the reader aways comes away with the message of hope and beauty.

With so many different types of books, I thought it would be best to narrow our focus to one overriding theme. And because December is rife with family events and traditions, I am focusing on Bunting's books that deal with those themes. Some of the books I've checked out from the library so far are A Day's Work, Anna's Table, Pop's Bridge, The Memory String, Fly Away Home, Walking to School, Jin Woo, My Mom's Wedding, My Red Balloon, I Have an Olive Tree, and Night Tree.

Night Tree is one of my favorites for this time of year. It is about a family that goes into a moonlit forest on the night before Christmas to decorate a living tree for the birds and animals who live there. This is much like a tradition that my family does each year. After we decorate and enjoy our tree, we take down the ornaments and RE-decorate it for the animals. Popcorn and cranberry strings, cereal ornaments and birdseed covered pinecones are placed on the tree, and then it gets a second life outside in our yard. We love looking at the animals who visit "their" tree.

I would like to invite all parents to PLEASE consider coming to the classroom to share a holiday tradition with us this month (or any month, really, but it would fit beautifully with our theme in December). In the past, I've had families come and teach us to play the dreidel game and make latkes, teach us about Chinese New Year and read us stories about Kwanzaa. We've made candles to celebrate the Winter Solstice, and had a Saint Lucia procession. So many different traditions have been shared with our children! It can be as small as reading a special story or as big as a baking project. Let me know if you would like to do something like this, and I will find a time that would fit with your schedule.

And WE are thankful for ...

I'm thankful for ...

The Henry Ford

This morning we headed off to The Henry Ford for a (nearly) full day field trip. The whole school went, which meant we really depended on our lovely parent volunteers. A BIG S-K thank you to Peter Ho Davies, Mark Maynard, Jeff Rhodes and Anne Leo. We couldn't have done it without you.

This was a wonderful opportunity for our students to find out more about the early pioneers of aviation. We got to sit inside a real plane and make and test different designs of paper airplanes. After thoroughly exploring the flight exhibit, we explored other areas of this fantastic museum. The children (and adults) were ravenous by lunchtime and exhausted by departure time. I know your child will have lots of stories to share about this special field trip - and I continue to be thankful to teach at a school that realizes the value of these experiences.

Bake Sale Update

Our Bake Sale for the Birds was a HUGE success this morning! The treats went flying off the table, and we were soon sold out. And the good news is that we raised enough to sponsor a raptor at the Leslie Science and Nature Center for an entire year! On Monday, I will show the children pictures of the various raptors that are available. You can read about their raptor program by clicking here.

This Friday - Bake Sale for the Birds!

On Friday, November 19, we will be holding a Bake Sale for the Birds. This is in honor of Leonardo da Vinci, who loved birds and studied them all his life. I think he would approve of this project.

If you purchase a goodie (birdseed coated pinecones, ready to hang, cranberry chains, and cereal rings), proceeds will go to sponsor a bird at Leslie Science and Nature Center. This is our Eco-Hero project for November.

This will happen between 8:30 - 9:00 on Friday morning. Please consider buying a treat, and hang it in your yard. You will then get to watch the birds (and squirrels) enjoy the fruits of our labor.

A special thanks to parent who supplied materials - thank you!

Our Pen Pals

The children were excited to learn that they had new pen pals! A friend of a friend teaches 2nd grade at a charter school in California, and she was looking for a class to write letters to. Our letters were received last week, and I read each one aloud. My students were amazed at how much they had in common with some of the students in California (although there were a lot more skateboarders there!)

Today, we talked about the parts of a letter, and what would be some interesting things to say. Then we got busy writing our first drafts. After drafting, I had a conference with each individual child so that together we could make our letters practically perfect. The finished drafts were written on very special personalized stationery.

We still have some work to do before the whole packet of letters can be sent off, but we are hoping that this becomes a regular event. Pen pals are wonderful for children to have, as it gives them opportunities to learn about life in another part of the country. Children will find out that while kids are the same the country over, we are also unique because of where we go to school and where we live and play. For instance, it will be interesting to learn what things are fun to do in California in the winter. Do the kids there get to play in the snow, and build forts? We will see! Of course, it is also a great learning opportunity for writers - and lessons in spelling, grammar and punctuation are built right in.

Encouraging Reading at Home

Many parents remarked that our recent Read to Feed activity really encouraged reading at home. That's wonderful! Now that it's over, you can still find ways to make reading a priority:

Read to and with your child. Schedule a set time each day. While reading aloud, read with enthusiasm and pick books that are above their reading level, but within their comprehension level.

Let your child pick material they are interested in. Encourage your child to start a collection of something, and then they can read up about their hobby. Perhaps your child likes to collect jokes or recipes – this will naturally lead to all sorts of reading opportunities.

Have books on tape in your home.

Help your child see reading is important. Set a good example for your children by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Model the enjoyment of reading. Show kids that there is a wealth of knowledge to be found – and when you read something interesting, share it with them.

Set up a reading area in your home, supplied with lots of books they will enjoy.

Change the location! Read on picnic blankets outside under the trees, drape blankets over tables and do a little flashlight reading.

And, most importantly, restrict the amount of TV and computer screen time. I would recommend no more than one hour of screen time per day.

Composting for Science Friday

Today Lauren and Corey from The Ecology Center came and held an hour-long workshop with my students about composting. Using stories, songs, interactive activities and a hands-on compost building task, the children learned the "recipe" for a compost pile, and about the important work of the beneficial insects and microorganisms.

Another Leonardo

About 300 years before Leonardo da Vinci, there was another Leonardo making news. He is considered one of the most important mathematicians in the history of the world. His name was Leonardo Fibonacci.

Yesterday in math, I wrote the following number sequence on the board - 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... and asked the children if they could tell me the pattern. After many incorrect guesses, Arvid became very excited and said, "Oh! I know what is happening! The new number is the previous 2 numbers added together!" We then talked about how Fibonacci numbers appear in nature - pine cones, apple pips, orange sections.

Today, we shared what we learned with the rest of our classmates, and we all made Fibonacci necklaces. For instance, one white bead, one blue bead, 2 green beads, 3 red beads, 5 yellow beads, etc. Perhaps your child will challenge you to figure out their necklace tonight (don't tell them I let the cat out of the bag).

Just look at those faces! Can you tell how excited they were about this project?

What We Are Working On in Math Class

As you know, children in our school all do math at the same time. This allows us to group children in ways that most support their individual strengths - so some of the students in the 1st/2nd grade classroom stay with me, some go to Karen Bayoneto and some go to Renata. In this post, I'll be talking about what my group has been working on, but I will try to travel around to take pictures of other math groups in action soon!

Since the beginning of the year, our overall theme has been "number sense". This encompasses what numbers actually are, their relationship to each other, beginning place value, money, writing numbers, odd and even, strategies for counting, adding, subtracting, and making appropriate estimations. We use many games and hands-on manipulatives, as children of this age still need lots and lots of concrete materials. Yes, we do paper and pencil tasks too, but only after much practice with things that can be touched and explored.

Here is what we did today:



Each child got a cup full of beads. First they just looked at the beads to make a good guess as to how many there were in their cup. We get practice every week with this, as we have an estimation jar in our room.



After writing down their estimate, children got busy counting the beads for the actual number. Many different strategies were used, which is something else we've had lots of practice with. Some children grouped their beads in 10s and them counted, some lined them all up in a straight line for counting, and some just counted one by one. Oliver told me that he had a very smart way to count - he would count by 2s until he got to 10, and then would make additional groups the same way. Skip counting is practiced often - this will lead to further shortcuts, and will help when children are ready for multiplication. Children wrote down the actual numbers, and this was practice writing 3 digit numbers correctly. Numbers like 108 can be tricky, right? Where does that 8 go, anyway?



Next, we used our good friends, the base ten blocks. Whoever invented these was a genius! I love the way that children can see that a 10 stick actually is the same as 10 unit cubes stuck together. Anyway, the students then got the flats, sticks and cubes to build their numbers. Then they had to draw the blocks they used. Again, this was easy for most because of all the practice we've had this year building all sorts of numbers.




Finally, we got to use our brand new place value abacuses (abaci?). We made these yesterday as yet another way to visualize place value. Each line of beads represents a different place. So this abacus represents the same number as the base ten blocks.


We also spent 15 minutes or so working in our Singapore math books (each child going exactly at the pace they can) and ended up doing a fun pumpkin glyph activity. But that's another story for another blog post. I would like also to take this time to thank the math helpers - you people make my job so much fun and so much more valuable for our students. Gabrielle (Ariana's mom), Peter (Owen's dad), Jill and Dan (Maddy's parents) have committed to helping out our math students this year, and deserve a huge thank you from everyone!

Science Friday/Flight

As I mentioned, we will continue October's theme of flight through November (at least) by doing flight-related experiments on Science Fridays.

Today I read How People Learned to Fly, and reviewed the terms the children have been learning (lift, thrust, drag and gravity). At the back of the book there was a diagram of how to make a basic paper airplane. This led to a rather intense discussion on other airplane designs. Emma wanted to demonstrate her special design, and many of the children had a lesson from her. Others wanted to follow the steps in the book. Other children just wanted to make it up as they went along.

I supplied lots of paper, paper clips (to test how weight placed on various parts of the craft affect flight) and scissors. Our hallway was marked off by meters, so as planes were designed and built, students could go and immediately put them through test trials.