Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fall is Here!

Hi Everyone!


I hope you are enjoying this glorious fall weekend! I saw many smiling faces at Applefest events this weekend. It is always nice to see my students and their families out having a good time together. I especially enjoyed catching up with some of my former students who are now at Melican Middle School and Algonquin Regional High School. Fortunately, they are aging and I am not!


Many Zeh families were also able to make it out to see "Magic by Scott" at MMS. This event was sponsored by the Northboro PTOs. It was well attended and many children were amazed at Scott's talent. He was also pretty funny!



Scott Twirling Flags


Scott Juggles...

Saturday was a PERFECT day for a parade, a streetfair, a concert...

Emma was eager for the parade to begin.


Abbie (Mrs. Lemieux's daughter), Emma & I pose for a quick picture!



More 2nd Grade Friends at the parade! We found Morghan & Burke and their mom too!


So here is a quick update from Room 13...

Reading: We have begun reading groups and are working on stories related to our science theme of "Lifecycle of the Frog". We are using various texts to teach an assortment of higher level skills such as: Reading Road Signs (punctuation and how to use/read it), indenting paragraphs, using quotation marks to tell who is speaking in the story, and how to "Put the Q in the A" (question in the answer) when answering comprehension questions. Everyone is working hard and bringing great background knowledge to the discussions.

Writing: We have begun to work with the writing process and use our new graphic organizers. First, we brainstormed ideas and drew detailed pictures with labels. Next, we transferred our ideas to our "Hamburger" graphic organizers. The students have had lots of modeling of this process and I am using the document camera to make this a very visual experience for everyone. I am very impressed with the writers in Room 13!



Mathematics: We are spending time writing number stories and solving word problems. The students also learned about the proper signs for <, =, >. We played a card game to demonstrate our new skills. We will be moving into time and money very shortly.



Science: We read From Tadpole to Frog, a nonfiction text by Wendy Pfeffer. We discussed what a lifecycle is and the stages that the frog goes through from egg to adult. The children completed a lifecycle activity. We fianlly did receive our tadpoles on Wednesday, but they were not very hardy. Unfortunately, they had swam on to the big pond in the sky by Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, we were able to get replacement tadpoles overnighted to us, and we now have a larger tadpole. Hopefully, it survived the weekend?!? We will be observing the tadpole and learning more about the body parts of the frog this week.





Read Aloud: After a vote, the majority of students wanted to continue with the next story in the Judy Moody series, Judy Moody Gets Famous. Upon completion of the story, we will move onto a different book/series. On the plus side, I have seen many of the children requesting other Judy Moody books at DEAR time. It is nice to see that they enjoy her antics!


Mural Work: Ms. Meg has also completed a few more characters in our classroom. Take a look at our new friends. Who do you recognize?

Arf! It's Clifford the Big Red Dog!

Frog & Toad

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...

Strega Nona (Ms. Meg's Favorite Mural!)

Thank you all for making our Open House such a success! Even with the new format/time, we had a fabulous turnout. I enjoyed meeting with you and look forward to seeing you again soon. Mrs. Moyer has graciously volunteered to be our Room Parent this year. Please assist her as needed. For my parents who volunteered for other tasks, I will be making a calendar for next month with names/dates/times. Please contact me if you are unable to make the date. We are often counting on your support for an activity that day. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy schedules to participate in your child's education!



Reminders:


  1. Entertainment Fundraiser ends Monday, September 22. Please return all books/orders to school.
  2. No School on Tuesday, September 30th for Rosh Hashanah.

  3. No School on Thursday, October 9th for Yom Kippur.

  4. No School on Monday, October 13th for Columbus Day.

Have a GREAT weekend!

-JoAnne Gorham

1 comment:

Andy said...

Wow, you folks look quite organized. I always like looking at what other room parents are doing for their schools. I work for Qlubb, which is providing tools for room parents (and other types of groups) so we're always looking at how folks are using blogs to communicate with parents. Anyway, if you are interested, try taking www.qlubb.com for a spin and hope it works for you. It's free. Enjoy the Fall!