Updates!

Hi Everyone,

I hope everyone has enjoyed the fabulous spring days that we have been experiencing. I love seeing the trees in bloom, even if my allergies do not!

Life is pretty fast and furious both in and out of school for all of us right now. Hopefully, this post can fill you in, just in-case you've been caught up in soccer-scouts-recital-graduation-1st communion-mania!

Here's the update from Room 5:

Chorus Concert: Our concert was fantastic on Tuesday evening. The students were well-prepared by Mrs. Stonebraker and put on a wonderful show as you can see by our videos.

Science: We wrapped up our unit on animal adaptations with a test this week. We have spent many weeks exploring the various vertebrate groups and their unique adaptations. Our last unit this year will focus on plants and their adaptations. Model plant project is due on Wednesday, May 14th!

Social Studies: Our travels across the country have led us to the Southwest Region. We are exploring the Hopi Native American tribe. We will be having a test on this region SOON! Our last stop will be the The West (including Alaska and Hawaii).

Mathematics: We have been "Mathathletes" in Room 5. We are in training and keeping our skills sharp! We have reviewed double-digit mulitplication as well as short/long division. We have practiced tree diagrams (organized lists). We are having a test on data & graphing tomorrow. Look for a study guide for a test on measurement sometime next week. Our next unit will be on probability.

Pictures from our data field trip to Church Street. We keep track of traffic on Church Street on a beautiful Friday morning. We also discovered that Northborough is a friendly place to live...many cars honked and waved as we sat and collected data. Special thanks to Mrs. Ransden for accompanying us on our walk!

After we had the data, we made beautiful bar graphs!

Research Writing/Computer Lab: Room 5 is all abuzz with our research on U.S. Presidents & First Ladies. Both Mrs. Remillard and Mr. Gervais have been assisting us with our research in library and in computer lab.

Yoga Lesson: Our class had a special visit from Yogi Al for Kaitlin's birthday on Wednesday, May 7th. We all got to stretch out and de-stress on the stage in the cafeteria. Special thanks to Yogi Al for visiting and for Kaitlin's family for arranging this fun activity for our class!

Reminders:

1. Thursday 5/15 and Friday 5/16 will be our Mathematics MCAS sessions. Once again you may supply your child with a "reasonable" amount of hard candy or chewing gum. Lollipops, jolly ranchers, and smarties are all good choices. Please remember that we are nut-free in room 5! Additionally, you may wish provide your child with a bottle of water and an extra-healthy snack for those days. We have practiced dilligently and we are so ready for this!
2. I will be sending home a final book order this week. This is a good opportunity to purchase some new summer reading at very low prices. Please take a look and order if you find some interesting titles.
3. There will be no spelling or weekly geo this week!

Have a great week everyone!

-Mrs. Gorham

Hello Spring!

Hi Everyone!
I hope you have been enjoying the beautiful weather. I have been busy snapping lots of pictures of all the great activities that we have done over the past week. Here's the update from room 5:

Social Studies: We just finished up the Rocky Mountain Region with our test on Friday. We will be moving on to the Southwest next. If you have any photos or information that you want to share with us, please drop me an email. We love visitors! As a wrap up to our Rocky Mountain studies, the students completed a jigsaw activity where they became "experts" on one part of the chapter. The "expert" groups were then mixed up and each member of the new group had to share information. The children made FANTASTIC posters to showcase their expertise!

The Expert Groups created posters...

Once the posters were completed, sharing info with their jigsaw groups...

Mathematics: We also wrapped up our study on geometry with some fun activities. We did a little human geometry...

A right angle

A right triangle

Reflection (A flip)

Rotation (A turn)

Parallel lines

Acute angle

Straight angle

We also made Molas for symmetry! Check out our colorful bulletin board!

We also used fun foam to practice flips, slides, and turns!

Our last project was to make symmetry pictures. The students were given 1/2 of a magazine photo and they needed to draw the "mirror image". The final products were spectacular! Take a look:

Hannah's parachute

Patrick's heart

Lauren's alien

Anthony's Dr. Phil M&M

Taylor's hungry girl

Meg's magic wand

Ashley's goldfish

Taylor's banana carrot

Rachel's brush

Katie's bird

Reading: We are working on our tall tale character projects to wrap up our unit. Each child has a different character to research. I will post some pictures soon. After vacation, we will begin our next unit on mystery!

Science: We will be wrapping up animals and starting plants after vacation.

Writing: I have been using our writing time to sneak in a bit of extra math. We are working on data and graphs. After vacation, we will be working on our presidents and first ladies projects. The children received their research at library today. They should read over this research during vacation. I would read these sources before going to internet resources. Please use kid friendly search engines such as yahooligans, if you decide to surf the net at home. Feel free to visit the public libraries or book stores to find additional information. The bulk of the project will be done at school, but the children will need to dress up in costume as their person for our annual Hall of Presidents & First Ladies in to be held early June. More info to come on this.

Read Aloud: We are preparing for our project on fractured fairy tales. We have been reading the original fairy tales and then, several fractured versions of the tale. For example, we read Cinderella. Next, we read CindyEllen, CinderEdna, Bubba the Cowboy Prince, Cinder-Elly, and an Egyptian Cinderella. We did the same with Rumplestiltskin and the Three Bears. After vacation, the children will receive an at-home writing project where they will need to construct their own fractured fairy tale. Complete project details will follow on this. You may wish to start thinking about which tale you want to fracture. Don't start the project yet...just think of ideas. Please ask your child to explain what a fractured fairy tale is to you and let me know if they have any questions.

I hope everyone has a great April vacation. I am going home to New York for a few days to see my parents and then I will be back in Northboro to visit with friends. I am also looking forward to taking Emma to see the Big Apple Circus in Boston too! This is our first visit to the circus with her. Hopefully, the clowns won't be too scary!

Be safe and have fun!

-JoAnne

Brain Drain...

Check out the fun websites on the left side of the page. If you need a break and are looking for some new games, click and explore! No homework tonight, tomorrow, or Wednesday! Please play outside, inside or on-line (with a responsible adult, of course!) to give your mind a much needed break.

Great job today and have a nice evening!

-Mrs. Gorham

MCASSY MARCH!

Hi Everyone!
We've lightened up the blog colors for sping! Ahhh....springtime! I know I have been loving the additional hours of daylight. I have been taking advantage of the many trails that Northborough has to offer and walking with Emma and Sophie, my dog. Our students have also enjoyed reclaiming the field, now that the snow pack has finally melted away. Viva la sunshine!

I apologize for the lag in posts. I have been super-busy with a computer class that I am taking. It has been great, but it requires me to spend an additional few hours a week on the computer (on top of what I already spend...). I have still been taking lots of photographs, I just needed to find the time to upload them and generate the post.

Also, thank you for all your help supporting your child with MCAS Prep the past few weeks. Long Composition went off without a hitch last week and the students were so focused. I am very proud of their effort and attitude towards testing.

So here is the scoop from the past few weeks.

Music-In-Class Concerts: February was Music in Our Schools Month. Mrs. Stonebraker provided the students with the opportunity to showcase their talent at an "In-Class Concert."

Lauren Sings...

C.J. & Anthony strum...

Brenna, Taylor, Kaitlin, & Allyson bust a move!

Physical Education-Project Adventure: When helmets are a fashion statement here at Zeh School you can probably guess that it is time for Project Adventure. The students are busy stretching their minds and their bodies with a challenging array of physical tasks. They are trying to work up to different levels and achieve their personal best. Project Adventure wraps up the week of April 11th. Thank you to Mr. Sieurin for setting up the course and also to all the wonderful parent volunteers who have helped to belay!

Go for it, Meg!

Hang on, Anthony!

Will loves it!

Strike a pose, Allyson!

Caroline's wrapped in the web.

Get ready to swing!

Say Cheese, Alyson!

Rock on, John!

Science- Owl Pellets: Do you know what is inside an owl pellet? Hopefully, your child does! We dissected pellets as our wrap up to our study of birds. The students were intrigued to see what they would find inside their pellet. There was great teamwork and conversation during this lab activity.

Enrichment- FIRST Robotics from WPI: We had our annual visit from WPI's FIRST Robotics Team. This year they brought their World Championship Robot to share with our school. As always, they answered many questions (if you addressed the person by their name!) about the new robot and let students have a turn operating the equipment. It was very cool!

The World Championship Robot!

These kids are about to move up!

A mesmerized audience!

Celebrate the Arts Night: Many students were on hand at this wonderful celebration of art and music! Three of our classmates were selected to demonstrate the art of Chinese Brush Painting to the visitors. Unfortunately, I missed the later portion as Emma needed to get home to bed. I did see many smiling faces though and it was nice to come together as a community.

Devin, Caroline, and Katie showed their skills!

Special Project- The Witches: Brenna, Caroline & Katie decided that they wanted to read "The Witches," by Roald Dahl and create a project to share with the class. Collaboratively, they made a PowerPoint presentation, a clay model of a witch, a crossword puzzle, and posters. It was a great deal of work and they did a wonderful job sharing it with their peers. Many other students have even decided to read the book based on their presentation. Great job, ladies!

Brenna at the laptop guiding the slide show.

Patrick volunteers...

Do you know how to spot a witch?

Mathematics: We have pretty much wrapped up our geometry unit and will be having a test on Friday, April 4th. We will have some fun with flips, slides, and turns & symmetry this week. Our next unit will be measurement.

Library: Don't forget to try to select some books from the Northboro-Southboro Children's Book Award List. If you are not sure what I am talking about, click on the link below to get the info. I selected one book from the list to read aloud to the class. They should read at least 2 more from the list before it is time to vote for their favorite.

http://www.nsboro.k12.ma.us/zeh/library/nscba.htm

Read-aloud: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo was the book that I selected from the NSCBA List (see above). It was amazing! I loved everything about the book and I know that many of the students in our class enjoyed it as well. It is a great read for adults too! Check it out if you can.

You can also check out Kate DiCamillo's homepage:

http://www.katedicamillo.com/books.html

Thanks for all you do to support your child each day! Have a great week!

-JoAnne