April 2002 News and Notes

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Research Comes to Life at E.K.E.S.

Can you remember doing research when you were in school? Remember those note cards and footnotes and outlines, etc? Did you break out in a cold sweat whenever the teacher assigned a long-term research paper?

Many of us would respond that research was not one of our favorite things to do. It is probably safe to say that when we were faced with a big research project, we didn't have a clue where to begin. We probably went to the Encyclopedia and to the library looking for magazines or books. Once we found our resources, we didn't really understand how to break down the information and use what was most valuable for us. We also got pretty creative in rewording the sentences so we couldn't be accused of plagiarism. Our final product was usually a paper or report and we weren't given many options on how to present our information.

Fortunately, for your children, things have changed. You may have heard them talk about doing a Double IM and you may have seen the packets designed to assist them in the process of doing their research. Double IM is short for Independent Investigation Method, which is a seven-step method of guiding students through the research process. We are using the Double IM Model with all of our students in grades K-5. It teaches the students a set of skills that allows them to gather information, analyze that information and share it with others in a meaningful way.

The seven steps to the model are

As students walk through this process, with their teacher's guidance, they are provided with very organized and sequential work pages. The work pages help them break down their information and organize their thinking. Their notefacts are often charted on large sheets of paper for all to see and the sources for the information are prominently posted. Each step of the way, the students are guided through planning how they will do their research, design their product and do their presentation. Products include multimedia presentations, three dimensional projects, skits, charts, etc. The students are allowed to demonstrate their learning by tapping into their creativity and natural talents. The model is so well designed that the students are more confident and successful. Each Double IM project gets better with more experience. If all of our students have learned and practiced this model for research over their six years at EKES, can you imagine how well prepared they will be for their future years in school? We're seeing some pretty exciting products and we're also seeing students excited about doing research.

In fact while visiting a classroom, I overheard the students saying, "I love doing research when we do it this way.” That speaks volumes to me.

Some mysterious visitors arrived at the kindergarten one day this month and caused a lot of mischief. They came on March 17 and left our room with paper tossed on the floor, chairs overturned, blocks dumped on the carpet, and a trail of grass clippings. They did leave us a note of apology and bags of Lucky Charms. Do you know who they might be? We think it might have been the leprechauns; they signed their note “Pat and Liam.” Have you seen them? We enjoyed the Lucky Charms and made a math graph to show how many different kinds of marshmallows each child had. The best part of the day was eating our math lesson at snack time.

We were very industrious in March. Many of our activities centered around our Antarctic Unit. We studied the three major animals of the region: penguins, seals and whales. Using the Independent Investigation Method (IIM) we read several non-fiction books to gather “Antarctifacts” for our research project. Each child chose a fact to illustrate using a collage technique. We culminated our unit with a family day at which our kindergarten experts dressed as penguins and shared their expertise with a project packet and collage.

Another exciting day filled with cooperation and planning was our South Pole Day. With several parent volunteers to help, we had a relay race to the South Pole. Each team had to dress for the weather and pack a sled of supplies to carry to the South Pole out on the playing fields. Mother Nature even gave us a blanket of snow for the occasion. After planting our flag at the pole, we regrouped indoors for a marathon of Antarctic centers run by our energetic parent volunteers. All our work will be on display for curriculum night. Drop by and check it out.

March did just that- march on by with a taste of winter as the calendar said spring!

In Grade One we completed our fraction unit and made individual fraction bingo games. We are working hard on mastering our addition facts to ten. We already have some number “experts!” Along with these facts we are also working on our doubles and will make books for them.

Arnold Lobel’s fun filled adventures of Frog and Toad were our reading focus. We’re trying to make sure our own stories have all the elements of a good story. We’ll use the story “glove” to check if we’ve left anything out. With Mrs. Nigrello children made their short vowel rhyming books.

We are all off to Africa, and April will find us traveling along the Nile River and then on to Kenya. We will start another IIM research unit on African animals. Our author for April will be Verna Aardema. Bring the Rain to Kapiti Plain is but one of her African setting stories. We will read other folk tales and try our hand at storytelling.

Grade One wishes all a Happy Spring. See you in April for our report card conferences. We have learned so much as we now have been in school more than 130 days! Only 50 left!

We are all very proud of our completed Picturing Writing books! We "painted the sky" and the results are breathtaking! We are anxious to share them with our families. We are also looking forward to our Japan Day scheduled for next Tuesday. Our plan is to perform a small show and then feast on some special Japanese food! We will also teach our parents some Japanese children's games. It will be a great way to celebrate all of the wonderful learning that has taken place during this unit.

We were involved during the month of February in the Olympics. We had certain people that we were very interested in following -- some that we learned are from NH! The class sent a letter of congratulations to NH skier Bode "the bullet" Miller. We loved his nickname and how fast he could ski down the mountains! We are hoping that he will send us a letter back! Thank you to Mr. Peters for hosting the mini-Olympic games for us! We had a blast!

The 100th Day of School was a BIG day here in first grade! We did many projects that explored the number 100! We measured, estimated, graphed, skip counted, created math sentences, learned a 100th day cheer and shared our 100th day objects with a buddy. It was such a fun day full of math!

Things that we are looking forward to: Japan Day, Exploring Egypt, and learning about birds, especially ducks.

In March we began our geology unit by working in teams to research dinosaurs. As teams we learned general information about dinosaurs and how to put that information into our own words. There were maisaura, protoceratop, triceratops, apatosaurus, stegosaurus, velociraptor, supersaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, parasolopalus and elasmosaurus teams, which used the Independent Investigation Method (IIM) to research their dinosaur. During the first week in April we will be putting our note facts together and writing short reports. We made fossil models and learned many things that fossils can tell us. We read many fiction and non-fiction books about dinosaurs, Patrick’s Dinosaurs, A Dinosaur Named Sue, The Magic School Bus in the Time of he Dinosaurs, to name a few. We studied and sorted rocks by different characteristics. In Math we continued to practice subtraction with borrowing and we worked on ways to check our answers. We also worked with tallies and graphs and measurement.

In April we will finish our geology unit and start a science unit on ecology. We will observe changes in seedlings and spring twigs. Our math focus will be time and money. We will be reading poetry and humorous literature. In Social Studies we will learn about East Kingston. We are working on our East Kingston Trivia Scavenger Hunt. Second Graders will be finding the answer to questions such as: What was established in East Kingston in 1894 with 143 books?

Happy Spring! It feels as though Spring is in the air. The air is getting warmer, plants and flowers are starting to bloom, and the birds are back. We are enjoying all the changes of the season and working hard and learning lots.

In our literacy study, guided reading has led us to the works of E.B. White. We have completed his book Stuart Little, the tale of a mouse born to a human family and his many adventures. When we completed the book, we watched the movie and realized how alike and different the two were. We constructed a Venn diagram to show our comparisons. As a final project we constructed perspective drawings to show our individual depictions of Stuart’s room. This is not an easy task, but everyone did a terrific job. We are currently reading Charlotte’s Web, which explores the friendships and affections of its characters in a barnyard setting. As a read aloud we are currently reading Trumpet of the Swan, a third book by E.B. White about a swan born without a voice. This book shows how this unique swan’s defect proved to make him incredibly special and wonderful. All three of these animal stories are wonderful classics. In self-selected reading we have been reading a variety of selections helping our teams with the AR Winter Challenge.

In our writing we have been working on individual story lines and prompts. We are using dictionaries and thesauruses to help us edit. We are sharpening our skills to help us write quality stories with good detail and beginnings, middles and endings. We have also explored alliteration in tongue twisters, we had lots of fun with this form of writing and incorporated a format that reinforced using a variety of parts of speech. We are also enjoying all the letter writing we’re doing for our Wee Deliver program. We love getting mail!

In math our concentration has been time and money. We have worked to make change in a variety of ways, at times looking for the most efficient way. We have shopped as teams at diners, porch sales, and carnivals. We have tried to come close to, without going over, a designated dollar amount and then figuring our change. We checked our pencil calculations with calculators for accuracy. Each team worked so well together making choices of purchases and doing calculations. We have also been studying solid figures, and I loved all the representations of these figures on the mobiles constructed as a home assignment. All were very creative and look great hanging in our classroom. We also continue to work on problem solving strategies.

In social studies, we have selected Birthday Buddies to research. We have used our IIM research model to find information about famous people born during our individual birth months. We used a web site and then used a variety of research sources to help us compile many interesting notefacts about our famous people. We are in the final product phase of our research. We are constructing biography posters which incorporate many aspects of report writing. We will then present our information to the class and use a rubric to evaluate our work. We have learned and are using so many great researching skills that will benefit us for years to come. We are also just beginning our immigration unit, This is a great unit and will show us what a great melting pot America really is. We have started reading books, which tell us of the immigration process, and we’ll be researching and portraying various immigrants who came to this country. Our culminating event later this spring will be a simulation of Ellis Island. More about this to come.

In Science, we have completed our unit on the solar system and will be traveling to the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium on Monday, April 8. This will be a fun field trip, which will make our study of the planets come alive.

Congratulations to all the classes who participated in Jump Rope for Heart. EKES raised lots of money for the American Heart Association. Thanks to all who contributed time and money and a special thank you to Mr. Peters for organizing this event. 3S enjoyed an extra PE class with Mr. Peters for being one of the top contributing classes.

Spring has finally arrived, and we’re able to open the windows to drive out those nasty little germs that have invaded our classroom over the last two months! We’re looking forward to the warm spring sunshine.

Our class has been busily preparing for our Curriculum Night in April. We’re working on a project using the picturing writing techniques. We’ve enjoyed doing all of the background paintings, talking about color and theme. Now we’re ready for the writing piece, and that promises to be a fun experience. We’re also working on three-dimensional shape mobiles in class, forming tetrahedrons, rectangular prisms, cones, etc. Needless to say, it’s a challenge to form some of the more intricate shapes, but exciting to see it actually take the shape it’s supposed to.

Over the past month we’ve been learning about money: coin recognition, counting, spending, saving, etc. We have quite a few budding bankers, and several big spenders. Any practice using money when you go to the store with your children will be extremely helpful - let them count the money to give the clerk, or count the change. We’re also learning about telling time, so any practice using an analog (not digital) clock, will be a huge help. Of course multiplication facts are still being learned, along with division facts. Some have started multiplication of two digit numbers.

We have begun our study of immigration. We have been doing whole class reads using short stories about the history of immigration, and the lives of the immigrants. We have had some very interesting discussions that follow. We will be doing a research project on the immigration process as we prepare for our Immigration Day, in which third graders will play the parts of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island. We will be creating a satchel as a prop for Immigration Day, along with the passport, documentation, family trees, and maps. It’s such a wonderful experience for all of our third graders!

Enjoy the lovely spring weather, and we look forward to seeing all of you on Curriculum Night!

Much of March was spent learning about local and state government. All fourth graders built houses for which they received a property tax bill that they are working to pay. Village elections were held with three fourth graders being chosen for School Board and three for Selectmen. Special thank-you’s to Kevin Fitzgibbon for explaining East Kingston School Board’s balancing act, juggling the needs of students, staff, and townspeople, and to all of the poll workers who, as they do every year, patiently answered all the children’s questions about elections. Our field trip to Concord provided a first-hand look at state government. We all sat in Governor Shaheen’s and Councilor Ruth Griffin’s chairs, in the seats of the 24 state senators, and in the 400-member House of Representatives. Children were impressed with the Hall of Flags and were able to identify portraits of many New Hampshire notables. This field trip also included a visit to the Museum of New Hampshire History, where we particularly enjoyed the Abenaki wigwam and the Concord Coach. Thank you to all who chaperoned.

In science we are wrapping up our study of the human body. One of our parents, a nurse practitioner who specializes in pediatric pulmonology, presented several activities to review and further explain the respiratory system.

In math we’re working on long division and a daily dose of problem solving. We’re continuing to work with Ms. Hayes on Image-Making and are reading toward Accelerated Reader goals.

April marks the beginning of a very busy time in grade four.

Our earth science unit will culminate in a fair to be held in 4H on April 16. Students will present their water projects before a panel of three judges. Three students will be chosen to participate in the state fair in Keene in May. There is a competitiveness to the projects, but the students have had fun in the process of learning a great deal about water. We are grateful to Mr. Miller for taking us on a highly informative and fascinating tour of the Manchester Water Works. We learned that all of Manchester’s water supply comes from Lake Massabesic (a name derived from the Indians, meaning “the place of much water”), and what must be done to treat the lake water before it can be safely used in homes and industries. We were also given a partial tour of the Massabesic watershed where we learned a great deal about the environment that surrounds a water supply and its important role in protecting the quality of the water supply.

In math will move on to identifying polygons and angles, analyzing polygons, classifying quadrilaterals and geometry in general. We will continue to review and practice the basic skills as well.

Mrs. Atkins and I switch classes when it comes to social studies and Image-making Within the Writing Process. She has been teaching my class all about government while I have introduced a new method of creative writing to her students.

Fourth graders have been working in earnest on their image-making books. Some of the illustrators have completed their collage illustrations and are ready to write. As they write their stories and become authors, they will apply skills they have learned and practiced throughout the year, as well as their knowledge of the rules of C.O.P.S.

I look forward to meeting with you at parent conferences!

Fifth graders have been engaged in a IIM research project on constellations. Their tasks were to find the stories behind a specific constellation and some information on the stars it contains. We learned about types of stars, their age, color, magnitude, and distance from earth. It is sometimes confusing that stars in a given constellation, although they appear to be close to each other, may be many light years away from each other and vary greatly in their distance from earth. The constellations appear to be two-dimensional to us because we really can’t see depth in the night sky. If we consider the asterism called “The Big Dipper,” which is part of the constellation Ursa Major, we find that the seven stars that compose it are between 62 and 140 light years away from us. (A light year is the distance that light travels in one year - about 6,000,000,000,000 miles). To share our information, each fifth grader is preparing two Power Point slides that will be combined to make one big presentation.

In math we are finishing our work with fractions (Hold the cheering, please.) and are reviewing multiplication and division. We will soon begin measurement, both customary and metric, beginning with linear measurement and moving to area and cubic measure. Our first task will be to become familiar with the divisions of meter sticks, rulers, and yardsticks. As we add and subtract customary linear measures, you can see that fractions will not go away.

Please remember to consider all possible weather conditions when packing for Sargent Center. And remember that whatever is packed must be able to be carried (at least dragged) by the child it belongs to.

We’re all looking forward to having a great time at Sargent Center. We’re hoping the weather will cooperate and we’ll have no snow. The fifth grade teachers will be taking plenty of photos to display at Curriculum Night on April 18. Please remember that we have a field trip on April 16 to Olde York Historical Society. Children will take part in spinning, weaving, cooking over an open hearth, and learning what lessons would be like in a seventeenth century schoolhouse. Fifth graders are asked to dress according to the guidelines sent home to parents. We’ll have loads of fun pretending to be living in a time in history that we’re studying in school.

Happy Spring to all! It was a short winter, but it is still nice to see the flowers poking through. Please mark off June 6 on your calendar for our next Spring concert. The children have already begun to prepare some songs and our third grade is beginning to sound like a real recorder choir. Our instrumental students will show some of their hard work at our Senior luncheon on April 4. First graders will also entertain with some of the patriotic songs we have all learned this year.

We had an exciting month in March. We made a commercial! You may have seen an article about a kindergarten in Exeter who entered a contest sponsored by the Oscar Mayer company. But what it didn’t say was that our fourth grade classes also entered! We are hoping to win $10,000 for our school’s Music department. Thank you to Ms. Hayes and Mrs. Atkins for all their help and for integrating Music into their social studies. We felt it truly was an enriching and fun activity for the children. We had costumes and each child dressed as a character from one of our states. We had a scarecrow from Kansas, Elvis from Tennessee, an Eskimo, a cowboy, two hula girls, Miss Liberty and a fireman from New York, a lobster fisherman, Paul Bunyan, a cow from a farm in the Midwest, and many more. Each child had an instrumental part as well as a singing part. They certainly are the winning team in our eyes!

Our first and second graders have begun simple harmonization with rounds and elimination songs. Our fifth graders are also working on harmony but are working more in depth with parallel harmony, descants, ostinatos, and rounds. We used our voices in different timbres and felt the change in our vocal chords that change the pitch of our notes. We are singing like those spring birds we hear outside now! Hope to see you on curriculum night and on June 6.

March has been a busy month with all grades focusing on weaving. Thanks to the generosity of the P.T.O., the children have had the opportunity to use yarn, felt, beads, embroidery floss and ribbon in the weavings.

Children have woven on styrofoam meat trays, styrofoam packing squares, circular and rectangular looms. During this process we’ve explored the art elements of color, line, texture and pattern. The children have been very creative with their explorations. They have had great fun in this learning process.

Two classes, 1M and 3W, have had a wonderful time weaving together. The children in Mrs. Walker’s class have had the chance to be teachers assisting the younger children with the process. In turn, the first graders were thrilled and very appreciative. This reciprocal process fostered a sense of sharing, kindness and respect. Thanks to Mrs. Walker for her fabric as well as to the P.T.O. for all they have done. Thank you to the parents who sent in yarn for their children.

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Last Updated:  Thursday, July 19, 2007