January 2002 News and Notes

Principal | General Info | Staff/Classes | News | School Board | Calendars | PTO | Time Capsule | Home | SAU16 

Preparing Learners for a New Age

Education has become more sophisticated over the past 10 to 15 years because we know so much more about the brain and how humans learn. Research has shown us that individuals learn in different ways and have innate talents that must be tapped if full potential is to be reached. This knowledge is just the beginning when designing curriculum, instruction and assessment for our schools. We must also take into account the world for which we are educating today's youngsters. To begin with, we must recognize that in the past century our world has changed drastically. We have moved far away from the industrial age for which schools were designed in the 1800's. At that time industry and assembly lines were the basis of our economy and schools were designed to match it. Factories and schools standardized everything from products to procedures. Mass production and technical efficiency required that all work at a uniform pace. This was considered the perfect approach to schooling in an age when uniformity ruled. All children were expected to learn at a uniform rate and were taught the same way. Students were placed in grade levels, depending on their age. If children did not learn the way everyone was expected to learn within the 180 days of fourth grade, let's say, they were tracked into the high group, the low group and the in-between group. All children were expected to learn a certain amount of curriculum during each year in school. They were expected to fit “inside the box,” and those who learned differently or learned at a different pace never quite fit into that model. Many became disillusioned about school, dropped out, became discipline problems or felt as though they were stupid. Those who were successful knew how to work within the system and learned well
with that kind of design. The model did not work for many students and certainly did not support them in reaching their full potential. Although we know more today about teaching and learning, we are still operating under the same system of 180-day school years with placement in grade levels based on age. It is interesting to note that in today's world at no other time are we expected to work with people our same age and do the same thing everyone else is doing at the same time and at the same pace. Today educators must take our newfound understanding of how children learn and work creatively within a system that has not kept pace with changes within our society. The challenge is great, but we are seeing new reforms in education that are being supported by research. New approaches to teaching and learning are being implemented in many of today's schools. In the past couple of months in “News and Notes” you have learned a bit about learning styles and multiple intelligences. These are just two examples of how education is becoming more learner-centered. Next month, we will look at other new trends in education and how they better match the future trends in our ever-changing world.

Happy holidays to everyone! I hope you enjoyed the festivities and the heightened energy of your kindergartners.

During December we focused on three different holidays: Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwansaa. We spent one week on each holiday and learned some of the traditions and customs associated with it. We looked at the Hanukkah celebration, made a menorah and learned the words gimel, hey, shin, and nun to play the dreidel game. It was a fun way to practice the concepts of all, half and none. We played the game for gelt, the traditional chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. We put one candle on our menorah for each night of Hanukkah. traditions. We talked about trees and decorations from various countries. Santa’s workshop opened that week. With a volunteer Mom-elf in charge each day, we made gifts to share with our families. Each family now has a special winter wreath. Our last theme was Kwanzaa, the African-American festival of family and sharing the bounty. We talked about the seven principles of Kwanzaa. We made mats, hats, and candleholders.

Our reading books for the month dealt with children around the world and how we are more similar than different. We learned how to say hello and Merry Christmas in many languages. We practiced these greetings as part of our daily morning meeting. Our math focus this month was recognition and formation of numbers from 1 through 31, which incorporated the eight days of Hanukkah, the 25 days till Christmas, and December 26-31, the seven days of Kwanzaa. As you can see, we were very busy.

Grade One culminated its Mexican study with a “Reading Buddy” share. We also invited Ms. Merrill’s class in to listen to a choral reading play and to view our multicultural artwork. Both first and fifth graders enjoyed this time.

A special thanks to Mrs. Andersen for sharing goodies from her recent trip to Mexico. We all received our own Mexican jumping bean and read the secret of why they jump. We played Juego De Loteria, a Mexican version of Bingo and compared the Mexican and U.S.A. flags.

We hope our families enjoyed the many crafts we made as we traveled around the world reading and learning about various winter celebrations and customs. Thanks to all for such a festive holiday party. We had fun breaking and sharing our piñata treats and decorating our gingerbread houses! Weren’t the children wonderful singing at our concert!

Grade One hopes everyone had a relaxing, safe, and joyful vacation time. We will return in January ready to publish individual stories using picture writing art techniques. We will study the seasonal changes from Fall to Winter and do experiments while learning about matter. Robert Munsch will be our author of the month. Children love his humorous stories and repetitive patterns. Our thematic unit on birds will incorporate the IIM research model and students will choose a bird to research. Our word wall is growing; math facts are being mastered, and the year 2002 promises to be exciting and challenging in first grade.

The month of December passed by too quickly for us here in first grade! Before we knew it, it was gone! It's certainly true that time flies when you're having fun! Some of the fun projects that we have been immersed in are painting the sky (Picturing Writing), Japanese geography, customs, language, and families, learning to add and subtract two-digit numbers, and reading great books!

We had a wonderful holiday party in our classroom. We went on a search throughout the entire school for the gingerbread man and found him hiding right in our classroom! We were able to decorate our own gingerbread cookies, and of course, we enjoyed eating them when we were finished making them look yummy! The classroom received many thoughtful gifts that we will be sure to use in the New Year! We have many new board games and art supplies to break into -- we cannot wait! Thank you to our room moms for planning another fun time for us! We appreciate it! Also, thank you to all of the families who sent in presents for our classroom -- we are so lucky!

We are looking forward to a lot of fun times in the New Year, including a family collage project to celebrate all of the things that make our families special and a Japanese lunch day! We have a great cookbook full of interesting Japanese foods. Some of us even want to try eating sushi! As they say in Japan, "Achimashta Omeditou" or "Happy New Year!"

In December Second Grade focused our learning on bears. We practiced taking short note facts from nonfiction resources on bears and put the information learned into our own words. We made individual Brain Quests. A large number of stuffed bears visited our classroom this month. They were good companions and inspiration for many stories. Each child wrote a story about bears with description and problem. All stories were published in a collection, “The Second Grade Bear Anthology,” along with some of everyone’s Bear Brain Quest questions. Everyone enjoyed working with money, a topic we will revisit in March.

No matter what the weather, in January, second grade will be warm and toasty with our unit on quilts, geometry and fractions. Second graders are invited to bring in quilts to share. If you or any relative quilts, or if you would like to share anything about quilts, quilting or sewing, please let me know. We will be learning about geometry, patterns, and fractions using quilts. We will read and learn about the history of quilting. We will learn about many quilt patterns and make many paper quilts as a class. We will also sew.

Grade Three

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope a great holiday break was enjoyed by all.

December was a very brief, but busy month in 3S. We had lots of projects that kept us very busy. One of the projects we were most proud to complete was a 2002 calendar as a gift for our families. This project really lead us to learn so much. Our class brainstormed ideas in vocabulary for various months to help us come up with just the right original illustration for each month. We then created our illustrations and learned how to scan them on to our calendar page. We then researched important dates to include on our calendar and finally learned how to use the program Microsoft Publisher, which helped us to produce a calendar our families will enjoy the whole year through. As one student put it "Our calendar is better than Hallmark!" A big thank you to Mrs. Atkins for her help on this undertaking.

In our literacy study this month we completed our book club reading of Frindle, Muggie Maggie and Stone Fox. We continued with our own self-selected reading and reviewed our word wall words and spelling patterns. We also worked on individual writing pieces, as well as a holiday prompt. This prompt was taken through all steps of the writing process and ended in a final draft. We had some great final products, which helped us to incorporate use of details, descriptive vocabulary, revising and editing skills.

In math we continue to work on individual progress in multiplication. We also did holiday graphing and using coordinates to figure out holiday mystery pictures. We continue to use skills to make us good problem solvers in daily applications. We also reviewed place value and practiced rounding numbers to the nearest 10’s, 100’s and 1,000’s. Some students took this skill to even higher values.

In science we continued our study of simple machines. This unit was lots of fun! We worked to learn all the simple machines and why they are important in helping make work and play easier. The class then worked cooperatively in small groups to problem solve and build complex machines from gear kits, as well as, specialized Lego kits that specifically focused on certain machine types. It was great to see the groups read plans and work as teams to reach certain outcomes through trial and error. They are great team players. Our unit finally culminated with the presentation of each student’s individual patented inventions. They did a great job explaining their inventions and fielding questions from their classmates, students in other classes and Mrs. Cushing who joined us for the presentations. It was very obvious the students had a great deal of understanding of simple machines and how they work.

In social studies, we integrated our study of map skills while learning about traditions and celebrations around the world. We read and did some research to give us an understanding of how those in other parts of the world celebrate. We also incorporated this into the writing process by creating a bulletin board that displayed our wishes for the world. We had great discussions about what we wished for our global community.

Finally, a big thank you to the room mothers for organizing a great craft and holiday party. I’m sure the students will put their snowmen bookmarks to great use with lots of winter reading. It was also terrific to have live entertainment at the party! Bubba, you are welcome anytime. Here’s to 2002!

The month of December blew by with so much happening in third grade! We investigated holiday traditions around the world, looking up information on the internet and using other classroom resources. It was fun to find out how other countries celebrate the holidays.

In math we continued to work on multiplication facts. We are using cuisinaire rods to build area models showing the multiplication facts. We have also been using manipulatives and base 10 blocks to review multi-digit addition and subtraction. During our morning meetings we've been working on two-part word problems, which have been very challenging.

Reading has been a lot of fun with everyone working on different genres, including historical fiction, adventure and fantasy. We've been working in reading response journals for these books. We've also been reviewing short and long vowel patterns.

Many thanks for the help from home on the inventions for our simple machines unit. They were just wonderful and our students did a fine job of presenting them in front of the class. These simple machines are now on display in the front lobby, so please feel free to check them out.

We'd like to thank all of the families for their help with the holiday party. Thanks so much for the classroom gifts; they are already in use and are much appreciated.

Please continue to help your children practice their multiplication facts. The results are certainly showing. The kids are so proud of themselves every time they move to the next level. They've also been promised an ice cream party when they reach the class goal - a little bribery never hurts! Happy New Year!!!

Thank you all for your help in making our holiday celebration a success. We wrapped many gifts for area children and enjoyed the delicious goodies that you sent in. We also broke the piñata that we’d created and scrambled for the candies that showered out. Ms. Butler, our ED 500 student from UNH, joined us. She was a wonderful addition to our classroom; we’ll miss her a lot.

Thanks also to Mrs. Vlasich and her aunt and uncle, Ruth and Richard Palmer, all of whom attended East Kingston schools and shared some of their memories with us. Mrs. Vlasich remembered EKES when it was a four-room building. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer attended Pound School, the current town library. Mr. Palmer told us how the school bus often got stuck in the mud on the untarred East Kingston roads.

We published book reports this month on the computer using Microsoft Publisher. In addition to formatting font, size, color, and alignment, we also imported pictures of the books we read from on-line. Books were analyzed for problem, resolution, and important plot events.

We completed Natalie S. Carlson’s novel, The Family Under the Bridge, and each fourth grader wrote what might be the next chapter, as well as expository paragraphs about homelessness in the story and in today’s world. A highlight of the reading was our “stroll” down the Paris’s Rue de Rivoli where we feasted on crêpes and looked at paintings by Monet and Renoir. Mrs. Silverman taught us a little about Impressionism.

Our science and social studies curriculum overlapped this month as we studied about the layers of the earth and the hunters and gatherers who first lived on the earth’s crust and made use of its resources. We have been preparing for the Geography Bee on Friday afternoons in collaboration with Ms. Hayes, Mrs. Miller, and Mr. McMahon. In math we’ve focused primarily on multiplication and time.

January is Biography Month in 4A. Some of the activities differ from years past. A calendar, similar to the one sent home, can be found on our classroom website at http://webct.sau16.k12.nh.us:8900 .

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Our class chose to give gifts to the less fortunate children again this season in the true spirit of kindness and giving. Each gift was carefully chosen and brought into class for wrapping as part of our classroom holiday party. Many gifts were generously donated. Thank you, Mrs. Prescott, for once again spearheading this wonderful and thoughtful program. Thank you, too, to our terrific room mothers for offering their time and assistance in making our party a huge success. We loved the delicious treats you provided for our piñata party!

This month we will begin social studies IIM projects using the theme of major national parks of the United States. We will integrate all subject areas as we implement the 7 steps of the IIM research method. From a science point of view we will be focusing on the major landforms found in various parks of each region of the United States, and we will investigate the geological activity that created each of those landforms. Reading, language arts, and computer technology will also be integrated as the students research many sources of information, take notes, cite sources in bibliographical form, summarize information using their own words, edit, organize, finalize, and share what they have learned with the class. The students will both learn the content in the curriculum, and practice using a set of good study skills. We hope to display our work and final products at a school wide open house in the spring.

Both fourth and fifth grades have been brushing up on geography in preparation for the Geography Bee to be held here on January 11. Several Friday afternoon practice sessions have shed a light on what types of questions and information the students should know in order to succeed. There will be questions on the physical earth, locations of events, location of places, and cultures of people inhabiting the world, to name a few categories. Five finalists from each class will be chosen to compete in the school bee.

In math, keep reviewing those times tables! Fifteen minutes each night will help tremendously towards quick recall of products that is helpful in solving division problems. We will continue to practice single-digit division with and without remainders this month and the students will be asked to check their work using multiplication.

The sky paintings the students have been writing in Picture Writing will be completed and bound in book form. We will begin Image-Making-Within-the-Writing-Process in mid-January to further exercise their creative writing abilities. More on that to come!

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2002!

Our fifth grade structural engineers have constructed impressive ancient temples from lost civilizations (Aztec, Incan, Mayan). The temples represent government buildings, ceremonial buildings, or palaces of rulers of long ago. The students have completed their IIM reports on Ancient Civilizations. It’s great to have the tech lab available so the report could be typed and have a polished look.

Weaving has caused great excitement in the classroom. Students have woven beautiful patterns. It’s very easy to get started; just a bit of yarn, cardboard, and a popsicle stick. It’s a perfect activity for kids who like to keep their hands busy.

The next topic of research will be European Explorers. These are the essential questions for discovery: Who are the explorers? What did they want? How did they get here? Students will find some unusual answers to these basic questions.

We’ve discussed, illustrated, and applied literary techniques, such as metaphors, similes, and idioms. Students are on the alert to identify literary elements and use them in their writing.

Reading in the new year will bring picture story books. Picture story books for intermediate readers are full of beautiful art and well written short stories. The text complements the art as the art complements the text. We’re all looking forward to the start of the new year.

In December the children were very busy in art class doing multicultural lessons in conjunction with the holiday concert. Our lessons focused on snowmen, holiday trees, menorahs, Kwanzaa weavings, snowglobes, winter folkart paintings and quilt theme collages. Pattern, line, shape, color and texture were art elements we explored while using a variety of media, such as construction paper, tissue paper, craypas, tempera paint and, everyone’s favorite, glue and glitter. All work was displayed in the gym and the entryway. Many thanks to Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Beane for their hard work in displaying the children’s art work. We appreciate all the wonderful comments about the children’s artistic efforts. Happy New Year! May this year be a happy, healthy and safe one for all.

Happy New Year everyone! It sure is wonderful to come back to all the smiling faces at E.K.E.S. Congratulations to all our children for an excellent performance at the holiday concert. Once again our students showed what fine musicians they are. I was extremely proud of each and every one of them.

In January classes will begin the study of orchestral instrument families. And remember- it is never too late to take an instrument here at E.K.E.S. Any child who wishes to learn the flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, French horn, or drums may contact me at any time, and I will arrange to have Mr. Nasburg, our instrumental, after-school instructor, set up a time for your lessons. Eastern Music can also be contacted at any time for instrument rental. It would be wonderful to see our band grow again and to hear it perform at concerts.

Recorders will be going home again, parents, for practice. We will need your help remembering to send them back to school on Tuesday for Mrs. Walker’s class, or Thursday for Mrs. Simmons’ class. We have discussed hanging them on a doorknob of our bedrooms in a plastic bag. Another idea is to make a sign to hang on the door saying which day they are to be brought to school. Practice charts with parent signatures will be awarded a sticker.

Principal | General Info | Staff/Classes | News | School Board | Calendars | PTO | Time Capsule | Home | SAU16 

Please read Disclaimer on our site concerning copyright and privacy.
Send Comments to District Web Coordinator
Last Updated:  Thursday, July 19, 2007