May 2002 News and Notes

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Teaching Children to Care

Over the past school year we have adopted the Responsive Classroom model throughout the school. This model has been established in schools all around the country and several schools within our SAU. Why Responsive Classroom? Because it is a model that creates a climate of caring and community within the classroom. It provides a structure that helps children reach out to one another and feel that they are important, contributing members of the group. The day begins with a morning message written on a large tablet that greets the students every day. The message talks about the day and what the students can expect. It usually has some kind of question the students must answer. After they deposit their backpacks, etc., they take turns reading the message and answering the question. The question might be a math equation or asking the students to count the grammar or punctuation mistakes in the message. It might ask them what they did over the week-end or what their favorite food is. All of it is designed to establish a procedure that begins the day. When students are asked to think and share, it sets the tone, and all children's contributions are valued.

The next step is to have Morning Meeting. The students gather in a circle, and they are taken through four components: the greeting, sharing, group activity, and news and announcements. This meeting is designed to give the children an opportunity to greet each other in a respectful way, share special events with the group, practice different skills in some curricular area, and have fun working and playing together. The meeting is also a way that children can problem solve together over some classroom or school problem. There are opportunities to resolve conflicts in a peaceful and respectful way using conflict resolution strategies. All of this is guided carefully by the classroom teachers and assistants. If you were to walk around the school during the early part of the day, you would see every classroom engaged in a Morning Meeting. It is powerful to see children learning how to be contributing members to their class, but they are also learning how to be good citizens within the school and ultimately their community.

Although children tend to have issues that arise on the playground and in the hallways, the number of serious problems has decreased this year. There are fewer referrals to the principal's office, and children are actually trying to work things out in positive and constructive ways. There are several other components to Responsive Classroom we have yet to adopt. This summer, three of our staff members will be attending training, and they will become trainers within the SAU. Over the next
year or two, several schools will be training staff members, and SAU 16 will hopefully become a district where all schools are incorporating Responsive Classroom into their day.

This reluctant spring weather has not interfered with the growing season in the kindergarten, well at least indoors. After starting our Fairy Tale and Folk Tale unit with Jack and the Beanstalk, we tried our hands at planting our own “magic beans.” Although ours didn’t sprout overnight, they did so in a few days. By planting in clear plastic cups we were rewarded with the sight of daily changes in the bean seed as it swelled and sent out roots. Just before vacation the pods started making their way to the surface of the cup. Each bean farmer took his/her plants home to nurture during spring vacation. The beans plants returned hale and hearty after vacation and were replanted in soil. The stalks are getting bigger by the day and will go home again soon to be planted outdoors. Everyone in kindergarten seems to have a green thumb.

The kindergartners proudly displayed their IIM projects on Antarctica and the beginnings of their fairy and folk tales unit for Curriculum Night. The children were very excited about sharing our beans project and reading to their families from our collection of emergent readers. We had many visitors and many positive comments. It was nice to have former students and their families visit, and it was especially wonderful to have visits from next year’s students and their families.

The months of May and June are busy ones in Kindergarten. We are finishing up our famous Artists’ Alphabet Books, beginning our writing for the Artist-in-Residence project, practicing estimation and simple math facts. We’re exploring math concepts using Cuisenaire rods to form letters of the alphabet. This gives us lots of opportunities to combine numbers creatively. We are working hard to improve our emergent reading skills. Now that the warmer weather has arrived we will break out the BIG RED BAGS to bring home reading books and math manipulatives to share with our families. This is a fun activity that lets our families share in our learning.

The Kindergarten has some special days coming up. We will host our annual Mothers’ Tea in the school courtyard, weather permitting, on May 16. Field Day will be on June 10 with the rest of the school. Rain date is Wednesday, June 12. We will have our Family Night Celebration and Cookout on June 13 in the evening. Move-Up Day will be June 14. Before you know it, we will be packed up and on our way to first grade!

Countdown! As the end of the year approaches, first graders are working hard as a community of learners. We are traveling through Africa and have left Egypt to visit the African savannahs. We will do research on the animals that inhabit this area and will later transform our room into the African rainforest. While we read about Africa, its people, culture, and geography, we will each publish our own “Painting Africa” picture writing books. Text and artwork will complement each other.

First graders are striving to be math experts with their addition and subtraction facts to ten and beyond. We will finish up the year with our units on time and money. I will be asking each child to bring in a “money bank” to help with recognition and counting of coins and their values.

It was so good to meet with parents at our conference and at our curriculum evening. The children and I are happy to share the goings-on in our room. They will be having a move-up day when they will meet with Mrs. Oppenheimer, their next year’s teacher.

All are looking forward to our artist-in-residence as she spends time with us in May. We will enjoy the experience and our take-home completed project.

It's really, really hard to believe that this year is nearly over! It's exciting and sad all at once! Fortunately, we get to be together again next year in second grade -- we are all so excited about that! I want to begin by thanking all of the moms and dads who helped make this year an AWESOME experience for all of us! Without your support and encouragement the year simply couldn't have gone so smoothly! A very BIG thank you to all the volunteers who helped in our classroom and most especially to our room moms -- YOU ROCK!

We have had an exciting month with the hatching of our ducklings! How beautiful all nine were! We were very proud "moms" and "dads"! It was a lot of work to keep them safe, warm, and turned for many days -- 28 to be exact! But, it all paid off in the end to be able to wheel them into other classrooms in our Make Way for Ducklings wagon and to be able to answer questions and share what we learned! Thank you to Norman Brandt (a former EKES student) for teaching us about ducks and for loaning us the eggs!

We are learning a lot of interesting facts about Egypt, and we are looking forward to our Egypt day in June. We are working very hard to research desert animals. We are combining our efforts with the artist-in-residence and making an information book about our animal. It has been a blast sewing our animal's habitat on the front cover of our book! We cannot wait to share the finished product with our parents!

Finally, thank you to Mrs. Rossman for all of her help this year. We did some pretty amazing projects, and we couldn't have done them without her help! You're great, Mrs. Rossman!

Have a safe and happy summer everyone!

Second graders are learning about the ocean. We are reading many books, both fact and fiction, about the ocean and life in and around the sea. We started the month reading about large sea creatures - whales, dolphins and sharks. Our classroom is slowly transforming into an ocean with fish and other sea creatures swimming by. We are also learning about small tidepool life like periwinkles, limpets and green crabs. We will be going on a field trip to Odiorne Point to study tidepools directly on Wednesday, May 29. Then we will be learning more about islands and the history and folklore surrounding the nine Isles of Shoals. We will visit them on Wednesday June 5, 2002.

Second graders have been busy learning about multiplication using skip counting, repeated addition and the area model. The Second Grade Tiling Company is getting good at figuring out how many tiles are needed to tile floors of different sizes. We will spend some time with three-dimensional shapes and cordite geometry, and we will spend some time planning, designing, and constructing.

In addition, we are learning to form cursive letters. We have started making quilted book covers with our artist-in-residence, Merrilyn SanSouci. Second Grade authors have been working on stories of their own choice, and some been trying their hands at poetry. Here is one poem:

Mrs. Huss, Ms. George, and I are really enjoying the wonderful class of second graders we have this year.

It is hard to believe this is the last News and Notes of this school year. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun, and I sure have enjoyed the time I’ve spent with our 3S community. We’ve had a great year together!

In our literacy study, we have completed Charlotte’s Web as a guided reading book. We have almost completed Trumpet of the Swans as our read-aloud. We have really enjoyed both of these classics written by E. B. White. We are also enjoying many selections that are connected with our study of immigration. These selections have been read in a variety of ways: individually, in groups and as read-alouds. In self-selected reading, we read toward the Winter Challenge. The whole class did a great job contributing to their team’s total points. Congratulations to all for a terrific job reading.

In writing, we have continued to work on writing prompts. We have looked at ways to make our final drafts the best they can be. We have looked at many samples of writing and tried to figure out what makes a quality piece of writing. We have then tried to refine our own writing. We have also been learning about test taking strategies and practicing them to help us with third grade testing. We will now put our creative writing talents to work to collaborate with our artist-in-residence, quilter, Merrilyn San Souci. We will work to create poetry to be bound by our quilted covers.

In math we have reviewed concepts in problem solving and practiced strategies. We have continued with our practice of multiplication and division. We have also worked to sharpen our understanding of geometry by using many manipulatives.

In Social Studies, we completed our biography research. We are quite proud of our final products, biography posters which display the many facts we learned about our famous birthday buddy. We are now in full swing with our Immigration unit. The students have visited a web site to research fictitious characters as they leave their native land and arrive in America at Ellis Island. Each student will portray one of these characters in a simulation through the Ellis Island experience. This simulation will take place at the end of May. Information will be arriving home to explain what the students will need to wear and bring to school on that day. This activity always proves to be a great experience. The students really love all this interactive learning.

In science the class enjoyed their trip to the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium. It was a great culminating event for our study of the Solar System. We will soon begin our study of biomes, learning what plants, animals and climates exist in various locations.

It was great seeing all of you at Curriculum Night. We hope you enjoyed viewing all our work. Thank you to all the moms who have contributed snacks during testing weeks. We really enjoyed these yummy treats! The students displayed a great work ethic throughout testing time. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support throughout the year, I have thoroughly enjoyed spending this time with such terrific kidsJ

It was wonderful to see so many parents and siblings at Curriculum Night! We were so glad to have you come and see our school.

We’ve been doing class presentations on our Solar System projects. It’s been great hearing all of the interesting ideas and how our students came up with their creations. There was a lot of time and effort put into these projects, and we thank the parents for their support with that.

Our trip to the Christa McAuliffe Museum was fantastic! After exploring the exhibits, we were treated to a planetarium show that was well worth the trip to see. There are lots of great things going on there. Hope you all had a chance to see the five planets lined up in the heavens this month!!!

We’ve begun our Immigration unit. This is such a fun unit. We’ve been doing group reads using books about immigrants and their journeys to America. We’ve also been doing research on the web at an Ellis Island website. Each student was assigned a character and is investigating that person’s voyage to America, and his or her Ellis Island experience. This will give them the background for the processing procedure when we do Immigration Day. We’re looking forward to playing character roles for our visit to ‘Ellis Island’ (a.k.a. the gym) at the end of May. We hope many of you can join us as inspectors for the morning. Information about our Immigration Day will be sent home.

We’ve been doing a lot of review in math to get ready for state testing. We’ve also been working on putting together a dictionary of math vocabulary words. It’s always a challenge to get ready for testing!

As this is the last News and Notes for the year, Mrs. Kemp and I would like to thank all of the parents for their help and support throughout the year. It’s been wonderful having your sons and daughters; they are very special to us.

The year certainly is flying by. We’ve been working very hard on long division and are about to tackle geometry and fractions: equivalent fractions, simplest form, finding a fraction of a number, common denominators, addition and subtraction. Problem solving has always been an important focus in math. We have been using mathematical vocabulary to write explanations of how to solve a variety of multi-step problems.

Currently we are composing a realistic fiction book report on the computer. Everyone has read a novel, completed a questionnaire and is typing, formatting, and editing a report that includes main characters, setting, dialog, theme, problem, resolution, and conflict in the story. Other language arts activities include Image-Making with Ms. Hayes and writing conversation.

In science we’ve been reading for information on how the area around Mt. St. Helen’s has recovered after its 1980 eruption. In social studies we have begun IIM research on physical features of the United States. An excellent game to practice locating some of these major features is available free from http://www.yourchildlearns.com/dirmpusft.htm.

Coming up are artist-in-residence activities and a field trip to Strawbery Banke, the culmination of our year-long study of New Hampshire History. Children will participate in a role-playing workshop where they learn about various residents of the Portsmouth waterfront from seventeenth century sea captains to twentieth century Russian immigrants.

. It’s been a real pleasure to work with your children this year. Thank you, parents, for all your interest and support. Your children are conscientious workers who care about each other. I have really enjoyed working with them.

We were happy to see so many familiar faces again at Curriculum Night, and to meet many of you for the first time! Please stop by more often.

Year-end promises to be a very busy time in grade four. In language arts the young authors are working in earnest to complete their Image Making books. They are using good creative writing skills along with their knowledge of C.O.P.S. The publishing process will follow. All the collages and written pages will be combined and bound together marking the completion of their beautiful books.

Our class is learning interesting facts about the respiratory and circulatory systems in science. We’re discovering the important job of each system and finding out how they work together to keep us alive and healthy. Our focus in the reproductive system will be growth and development.

Mathematicians in 4H are learning all about space and plane figures, angles, and lines, circles and curves, symmetry and congruency and even more in geometry. Time, measurement, money and the basics will be reviewed, and we will continue with daily problem solving throughout the quarter.

By mid-June our students will know a great deal about our state and the regions of our country. Mrs. Atkins is guiding the fourth graders in researching and writing about their individual topics associated with a particular region of the United States.

Our class took part in the water science fair this year for the first time. It was received with such enthusiasm and interest that we hope to make this an annual event in 4H. Special acknowledgment and thanks go to Mr. Miller for spearheading and managing the fair. Everyone in the class did an outstanding job.

I’m going to miss this class.

The fifth grade has begun a unit on measurement which will include linear, area, and volume measurement using customary (inches, feet, yards) and metric units. We will also be measuring and constructing angles, figuring the area of triangles and learning the relationships between the radius, diameter and circumference of circles.

In science we have been learning the structure and parts of plant and animal cells. We have collected samples of algae and microscopic animals. The kids are making their own slides and studying the samples. The algae cells show up beautifully under the microscope.

We will soon begin a study of the skeletal system using owl pellets. Initially there is great concern over which end of the owl the pellets come from - a question with which I sympathize completely. The pellet contains only fur or feathers and bones. The owl coughs up the pellet after digestion. An owl’s diet is mostly rodents, and rodents, being mammals, are closely related to us. They have basically the same bones in the same places. It is a nice study of comparative anatomy. The pellets I use are bought through a catalog and are fumigated before shipment.

Congratulations to the fifth grade for the successful completion of the week long Sargent Center experience. Our students met the challenges of the week - being away from home, meeting new classmates, participating in and contributing to environmental and adventure activities - with enthusiasm, patience, humor and determination.

I would like to give a heartfelt thank-you for all the parental support that made this week successful. Your children showed initiative when presented with the challenges of camp and kindness toward the adults and children they met. When it was necessary to talk over problems that occurred (which were few), they were very responsive to any suggestions given. We are very proud of them.

The turnout of families at Curriculum Night was outstanding. Thank you for coming!

Our trip to York Historical Society always proves to be great fun. Students baked pound cake, spice cake and scones, all from scratch. They’re great cooks! Thank you, parent volunteers, for joining us on our field trip to York.

A Memorial Day essay has been assigned to fifth graders. Please look for guidelines in your child’s belongings if you haven’t seen them yet. Some essays will be chosen to be read at the Memorial Day observance on May 24. If your son’s/ daughter’s essay is selected, we’ll contact you.

Move-Up Day is also May 24. We’ll take a bus to the Middle School. Fifth graders will have the opportunity to tour the sixth grade wing and meet some sixth grade teachers. Class/ pod assignments will be posted in August.

It doesn’t seem possible that it’s May already and almost the end of another school year! It has been a busy year, and the children have worked hard. Our third graders have put much effort into becoming strong instrumentalists and I hope many will continue on by choosing a band instrument next year. We have many students taking piano and band instruments now. If anyone is interested in starting the violin, I have available a string teacher who is willing to give lessons this summer. Please call me at the school if you have any interest in this area.

We have all enjoyed learning songs about our country this year. It has been a rewarding experience for the children. Some songs were more difficult than others-just ask Mrs. Cushing! We are now learning “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and will end the year with “The Star Spangled Banner.” We will be presenting many of the songs we have learned in a concert on June 6 at 7:00 P.M. I’d like all the children to wear red, white, and blue in keeping with our theme. If you could help with that please, parents? Thanks. And, as usual, children need to be in their homerooms no later than 6:45 that evening.

Speaking of our Spring Concert, if any of you moms or dads play the guitar and would be willing to help Mrs. Leavitt during the concert to accompany the songs--I NEED YOU!! Patriotism brings people together, as we have witnessed over the months, and the more people involved, the more meaningful the music can be. Won’t you consider helping if you play? Give me a call at the school and we can arrange a practice time.

I enjoyed meeting all of the parents who stopped by on curriculum night to view the making of our commercial and speak to Mrs. LaCasse and me. We so seldom get the opportunity to meet. Thanks for all the kind compliments on our Music program! Congratulations to our star musician for the month of April.

April was a busy month. The children enjoyed working on their weavings for Open House. It was great to see so many of you with your children. The children have worked very hard this year in all of their art lessons. They are a very special group of children, and I have truly enjoyed working with all of them. There were very excited about their Mother’s Day gifts to all of you. I hope your day was special.

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