December 2002 / January 2003 News and Notes

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What Is Education All About?

Recently I was visiting the first grade classroom and a smiling young man came up to me and took my hand. He looked up at me and told me that there were three hours left before the school day was over. I expected him to say that he couldn't wait for school to get out because something special was planned for after school hours. Instead, he said that he didn't want school to end because he loved going to school. A few of his classmates piped in by echoing his sentiments. Naturally, a principal or teacher loves hearing students say things like this. I started thinking about how many times students at EKES say something positive about being in school and decided to pay special attention to some of the comments made over the course of a week. Here are some examples.

In a second grade classroom the students were gathered on the rug. When the teacher finished her lesson, she told the students they were going to take out their writing journals and continue their writing. The students leaped to their feet and several joined in a chorus of "Yeah! I love writing!" In another second grade classroom, several students gathered around me and shared their alphabet book they had created about animals found in the rainforest. They pointed out which pages were theirs and shared interesting facts about their assigned animals. Not only were they excited about their individual pages, but I heard them giving positive comments to their classmates. "Don't you love this page, Mrs.Cushing?" I agreed it was truly a wonderful page, but I glowed inwardly at how excited these youngsters were about their learning. I visited a third grade classroom as they worked in their new Every Day Math journals. They were struggling with some challenging questions, but when I asked them about math, they all stated they loved his new way of doing math. I traveled to the next third grade classroom and students were beginning their new research lesson about simple machines. One student excitedly told me about the invention she was creating at home and that "It's a surprise!" Naturally, I can't wait to see this invention, but I also understand the high level of thinking that goes into inventing.

The two fourth grade classes were in the process of creating their table-size salt map of the United States. This was part of their Independent Investigation Model of Research on land forms of the United States. Each student created a landform on the massive map and, as one young gentleman painted Death Valley on the map, he stated some rather interesting facts he had learned. Another pointed out Mt. McKinley in Alaska and told me how high it was above sea level. Were these two students engaged in their learning? Without a doubt!

The entire fifth grade class was in the middle of a wonderful trade fair that was the culminating event for their research on ancient tribes of South America. (Mayans, Incas and Aztecs) Each team of students had created beautifully colored artifacts, from feathered ceremonial crowns, to beaded bags. Each student traveled from table to table and traded his/her wares and supplemented with the currency of the day; beans. It was colorful and exciting, and the students were living the experience of a marketplace. The learning that was taking place was interesting, as several vendors learned quickly that their price was too high and their wares were not selling. Supply and demand was quickly evident as a couple of items sold out quickly. Furious offers of trades increased their value immensely.

The kindergarten students were coming back from their PE class, and when asked how things went, they said, "We had fun! We played this fun game." They hurried back to class to finish up on their projects they had been working on and as I followed them into the classroom, they all turned and smiled and said, "Hi, Mrs. Cushing." A couple proceeded to show me what they were working on and were very proud of their work. I continued to walk down the hall and I saw a class working in the computer lab. Every student was focused on the task at hand and a teacher and a UNH intern moved from student to student assisting them when needed. I walked past the beautiful student artwork hanging in the halls, and peaked into the Library where I saw a group of students listening to a good book. I reflected happily on the fabulous Holiday Concert we all had enjoyed earlier in the week. I bumped into the school nurse as she scurried out the door to deliver gifts for needy families and stepped into the office where the phone was ringing off the wall and everyone was bustling and busy. I thought to myself, "This is what it is all about. Students happy about being in school and engaged in their learning. Staff happy to be here providing a quality education and a caring and nurturing learning environment. And I was proud.

November marked a milestone for the kindergarten families. It was the first time since school began that we got together to chat about these very special children who have just begun their educational journey at EKES. We had a wonderful turnout for parent conferences. Every child had a Person of the Day Book on display outside the room for parents to enjoy. The children created outstanding portraits of each classmate, complete with the answers to interview questions. The children loved making the books and the parents loved reading about all the children in the class. These special books went home to each family just before Thanksgiving.

The months of November and December were a whirlwind of special activities in the kindergarten. In November we enjoyed the P.T.O. Thanksgiving Feast. We created our own Native American vests and headbands using picture symbols to tell stories on the vests and practiced patterns on our headbands. Both classes ate with their fifth grade buddies, to whom we are very thankful for helping in so many ways. For the month of December the classroom became a creative workshop as we produced craft items and artifacts. These were made as we studied some of the winter celebrations observed in the United States. We made menorahs and dreidels for Hanukkah and learned to play the dreidel game. We wish to extend a special thanks to Mrs. Newman for coming in to share some Hanukkah customs with the class. The following week, Mrs. Claus’ workshop was open for business. Turning ourselves into Christmas elves we made several gifts for our families. Many moms came in to lend a hand at the craft tables that week. Thanks to all. The last week before vacation we learned about the African-American feast of Kwansaa. We wove mkekas or mats and made a kinara or candleholder for the seven Kwansaa candles. We noted that a common theme of light and candle lighting is an integral part of all three celebrations.

Our reading books for November and December focused closely on our themes for the month. We read Long Ago And Today, and Pilgrim Children Had Many Chores in November. We took home collages of Pilgrim children at work to share with our families for Thanksgiving. Our December reading books were People Say Hello and Just Like Me. The first book helped us learn to say hello in several languages. The second book showed how children from many lands do many of the same things, such as going to school, doing chores and eating together as a family. We tried to learn several different ways to say Merry Christmas while reading this book. Our read-alouds helped us learn about the four feasts and the customs surrounding them. We had some good old-fashioned belly laughs when we read The Night Before Thanksgiving and Mother Hubbard’s Christmas.

Our math lessons worked on learning to write the numbers 1 through 31. These numbers represent the eight days of Hanukkah, the 25 days until Christmas and the 26th through 31st of December, which are the seven days when Kwansaa is celebrated.

Yes, it is still Fall! As first graders share the calendar information and the weather for the day, we are noting both winter temperatures and snow. Our science unit on light, prisms and shadows goes along with the use of lights in the various holiday celebrations. In January we will concentrate on heat and properties and the seasonal changes of weather. We will also begin our first IIM research unit.

Our writing and reading have improved. We share our newly published stories and pages from our trade books daily. In math our concentration these two months has been on addition and subtraction computation, estimation and geometric shapes.

Also, the New Year will find our numbers divided between two classrooms. Mrs. Woods, who has been visiting our room in December, will be our other first grade teacher. Our morning responsive classroom meeting time will continue to be together. After recess and snack, the children will go to their respective classrooms for the remainder of the day. Mrs. Huss and Mrs. Lord will continue to work in both classrooms, and all teachers will meet regularly to coordinate curriculum and activities. We, as a class, have worked hard to build community and will continue to do so in various formats.

The New Year for our first graders will be one of positive changes. Mrs. Huss and I want to thank all the parents for our support. We anxiously await our New Year and what it brings!

Buenos Dias! from 2-O! During November second grade visited Peru in South America, learning about a country whose landscapes vary from coast to desert to high mountains to rainforest. In the high Andes Mountains we learned about llamas and alpacas and made antara flutes. Ms. Yeaton helped us learn a little Spanish. Second graders became skilled weavers, making beautiful mini blankets on our looms and colorful God’s eyes. We learned a little about the ancient Inca Empire, made gold masks, tasted purple potatoes and created the ruins of Machu Picchu from blocks. We read many folk tales and factual information about South America. On December 6, we celebrated our study of South America by inviting the first grade and kindergarten to visit our South American Market booths and shops.

Second grade mathematicians were very successful with addition with and without regrouping. We worked on measurement and perimeter. Second graders collected data and constructed tally sheets and graphs. Thanks to Mr. Fennell for helping us make graphs on the computer.

In December second graders began geometry using tangrams. Our December whole language has been a mini-unit on bears: non-fiction and fiction. We read factual books about bears. We learned to take short notefacts from nonfiction resources on bears. We put the information learned in our own words, and we made individual Brain Quests. A large number of stuffed bears visited our classroom. They were good companions and inspiration for many stories.

In January we may have snow; cold winds many blow, but 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 or quilting or sewing, please let me know. We will be learning about geometry, pattern and fractions using quilts. We will read and learn about the history of quilting and many quilt patterns. We’ll make many paper quilts as a class. We will also sew. Quilter Merrilyn SanSouci is visiting us on Monday, January 27, and we are looking for parents to come in to help with a sewing project with Merrilyn, as well as other sewing projects.

Best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season!

We have welcomed two new students into our classroom in the last six weeks.

It has been a LOT of fun learning about the Amazon Rainforest and Brazil. We were able to have a Market Day with Mrs. O’s class- It was fabulous! The afternoon kindergarten, the first grade, and our fifth grade reading buddies came to the market and were able to buy some rainforest crafts. Our classroom was a bustling, buzzing market! The children used maracas and drums to get the attention of their potential customers!

We are looking forward to our culminating rainforest activity this Friday- our Brazilian Carnival. Instead of a holiday party, we will be having a carnival in the spirit of the very famous carnival that is held annually in Rio de Janeiro. The students will be sharing the research they have done on their rainforest animals, as well as doing a presentation on Brazil and rainforest facts. We can’t wait to share our learning!

In the New Year we are looking forward to learning about a new country- England! The children will be learning about folk tales from Ms. Zimar, and we will be hosting a very special guest who will be teaching us about bears and British culture. More on that later!

Here in third grade we have been very busy. In our literacy study we have read selections that added to our knowledge of the celebration of Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving on Thursday, a Magic Tree House adventure, and If You Were at the First Thanksgiving. Both provided many interesting facts about this holiday. The class also enjoyed a read-aloud about a NH native, Sarah Hale, who worked very hard to have Thanksgiving become a legal holiday we all enjoy.

We are currently working in guided reading groups to complete two realistic fiction books, Muggie Maggie, the story of the reluctance of a student to write in cursive, and The Year of Miss Agnes, the story of a teacher in the wilderness of Alaska. We are really enjoying these books, as well as the titles we are choosing for our own self-selected reading.

We have also been working on some interesting writing assignments. Aside from our own self-generated titles, we have written entries to a contest telling why our school is beautiful. What the students wrote was outstanding and what they love about their school clearly came across in their writing. A big thanks to Mr. Merrill for bringing this contest to our attention and adding such a meaningful purpose to our writing experience. We also explored writing friendly thank you letters to individuals who helped to make our holiday concert a success. We do love to write and have even tried to give up recess time to do it----AMAZING!

In the area of math, we continue to work on multiplication. We have some students who have made the connection to division. We are continuing to make so many connections in patterns and processes in solving problems.

Our Pilgrim Simulation culminated with harvesting crops, trading with Native American tribes and evaluating the success of our groups in comparison to the Pilgrims, as well as, our individual performances in our groups. Everyone enjoyed learning through this simulation, and it incorporated so many disciplines. During the month of December we studied the traditions and celebrations of people of various cultures.

In science we learned about simple machines and how they have made our lives easier. We will share our own inventions, which incorporate our understanding of simple machines. In January we look forward to Ms. Madden’s solo weeks and our study of the Solar System. This will be an exciting adventure. Be on the look out for our moon journals.

I hope your holidays are wonderful. Thank you so much for all your support and for sending us such great kids.

Third Grade has had a magical math month! We have been discovering multiplication and division through arrays, and it has been quite a learning experience. We’re working on memorizing the multiplication facts: 0, 1, 2, 5, 10, 11. After the holidays we’ll begin committing the remaining facts to memory, and we’ll be starting timed tests for multiplication facts through 12. Please practice the multiplication and division facts with your child at home using the fact triangles. This will help tremendously. We’ve been learning how to solve number stories using multiplication and division. Along with the constant review of concepts, we’re working with estimation, using calculators, and manipulatives.

Simple Machines have been our focus for science. We’ve had a blast experimenting with gears, pulleys, inclined planes, scales, levers, wheels and axles. Every time we take out tools to investigate, our students become totally absorbed in the process. Our budding engineers have come up with many interesting designs.

The reading genre for January will be historical fiction. Each reading group will be involved in reading a book with a historical theme and doing a project in class for that book. We’ll also be doing a IIM investigation on Black History, which will be our history focus for the month of January.

We’d like to thank our third grade moms for their help with our holiday party. We really appreciate all of the effort and time that is put into this event for our class. Thanks so very much and Happy Holidays to all!

Much of our time in November and December has been spent on a IIM project in which each student researched and reported on a landform in the United States. We are experimenting with Netscape Composer in hopes of publishing these reports as web pages with links to sites that we found informative. With 4H we have created a huge three-dimensional map that shows the geography of our country. We’ll teach each other about the feature we researched and culminate by writing questions to use in our version of Who-Wants-to-Be-a-Millionaire?

Both fourth grades are meeting daily to read The Family under the Bridge by Natalie S. Carlson. Students take turns reading, assuming the roles of the characters. Since the setting is Paris, we have read some non-fiction material about France and some of Paris’s landmarks. We watched a video that showed the amazing way that cathedrals like Notre Dame were built. With Mrs. Silverman’s help we designed and created a tissue-paper stained glass window that brightens our classroom.

Our math focus has been multiplication; we will continue with this into January and will also spend time writing math; that is, accurately explaining how we’ve solved a problem.

Biographies, including New Hampshire Notables, are the basis of many of our January reading and writing activities. A planning calendar will be sent home right after vacation; the same information will be available on our WebCt site.

We accomplished a great deal in 4H since the last News ‘n Notes. Social studies, science, language arts, and computer technology were integrated in the completion of IIM projects on major bodies of water in the United States. The students researched many sources of information, took notes, cited sources in proper bibliographical form, summarized information using their own words, edited, organized, finalized and shared what they learned in class. As a culminating activity, both fourth grades created a large map of the United States to which they added their geographical features. Each student also presented an oral report to both classes on his or her topic.

Keep reviewing those multiplication tables! Fifteen minutes each night will help tremendously towards quick recall that is helpful in solving division problems. We will continue to practice basic concepts of multiplication, division and place value. There will also be an emphasis on time, measurement, and money.

We will continue daily dictation and spelling in language arts. We will also begin to create our own books using image-making within the writing process.

Before the holidays, Mrs. Atkins’ class invited 4-H to take part in the oral reading of a charming and heartwarming story: Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie S. Carlson. We also had the pleasure of sampling French crepes prepared by Mrs. Atkins, and an introduction to the French Impressionist artists by Mrs. Silverman. We look forward to the upcoming Accelerated Reader Winter Challenge and hope that it will further inspire the students to read for personal enjoyment and to earn points for their ski team. The winning team will be treated to an afternoon of pizza and bowling at a later date.

We have completed our study of ancient civilizations. Students used the IIM form of research to learn about the Aztecs, Incas, or Mayas. They produced a report and participated in a trade fair.

Understanding basic economy is part of the Social Studies curriculum. To address this area, we developed a trade fair. Students crafted items to trade at the fair. They needed to decide the value of their product. Students could either trade item for item, item for beans (money), or especially elaborate items were worth a trade item and beans. Essentially, they needed to decide on a fair market value (or trade) for their product. Students learned about supply and demand, quality control, advertising sales, pricing (rising or lowering depending on demand).

In January Mrs. DeGrappo will teach a unit on European Explorers. Other than learning the process of discovery and exploration, students will learn about how the indigenous people of America were affected by the Spanish conquistadors. We’ll make the French and Indian connection along the St. Lawrence Seaway as well.

In reading the students will join in on the fantasy, The Phantom Tollbooth. Many of our language arts activities will derive from the adventures of Milo and his trusty watchdog, Tock.

Applause-applause-applause to all students for a wonderful performance at our Holiday concert! Many thanks to Mrs. LaCasse for the great display of art work and to parents who helped make the evening a success: Mrs. Vlasich and Mrs. Cash for backstage crowd control and Mrs. Merrill and Mrs. Palmer for the awesome stage setting!

We have so much talent here at EKES. That’s why we have decided to do a musical again this year. I am indeed excited to announce that we will be presenting “Peter Pan”! Students have been requesting this since school began, and after all their hard work for the concert I feel they are up to the challenge! All fourth and fifth grade students are invited to audition for parts and, as our fifth graders discovered as they prepared for the holiday concert, there are no small parts-every single person is vital to a production’s success. Students will be bringing home information about auditions that are coming up in January. It would be a big help to the committee if you could fill out the form at the bottom of this information and return it ASAP.

January will be instrument study month. Students will be learning about instrument families and will be trying their hand at tone production on a few of the band instruments. Parents, if you play any instrument and would be willing to share your talents with your son or daughter’s class, we would sure love to have you visit. Please call Mrs. Leavitt at the school and arrange a day and time. Third grade will be allowed to take recorders home over vacation with the promise not to forget them when they return to school on January 2.

Happy Holidays everyone! See you in 2003!

December brought lots of work toward the integration of the art curriculum with the music program’s December Holiday Concert. The children worked extremely hard on their winter landscapes, fir trees, “quilted” trees, snowflakes and snowman collages. We wanted to set the mood for the holiday concert and bring what was happening on the stage out into the audience and onto the walls. A dream-like quality was the goal with their wintry, glittery scenes.

As we approach the New Year I am once again struck by the kindness and generosity displayed by so many students. Students that are ill or require a visit to the Health Office are treated with respect and great compassion by their fellow students.

I would like to express my deep appreciation for the many generous contributions to the Holiday Gift Giving Program. A special acknowledgement is extended to the fourth and fifth grade students. The students selected a mitten from the Snowman located in each classroom and purchased gifts to give to those in need in the Exeter area. Through their generosity, four families representing nine children will receive very special toys and clothing for Christmas. A special thank you to Mrs. Atkins, Ms. Hayes, Mrs. Silverman, Mrs. Woods, Mr. McMahon, Mrs. Miller, Mrs. DeGrappo, and Mrs. Wysocki, as well as the parents and room mothers for helping to coordinate the gift giving.

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.” - Mark Twain

Share your feelings with a friend, family member, healthcare provider, or someone you can trust and who will listen to you. There is an old saying that “A joy shared is doubled, and a sorrow shared is halved.”

If you or your child suffers from a sports related injury use RICE.

The term stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.

Rest - Take a break from exercise or any type of movement that may stress the injured area. A minor injury should be rested for one or two days, while more severe injuries may need longer.

Ice - Ice the affected area. Icing reduces pain, limits swelling and bleeding, and encourages rapid healing. Wrap ice in a towel to avoid direct contact with the skin.

Compress - Compress the injury with a stretch bandage. Make sure not to wrap it too tight, just enough to support the injured area comfortably.

Elevate - Elevate the limb. If possible, try to keep the injured part above the level of the heart. At the very least, try to keep it higher that the hips. This helps limit swelling and also prevents movements of the area that is injured.

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Last Updated:  Thursday, July 19, 2007