School Spirit

Dear Families,

There certainly was a lot of energy this week as we celebrated Spirit Week and began the final countdown to the end of the year!

Today we hosted Jerry Schneider from Morpho Productions and enjoyed an informational presentation about butterflies.  Your child should have brought home their painted t-shirt-thank you for sending your child in with a shirt.  In order to keep the color, place the t-shirt in the dryer for 10 minutes, then machine wash it in cold water. 

In the classroom we continued our study of Plants and Pollination in Science Workshop by rotating through four different stations:   flower power; like fruit? thank a bee; plant parts; what do plants need to grow?  These stations provide lots of academic choice for the students.  Students can choose what short text or video to watch, whether they answer open ended or multiple choice questions and the activity or model that shows their understanding of the concept.

We hope you will join us on Tuesday, June 4th (before our school picnic) at 12:15 for our poetry celebration!  The children have worked very hard, and are excited to share their poetry collections with you!

A great way to end the week -  P.E. class of the week!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Measuring 5th graders
~Pea Shoots in Farm to School
~Being a Bee
~Target 700 & Sum it Up math games

Have a wonderful weekend,
Katie

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

We have had such a wonderful week together.  It's hard to believe there are only 14 more days of second grade!  

This week we were lucky to have many different experiences to continue our learning about plants and pollination.  We were lucky to participate in the Flynn Theater's Words Come Alive classroom workshop.  Using Eric Carle's A Tiny Seed, a guest artist from the Flynn visited our class to help us understand the life cycle of a plant through dance.

On Tuesday, Eric Von Wettberg (Colin's dad) taught us about VT Native Plants. On Thursday, we were able to see pollination in action at the UVM Horticultural Farm.  

Check out our plants we planted for our school pollinator garden a little over two weeks ago!!

We hope you are able to join us for a Poetry Celebration on Tuesday, June 4th at 12:15.  We will head right to our school picnic afterwards. 

Please send in for your child if you haven't already: 

A plain white t shirt to be decorated during our final pollinator guest speaker (Friday, May 31st).

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:

~Color Poetry

~The FHTMS Jazz Band

~Solving story problems written by classmates

~Using a value line

Have a wonderful weekend!

Katie

Scientists 'R Us

Hello Families,

This week was full of science learning!

On Monday we had a special presentation from Jen, the Beekeeper.  We learned how important honeybees are in the pollination process and how hard they work to produce honey.  We even enjoyed a delicious honey sample!

Today we helped plant radishes and carrots in our school raised garden beds.  Did you know once planted, radishes are ready to be picked in 30 days??

A special thank you to our wonderful Hands on Nature volunteers, Julie Baer and Anna Clark!  We learned so much from you this year.  Today we discovered creatures and critters living inside rotting logs.  We learned that a damp, rotting log provides shelter and food for many living animals on the forest floor.

We continued our study of Plants and Seeds in Science Workshop by rotating through four different stations:   flower power; like fruit? thank a bee; plant parts; what do plants need to grow?  These stations provide lots of academic choice for the students.  Students can choose what short text or video to watch, whether they answer open ended or multiple choice questions and the activity or model that shows their understanding of the concept. Ask your child about it!

SAVE the DATE!
We will be having a Poetry Celebration for families on June 4th at 12:15 (this is 30 minutes prior to our school picnic).  More info to come!

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:

~Measuring Kindergartners

~Don't Let Them Disappear

~Blackout poems

~Writing toy store story problems in math

Have a wonderful weekend!

Katie

Pizza, Plants and Poetry

Hello Families,

I can't think of a better way to start the week than pizza and math at Folino's!  We learned how math is used in the real world, solved math problems and enjoyed yummy pizza. All the proceeds of our field trip went to the 52 Kids Foundation; a foundation started by Folino's that covers school fees for children in Uganda who would otherwise not be able to attend school.  I was extremely proud of how the children represented RMCS.

This week we began a science unit about plants and pollination.  On Tuesday, we planted flower seeds and already had sprouts this morning!  We are very excited to be creating a second grade pollinator garden in the perennial garden at the entrance of the school. During this unit we will learn about plant parts, how seeds travel and the importance of pollination.  We are lucky to have two guest speakers next week teaching us about bees and Vermont native plants.  On May 23rd we will be going to the UVM Horticultural Farm to see pollination in action with their apple trees and blueberry bushes. 

The children continue to write beautiful poetry.  This week they learned that there are many different structures in poetry-conversation, list, mask and riddle poems were some of the favorites.  We are planning a poetry celebration for June 4th (the day of the school picnic).  I will be in touch with more specifics soon. 

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~The Tiny Seed
~Solving toy store story problems
~Read, cover, remember, retell
~Measuring second graders

Have a great weekend!
Katie

Welcome Back!

Dear Families,

It was wonderful to see everyone excited to be back at school after vacation!  It's hard to believe there are only six weeks left of our year together. This week we welcomed Klosie to our second grade classroom.  The children have been extremely helpful as she gets to know our classroom routines.

We are very excited for our math field trip Folino's Pizza on Monday!  Each child will get 2 pieces of pizza - cheese or pepperoni.  If your child would rather not have pizza, they are welcome to bring a lunch from home.

Here's a quick overview of our week:  

Reading:  We continued our work in nonfiction reading clubs.  The students learned how to use post-its to respond to their new learning and to identify author's purpose (inform, entertain, persuade).  Ask your child about it!

Dinosaurs!

The Solar System!

Animal Predators!

Animal Defenses!

House Pets!

Writing:  The children continue to write beautiful poetry.   This week they learned how writer's can use patterns and repetition in words, sounds, and phrases. 

Math: This week we completed Unit 5: Place Value to One Thousand.  Next week we will explore measurement by using centimeters as our unit of measure.  We are also going to be explicitly looking at strategies for adding and subtracting three digit numbers.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~A new calendar pattern in Number Corner
~Writing a summary
~Daniel Finds a Poem
~Learning how to have a class conversation

Have a great weekend!

Katie
























Other Things to Ask Your Child About: