Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Visitors
We had two special visitors last week in our classroom. First, Senorita Powell visited to teach us about Spain. Spain is a country in the southwestern part of Europe and it borders Portugal and France. We learned that there are many similarities, but also many differences, between Spain and the US. Please click here for more information about Spain.
Second, Ms. Wilson visited our classroom to share photos and stories about her scuba-diving adventures in the ocean outside Thailand, a country in Asia. We learned many exciting things about underwater creatures and how to stay safe when you swim so deep. (Please click here for more information on Thailand).
Thank you for visiting our classroom!!!
Second, Ms. Wilson visited our classroom to share photos and stories about her scuba-diving adventures in the ocean outside Thailand, a country in Asia. We learned many exciting things about underwater creatures and how to stay safe when you swim so deep. (Please click here for more information on Thailand).
Thank you for visiting our classroom!!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Meet Mr. Moose
Meet Mr. Moose, our new classroom pet. He came all the way from Sweden and now resides on our classroom whiteboard. Please visit us for updates on his adventures around the school.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Weekly Update
Dear Families,
We have had a very busy week in school preparing for many exciting holiday activities which we will finish next week. The students have written focused paragraphs on specific holidays they celebrate in their own families as well as a piece on Lucia, a Swedish holiday traditionally celebrated on December 13th each year. Ask your child to explain this special holiday and the significance and symbolism of lights. Lucia also has a special connection to Sicily, an island outside Italy. Ask your child to explain. Next week, your child will have the opportunity to create a craft for different holidays around the world as he/she will rotate between the 3rd and 4th grade classrooms for our special “Holidays around the World Celebration.” We will learn about Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Chinese New Year among many other holidays. Look for these special products next week!
The students also had the opportunity to attend the 1st and 2nd grade Holiday Concert this week. The first and second grade students sang songs from many different countries around the world and even performed some amazing dances. Please look for audio files from this concert in the days to come. They will be posted on the blog as was the song “Locomotion”, performed by the HCS Jazz Band on 12/11/09.
The students also received a special package from our Swedish pen pals this week. They each received individual holiday cards, letter and special gifts. As a class, we also received a Photo-album, filled with pictures from their school and surrounding areas. This book was very special to me as I attended this school myself as a 4th, 5th, and 6th grader. We also got an adorable little magnet moose with a Swedish scarf, which now “lives” on our whiteboard. Lastly, we received a book about Swedish holiday traditions and customs.
We started working on our presents to our pen pals this week and hope to send the package by the end of this week. We will send our Swedish friends a 2010 calendar with pictures from Vermont, a small VT license plate magnet, and VT candy (maple sugar and Lake Champlain chocolates). Each student also wrote a postcard to his/her pen pal. Each student received a postcard, depicting a different scene from Vermont. The writing of the postcard had to reflect the picture and tell something about it. For example, one student wrote about Mount Mansfield, another about Lake Champlain. We also had students write about Church Street and Burlington, covered bridges, cows, and Morgan horses. Some postcards depicted the map of Vermont so we were able to gather data and specific information, and some postcards illustrated the seasons. We wrote about apple blossoms in the Spring, green mountains in the summer time, vibrant colors in the fall and snow-covered fields in the winter. We hope that these postcards will become a visual representation and introduction to this great state! We hope they will like our project and gifts.
Lastly, thank you for responding to the survey regarding reading this newsletter on the blog. Your child will still write the letter to you inside the Weekly Update Notebook. This notebook must still be signed by a parent before it’s returned. Simply sign your name below your child’s letter (most of you did that already anyway!) Please be advised that the weekly newsletter will always be posted on Fridays, provided that no technology-related challenges occurred. Thank you!
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
We have had a very busy week in school preparing for many exciting holiday activities which we will finish next week. The students have written focused paragraphs on specific holidays they celebrate in their own families as well as a piece on Lucia, a Swedish holiday traditionally celebrated on December 13th each year. Ask your child to explain this special holiday and the significance and symbolism of lights. Lucia also has a special connection to Sicily, an island outside Italy. Ask your child to explain. Next week, your child will have the opportunity to create a craft for different holidays around the world as he/she will rotate between the 3rd and 4th grade classrooms for our special “Holidays around the World Celebration.” We will learn about Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Chinese New Year among many other holidays. Look for these special products next week!
The students also had the opportunity to attend the 1st and 2nd grade Holiday Concert this week. The first and second grade students sang songs from many different countries around the world and even performed some amazing dances. Please look for audio files from this concert in the days to come. They will be posted on the blog as was the song “Locomotion”, performed by the HCS Jazz Band on 12/11/09.
The students also received a special package from our Swedish pen pals this week. They each received individual holiday cards, letter and special gifts. As a class, we also received a Photo-album, filled with pictures from their school and surrounding areas. This book was very special to me as I attended this school myself as a 4th, 5th, and 6th grader. We also got an adorable little magnet moose with a Swedish scarf, which now “lives” on our whiteboard. Lastly, we received a book about Swedish holiday traditions and customs.
We started working on our presents to our pen pals this week and hope to send the package by the end of this week. We will send our Swedish friends a 2010 calendar with pictures from Vermont, a small VT license plate magnet, and VT candy (maple sugar and Lake Champlain chocolates). Each student also wrote a postcard to his/her pen pal. Each student received a postcard, depicting a different scene from Vermont. The writing of the postcard had to reflect the picture and tell something about it. For example, one student wrote about Mount Mansfield, another about Lake Champlain. We also had students write about Church Street and Burlington, covered bridges, cows, and Morgan horses. Some postcards depicted the map of Vermont so we were able to gather data and specific information, and some postcards illustrated the seasons. We wrote about apple blossoms in the Spring, green mountains in the summer time, vibrant colors in the fall and snow-covered fields in the winter. We hope that these postcards will become a visual representation and introduction to this great state! We hope they will like our project and gifts.
Lastly, thank you for responding to the survey regarding reading this newsletter on the blog. Your child will still write the letter to you inside the Weekly Update Notebook. This notebook must still be signed by a parent before it’s returned. Simply sign your name below your child’s letter (most of you did that already anyway!) Please be advised that the weekly newsletter will always be posted on Fridays, provided that no technology-related challenges occurred. Thank you!
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Weekly Update
Dear Families,
It looks as if winter has finally arrived and hopefully it is here to stay for a little while. The students were so excited to go out and play in the first snow this week. As the weather gets colder, please remember to send your child to school with warm clothing as we have recess every day. Warm jackets, gloves and boots are preferred. If your child wishes to bring in snow-pants as well for extra winter fun activities outside at recess, he/she can certainly do so. Please talk to your child about the importance of not sharing clothing as we have had a reappearance of head lice in the ¾ wing. Thank you!
In the month of December, the students will read the ten nominated books for the Red Clover Awards. The Red Clover Award was created in 1995 by Vermont's Windham County Reads, a non-profit literacy organization dedicated to bringing families and books together. Ten books are nominated every year, and school-age children vote on their favorite. The ten books will be read aloud to the whole class, and students will receive a writing response to each book. After the ten nominated books are read, they will vote on their favorite and these results will be entered into this Vermont-based book competition.
For more information, please click here for more information on this great program and this year's nominations.
Our scientific inquiries continue in Ecology. This week, we learned about ocean habitats. Ask your child to explain the differences between the shorelines and the coral reefs and how animals survive there. Also ask your child to explain how the “Light Zones” and the “Dark Zones” of the ocean differ. Our five new vocabulary words for next week are posted on the Wiki and should be in your child’s homework folder this week. They are: food web, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore and energy.
In an effort to stream-line and make the classroom as efficient as it can be, I would like to have your feedback on how important it is that this newsletter is sent home to you in paper form versus simply reading it every week on the blog. Please fill out the survey below and return to me sometime next week and let me know if you are willing to only access the electronic copy posted on the blog. The situation would be similar to the posting of the Viking and my newsletter would be posted on Fridays.
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
It looks as if winter has finally arrived and hopefully it is here to stay for a little while. The students were so excited to go out and play in the first snow this week. As the weather gets colder, please remember to send your child to school with warm clothing as we have recess every day. Warm jackets, gloves and boots are preferred. If your child wishes to bring in snow-pants as well for extra winter fun activities outside at recess, he/she can certainly do so. Please talk to your child about the importance of not sharing clothing as we have had a reappearance of head lice in the ¾ wing. Thank you!
In the month of December, the students will read the ten nominated books for the Red Clover Awards. The Red Clover Award was created in 1995 by Vermont's Windham County Reads, a non-profit literacy organization dedicated to bringing families and books together. Ten books are nominated every year, and school-age children vote on their favorite. The ten books will be read aloud to the whole class, and students will receive a writing response to each book. After the ten nominated books are read, they will vote on their favorite and these results will be entered into this Vermont-based book competition.
For more information, please click here for more information on this great program and this year's nominations.
Our scientific inquiries continue in Ecology. This week, we learned about ocean habitats. Ask your child to explain the differences between the shorelines and the coral reefs and how animals survive there. Also ask your child to explain how the “Light Zones” and the “Dark Zones” of the ocean differ. Our five new vocabulary words for next week are posted on the Wiki and should be in your child’s homework folder this week. They are: food web, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore and energy.
In an effort to stream-line and make the classroom as efficient as it can be, I would like to have your feedback on how important it is that this newsletter is sent home to you in paper form versus simply reading it every week on the blog. Please fill out the survey below and return to me sometime next week and let me know if you are willing to only access the electronic copy posted on the blog. The situation would be similar to the posting of the Viking and my newsletter would be posted on Fridays.
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
Chores for change!
Dear Parents,
As the holidays approach, we would like to do a community service project with our 3/4 classrooms. You may know that a member of our custodial staff has been out with a medical problem this fall. We would like to collect money for a gift card to a grocery store to help him out during the holidays.
We are NOT asking you for straight donations. What we would like is for students to earn money by doing extra chores for you. If each child earned $1.00 by doing chores, we could collect $100.00! Some children may earn more than $1.00.
We will be brainstorming with our students about what sorts of chores they could do. They also need to talk to you about what you think is reasonable and would be worth $1.00 (or more) to you.
At their recent meeting, the Grades 5-6 Student Council voted to support the Grades 7-8 Food Shelf service project by collecting cash donations in support of both the food shelf and Max Broderick, our Pre-K student who was recently injured in an accident.
The collections will be held from Friday, December 11th through Wednesday, December 23rd.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Maria McCormack
As the holidays approach, we would like to do a community service project with our 3/4 classrooms. You may know that a member of our custodial staff has been out with a medical problem this fall. We would like to collect money for a gift card to a grocery store to help him out during the holidays.
We are NOT asking you for straight donations. What we would like is for students to earn money by doing extra chores for you. If each child earned $1.00 by doing chores, we could collect $100.00! Some children may earn more than $1.00.
We will be brainstorming with our students about what sorts of chores they could do. They also need to talk to you about what you think is reasonable and would be worth $1.00 (or more) to you.
At their recent meeting, the Grades 5-6 Student Council voted to support the Grades 7-8 Food Shelf service project by collecting cash donations in support of both the food shelf and Max Broderick, our Pre-K student who was recently injured in an accident.
The collections will be held from Friday, December 11th through Wednesday, December 23rd.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Maria McCormack
Monday, December 7, 2009
Idiom of the Week
Our new idiom of the week is
"every cloud has a silver lining"
This expression means that you should not feel hopeless and sad in difficult time because even in hardship, better days will come.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Weekly Update
Dear Families,
I am finally back in Vermont and I am very excited about being back in the classroom with the students again. I had a fantastic conference and learned many new technology applications which we will implement in the near future. Please look for our upcoming newsletters and blog/wiki posts for exciting new learning opportunities. I already added a link to Scholastic’s Graphix program in our Technology section on the wiki (It is also linked here). I linked a sequential art story (comic strip illustrations) I created using another program which we will use in the classroom, but the Scholastic link is neat because students can utilize an already made template with characters, setting and speech bubbles. The finished product cannot be saved to a site, but it can be printed. Imagine the possibilities here….your child can print his/her own sequential art story. Please share them in class!
I hope the students had a great and productive week and I look forward to hearing all about it. Our unit on Ecology continues and today, your child will bring home five more vocabulary words. The words are: ecology, biome,habitat, climate, species. The attached texts are very helpful so please encourage your child to read them to help with comprehension within the context of our theme. Thank you!
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
I am finally back in Vermont and I am very excited about being back in the classroom with the students again. I had a fantastic conference and learned many new technology applications which we will implement in the near future. Please look for our upcoming newsletters and blog/wiki posts for exciting new learning opportunities. I already added a link to Scholastic’s Graphix program in our Technology section on the wiki (It is also linked here). I linked a sequential art story (comic strip illustrations) I created using another program which we will use in the classroom, but the Scholastic link is neat because students can utilize an already made template with characters, setting and speech bubbles. The finished product cannot be saved to a site, but it can be printed. Imagine the possibilities here….your child can print his/her own sequential art story. Please share them in class!
I hope the students had a great and productive week and I look forward to hearing all about it. Our unit on Ecology continues and today, your child will bring home five more vocabulary words. The words are: ecology, biome,habitat, climate, species. The attached texts are very helpful so please encourage your child to read them to help with comprehension within the context of our theme. Thank you!
Have a great weekend!
Regards,
Maria McCormack
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