May/June

With a tear in our eye and a heart full of LOVE, we are sending our cuties off to third grade (where we KNOW they will thrive!).  

We hope that everyone has an amazing summer! 

We wish for each of you to have a fun-filled, relaxing, and exciting vacation from school.  

These last two months have been fantastic, and the learning and growing has not slowed down.  

Read on to find out some of the things going on in Room 13...

Reading Workshop

Our reader's have been focusing on Expository Non-Fiction this round of Reading Workshop.  We have read books and articles that give us information and teach us so many new things.  Ask your child what some Non-Fiction text features are that help them to navigate these informative texts.  Some topics we learned about are bubbles, plants that eat animals, pandas, ice cream, and snails.  We know that our students loved reading these books and gaining more knowledge.  

Writing Workshop

After leaving Fairy Tale land, we returned safely home to where it all began....Personal Narrative.  This round, we asked our writer's to dig deeper and harder into their lives to generate ideas for small moment personal narratives.  We thought about traditions and celebrations in our lives, as well as heirlooms in our families, and even wrote about the story behind the picture.  We revised our writing to SHOW not tell what is happening.  We replaced telling statements with action and dialogue to enhance our writing.  WOW! What a difference this made.  We also edited our writing on the computer for spelling and grammar.  We are sure you will agree that the kids writing has greatly improved.  We are so proud of their hard work.

Math Fun!

We have truly grown as mathematicians this year and are amazed by the progress we have seen.  We wrapped up our last unit on multiplication of 3's and 4's.  We have to say that with the strong foundation these students now have in math, we know that they will blossom even more in 3rd grade. We have spent the last weeks reviewing concepts learned.  Time, Money, Shapes, and all four operations were reviewed in a variety of engaging and exciting  stations.  Ask your kids what they have been doing in math....

We the People....

Our final Social Studies Unit has been a focus on government and democracy.  We have learned about the state, local, and federal government as well as important people that are elected and then make important decisions for our government.  We also touched on the three branches of government and how they work together to keep the balance of power in our country.  Finally, we learned that our government is a democracy and what that means!

ABC Countdown
As a school, we had so much fun counting down the last 26 days of school.  Each day had a special theme! The participation, excitement, and spirit shown by our class was outstanding.  Check out some pics of some extra special days!

Butterfly Blast Off!

After watching our butterflies go through the life cycle, we followed the age old lesson....If you love something set it free! We headed outside to let the butterflies go and watched as we set them free!

Scientist of the Week

Hannah 

Can an object be a solid AND a liquid?Hannah taught us- yes! It is called a collide!

Matthew

Juice Taste Test Fun with Matthew!

Thank You Ms. Carey!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Carey for all her hard work, dedication to our students, support, and guidance this year.  She has been essential to our classroom and we are so truly appreciative. Thank you for making our lives and classrooms run so smoothly!

Ms. Carey is here for us and we love her!

Ms. Carey having some fun with us!

  

End of the Year Survey

As the year comes to a close, we would love to get the kids feedback on the year.  Please take a moment to take this survey. We truly appreciate their time in completing this survey. 

April 2014 in Review

Welcome Back!

We can't believe it is already the beginning of May! The children seemed to come back refreshed from a great April vacation! We SPRUNG right back into work and had a lot of fun doing it!

Back-up!

The weeks before vacation were SOOO busy! We had many special events that we would like to share.

Landform Learners!

After learning about the many different kinds of landforms in our world, students picked one landform to become an expert on.  They researched their landform using a variety of medias. We then provided many options for their culminating project.  Students were immersed in decision making, creating, and producing some fantastic pieces of work.  Check out samples of some of the cool projects!

PowerPoint Presentation

Word-Search

Diorama

A Book!

Clay Model

Poster

Class Novel Launch
As part of our Reading Workshop this year, the entire class is participating in the Class Novel experience.  We are tapping into all of the useful reading skills we have learned in both Shared Reading and Reading Workshop, to understand and "dig in" to a chapter book.  This is different from the regular Reading Workshop because both students and teachers have a copy of the book in front of them.  Ask your child about the deep conversations we are having during this new and exciting experience!

Steven Kellogg Visit

Second graders at Cantiague were lucky enough to have a visit from Steven Kellogg this year. Wow! Two authors in one year!! He is an amazing author and illustrator, and we learned so much from him and his craft.

Text Savvy

As the year moves on, the children continue to learn about different kinds of texts.  The past two weeks, we learned all about Flyers during our Shared Reading process.  With a partner, students began creating a flyer advertising a place that they enjoy and that they would want others to know about and go visit, in the computer lab.  Look out for these, flying home sometime soon! (The 2nd flyer was designed by Jessica and Brooke D.-sorry it didn't show up in the picture.)

Earth Day!

Another Shared Reading had students discussing how each and every person can "Save the Planet!"Enjoy this special video presentation!

Scientist of the Week

This past month, our amazing scientists posed some seriously cool questions! Check it out!

Oliver- What happens when you put Vaseline on a stick and put it in a blown up balloon?

Dirgha-Will a paper clip float in water?

Emily- How do you make water disappear?

Hear Ye-Hear-Ye- Team Marsen has been HARD AT WORK preparing for our Royal Gala Event. See you Wednesday at 8:45 AM (SHARP) for a magical showing of our writing, acting, singing, and creativity! 

See ya' real soon!

February/March Edition

Wow! So many interesting things have happened in Room 13 over the last two months!

Biography Bash!

This month our students became researchers and authors. Students chose a person to research.  We had so many wonderful people chosen.  From artists to presidents and so many amazing people in between, students were challenged to research information about their person and take the information and write a biography about that person.  We were truly impressed with their writing ability and insight as to how their person inspires them! 

Landforms, Landforms, Landforms
Room 13 has been hard at work, learning about the different types of landforms in our world.  We have read books, researched the internet, watched movies, and participated in a variety of activities to immerse ourselves in the different landforms we see or know of.  This week, students will start to create a project (which they chose) to demonstrate their knowledge of their researched landform.  Project styles include; posters, PowerPoints, word searches, clay model, mystery project (??), and a diarama. We can't wait to see what they create!

Suzy Kline Author Visit

This was an amazing visit by a truly wonderful author! In the weeks leading up to Suzy Kline's visit, we conducted an author study of many Suzy Kline books.  The children truly loved reading, listening to, and discussing many Horrible Harry books.   The day Suzy came to Cantiague was exciting and interesting.  She shared with us her writing process, and what she does as a writer.  She shared her inspirations for many of her stories, and we loved hearing how she collected her ideas (the seeds).  Some advice she offered was, "Always carry a small notebook in your pocket. You never know when a seed to a story will happen." Suzy then had the teachers perform a play from a part of her Herbie Jones series! Ask your child about our acting skills! Finally, Suzy took the opportunity to give the children and the teachers a couple of writing prompts.  She had us share what we wrote, and provided positive feedback to all! Thank you Suzy Kline!

Measurement, time, and Money...

Our mathematician's have been learning so much in the last months. As we continue our math journey together our students continue to learn and grow. We are blown away by all they are learning.   We have covered the units of measurement and money (since our last blog), and are currently learning telling time. As always, we focus on real world application and problem solving in all units of study. The students have been challenged to think about how and why they will use these skills, in the real world. 

Science Fun!

We have made so many amazing projects in the science lab this year.  Most recently, we have planted seeds to observe how they will grow.  How is your child's plant doing? An important focus is which direction the plant is going....towards the light, away from the light, etc. 


Folktales:
(People/Tales) Old and Retold!!
Room 13 was back at work and ready to launch Round 4 of the writing process! We began by immersing ourselves in different kinds of Folktales.  We read Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Fables, OH MY!!!!  Ask your children about some of the wonderful Fables we read and the lessons they have learned from them!  We are so proud of our all the children for actively trying to apply the lessons they are learning to their lives each day! We are looking forward to our trip (after the break) to the Hofstra Playhouse to see Aesops Fables!

                                                                   
Scientist of the Week!
Ask your child the answers to these amazing questions...

Jordan-Can you make a magnet with electricity?

Daniel-What happens when you put a penny in vinegar and salt?

Eshal-What happens when you put soap and food coloring in milk?

Brooke D. -Will an orange float?

Neha- What happens when you put an egg in salt
water and fresh water?

James- Will the paper towel get wet under water?