A Productive Few Days!
Week #20 January 22-25, 2019

We may have only had 4 days together, but we accomplished a lot!  We completed important tasks in writing, math and reading.

We are published authors!  We created our final products of our non-fiction books for our publishing party on Monday.  Students creatively chose their writing type, cover and illustrations to finalize either their chapter book, how-to book or question/answer book.  Students also had an opportunity to peer conference and shares "2 stars and a wish" with their partner's book.  Students also met with me to write an elaboration craft for their final book; students chose to include a tip, a glossary or a fun fact.  We look forward to sharing our work not only with our class, but with the writers in Mrs. Belisle's class on Monday.

We completed a district-wide, mid-year summative math assessment.  Students were so focused and careful during this time that I called Mrs. Bailey while they were working to share how impressive they were!  Students paced themselves and worked on this for 3 math periods as well as spent time on their Math Menu tasks.

This week reading workshop featured using our reader's notebooks to document the beginning, middle and end of our books or chapters.  We practiced this with our shared text entitled, The Race before completing this with our own texts.  Students also read independently this week, and with me to complete a winter reading text level assessment.

And, of course, we were productive as aeronautical engineers and pilots!  Thank you to Mr. Coon for teaching us how to fold 3 different types of paper airplanes for our Marky Mark celebration!

Other things to ask your child about this week:
*reading a political map of the US
*sampling spaghetti squash with Miss Meg
*putting together puzzles of the US
*winter Olympics in PE
*our last coding class with Mrs. Springer

Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs. Hock

A Week Full of Guests
Week #19 January 14-19, 2019

This week we enjoyed many special moments with guests along with productive work times.

Mrs. Hock's family (Grandma Judy, Grandpa Jerry, Nana and Ryan) came one afternoon to help us make "kindness cards".  We used the technique of iris paper folding to make a special card.  Grandma Judy taught us this art from Holland that uses color coordinated strips of folded paper taped over a pattern.  This creates a spiraling design that resembles the iris of an eye or camera.  Students chose to make a heart, an apple or a fish.

We also enjoyed a very informative Hands-on-Nature lesson with Henry, Ellie and Susie's moms.  We learned about winter habitats and how animals survive in the winter.  We were able to watch a puppet show, conduct an investigation about insulation and create a mouse habitat.  Thank you Anna, Victoria and Erin!

The Student Justice Union from SBHS came on Thursday to lead a presentation about peace inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.  Using the MLK quote, "Peace is more precious than diamonds, or silver or gold.", we learned about Alfred Nobel, Henry Dunant and Martin Luther King, Jr and their peaceful efforts to take care of others.

On Friday, we attended an assembly with all of grades 1 and 2 to learn from Sam Drazin  Sam was born with facial differences and he speaks to students about how everyone has differences that are both visible and invisible.  He encouraged us to have empathy towards all people.  Here we are trying his hearing aids so we could hear how he hears.

We are improving at writing friendly letters.  We wrote letters not only to ourselves or families, but to our Flat Stanley recipients.  We had many questions about "snail mail", or postal service, as we generated letters and wrote addresses.  I hope the students enjoy receiving their own letters this weekend.

Other things to ask your child this week:

*Our online game to practice telling time:  https://www.education.com/game/set-clock-5-minutes/

*Guidance with Mrs. Wheeler and Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon

*Solving compare or take-away subtraction problems

*Why readers write or draw about their reading

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Mrs. Hock

What's New?
Week #18 January 7-11, 2018

We began some new studies this week.

Dreambox Learning Math:  The South Burlington School District purchased this rigorous and highly adaptive online math learning system for RMCS for the remainder of the school year.  I introduced this to students this week.  Students will have time in school to complete lessons as they assume their avatar in Adventureland.  This learning system meets the educational needs of individual learners by adjusting in the moment as the student responds to lessons in the fun learning environment.

Reader's Notebooks:  We are now recording the title, author and date each day we read.  We'll also use this notebook to write about our own reading, our shared read alouds and our mini lessons.  This will be a great tool for us as we grow as readers and make the reading/writing connection.

Flat Stanley:  Our current read aloud is Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown.  This character will help us begin our study of United States Geography.  On Friday, 1/11/19, your child brought home a letter in their "Take Home" folder about sending a Flat Stanley to a friend or family member that lives in another state.  Please return this letter with the necessary information ASAP this week.  Along with mailing Flat Stanley to family and friends, we'll be mailing postcards to a second grade classroom in each of the 49 other states.  We'll receive postcards back from those 49 schools--wow!  We will be excited to check the mail for the next few months!

We are also collecting puzzles of the United States to complete in school.  If you have one that you are able to share with our class, please label the box and send it to school with your child this week.

Guidance:  Here is some information from Mrs. Wheeler and Ms. Bedell regarding our new guidance unit entitled, "Changing Perspectives".

Our school has chosen the theme of “Changing Perspectives” to help our students gain better understanding of differences and disabilities. We are collaborating with Sam Drazin, Executive Director of Changing Perspectives { www.cpne.org} and former teacher. He will be presenting to all our students in grade level meetings on Friday 1/18. Each week, Mrs. Wheeler and her intern Ms. Bedell will be incorporating their curriculum into their weekly class time with us. They will read a book with our class and discuss the importance of the uniqueness and value of each member of our school community. While we will be learning about various disabilities, our focus will be on recognizing each person’s strengths. To celebrate our learning, we will be organizing a disability awareness hands-on workshop. We will set up stations to simulate various disabilities and invite students to experience daily actives without being able to see, walk, hear, or use their fingers. In first and second grades, each student will create a booklet to demonstrate their learning.

Word Study:  We also returned to our word study routines.  Based on a winter spelling assessment, all students in second grade are working in "just right" word study groups.  Students work in their group to study patterns at their developmental spelling level 20 minutes each day.

Other things to ask your child about this week:
*Not Your Typical Dragon
*Cross country skiing in PE
*Reader's Notebook
*Kindness picture books:  How Full is Your Bucket?, A Sick Day For Amos McGee, Enemy Pie

Thank you!
Mrs. Hock

A Happy Return!

Week #17 January 2-4, 2019

Happy New Year and welcome back!  Students were happy and eager to return to our classroom.  They were all smiles as they greeted each other and noticed all the changes in our physical space.  This short week did allow us to transition to student routines and build stamina for our daily schedule.

As we work hard to learn and grow together, I continue to tell them, "be brave and be kind".  This idea of being kind is reflected in our sharing for the month of January.  We will share kindness this month.  A Kindness Calendar went home today with a list of kind acts we brainstormed.  The students worked collaboratively to generate a list of acts of kindness before we created our class list.  They were very thoughtful and honest with ideas of meaningful kind acts they would actually do.  I look forward to hearing about their kindness throughout the month.  

We enjoy writing!  We continued our non-fiction writing that we began in December by trying "how to" books this week.  We read mentor texts to inspire us with topics related to how to: 1) draw, 2) make/bake/cook or 3) fulfill a role in our family.   Mrs. Hock's topic list included how to draw a bunny with two #12's, how to make pie crust, and how to be a big sister. 

Our winter creative arts schedule begins next week.  Please note that we will have our hour-long outdoor PE class on Thursdays.  Students will need to be prepared to wear full winter gear while skiing outside with Mr. Day.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

*Whole-school assembly to play the Teacher Baby Picture Guessing Game

*New Number Corner work related to halves of collections, pictographs, counting by 10's to 800, and counting area of larger arrays

*Alexander Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday

*Collaborative challenge work to make the largest snowman using 6 feet of paper, and an igloo with marshmallows & toothpicks

*Return to reading with new bookmarks and "book shopping"

Have a wonderful weekend with your family.

Mrs. Hock