Welcome Prince

I would like to welcome our new student, Prince, to our classroom blog. Prince has come to us via the Congo in Africa, speaks only french, and is already teaching us as much as we are teaching him. It is my good fortune to have Camille who speaks fluent french and Sophie who is right behind her with thousands of words and phrases, not to mention an incredible ability to pantomime just about anything, both acting as interpreters. Everyday has brought on new challenges in translation. We couldn't have asked for a better way to add spark to the mid winter doldrums. Who needs Phil the groundhog? We've got our very own Prince!

This week the children will be creating podcasts from a variety of sources; poetry, excerpts from stories, their own writing, etc. Check the new gadget on the sidebar and click on student names to hear them reading their latest selections.

We are beginning 2 new units of study in literacy. Writers Workshop will focus on "trouble stories". The children will focus on describing how their characters feel, go in to greater detail with setting, and build tension into their stories. Readers Workshop will delve deeper into story comprehension, building stamina, and fluency.

Wednesday marks the 100th day of school. We'll be attempting to read 100 poems all about the number 100 and creating 100's in hundreds of ways.

Happy Groundhog Day! Will Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow? I sure hope not!

Check it out for yourself - www.groundhog.com .

Art Pad

Hi Kids,
I am learning so much at the technology conference! I found a really fun tool for drawing. After you have made a picture you can replay the strokes you made and watch the picture create itself all over again. Check out what I made. http://artpad.art.com/?kdxzuj1fqthw
Fun, fun, fun! Try it yourself. http://artpad.art.com/artpad/painter/

Washington DC

Hello Vistonians,

Mrs. Bianchi and I changed plans in Washington DC yesterday and upon our departure the pilot was kind enough to circle the city for us before taking off for Florida. We had the most wonderful view of the White House and the Washington Monument. We also had a birds-eye-view of The Pentagon. Do you remember how many sides a pentagon has and who works there? Send me a comment and let me know your answer!!

Click on this link to find out more about The Pentagon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon

Inauguration Day 2009

Inauguration day was one for the record books in Vista.  We spent the entire day celebrating, creating, and watching history in the making.  It is said that children need to learn 40 new vocabulary words a week at this point in their development . . . I believe we learned 40 on January 20th alone.  Check out this Flip video movie for a brief look at our day.    

Cream Cheese, Bagels, & Lox

How do you help 19 first graders distinguish between lox and locks? We had a cream cheese, bagels, and lox party! Everyone knew the difference between lox and locks after eating smoked salmon. I was most impressed with the number of children who were willing to try something they had never eaten before and how many really liked the strong flavor.

New Units of Study

Happy New Year

We are fast at work on many new units of study. In Writers Workshop the children have been introduced to COPS (capitalization, organization, punctuation, and spelling). This week we focused on two parts of punctuation; sentence enders (. ! ? . . . ) and middle of sentence (, - " "). Next week we will venture into the land of organization which primarily focuses on handwriting and spacing, both huge topics when you really break each one down.

In Readers Workshop we are beginning to read and discuss books in a series. This week we have discussed how to determine the main character and then get to know them by determining their strengths and weaknesses as a person. Next week we will begin to look at the secondary characters since they reappear in the series and using what we know about them and get a voice in our heads for these characters.

Our new theme unit of study is entitled World of Difference. Williston Schools has adopted the curriculum from the Anti Defamation League - World of Difference Institute (http://www.adl.org/education/edu_awod/default.asp) and our lessons seek to help participants: recognize bias and the harm it inflicts on individuals and society; explore the value of diversity; improve intergroup relations. Currently we are having a lot of fun with our names! Our 2nd grade mathematicians are focusing on whole-number operations. We are bumping up our strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems by using two 3 digit numbers and beginning regrouping for subtraction. We will begin multiplication, a right of passage for these folks, by introducing array models. Every day is packed full of fun and learning!

Have you ever heard of a wordle? Very soon we'll be creating wordles using stories that we write. Here is a wordle using all the words in this blog! The biggest words are those that are used more often. Click on the image to enlarge it and find out which word we use the most.