Goodbye Room 125 and Mohegan School

This is my last post of the school year and as a teacher at Mohegan School.  It certainly has been an adventure!  We will culminate our year with our class party on Thursday with Happy Meals and other festivities.  I want to thank Aimee Cayer for coordinating our end of the year celebration.  I also want to thank Melissa Leone, Tammi Brown, and Laura Treonze for their help this past year with our holiday party.  To all parents who have supported our classroom by volunteering to chaperon or just by making sure your child got his/her homework done, read every night, and handed in those notices on time...thank you, too!

To all the parents who have been so supportive of me over the past couple of weeks, I cannot thank you enough or express how much your kind words mean to me.

June is always a bittersweet time for teachers.  Though we are so proud of our students' many accomplishments, it's still hard to say goodbye.  Having had to spend the last few months of the school year knowing that I would not be at Mohegan next year has made the process all the more difficult.  Nonetheless, your children have reminded me daily of why I do what I do.  They have made me laugh and smile as they have shared their wonderful personalities and thoughtful insights with me and their classmates. 

I will miss every single one of the wonderful, unique personalities who have enriched my life and taught me so much this year. Their energy, enthusiasm, and love of learning have made my job a complete joy. I want you to know from the bottom of my heart how much I love each child and how much each one of them has left a lasting imprint on me. I am so proud of them and I am honored to have been their teacher this year. This has not been the easiest last few weeks of school for me personally, but what has kept me smiling are all those “a-ha” moments when I see the light bulb go on and someone says something that just blows me out of the water and I say, “Oh, my gosh…you are only 6 and 7 years old!”

So to Elena, John, Jacob, Emma, Kaylee, Michael B, Michael K, Michael L, Madison, Joey, Graham, Angelina, Jason, Luke, Andy, Devin, Giovana, Audrey, Jules, Annabella, Tori, and Taylor...I love you and I will miss you next year!  You are all UNFORGETABLE!

Have a wonderful summer!

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

This week we begin a short study of "fractured fairy tales."  We will be comparing and contrasting some traditional fairy tales, folk tales, and fables with their "twisted" counterparts.  We begin with The Three Little Pigs and other variations on the story along with The True Story of the Three Pigs written from the prospective of the wolf.  As we work on this unit, we'll talk a lot about point of view and how different characters (or people) can view the same incident from different perspectives.

With our math units complete (everyone did an amazing job on our final post test), we will be working on reinforcing important concepts we've learned throughout the year through lots of fun games.  Last week, the boys challenged the girls to an addition and subtraction contest.  The catch?  Students had to answer the problems in sign language!

We wrapped up our poetry unit last week.  I typed up students' poems and they illustrated their work.  We have quite a classroom of poets!

Our end of the year party will take place on the 17th.  We will be having Happy Meals for our lunch.  Please indicate whether your child would like a cheeseburger, hamburger, or chicken nuggets as their main meal on the form that is going home.  Side choices are fries or apple slices.  Drink choices are milk (white or chocolate) or apple juice.  I have already explained to the children that there are no other substitutions allowed.

Please note that photo money is due immediately!  If you do not want your child's photo package, you must return it as soon as possible.

Next week Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are 1/2 days with Friday as the last day of school for students.

My last blog post will be Monday of next week!

Short, Exciting Week

The kids were thrilled this week when all 7 of our caterpillars emerged from their chrysali as lovely painted lady butterflies.  We watched as the butterflies drank nectar from flowers that some students brought in.  Then, Friday, we released them into the wooded area behind the playground where they all seemed to land momentarily on some sweet smelling flowers.  I'm sure I'm dating myself when I tell you that I had all the kids singing "Born Free" at the top of their lungs as we released the butterflies!

Earlier in the week we were visited by David Adler, a world-famous children's writer and author of the very popular Cam Jansen books.  Mr. Adler's visit, sponsored by the PTO, was phenomenal!  He reiterated everything that we have been learning all year in Writer's Workshop about how writer's write and how they are inspired.  He was funny and down to earth.  I hope all the kids were as enthralled with Mr. Adler as I was..and hopefully inspired to write their own stories from the everyday occurrences in their lives.

This week I also began reading Roald Dahl's "The Witches," to the students, chapter by chapter.  I generally haven't read this story to 1st graders, but everyone seems to be loving it.  I get a lot of, "Please, Mrs. Cushing...are we reading The Witches today"!  Our read aloud of this book is for sheer pleasure, and the kids have been enjoying just having the opportunity to sit and listen to a really well visualized and written piece of children's literature by one of the greatest writers of children's literature of all time.

As we wrap up our author study of Kevin Henkes, we read Old Bear and discussed the visual images in the pictures.  We talked about how the visuals helped set the tone of the story and allowed us, the readers, to really feel what was happening in the book.  Then, using water-color paints, the children painted their own pictures of their favorite season in the style of Kevin Henkes.

In math we finished up our last unit in Everyday Math and began reviewing for our final post test.  Please review time to the quarter hour and 1/2 hour with your children.  We've done a lot of review on this at school, but many children are still finding it a tricky concept.

REMINDERS:

IF YOU ARE NOT PURCHASING PHOTOS, ALL PHOTOS MUST BE RETURNED TO SCHOOL BY TUESDAY.  IF YOU DO WANT THE PHOTOS, PLEASE SEND IN YOUR ORDER FORM AND MONEY.

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Wrapping Up

We will be wrapping up our Kevin Henkes author study over the next week with some of his "non-mouse" themed books.  To culminate reading the last of Henkes' mouse books, we played "Kevin Henkes Mouse Jeopardy" on Friday--boys vs. girls.  Students picked a category and dollar amount and answered questions about what we have been reading thus far.  Questions required students to really have been paying attention to details both explicit and inferred in the stories.  It was a close race with the boys just beating the girls by a narrow margin.  What I was most proud of was the good sportsmanship displayed by both teams, who cheered for one another and congratulated each other for their work.  The members of the winning team each received two tickets.  The girls settled for the consolation prize:  one ticket each.  Best of all, everyone had a great time playing and assured me that they would like to play again!

Students have been doing an excellent job of incorporating the mini lesson I have been teaching about a particular reading strategy or convention into their own independent reading in their just right books.  We have been learning about how to "talk to books" and constantly be thinking about our reading by making connections, asking questions, making predictions, and noticing details that help us better understand and feel closer to the our books and the characters in them.  After our mini-lesson, students spend about 20 minutes reading independently and using sticky notes to highlight pages where they have connected their thinking with our learning in the mini lesson.  As students read, I conference with them and talk to them about what they are discovering in their reading.  Then, students will often fill out a graphic organizer to gather their thoughts, and eventually apply those organized thoughts into a  fully expressed written extension.  Since each student is writing about the book that he/she has been reading at his/her level, I get a good indication of how to assess student strengths and weaknesses, and the kids are able to work at a level that helps them attain their personal best without the work being too easy or too difficult.

This week, we will talk about noticing tone and mood in two of Kevin Henkes' stories:  Old Bear and Little Kitten's Full Moon.  As students read their own just right books, I will be conferencing with them to discuss how they have applied what we learned to their own thinking about their reading.  Later, students will create watercolor paintings in the style of Kevin Henkes in Old Bear and will use similes and metaphors to create visual imagery as Henkes does in Little Kitten.

In addition to our author study, we are wrapping up our unit on poetry in Writer's Workshop.  Students will be choosing one poem to publish, and I will type them up to send home.

We've wrapped up the DRA's and all but one end-of-unit reading assessment.  We also have only one math post test left until the end of the year.  So, we'll be doing a lot of reviewing of concepts that, based on previous assessments, I have determined students need more support on.  We will review time to the quarter and half hour (this is a tough one for nearly everyone), fractions, and dividing numbers into equal parts.

In our science study of insects, we were actually able to watch one of our caterpillars split his skin, shed it, and form a chrysalis around himself.  In all the years I have been hatching butterflies, I have never seen this happen (it occurs very quickly), so it was so cool for the students to be able to watch the process.  All the other six caterpillars are now in the pupa stage inside their chyrsali.  We expect we might have a couple of butterflies when we come back to school on Monday.  When the butterflies hatch, students may bring in flowers from home (with permission, of course) so the butterflies will have some food!

Reminders:

• Wednesday is Field Day.  It is supposed to be HOT!  We will be outside ALL day.  Please make sure your child is dressed in appropriate clothing (shorts, tee shirts, sneakers).  Our class colors are green and white.  Please see the note that went home in your child's folder regarding which color he/she should wear.

• Please check your child's folder daily so you won't miss important notices.  Also, I will be sending home lots of papers that have accumulated over the year (mostly written work that I have saved to use in my own assessments), so expect to see a lot of paper over the next couple of weeks!

• Friday is a 1/2 day!  No school Monday in observance of Memorial Day!

Have a Great Week!

Bring on the Bugs!

We began our insect unit in science and that means we were visited by all kinds of creepy crawly creatures last week.  First, came the meal worms (not Mrs. Cushing's favorite little fellows, but sort of fascinating to examine, nonetheless).  We had a chance to look under a strong magnifying glass and see various stages of growth/development:  From tiny worms that were barely visible to the naked eye to rather chubby wiggly worms to worms in the pupa stage.  When the worms hatch, they will be beetles.  Viola!

We talked about the concept of metamorphosis further as we explored painted lady caterpillars, which will eventually turn into butterflies.  Right now we've been having fun examining them, watching them eat (and, boy, can they eat), and recording our observations about how they've changed in our "Caterpillar Diaries."  Since the caterpillars literally change overnight (the growth in them is visible), it has been easy for students to make observations to record.

We also entertained a house full of ladybugs and had a chance to watch them as they feasted on raisins and scurried around.

Continuing with our Kevin Henkes author study, we read Sheila Rae the brave, talked about her character traits, and then made comparisons between her and Lilly with a Venn diagram.  We also did a lot of writing and thinking about Kevin Henkes' characters, using our texts to find and record evidence to support our ideas and answers.  We also introduced the first non-mouse book by Kevin Henkes.  Called All Alone, Kevin Henkes' first children's book is full of understated watercolors and poetic language.  Students wrote about what they feel like and like to do when they are all alone.  This week we will read Wemberly Worried, Chrysanthemum, and Owen.

We wrapped up our latest math unit on mental arithmetic, money, and fractions with a post test and took a pre-test for our up-coming (and last) unit on place value and fractions.  During this unit, we will work on adding and subtracting tens, adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers, and comparing fractions.  Please make sure that your child is practicing addition facts, particularly doubles facts, at home on a regular basis.  We have been having fun having doubles fact races during which I use a stop-watch to time kids to see how fast they can do all doubles facts up to 10.  So far the time to beat is 12 seconds by Andy!

Our Writer's Workshop study of poetry is well underway.  The children have been exploring all kinds of poetic writing conventions like onomatopoeia, alliteration, personification, voice, and rhyme.  We explored concrete poems and went on a hunt around our room to find objects about which to write poems.  We talked about how poetic writing is different from other forms of writing.  I think Jason summed it up best when I asked what poetry was and he said, "It's writing that sounds like a song without the music."

I am still working on DRA reading assessments and hope to be finished by the week's end.  Please make sure that your children continue to read for at least 15 minutes per night and that you ask questions about their reading (Who were the main characters in the story?  Where did it take place?  What was the problem?  How did it get solved?  What were the events in the story in sequence?).  You can also ask your child what the story made them think of or if they had any personal connections they could make with the story or one of its characters.

Happy Mother's Day to all our moms and grandmas!

Lilly, Lilly, Lilly

We began our Kevin Henkes author study last week by reading four of his books featuring the indomitable Lilly.  Lilly is one of the great characters in children's literature; she's a bit full of herself; she's impatient; she fearless; she's fun.  In short, she's just likable, and our students really felt they could relate to how "real" she seemed as a character.  We talked a lot this week about how Kevin Henkes gets his ideas for the stories he writes.  Because he is inspired by snippets of actual experiences he's noticed in his daily life, his characters are believable and meaningful for children.

As we explored Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Lilly's Big Day, Julius, Baby of the World, and Chester's Way, we talked about Lilly's character traits and how she changes in each story.  We also made text to text and personal connections as we read.  Tomorrow we will make a Lilly's Great Big Character Trait web linking those traits and evidence from the four stories.  Students will also be writing about whether they would like Lilly as a friend based on our reading.

Last week, students wrote letters to Lilly giving her advice about how she could treat her baby brother, Julius, better.  I was really impressed with the level of thinking and the connections students made in their writing!

We've begun our poetry unit in Writer's Workshop.  The children are not only exploring all sorts of poems and learning about poetic language, they're beginning to write some great poetry of their own.

In math, we began learning about fractions.  We made "personal pizzas" and decorated them with delicious toppings.  We also used jelly beans to figure out how to equally divide portions among various groups of students.  It's always fun when you can eat your math manipulatives when the lesson is finished!

Later this week, in science, we'll be exploring meal worms and ladybugs--yes...real ones!

Thank you to everyone who brought in tissues last week!  We sure did need them!

Kevin Henkes Author Study

This is the one I wait for!  We begin this week with a new author's study.  For the next month or so we will be exploring the works of my all time favorite author, Kevin Henkes.  You may be familiar with some of Henkes' more popular works like Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse (in my opinion, the "perfect" children's book) and Julius, Baby of the World.  We'll read about the indomitable Lilly; fearless Sheila Rae, timid Owen, anxious Wemberly, naughty Wendell, and a host of other mouse characters whom Kevin Henkes features as the main characters in so many of his stories. 

But, apart from his charming "mouse" books, which are themselves absolutely delightful, Kevin Henkes has written and illustrated some of the most beautiful children's books in the world.  Students will be learning about Kevin Henkes as a person and how he uses his own life experiences to enrich and influence his writing.  Our study will focus on such topics as:  author's message, character traits, text-to-text, and personal connections.  We'll turn some of Kevin Henkes' narratives into scripts and act them out in "reader's theater" where students will get a chance to make props and scenery, and students will also have the chance to write a "literary review" of their favorite Henkes book.  I hope all my students will end up loving Kevin Henkes' stories just as much as I do.  You can check out Kevin Henkes' great website here.

As we begin our author's study, we also are in full assessment mode!  I am currently conducting the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) on all students to determine independent and instructional reading levels.  These levels will be used to help place students into second grade classrooms and will be used to aid their second grade teachers in placing students into guided reading groups.  Tests include students reading an unfamiliar text (called a "cold read"), making predictions, retelling the story, and in some cases doing some written extensions to the texts.  Students are also timed to assess fluency.  The DRA is a very low key assessment for students.  Since they are so used to reading with me in guided reading groups and answering the same kinds of questions that are found on the DRA, they usually aren't really aware that they are being tested at all.

This week we will begin a unit in Writer's Workshop on poetry, which I expect to be a lot of fun!  Students will learn about rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and other poetic conventions.

If anyone would like to bring in a box of tissues to share with our class, it would be most appreciated.  Allergy season has hit our room big time; we have lots of runny noses!

Many students are also running low on pencils (or have none at all).  Please make sure your child has at least two pencils to bring to school.