Classroom News and Projects

Kindergarten - Mrs. Haseltine

Grade 1F – Mrs. Finethy/          Mrs. Haseltine

Grade 1G – Mrs. Gehring

Grade 2M - Mrs. Malo

Grade 2S - Ms. Spack

Grade 3P – Ms. Parise

Grade 3Y – Mrs. Yates

Grade 4M – Ms. Martens

Grade 4W – Mrs. Wasson

Grade 5H – Mrs. Harris

Grade 5DR – Ms. Duffield/        Ms Richards

Grade 6CK– Mrs. Craycraft/       Mr. Kiely

Grade 6R – Ms. Richards/      Ms. Duffield     

Art – Mr. Stasiuk

 


Kindergarten - Mrs. Haseltine

 

Hello and Happy November!  Thank you all for our wonderful conferences.  It is such a pleasure for me to share with parents the academic, social, and emotional growth of their children.  Already such great gains have been made.  And then there's that popular comment from parents, "Are you talking about the right child?"  Our read alouds have featured two non-fiction books this week:  I Am A Leaf and Pilgrims.   I Am A Leaf tells the life story through the perspective of a leaf.  Photosynthesis (the making of food in a leaf) and why leaves change color are explained in simple terms.  We learned that when the cool weather and short days arrive, the leaves stop making their food and the chlorophyll fades giving the leaves their beautiful colors.  The leaves weaken with no food and eventually fall from the trees.  During our read aloud on Pilgrims, we learned why they left England, what their voyage was like, how they survived their first winter in one house with little food, who Squanto was, and why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  We are learning some true Native American symbols.    We are learning many new songs and poems.  Those songs which feature letter sounds are "Alphady", "Seven Little Letters", and "Learning Letter Sounds A to Z". "Juba" and "Gobble" were two new poems.  We discuss the concepts of lines, first/last, letter sounds, syllables, and rhyming when learning poems.  In math we made symmetrical vases filled with flowers, symmetrical designs with pattern blocks, and monsters for our matrix.  We are focusing on the "teens" which are so tricky for many.  In a game we play we need 2 people to show "teen" numbers on our fingers.  The cent sign was practiced along with oral number stories (word problems).  Have a wonderful weekend.

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Grade 1F – Mrs. Finethy/Mrs. Haseltine  Click HERE for pictures!

 

Hello and happy Friday!  This week we had some special visitors from the New Durham Fire Department to review fire safety with us.  Turning the clocks back is a reminder to all that it is also time to check the batteries in the smoke detectors in your home.  Also, just as the school has the children practice fire drills, so should your families at home.  Make sure that you have discussed a meeting place outside for all to gather in the event of a home fire.  This place should be away from the house, road, and driveway where fire engines and personnel might be.  This week's read alouds from the Perspective Taking theme included Big Al and Henry and the Kite Dragon.  The lesson from reading Big Al is that you can't judge what someone is like or how they feel by just looking at them.  Big Al is a very scary looking fish and no other fish want to be his friend until one day he saves their lives.  Henry and the Kite Dragon is a story of prejudice.  Before the book was read the children were asked to think how they would feel if they were in Henry's place.  This type of perspective taking helps the children understand the importance of looking at the facts and not inferring when you are making decisions about people.  Two other stories read were part of a minilesson before Writers Workshop.  Vera Rides a Bike and Vera Runs Away are stories about a young girl who has experiences much like many of us.  It is important to continually point out to the children how authors often write about their experiences much like we do during Writers Workshop.  We are continually working on how to improve our writing.  Last week we tried including feelings in our stories.  We are also working hard at adding good detail to make our stories interesting.  During Work Board our centers included fall/Halloween poems, puzzles of the last names of our friends, overhead projector work, a word search, a Thanksgiving listening center, and more.  We practiced each day on skills involving alphabetical order, the sounds of "ou" and "ow" when embedded in a word, short vowel sounds, and the effect a silent "e" has on the vowel in a word.  Please practice -at, -an, and -in words in the car.  Have your child brainstorm words with those endings and then have her/him spell 2 of the words.  In math this week we have continued to solve number stories and math equations using the number line. We have also begun telling time to the half hour and when we talk about it we say “it is half-past 4 o'clock”. This can be tricky but we will keep working on it. An easy reminder to tell the kids is that for the o'clock time the minute hand is straight up and for the half past times the minute hand is straight down. We have also begun working with Frames and Arrows, which can be a tricky thing to understand. Frames and Arrows diagrams consist of frames, or shapes, connected by arrows that show the path from one frame to the next. You will see some of these on Monday with your child's homework. I did send home an explanation sheet for parents who have never seen these before. I know they were new to me the first year I taught this math program. We have also practiced using our calculators for skip counting and towards the end of the week we started working with dimes. We have also been completing math box pages and also practicing our math skills by playing different math games. Math time sure is busy!! In science we did an awesome experiment in which the children had to test different rainy day fabrics to see which would be better to wear in the rain. The fabrics they used were cotton, a cotton-polyester blend, wool and nylon. The kids secured these fabrics to a plastic cup and then poured water over each one so they could observe how much water passed through the fabric and landed in the cup and also how the wet fabric feels. They then had to come up with a conclusion of which fabric they would choose to wear on a rainy day and explain why they chose it. This was a lot of fun to watch and the kids had a blast! Ask your first grader what happened to the different fabrics and which ones got saturated quickly. Just in case you were curious about our results here they are: the cotton and cotton-polyester absorb water quickly and become saturated immediately. Most of the water passed through and therefore it felt very wet. Wool absorbs water more slowly so it took longer to become saturated. This made it feel slightly damp. The nylon does not absorb water and no water passed through it so it felt very dry. This fabric was the one most chose to wear on a rainy day. If you haven't done so already please sign and return your child's report card envelope so we can use it next quarter, thanks! Remember we have next Wednesday, November 11 off for Veteran's Day. Have a great weekend!

Grade 1G – Mrs. Gehring  Click HERE for pictures!

We have had another busy week in first grade! Thank you to the New Durham Fire Department and Captain Dave for making a presentation to our class on Tuesday. We got to see one of the firemen dressed in all of his gear and we learned that our families should have an escape plan and a place to meet outside of our houses if there is a fire. In science we learned how the color of clothing effects temperature. We found that the color black absorbs sunlight and raises the temperature while the color white reflects the sunlight and so keeps temperatures cooler. The children were surprised to see the difference color makes. In our character education theme we are learning about perspective taking. In perspective taking we are trying to understand others point of view and feelings. Our theme questions are: How do I feel? How do you feel? Our book this week was If the Shoe Fits. It's about a boy who learns important lessons about giving, getting, and wanting. The students were asked to think about the difference between wants and needs and what the boy in the book learned. In writing we are learning about the difference between a list type story and a story that has a lot of interesting details. I modeled this by telling two different stories. One story was about how much I loved my dog. The other story was about when I was a little girl and my big brother taught me how to ride a bike. Well they quickly learned that the bike story was much more interesting and had everyone laughing. So we are all going to work on interesting detail in our stories! Our new poem this week was The Squirrel Song sung to the tune 'She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain'. At centers we practiced reading, writing, and math through various activities. We also added the computer to our centers! In math we studied adding and subtracting on the number line, telling time to the half-hour, understanding the frames and arrows routine, and counting with a calculator. In telling time to the half hour the children are expected to understand and use the language of 'half-past’, which is tricky for some of them. Please practice talking about the time as half-past two o'clock, etc. at home so that it becomes more familiar to them. The frames and arrows diagram will be homework next week so you will be able to understand what it means too. The frames and arrows diagram consists of frames, or shapes, connected by arrows. Each arrow represents a rule which determines which number goes in the next frame. In social studies we began exploring in our Maps, Globes, and Graphs workbook. Everyone got excited about the work they will be doing in the workbooks. We examined the maps in the back of the workbook. We located New Hampshire as well as other states and regions on the United States map. We discussed the five themes of geography: location, place, human/environment interaction, movement, and regions. We discussed the area we live in and how it can be different if you live in town, out of town, or by the lake. We ended the week on Friday by spending some time with our fifth grade buddies. Our first graders shared with their buddies a story they wrote in writing workshop. Spending time with our buddies is a favorite time for everyone. Thank you for returning your child's report card envelope signed! Have a great weekend!

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Grade 2M – Mrs. Malo

Hello! We've had a good week! Everyone is really enjoying our spider theme. We learned another new poem and read several books. We are enjoying the Anansi the spider series. Anansi is a trickster who gets into lots of trouble. The second graders learned that spiders are not insects, but arachnids. They enjoyed looking through non-fiction spider books to find new information about spiders. We read a great book for our character education focus called Nadia's Hands. This book was about a Pakistani-American girl who was a flower girl in her aunt's wedding, and was uncertain about a family tradition of having intricate designs painted on her hands as she feared how she would be seen as different when she went to school. We then discussed traditions in our own families. Our word study focus again followed the principle 'short vowel sounds are usually spelled with one vowel'. This week we worked with the short o sound which was tricky because we realized lots of short o sounds don't follow the rule (such as thought or taught). Next week we will finish up with this word study principle using the vowel u. In math we worked with time, frames and arrows with 2 rules, and money. The students are learning that when it's half past the hour (for example 2:30) that the hour hand needs to be halfway to the next hour. We used a demonstration clock with only an hour hand to show how you can tell 'about' what time it is simply by looking at the hour hand. The second graders also had fun playing a new math game called the Digit Game, in which they had to make the largest 3 and 4 digit numbers possible in order to win a hand. The Charlotte's Web projects all look great! These will be displayed in the media center until Thanksgiving. Your confirmations for parent-teacher conferences can be found in your child's folder today. I look forward to meeting with you! Because our field trip to the Rochester Opera House falls on the same day as pajama day, we've decided to move pajama day for second graders to Monday, 11/ 16. Just a reminder that students still need to pay a $1.00 to wear their pj's, as this is a PTO fundraiser. Lastly, because we are going to the theater, we are requesting that students dress up a bit. Thanks! Have a great weekend!

Grade 2S – Ms. Spack

What a beautiful week we have had with the sun shining and the air nice and warm.  It is hard to believe that this is November.  We had an excellent visit from the fire department to teach us about fire safety.  They reminded us to check our smoke detectors monthly, to have fire drills at home, to have a predetermined meeting place outside, to get out in case of a fire, leaving pets to get out by themselves and to stop, drop, and roll if your clothing is on fire.  The students were very attentive, asked good questions, and shared their learning.  Thank you to our fire fighters.  In our character education program, Voices we are beginning our second theme, perspective taking.  The book, Manuela’s Gift by Kristyn Rehling Estes, was our jumping off point. The story is about a young girl who wished for a new yellow dress for her birthday.  What she received was a blue dress made from the material of her mother’s dress.  She was very disappointed at first but later changed her mind.  Ask your student how Manuela changed her mind.  We are continuing to read Eric Carl books like Pancake, Pancake and The Secret Birthday Message. His illustrations are fascinating and his stories usually have information and interesting vocabulary in them.  We are studying long vowel combinations this week.  This includes pairs of vowels like ea, ee, ai, oa, and words with an e at the end.  This is a review from last year but the reminder is helping in reading and writing.  We continue to work on editing our writing, putting capital letters and periods where they belong.  In math we started the week working with base 10 blocks which were incorporated into our centers.  We then reviewed money, making combinations of coins as high as $1.25   We pretended to shop at a fruit stand in our math journals where we bought one fruit, then two, and then three and showed the coins we would use in two different ways.  We continue to work on problem solving using pictures on the overhead and pictures we have made ourselves.  Mrs. Hess was unable to join us but we continued to relate her topics to what we are reading.  I need to give a big THANK YOU to Mr. Stasiuk who made my VW Bug for the Halloween parade.  We all had fun that day.  A “thank you” also goes out to all the parents who returned the Progress Report envelopes signed, the conference sign up sheet, and the permission slip with money for the field trip.  For those who haven’t please send them in right away.  Special Note – Pajama Day is next Friday.  Due to the fact that we are going to the Rochester Opera House that day, we need to have a “dress up” day for that. We in grade 2 will have pajama day on the following Monday.  Thank you in advance for helping your child remember this. 

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Grade 3P- Ms. Parise

Grade 3Y  – Mrs. Yates

We have enjoyed our work with Perspective during Voices this week.  We have found different examples of how characters take perspective and are now working on researching endangered animals to extend our understanding of perspective in writing.  During math we have been making three-dimensional shapes with straws and twist ties.  We have measured the perimeter and used pattern blocks to fill the inside of each shape to find the area.  We also used pattern blocks to work with probability.  Thank you to those parents who sent back conference forms so promptly.  If you have not done so, please do, as you know from the updated forms sent home with your child that the schedule is filling fast.  I look forward to meeting with you all, over the next few weeks.  Stay healthy and enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend.

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Grade 4M – Ms. Martens

Students have been expanding their word knowledge by writing synonyms for their word study words and writing them into sentences.  In science, our young engineers are working to design a vehicle that meets certain criteria.  In math, we are looking at different strategies to help us learn multiplication facts.  All the fourth graders have become the Fourth Grade State, with Mrs. Wasson and Ms. Martens as State Governors.  4W students have become the Senate of the Fourth Grade State, and 4M students have become the House of Representatives.  Each section of our Legislative Branch is working in committees to write bills to address issues that members of our state need to accomplish to be successful in their roles as students seeking education and as responsible community members of our state.  When the committee writing of the bills is completed, the members of each committee will present their bills to each house of our Legislative Branch.  If the bills are passed, they will then go to Governor Wasson and Governor Martens to be either signed or vetoed.  Our goal is to work through New Hampshire’s process to developing a set of laws to write our State Constitution for the Fourth Grade State.  During the process, all senators will be addressed as Senator “Jones” and all representatives will be addressed as Representative “Smith,” using, of course, the correct last names.  During the presentation of their bills, the representatives will be expected to dress for their roles with shirt and tie or dress.  The representatives are excited about their roles and will gladly elaborate for you.  Have a nice weekend!

 

Grade 4W – Mrs. Wasson

This week we have worked on several different concepts in literacy. We've talked about author's purpose, transitions in writing, and expository writing. All of these concepts apply to both reading and writing. Our word study work has been with “diphthongs”. They are 2 vowels that go together to make a new, unique sound like the letters OY and OU. We're finding these words everywhere! Students in 4W have finished presenting their “bills” to the “senate” and are ready to move to the “house of representatives”. All students have been thoughtful with the comments to other committees that were presenting their ideas. I'm proud of their “professionalism” during this activity. I'm sure we'll have a set of 4th grade laws and a constitution before too long. In science students have been working with the stream tables, once again. This time they've experimented with the idea of multiple streams coming together at one source. The lab groups are all working well. It's wonderful to see them effectively share the materials and their ideas. Our class has finished up unit 3 in math. These concepts involved multiplication, division, number sentences and algebra. The next unit of instruction focuses on decimals.

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Grade 5DR – Ms. Duffield/Ms Richards

5DR literacy As we finished up this round of guided reading books
everyone took a test that asked both specific questions about their book, as well as more general questions about literary elements such as setting, plot and characters. Next week we will be starting more guided reading work on the topic of informational reading- a very important part of our daily lives. We have continued to work on our memoirs and this week we focused of revising not only our introductions to make them more interesting, but we also looked at the verbs we had used. After brainstorming a list of strong verbs, we went back into our work and
replaced weak verbs with stronger ones. Spelling words went home this week. We are looking at words with vowel combinations that make a single long vowel sound. Ask your students how we "played" with our spelling words using a program called wordle. Two important notices went home today. One is for our annual ski program and the other is a request for volunteers to provide goods as well as help supervise at a table at the New Durham annual craft fair. A final reminder that all calendar stubs sold, along with money, need to be turned in to us by November 30 at the very latest. If you need further calendars to sell, please let us know. One of our math groups is doing the book keeping for our fundraising so I am sure we will be able to give you a current total soon. Our thanks to all of you who have worked so hard for the benefit of our students, as well as helping to save money for all fifth grade families.

Grade 5H – Mrs. Harris

I am asking that 5H students have their student planner signed by an adult at home each night. This is so families know what the homework assignments are, and it gives students a chance to ask for help - if they need it. I don't expect homework to be corrected at home, but monitoring what is being completed and packed in backpacks to be returned the next day would be beneficial for all! A notice regarding the NDS craft fair on 12/5 went home this week. If you have any questions please ask. I've been wiping down books, manipulatives, pencils (sounds crazy but true)...with disinfecting wipes to help keep everybody healthy. Donations of disinfecting wipes would be greatly appreciated. ND Firefighters presented fire safety strategies to fifth graders. We met with our 1st grade buddies, who also saw the presentation, to create fire safety posters. Reading groups are working hard. The skill of summarizing a chapter was the learning focus for group work. Whole class lessons continued to raise awareness of the different story elements. We had a great discussion about conflict. Writing direct quotes accurately with correct punctuation was addressed this week. We continue to observe and maintain our ecocolumns (the aquarium and terrarium connected). 5DR did some creative problem solving, because many of our animals are not surviving. We combined all living creatures into the aquarium that was observed to be the healthiest. Students decided to do this to save the creatures that are living. Let's see what 5H chooses to do. 5H continues to have ongoing Team Times-conversations when we circle up and discuss how things our going with our classroom. We discussed why “Blurt Outs” and side conversations make it difficult for everyone to do their job. We also discussed why raising hands is necessary when we are part of a larger group. I could see that 5H took our discussion seriously based on the choices they made and the way students communicated. 5H is a great classroom made by fantastic students! Have a great weekend!

 

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Grade 6CK– Mrs. Craycraft / Mr. Kiely

This week we got to have some great experiences. On Monday, 10 international students from Brewster Academy came to share a bit about their home countries. This was a positive experience for both groups. The Brewster students got a chance to meet us and share their PowerPoint presentations in English. Class 6CK  had the pleasure of meeting students from Korea, France, China and Taiwan. As we continue in the Voices program to explore the year-long theme of and current focus-perspective taking-experiences like this will be instrumental in helping students develop an understanding of differing perspectives and the role that culture and experience play in it. We also attended a presentation by the KRHS Peer Outreach group. This group visits each year and gives an entertaining presentation with an important message- stay away from drugs.  Our writing work included finishing up a couple more poems, one an attempt at writing in couplets, and working on a three paragraph reflection on our visit from the Brewster students. Additionally we started our second reading journal letter. In this letter students are writing about their reading genre goals, perspective in one of the books they have been reading and about their thinking about reading. The main teaching point for this response is supporting your thinking with direct quotes and other specific information from the text. In guided reading we have been thinking about the perspectives of the characters and what might lead them to think and feel the way they do. We have also begun to think about the narrative point of view. Third person limited for example, is the perspective from which Surviving the Applewhites is told. All of the groups are moving well through their books. Please remind your child to read nightly and to make their guided reading assignment their first priority.
On another note, Gunstock permission forms should have come home today. There is information about this at the class website and in today's jottings. Have a great weekend!

Grade 6DR – Ms. Duffield/Ms. Richards

Ms. Richards - 6DR literacy: As we finished up this round of guided reading books everyone took a test that asked both specific questions about their book as well as more general questions about literary elements such as setting, plot and characters. Next week we will be starting more guided reading work on the topic of informational reading- a very important part of our daily lives. We have continued to work on our memoirs and
this week we focused of revising not only our introductions to make them more interesting, but we also looked at the verbs we had used. After brainstorming a list of strong verbs, we went back into our work and replaced weak verbs with stronger ones. Spelling words went home this week. We are looking at words with vowel combinations that make a single long vowel sound. Another activity we completed this week was with the program wordle - students experimented with designs on the laptops based on their hopes and dreams essays. It has been quite a week for visitors. On Monday, ten international students from Brewster academy came to our sixth grade classes and shared information and pictures about their home country. As non-native English speakers, they also practiced their English skills at the same time. In turn we were treated to a little multicultural education. It was pretty exciting to meet them and see how they live their lives at home, and a great learning experience for both Brewster and New Durham children.  On Friday we were fortunate to be visited by KRHS students who are part of the Peer Outreach program. Each year they visit and share ideas about not taking drugs through a variety of skits and other entertaining ways to communicate a very important message.

 

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ART ROOM – Mr. Stasiuk

 

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