It's Fall!

Officially, it's Fall and we welcome the cooler temperatures, especially at recess! 

Our Weather unit has come to a close, but we are excited to start our new unit on Native Americans.  On November 26, we will have an "in house" field trip where students will meet with a visit from Jamestown who will do a hands-on presentation about Powhatan Indians.  More information, as well as an "out of house" field trip coming home soon!  November will be a busy month!

What have we been up to these past two weeks?  Take a look!

From Liquid to Solid = Ice Cream!

Happy Friday! 

The most exciting part of our week came on Friday, when students were able to do more  than just talk about liquids turning into solids (by removing heat).  We mixed milk, sugar, and vanilla in a sandwich bag, added it to a gallon bag of cubed ice and rock salt, and shook, shook, shook! 

Voila!  Ice cream! 

Coming Up Next Week:
*Students will be doing county-wide pretests in Math, English, History, and Science.  This will disrupt our schedule for our regular groups for Math and Reading.  Our new reading groups, including Title I and Reading Lab, will begin on September 26th.

*Our new unit is on "Weather" for Science.  Ask your child if they know what a "meteorologist" is!

*Fall Field Trip Alert!  We will be going to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia, sometime in November, date to be announced.  The field trip is being partially funded by a grant.  Last year's cost (with the grant) was $10, so we expect it to be around the same price!

Grandparents Day!

Even though it was a short week, we packed a lot of things in it!  On Tuesday, students were "PALS Testing", which is a formal test to assess student reading level.  We will be grouping students, and Title I and Reading Lab will start being part of our reading rotation on September 16th.  I will be sending home results of the tests this coming week.

Wednesday, students got to meet "Miss Jenny" who helps us with the 2nd grade gardens. This is a project started several years ago, with the help of our local 4H.  Students help plant, grow, tend, and eat the vegetables we grow in the gardens!  They even use some of it in the cafeteria for salads and meals!  Twice a year, students have "tasting parties," where they get to taste what they grew.  Some of our fall plants include spinach, kale, broccoli, and lettuce.

We showed off our garden to our grandparents today.  Students were so proud of their plants!  We work with Miss Jenny every other Wednesday, so our next date for the garden is September 18th. 

Friday was Grandparents Day.  Students had fun meeting with the visiting grandparents in the cafeteria during our resource time for a special project.  Then, after a visit to the garden, we made our way back to the classroom to word searches and a "mystery word" activity, where students had to find words hidden in the letters for "Grandparents Day."

A sneak peek in our room:
Last week, it was our BUILD Centers for Math.  This week, it's our "Genius Ladder."  This great writing tool is one of the suggested activities from Whole Brain Teaching.  We start with a "blah" sentence ("The class talks.").  Then, moving up the ladder, we give it a little "spice" with some adjectives and adverbs, then expand with an "extender."  Finally, we make it up to "Genius Paragraph," where we tell a brief story, based on that "blah sentence."

For right now, we're doing it as a whole class.  Our next step will be to start adding it to our writing journals.  This is a great way to help students learn how to add details to their writing.  I am so excited to be starting this program this year!