October 28, 2022

 Good Afternoon,

I hope this finds all of you happy, healthy, and feeling rested up as you get ready to take on one of the biggest challenges in parenting.  HALLOWEEN MONDAY! I want to wish you all the best with the week to come.   My advice would be to hydrate this weekend.  As a reminder, we will be talking about the traditions and the celebration of Halloween on Monday.  I apologize for those who had difficulties uploading a picture of your child in their costume.  I had the wrong setting but that has been fixed.  If you can take a look and see if your child's photo is in there.  If so great, if not please add it in before Sunday morning.  I will be making a video of their pictures on Sunday and won't be able to add any other pictures in (once I publish it).  The link to the Drive Folder is here. 

This past Wednesday, Mrs. Smith's class and our class joined up to carve pumpkins together. I started the day reading a book about pumpkins and all of the things we can do with them. That afternoon we headed outside to carve the pumpkins. This was part of the school wide reward for earning so many tickets over the past few weeks. This also started our conversation regarding the traditions of Halloween. We will continue the discussion on Monday afternoon.  The kids will again write about their learning and understanding of the traditions and celebrations of Halloween.

The Fire Department also visited our school this week. Each year they come to talk to the kids about fire safety.  The students got to see a fireman (a former 1st grade student of mine) all geared up and also got to hear what their voice sounds like with their mask on. The goal was to let them know what it would sound and look like in the case of a real fire. One of the key ideas is that every family tests their smoke detectors once a month and that every family has an escape plan and a meeting spot for their own homes. As a father who had one of his own daughter's have to crawl out of a house fire, I am very grateful that this is done with the kids. You never know when it will be needed. The students 

This week the 1st graders have been focusing on math facts and complements of 10 and/or 20.  We are working ob fluency with each of these skills.The students played a variety of games, worked with Ms. Figdor, and also parent volunteers, as they honed their skills with these concepts.  The 2nd graders worked on adding two digit numbers as well as adding numbers beyond 125.  Their primary focus was numbers within the 200-299.

In science, the students completed a third experiment.  This one involved putting milk on paper plate and then puddles of food coloring on top of that. Then the kids used a Q-tip and dipped it into dish soap. They then touched the food coloring with the soap and watched the colors dance. The students continued working on making a prediction, recording their findings (through diagrams and words), noting two "I notice" statements, and then reporting out, on their predictions. 

NOTES:

*Please no costumes at school on Monday. I have a variety of plans for Monday afternoon (to celebrate the tradition). We also have cider being sent in and I will be making Halloween Cookies.

*Please make sure your child has at least a sweatshirt and/or a coat for recess time.

*I will not be sending homework bags home on Monday.  Something tells me that you will be busy enough and it will not be top priority for the kids that evening.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Mr. Young

October 21, 2022

Good Morning to all of you.  I hope you are having a lovely Friday.  I know the students are excited for the fall celebration this afternoon. I arrived in DC earlier this morning and as I write this, I find myself inside a building wearing a mask (required).  I am realizing and remembering how happy that the everyday wearing of the masks is past us. Wearing a mask and trying to wear glasses is a tough one! More fog on my lenses than RT. 100 on an early fall day.  

This week I received several emails about kids being nervous or even a little scared about the biking unit that Ms. Ally has been doing in DC. I really appreciated the heads up and used the concerns to drive a project we did on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, I read the story The I'm Not Scared Book by Todd Parr, to the class. "With his signature blend of playfulness and sensitivity, the author explores the subject of all things scary and assures readers that all of us are afraid sometimes." After reading the story, the students identified a time when they were scared and what they did or could do to make it less scary.  Their writing and illustrations of this, will be sent home next week. 

Yesterday, the students started a 2nd science experiment.  The experiment involved putting a gummy bear in a cup of water and one in a cup of vinegar. Again the focus was on making predictions, setting up the experiment, creating diagrams of what they saw and writing "I noticed" statements about their observations. Today the students were going to record what happened over night and then check to see if their predictions were correct or not. I've been really impressed with the detail in their observations, recordings, and their science writing.

In math, 1st graders have been working on building fluency with their complements of 10 and also with domino math facts.  They have been playing a game where they each add their fact and then compare each other's quantity by using the greater than or less than symbols. Second grade math has been working on adding and subtracting 10s from a given number.

NOTES:

*Please remember to add a photo of your child in their Halloween costume (if they wish to) and I will add it to the presentation on the 31st.  Please add any photos into this drive folder. If anyone wishes to donate 2 gallons of cider for that day, please let me know.  I will provide the class treat.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Tommy

October 15, 2022

Good Morning,

I have to apologize for not getting this out on Friday. I do hope you all are having a great weekend and have a chance to help out and/or shop at the Ski and Skate sale. The proceeds from this sale fund many opportunities for the students of our school.

One of my goals this year is to develop a love of reading within each student. Over the years I have received grant money, used budget money, and have been fortunate enough to receive donations to build a classroom library. This library is filled with thousands of books and allows the students to choose from a wide variety of titles.  Over the past few weeks, I have added over 100 new books to our classroom library.  All of these books were free to us! Half of them came via the Scholastic book order.  I used points (earned when you all order) to receive them for free.  The other half came from an organization called Donors Choose.  This is an organization that allows me to put projects on and donors from around the country choose to donate towards a project.  I don't advertise these projects via email and social media because I am not looking for friends, family or the school community to donate.  Over the last two years I have received over $1,250 dollars in books alone.  Needless to say, the kids were very excited for all of the new choices and titles. Between the books they shop for every Wednesday and the book that goes home each night, these titles are already flying off the shelves. Who would have thought 15 new books about pugs or pug characters would be so popular.

Our class teamed up with Mrs. Smith (Torrey) 5/6 graders on Wednesday. Torrey and I are going to do a few projects with our classes this year and this was the introduction of the two groups.  We started off by teaming them up and kids finding a nice spot outside to read with their 5/6 grade partner. We then had the kids go on a walk, using the Mad Path that parallels our playground. It was such a beautiful day and the gathering was fun for all of them. I found it funny that so many of the 5/6 kids came up and said that their younger partner runs too quick for them. Next week we will carve pumpkins with the 5/6 class.  This will be part of our write up for the celebration and traditions of Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween. I just wanted to go over how it will work for our class. On Monday, October 31st we will use part of the afternoon, to talk about the tradition of Halloween. We will read some books, talk about traditions each student has, write about our learning and have a little treat, that I will provide. We will not be doing costumes at school. This way nothing gets left at school or lost before the big event that evening. However, I would love to do a photo parade of the kids in their costumes.  If your child would like to participate, take a i of them prior to 10/31 and upload it into this Google Drive folder. I will then turn it into a slide show for the kids. That way everyone gets to see each other's costume. If anyone would like to donate two gallons of cider, please let me know.  We will enjoy that with the treat that I make.

This week's writing instruction had students focusing on writing with detail. I referred back to one page from Jane Yolen's book Owl Moon and we talked about how well she painted a picture in the reader's mind. The discussion focused how Jane went after the reader's senses to help create such a vivid piece of writing. The students then had a chance to practice this in their own small moment stories. 

I used science time this week to go over how experiments work and the idea of making a prediction, conducting the experiment, writing their observations through "I notice . . ." statements, and then checking if their prediction was correct. The students documented all of their learning in their science notebooks and seemed to have a great time with the simple experiment. The focus was more on how to document their learning than the actual experiment itself. 

NOTES:

*Please make sure your child has a sweatshirt or fleece for the classroom, in their backpacks. If you want them to leave it at school, please tell them that and make sure their name is in it.

*Picture retake day is Wednesday. This is for individual shots.  The class picture will not be retaken.

*I will be out of the classroom on Friday. I run a mentorship program, for teachers learning about global education through a fellowship program. The kick off for the new cohort is this weekend in Washington DC. I will be back on Monday.

I hope you all have a great week!

Peace,

Mr. Young

Free Hot Chocolate for the Kids

"Waking" on the Mad Path

Reading with the 5/6 kids

Reading with the 5/6 kids

October 6, 2022

Drawing in the Park

Well week seven has come and gone and we are on the eve of a 4 day break for the students. I truly hope 

Celebrating Leaves!

each and everyone of you can find some time to get outside this weekend and enjoy the colors and beauty that nature is providing this fall. Speaking of leaf peeping, that is exactly what we did on Wednesday. We used the morning to enjoy the tradition of leaf peeping. We walked along the side walk and made our way to the pocket park and the covered bridge. The students found comfortable spots to sit and draw two pictures of the scenery. As they were working, I found myself reflecting on how lucky I am to teach and live in the community I do. It was so great to see the kids sitting on rocks, laying on the grass and working away in their illustrations. When we got back to the room the students used colored pencils and crayons to enhance their illustrations. We also read the Leaf Thief by Alice Hemming. "Squirrel is so cross. Yesterday there were loads of beautiful leaves on his tree, but today? Today some are missing and Squirrel is convinced that someone has stolen them... there's a leaf thief on the loose! Join Squirrel on a mission to find the culprit, and meet so many fun animals on the way, while you find out how the world takes on different colors as the months pass by. A laugh-out-loud book about the changing seasons.

Writing like a scientist

We also continued to write like scientist today.  The students used their knowledge of drawing diagrams, labeling them, and adding color to enhance them as they each colored and wrote about their apple observations and leaves that they had collected. Kids used hand lenses to capture zoomed in observations and also learned to write I notice statements.

The students each were given their own sight word rings this week.  These are words that they are working on spelling and often can;t be sounded out.  The students learned a few ways in which they can practice these words in order to get to "mastery." The students get two weeks to work on these words and then are tested.  Words that they get correct are taken off the ring and new ones are added. Each student is always working on 10 different words.

We are very fortunate to have a handful of parent volunteers this year.  These volunteers started to come in this week.  You may hear the students talking about them.  I am truly appreciative of all that are able to help out this year.

NOTES:

*There is 1 more book coming in for a student and then all of the books from the Scholastic order will have been handed out.

*This week we had a bus evacuation drill. This is a planned event that allows students to hear the procedure and practice getting off the bus in case of an emergency.  This is a required drill and is done once a year.

*The weather is certainly getting cooler.  Please make sure to send your child in with a sweatshirt, fleece, and/or jacket for recess time.

Learning 4 Square with Ms. Ally

 *This week's specials were library, guidance, french     and PE. In PE, Ms. Ally continues to introduce and go   over rules of games that kids can play at recess.  Make   sure to check in with your child about their specials   classes from the week.

 That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great   weekend.  I am headed to see my oldest daughter at her   college and will even get to see her compete with her   team in a cross country race.  It should be a a lot of fun.

 Peace,

 Mr. Young

Sight Word Work

Enjoying Read to Self Time

A Little Math Too

Playing Tourist

Glasses Twins