Happy Summer!

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What an amazing year that we've had. We ended our second grade experience with a memorable visit from Tao our Chinese Exchange Teacher. She taught us how to write and speak in Chinese and taught us about her country. We worked hard to create our Night Sky Museum and the effort showed as we debuted our exhibits. This past week we headed outside to Shelburne Farms and to the end of the year picnic at Catamount Family Center. Tomorrow the students will officially become third graders! It has been a pleasure getting to learn and grow with each and everyone of my students over the past two years. I will miss them all and wish them the best of luck at WCS! Have a great summer.

Important Dates for May and June

We all had a restful April break and came back to school ready to head to outer space. That's right, we have begun studying the sun, moon, and stars. The students will spend a week learning about the phases of the moon and then a week learning about the sun, stars, and constellations. Then each student do an independent project to answer a question that they have about one of these concepts. They will do research and create a project to exhibit their new learning at our end of the year "Night Sky Museum" on May 31st from 6:30-7:30.

 The students are already abuzz with energy about the museum and they have an incredible variety of creative ideas that they are tossing around about their research projects and how to transform Synergy into a museum for the big night. I can't wait to see what they come up with and we look forward to having you join us on May 31st.

 The museum is just one of the dates that you should put on your calendar during the home stretch to the end of the year. Here is a list of important dates:

 May 7 and 9th- Tao comes to Synergy and our class to share her Chinese Heritage. Be sure to ask your child what they learned about China.

 May 9th- A special viewing of HONK at WCS.

 May 17- Last Synergy Spirit Day- Picnic Day. Bring a bagged lunch and a blanket!

 May 22nd- Four Winds May 28th- Memorial Day- NO SCHOOL

 May 31st- NIGHT SKY MUSEUM 6:30-7:30

 June 5th- Move Up Morning- A visit to WCS to meet our new teachers and classmates.

 June 8th- Fun Day at WCS

 June 11th- Team trip to Shelburne Farms

 June 12th- Synergy Family Day at Catamount (More Info to Follow)

 June 13th- Last Day of School

It will definitely be an exciting and busy few weeks for us. Here's hoping for more beautiful spring weather as we head into Summer!

Proud Poets

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The students are loving our poetry unit and are fully immersed in reading, writing, and reciting many different poems. To start the week, we created "Pocket Poem" folders to keep our growing collection of poems in. Then we practiced discussing the things that we notice about poetry with our partners. At the end of the week we practiced reading poems fluently. We practiced as a group and then with a partner. Then we spoke into the iPad and recorded ourselves using the camera. When we played back the video we all gave ourselves a score for fluency using a rubric. The class had a great time with this activity and at the same time got a lot of practice using volume, clarity, pacing, and expression to recite their poems beautifully.

In writers workshop we created a list of big ideas that we could zoom in on to write poetry from the heart. Then we learned how to write a poem in the Cinquain style. These poems have a pattern of 1 noun, 2 adjectives, 3 verbs, a 4 word phrase, and end with a 1 word synonym. This was a fun, interactive, and creative way to practice the different parts of speech. At the end of the week, we discussed how poet's use juicy words to write about an ordinary thing in a new way. We have a juicy word chart started in the room as a guide for writing our own poems.

Reading and Writing With A Poet's Eye

This week we began our study of Poetry in both Readers and Writers Workshop. The classroom is bursting with poem books of all varieties and the students have begun to learn how to use their "poet's eye" to read, discuss, interpret, and write poetry.

In Writer's Workshop we headed outside to use our senses to observe the trees that sit on top of the hill at Allen Brook. The students jotted in their Poetry Journals about the size, shape, textures, and smells of the trees. The next day we practiced using line breaks to take our notes and put them into a poem. Next week we will think about where poets get ideas for their poems, how poets use interesting word choice, and will learn different structures of poems.

In Readers Workshop we created poetry folders to store all of the poems that we discuss and interpret together. Then they will have a collection to read and reread with partners to build fluency skills. We made a chart of the things that we notice about poetry and have used our poet's eyes to interpret what the poet's message is. We listened to Langston Hughes read us his poem, Dream Variations, and then we discussed what we thought his message was. I was amazed at how profound the student thinking was about this beautiful poem. Here were some of the thoughts that we had:

" When he said 'black like me' it made me think that maybe he has black skin."
" I thought the same thing when it said, 'dark like me."
" When he wrote 'till the white day is done' I thought that maybe the poet lived during Martin Luther King time when black people and white people didn't get along."
" I think that he was writing about when he was a little boy and thinking about what he wanted when he was grown up."
" I thought it was different. I was thinking that he was really writing about a dream that he was having when he was asleep."

We would love to have you comment on what you thought the author's message was in this poem.


Dream Variations

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.
Langston Hughes

Published Authors

We spent the past week in Writers Workshop publishing our How To/Procedural writing pieces using the iPads. The Scribble Press app allows us to illustrate and type our writing pieces in a child friendly format. Then the students created a back cover and front cover. When they were done they emailed their published piece to me so that I could share it with families. The other cool thing that we were able to do is sync our finished pieces to iBooks. That means that whenever we are on the iPads we can read each other's published pieces. The project was challenging and motivating for the young writers and they all did an amazing job. In April we will move into a study of Poetry in both Readers and Writers Workshop.

For our theme unit around Citizenship all of the students of Synergy House became a part of a council where they needed to create rules and laws for a certain part of the school day. The councils were locker area, bathroom, lunch room, and recess. The students came up with "laws" for each area, created posters and reward cards for their council, and then presented their laws to the entire team. For the past week they have been "on duty" making sure that the rules and laws for their area are being followed. They are really taking their jobs seriously and have been recognizing responsibility in the actions of their teammates.

We began a new unit in math this past week. Unit Five will have us working with larger numbers to find effective and efficient strategies for addition and subtraction. We will think about ways to represent our thinking in pictures, numbers, and words. Students will be creating and solving story problems created by their fellow mathematicians. The mathematicians will also come back to use their strategies to count mixed quantities of coins up to $2.00.
Click here to read more about this unit.

Spring Has Sprung!

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We are fully immersed in our nonfiction unit of study in both Readers and Writers Workshop this month. The students have learned that when writers are composing a How To piece it helps to plan orally with a partner to make sure that they understand all of the steps that are involved. The students got to try out this strategy in partners and while they read their writing piece their partner pretended to walk through the steps. I think that you can see from some of the photos that there was a lot of active engagement with this exercise! The writers then gave each other feedback about what was clear and suggestions on what they could add to make their writing piece even more easy to understand. Then they students learned about features that all How To pieces had and assessed each other's writing using a checklist to see if the piece contained a title that told what it was teaching, a list of materials that is needed, clear steps in order, and pictures that describe the steps.

On Thursday we embraced the unseasonable weather with a Hawaiian Spirit Day. The students went all out with their costumes and it felt like a sunny summer day in Synergy House. I have enclosed some photos in the slide show. I love the one of the girl's rendition of the "hula hula."

Don't forget to sign up for a conference if you haven't already. Reports will be coming home on Friday.

Conference Time Is Here Again

We came back from break with a bang by celebrating the amazing Dr. Seuss with a belated birthday brunch of Green Eggs and Ham. Then we read The Lorax and did a writing and art piece about how we would make the world a better place. It was a great way to transition back from our relaxing break.

In Readers and Writers workshop we dove into a study of nonfiction. The students are learning to use features like glossaries, captions, labels, and table of contents to gather information and determine importance. There is something so fascinating about nonfiction for students of this age and I love watching them fall into these books. There is a certain buzz in the room during readers workshop and it is contagious. In Writers Workshop, the writers have graduated to teaching others how to do something in a procedural/How To writing piece. We have worked in partners and used mentor texts to write clear, detailed, easy to understand pieces that someone else can follow along to.

The trimester closes on March 17th and you can expect reports to be coming home on March 23rd. Spring conferences will begin the next week. You can sign up for them on the Google Doc that is linked to the Important Dates on the Sidebar of the blog. I look forward to meeting with all of you.

Until then, enjoy this magnificent weather.

Math Morning

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Thank you so much to all of you who were able to join in a morning of fun and learning at the Synergy Math Morning event. It was a great turn out and the students loved being able to be the teachers for the morning.

We ended the month by sharing our Realistic Fiction Trouble Stories with our book buddies. Before we were able to publish our pieces we had to make sure that we had all of the elements that we had been practicing this month. The writers needed to revise and be sure that the story had details about the character and how the character was feeling when the trouble happened. (Joe was terrified when he got lost!) The writers also had to revise their story and add something interesting about the setting of the story. (The basement was cold and smelly.) They needed to make sure that it was clear how the trouble got fixed (resolution). Then they needed to edit for spelling, punctuation, and clarity. The book buddies loved hearing our stories and we even able to offer some thoughtful feedback about how the second grade writers could make their stories even better.

Next month in Readers and Writers Workshop, we will be learning about Non-Fiction Conventions and will be using them to help us read non-fiction texts and write How-To Pieces to teach a reader about a procedure.

Stay Tuned!

Characters Come Alive!

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We began the week sending out sweet sentiments to our classmates on Valentine's Day. A big thanks to all who contributed a snack or other party supplies to help us celebrate the day. This week we also continued with our 100 Acts of Kindness challenge. Our goal was to fill out 100 hearts with random acts of kindness at home and school between the 100th day of school and Valentine's Day. We came close with 70 acts of kindness in just five days, so we decided to continue through this week to see if we can get to 100 before we head on winter break.

On Thursday we celebrated February's Synergy Spirit Day in style when we all dressed like our favorite book characters. The students blew us away with their thoughtfulness and creativity. We even drew crowds from around the school to check out characters like Junie B., Paul Bunyan, and Cat in the Hat. It was too bad that Ms. Rogers had to miss it. Her substitute, Ms. Viola Swamp was a real meanie! :) Check out this week's photo collage to see our class costumes and some slides of the Synergy Parade that we put on.

Our class filled up our warm buzzy jar this week and we celebrated our accomplishment with homemade smoothies! Now we are starting over and earning buzziest for being safe, kind, and responsible.

This week in math we continued with our study of Geometry and the kids were introduced to the idea of tessellation in the book A Cloak For A Dreamer. Then they got to work in their dyad partners to see if they could create a pattern that tessellated (or had no gaps). We will move into creating quilt squares using these concepts during the next few sessions in math.

We hope to see you on Tuesday morning at the Math Morning here at ABS. From 7:45-8:15 you can come and get a first hand look at our current Bridges Workplaces by participating in them with your young mathematician.

Lastly, in case you haven't noticed, it seems that we are in the middle of the longest mud season in Vermont history! This means that the playground and hill at ABS are very muddy. Please consider sending a change of clothes for your child to keep in his/her locker just in case the day's clothes get dirty while playing outside. It is hard to ask them to wear snow pants when it is 45 degrees outside!

Be Well!
Mrs. Eaton

100th Day and More!

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It was a busy buzzing week in our second grade classroom and you can see it all in the collage of photos above.

In Readers Workshop we talked about the three main elements of reading with fluency: volume, clarity, and expression. The readers then got a chance to practice reading fluency phrases with a reading partner. Their goal was to read chorally the first time through and then reread to each other making their voices sound like talking.

In Writers Workshop we are writing trouble stories. We began the unit by looking at examples of trouble stories like Knuffle Bunny and Fred Stays with Me. Then we headed off in partners to practice oral storytelling about our own trouble stories. Then we began to get our stories down on paper. Next week, we will practice turning these stories into fiction pieces by changing the characters names to tell the story in third person.

The highlight of the week was when we celebrated the 100th day of school on Wednesday. The students did an amazing job with their independent projects at home and you can see the variety and creativity in the slide show above. They were really thinking outside the box and exceeded my expectations! We celebrated the number 100 all day with math challenges, writing 100 words, spelling many words from the word 100, eating a gorp made up of 19 groups of 100, and writing about what life will be like in 100 years.

After reading the book Kindness Is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler, we have started our own kindness challenge in our classroom. We are hoping to collect 100 acts of kindness between the 100th day and Valentine's Day. The students can do these acts at home, in school, or in the community. When they have a kindness to report they write it on a kindness heart and we check in at morning meeting each day to calculate how many hearts we have earned as a team. So far we are almost half way there!

Book Buddies!

We started off the week by sharing our book recommendations and series books with the students in Mrs. Dyer's classroom. To see a slide show visit Mrs. Dyer's Blog. On Tuesday we had our first meeting with our new Kindergarten Book Buddies in Mrs. Canfield's class. We will be meeting with them to share books and writing pieces for the rest of the year! Click on the blue links to see slideshows from the time we spent with our Kindergarten friends.

In Reader's Workshop we began a new unit of study for the month of February. We will be learning about how to build stamina, fluency, and comprehension in longer books. This week we thought about strategies for tuning out distractions around us while we are reading and setting goals for how many pages we want to read. Doing these things helps us to read LONG and STRONG!

On Thursday all of ABS celebrated filling the Buzzy Jar by gathering together in the gym to do a whole school Hokey Pokey Dance. It was such a fun way to come together and celebrate our accomplishments as a school. We are also working on earning teamwork buzzies for our classroom by using cooperation and kindness with our friends, classmates, and teammates.

ImaginOcean Creatures

We started off the week with a wonderful trip to the Flynn Theater to see John Tartaglia's ImaginOcean musical. The students really enjoyed the use of black light puppetry and the entertaining songs stuck in our heads for the entire week. When we returned to school we had a great discussion about the play. The main character, Dorsal had to overcome a lot of fears to solve a problem. We all shared about a time that we had to overcome a fear to do something that we wanted to do. Then we used our own imaginations to create a new ocean character for the play. After making our characters we all thought about the different characteristics that our creature would have. What do they like to do? What are they afraid of? What words describe the character? I used the iPad to take photographs of the student's creatures and then we used Voice Thread to narrate our writing pieces. This was such a fun way to connect our field trip with art, writing, and technology.
When you view the Voice Thread you can make a comment by recording your own voice or typing in a comment that will appear on the side. I'm sure that your child would love to hear from you about their piece.

In Readers Workshop we began working on writing a book review to culminate our unit of study on books in a series. On Tuesday, we will be heading down to share our books and recommendations with the students in Mrs. Dyer's class. I know that the second graders will get those new readers excited about the many different books that they have become experts on.

In Readers Workshop the students had another opportunity to practice the steps to writing a constructed response. This time they worked more independently to answer the question, what makes Allen Brook a great school? Using the hamburger paragraph format they constructed a response that included a topic sentence, supporting detail sentences, and a concluding sentence.

This week in math we began a new unit in Bridges Math. We will be investigating geometry by observing and describe shapes, measuring the area of shapes, and using reasoning skills to pull apart and put together shapes using different tools.

Super Scientists

This week we began a new physical science theme unit. Over the next four weeks Synergy students will be learning about forces of motion, push and pull, gravity, magnetism, and sound energy. The students are mixed together with their first and second grade teammates to participate in hands on investigations and inquiry based workshops for two days each week. The kids love being able to think like scientists and it is amazing to see the scientific process at work in these curious young minds.

As we head into the second half of the year in Fundations, we are looking at multisyllablic words and more complex patterns like vowel teams and r-controlled syllables. Please remember that you have access to the words of the week on the Parent Information Wiki located on the Synergy web page. Practicing these words at home will help to reinforce the concepts that are being taught in school. The more comfortable your child is with these concepts, the more he/she will be able to transfer that knowledge into their decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) with automaticity.

Now that it (finally) looks like winter has arrived, please remember that your child must have boots and snow pants everyday if they want to be able to go off of the blacktop at recess time.

Think Snow!

Get The Facts

During Unit 3 in the Bridges In Mathematics program, the second grade mathematicians have been learning different strategies for solving facts for addition and subtraction. Research shows that even though students may think that they, "just know the facts", if they are taught to use strategies to think about computation, then they will be quicker with fact fluency and will be able to solve multi-digit problems more efficiently.

Fact Fluency is something that comes at different rates for all different learners. So, if your child is not able to whip off 20 addition facts is 2 minutes, you need not worry. It is important that he/she understands the mathematical concepts behind those numbers before trying to do them quickly. At the same time, if you child is able to do the facts quickly, it does not mean that they have a complete understanding of the relationships addition and subtraction in all areas. So, they might not be ready to move on to multiplication and division just yet.

This is an area that we will continue to focus on in Number Corner and will come back to throughout the remainder of the school year and in third and fourth grade. For more information on math with your second grader, check out this link. It has background information on the program, as well as online resources that you can access from home for additional practice with some of these concepts.

Next week we will be headed into a study of geometry in Unit 4.

Stay Warm!

Happy New Year

We ended the year on a high note with a fantastic Polar Express Day. After a nice long break we returned from the holidays rested and relaxed 2nd and 1/2 graders ready to work hard for the rest of the school year.

In our new unit of study in Writers Workshop we are taking another look at our hopes and dreams and writing about them in a constructed response. A constructed response involves answering a question in a structured way using a graphic organizer to plan out your idea, then a topic sentence, detail/supporting sentences and a closing sentence. This is the first time that the students have experimented with this type of challenging writing and they are doing a great job. They also came up with some very thoughtful hopes and dreams to try and accomplish before the end of the school year.

In our new unit of study in Reader's Workshop each student has chosen a series to become an expert on. This week was the kickoff of the unit and we headed to the library, where Mrs. Wentz gave us an introduction to all types of fiction series. The students chose two or three books that they will use to investigate the character, identify the story elements, and eventually create a reccommendation about the series that they will share at the end of the unit celebration.

In Math we are starting our new round of workplaces. We are putting to use all of the addition and subtraction strategies that we have learned throughout Unit 3. In Number Corner, the students have been thinking about fractions in a fun way using probability and have started to make deposits into a base ten bank. This activity helps them to use the strategies that they have learned for basic facts and begin to apply them to computing double and triple digits numbers quickly and efficiently.

I am proud to announce that during the two weeks that the students participated in our Chores for Change fundraiser, they were able to raise $350.00. Yesterday we took a vote on what animals we wanted to purchase for Heifer International with the money and the winners were: 1 goat, 1 llama, 1 trio of rabbits, and 1 flock of chicks. The hard work that your children put in will help to benefit many families in need.

I hope that you all had a restful holiday and wish you a very happy new year.