Classroom News: Week of October 1st

Dear Barn Swallow Families,

We had a great time learning at Gales Meadow Organic &Heirloom Farm last week.  (Double click on the pictures to the right to enlarge.)  Students learned more about organic farming and will share what they have learned about the farm in a presentation this Friday at our all school meeting.  (Families are always welcome to attend the all school meetings.  If you are interested, we will be at the Central School in the Grove Room.  The meeting begins at about 9:45.)  Through 'writing the sounds they hear,' students have been working on writing sentences that describe photographs from our farm trip.  We hope to turn our presentation into our first farm book and are working on it this week!

This week, on Wednesday, we will walk to La Esperanza Farm to learn about small market farms.  We would like to have one more parent volunteer join us and would love to have you.  The trip will be from 1:00-3:00.  We have enough volunteers for our trip to Zenger Farm on Monday, October 15th.  (Our volunteers are:  Christina, Kacie, Limor, Becky, and Beth   We welcome additional volunteers, especially if a parent volunteer has a sick child the day of the trip and is not able to attend.  Please let me know if you are interested.)

Last week we worked on math fact families.  See if your child can figure out the four facts for the 9, 4, 5 family.  It helps to have 9 similar objects in front of your child, with 4 of them one color and 5 another color.  For example, we would use 4 yellow folders and 5 red folders.  (Here are the answers:  4+5=9, 5+4=9, 9-4=5, and 9-5=4)  You can make up more problems like this at home, making them more or less challenging to fit your child.  Students have been working on transferring stories that they 'found' using play dough into writing.  It is fun to notice the different styles of writing that students have.  Some come to story workshop with a story in mind and get to writing it right away, some work with the materials and 'find' a story and then write down pieces of it as it progresses in front of them, and some find the entire story with the materials, from beginning to end, and then write it down.  There are many ways to approach this creative writing program and I am really enjoying each student's unique process!

Please let me know if you have any questions, families.  Thank you!

Sincerely,

Sherry