Reading Celebration...part 2!

On Friday, February 22nd, our entire school met in the gym at the end of the day to celebrate reading at HCS!

Ms. Stanley began by announcing the winners of the bookmark contest. There was a kindergarten winner, a grades one and two winner, and two winners for grades three through five. Our very own Hannah won the award for students in grades one and two! Yeah, Hannah!





Then Ms. Stanley began choosing winners from the big box full of Reading Logs! Children who returned their Reading Logs were entered to win prizes and awards. Our very own Linni won an award when Ms. Stanley drew her log from the big box of Reading Logs!



After all of the reading celebration excitement, we had a chance to see a wonderful performer! Stephen Grotto is a juggler and he rides a unicycle and is silly to watch! The kids loved him! He invited members from the audience to participate! Mrs. Johnson found herself up on stage holding flaming juggling sticks. A kindergarten friend found herself in a lawn chair balanced on his chin! Wow! And at the end, he created a tight rope of sorts and balanced on it while putting on a suit coat and juggling flaming sticks!



It was a very exciting assembly! I hope you all had a fabulous week! I heard lots of fun stories about your adventures! Play dates, lost teeth, Jay Peak, aquariums with penguins, visits to grandparents, Mardi Gras, dinners out, and even one trip to the ER! Sounds fun! Welcome back!

Pretzels With Mini

Today we had a special visitor! Brady's grandmother came today to make pretzels with us all! Even though her name is Janne Giles, we all called her "Mini" just like Brady. She had children help her make dough using yeast, water, salt, honey and flour. Then they took turns cranking the dough hook in the special bucket made for kneading dough. We set that dough aside and Mini took out a bowl of dough she'd made earlier (it had already risen) and each child was given a chunk of dough to mold into a shape. Most were shaped like their first initials! Then Mini helped each child brush on an egg wash and sprinkle either sugar and cinnamon or salt. Fifteen short minutes later they were out of the oven and toasty warm! Because of this special late morning snack, your child may not have eaten all of his or her lunch! Boy were those pretzels yummy! Thank you, Mini!

The slide show starts with Mini showing her dough bucket and greasing it so the dough wouldn't stick. Then you'll see children helping her add ingredients! At the end you'll see some colorful dough...Mini made each child a baggie of play-doh to take home! Boy, Mini was a big hit in our classroom!

More Presidential Speeches!

I promised you more and here they are...more Presidential speeches! Enjoy!

This is Alexis and how she'll run our country! I hope you like horses!



And now we have Stanley...he really likes P.E.!



Here is Greta! You'll be happy to know if you vote for Greta you'll be able to have a horse! (I sense a theme?)



If you elect Ethan, every Tuesday will be a stay home day!



If you vote for Oliver, you'll be having Halloween every Monday and Christmas every Friday! Better start saving for all those toys!



Cassidy plans to take care of cats and dogs but only have school 4 days a week! That might be how she fits in all of those field trips! I'm happy to hear about the ice cream each week!

Presidents Day Videos

Here's a short video of Cole reading his campaign speech! Listen carefully to hear what he'd do "If I was president..."



And here's Kate with her campaign speech! Short and sweet!



Danny has some great ideas...if he were president!



Hannah has many great ideas...would you vote for a president that wants "everyone to have a horse?"



I'll try to add more videos...they love to see themselves on the Smartboard! This was quite a learning curve for me! I had to create a YouTube account, learn how to upload videos and then share them! Yikes!

Chinese New Year, 100th Day, Valentines and Books!

This may have been the very busiest week so far this year! On Monday we celebrated Chinese New Year. Each child made a red envelope in the Chinese tradition. Children are given red envelopes with money in them. However, the odd numbers and the number 4 are considered bad luck. When the children made money to go in their envelopes, they tried to make an even amount of money not equaling 4 or 14 or 24! On the front, with gold glitter, is the Chinese symbol for luck!

On Tuesday, we celebrated the 100th day of school! What a fun day! I sent pictures Tuesday night of the really cool projects and their self-portraits! They'll be on the wall in the hallway for a while for you to see, but they will come home in a few weeks for you to frame and hang!

Wednesday was fairly calm, but then on Thursday we had a day of friendship and love! My favorite time of the day is when they're opening their Valentine cards and there's a chorus of "Thank you, ___" as they open and read each Valentine! Robert brought ring pops which were a huge hit, but they look like pacifiers in the pics! Actually, they looked like pacifiers in real life, too!



Finally, on Friday we kicked off "I Love To Read" week! February is "I Love to Read" month and each year HCS has a week-long celebration of books and reading. In tonight's Home/School bag you'll find a reading log. If you help your child fill in the form and then return it, we'll have a school-wide drawing on Friday, February 22nd! During our kick-off today, the entire school read for 10 minutes in the gym! Here are some pics from before the quiet reading time and during the quiet reading time! Very powerful to have an entire school quiet reading in the gym!



I hope you'll find time to read and fill out the forms! Happy reading!

100th Day of School!

Wow! What a wild day! In addition to all of the projects coming in, we had a lot of work to do today! Each child made a picture of themselves at 100...along with a bucket list of things they plan to do before they are 100. Check out some of the pictures and future plans...

This young lady plans to own a horse farm and design clothing for animals! She's going to college and plans to be a model. She'll be famous and study penguins. She plans to go to high school and get a dog!

This young lady plans to own a horse and be famous. She'll have two kids and go to high school. Then she'll go to college! She's going to see real penguins and design clothes. She'll go to Florida and get married. Then she'll go to Hawaii!

This gentleman plans to go to college and buy a house. He will also act out Star Wars! He's going to get a car and two kids! He's going to get a job, a bike, and get married. He's also planning to go to Jay Peak!

This gentleman plans to go to college and get a job! He's going to be a Lego designer. He's going to get a home and a car. Then he's going to get a dog. I guess he's going to be hungry because he's also getting a lot of food!

This young lady plans to go to Florida and get a barn because she will own a horse farm. She's going to get a dog and go to Maine. She'll have two kids and get a car. She'll be a clothes designer and get a house!

These wonderful pictures and their bucket lists are hanging outside our classroom! Stop by to check them out!

Thank you for helping your children with their projects! They were really excited and proud to share them. In the morning the kindergarten classes came through while the first graders sat at their seats to answer questions about the projects! The kindergarteners were impressed! When we had snack, Oliver proudly showed us his lunch which consisted of a variety of foods that could be made into the number 100! Way to go, mom! At the end of the day, the first and second grade classes went room to room to see projects from other rooms. There were many projects involving food and Star Wars...both big hits in our room! In the morning I gave each child in our room six stickers and asked them to be on the lookout for kind and respectful comments they heard from each other or around the school. Each time they heard a compliment (or kind words) they could put a sticker on a special poster in our room. I challenged them to fill the poster with 100 stickers to represent 100 compliments! You'll see our poster covered with stickers in the picture slideshow! Enjoy!

Will he or won't he...?

Will he or won't he...see his shadow, of course! Today we read a few books about groundhog day and then each child made a groundhog! Our graph asked if he will or he won't see his shadow...here are the results!



We've had a really fun week, but we've been missing a few students each day! Wednesday saw only 11 children arrive for school! Beware the bug going around! I've got them washing hands all the time or at least using hand sanitizer! Not sure if it helps, but it's all we can do!!!

This week we met our student intern from UVM! Her name is Emily LaFantano and she's here to work with us on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. She has some course assignments to complete which include teaching some lessons. I am here while she teaches and work as her daily supervisor. She has a UVM supervisor who may pop in from time to time and her name is Binta. Your child may talk about Miss LaFantano...she's very energetic and enthusiastic about teaching and the children love her already! I can't wait to get to know her better!

Today the class had a spelling test for Unit 9 in Fundations. The focus of the unit was "closed syllables" which are syllables with one vowel followed by a consonant which makes the vowel sound short. Some examples are: cap, ship, golf, off, print, chick, and many, many other words. There are six syllable types and first graders learn as many as three of them. Most of the words they've learned up to this point are closed syllables. The words are getting harder and harder as they are responsible for all they've learned up to this point! When necessary, I've been providing opportunities for extra support! I'll let you know if your child needs more support from home!

This month I'll be trying to complete reading assessments in preparation for our March report cards! I'll be trying to teach reading while also giving children one to one assessments! Some days I will not be able to introduce a new book, but they have many, many books in their book tubs and we have many in our classroom library to browse!

This month is dental health month and I Love to Read month. Our school holds a reading celebration along with a bookmark contest. I don't have any details right now, but I'll let you know when I get more information!

It's getting chilly down here in Antarctica, but the kids sure do love the penguins! For $9.99 I bought a tube of plastic penguins at A.C. Moore and they are sure to bring us hours and hours of fun! (I tell you this because they ALL want to know where I bought them so you can buy them some, too!)

I think that's it for this week! Have a great weekend!