Shelburne Farms Visit Tomorrow

Shelburne Farms will be visiting the Firefly Team tomorrow, Tues, Nov. 22 to teach us about animals in winter.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately to go outside, as most of the lesson will be outdoors.

Welcome Back Miss Claire!

 It was wonderful to have Miss Claire return to work this week.  She has spent the week getting used to our new routines and getting to know new students on the team.  She is already hard at work helping students with their learning and creating new bulletin boards for the Firefly team.
We are continuing our work with addition, subtraction and probability during Math.  Today was a studio day, so we had a visit from Mr. Feeley and some SCS teachers to observe our math lesson.  This was a great learning experience for everyone.
We continued our non-fiction work during Literacy and completed Unit 5 in Fundations.  We will begin Unit 6 in Fundations after the Thanksgiving break.
There will be no homework over Thanksgiving break.  The next homework packet will come home on Friday, December 3rd.
Please check the Firefly website for the Craft Fair sign-up.  We are in need of volunteers to work the day of the fair.
Our Spring conference schedule is also posted on the team webpage.  Feel free to sign up early so you can get a time that works well for you.

Hands On Nature-Seeds

It was great to have an opportunity to meet with all of you during conferences this week to share your child's progress and celebrate his/her learning!  If you have any follow up questions, please feel free to contact me.

We spent this week playing games during Math workstations that reinforce addition and subtraction facts. Next week we will continue our work with addition and subtraction. We are still working on non-fiction for Readers' and Writers' workshops and have been learning rules for dividing syllables during Fundations.  This was the last week for our current Science/Social Studies rotation.  We will begin two new units next week.  Mrs. Nakhleh will be teaching a unit about "Long Ago and Today".  I will be teaching a unit about "Animals".
We enjoyed an excellent Hands On Nature lesson about seeds this week.  We watched a puppet show about seeds, dissected seeds and went outside and searched the fields for different kinds of seeds that are dispersed in different ways.  A huge thank you to our Hands On Nature parents for this wonderful experience!

The SCS Holiday Fair will take place on Saturday, December 3rd this year.  We are taking a more "low key" approach to this event this year and are planning to make snow globes, sell helium balloons and bring back our photo booth.  We realize this is a busy time of year for families and are trying to keep it as simple as possible.  Please let us know if you have some dress up clothes you could loan us for the photo booth.  We will let you know if we need any other help preparing the snow globes as we get closer to the event and will be putting a sign up sheet on the website for families who are able to help on the day of the fair.

Firefly Second Grade Gets A New Student!

 


Firefly Second Grade got a new student this week.  We're very excited to have him join our class. He moved here from St. Louis and speaks three languages!  Everyone has done a great job of welcoming him to our classroom.
Our November shares have been going very well.  It has been terrific to see all the different things everyone is thankful for.  It is clear everyone is being very thoughtful about their November shares.
Monday was a busy day with that ended with a Firefly "Harvest" party.  First and second graders were grouped together and moved from station to station to play games, make a craft and have a snack.  It was a great afternoon of fun for the entire Firefly Team!
Benjamin presented his Discovery Table project on Monday.  His project was about his Grandparents' summer camp.  He showed us pictures, talked about the history of the camp, shared what his favorite things are to do at camp and brought in some games from long ago his family still plays at their camp.  Benjamin did an amazing presentation and created interest in his project that lasted throughout the week. Way to go, Benjamin!
We began our new math unit this week and have been playing addition and subtraction games that teach us about probability.  We have been discovering which combinations are most likely to be pulled from a bag or rolled and are making conjectures about why certain combinations are more likely than others to be pulled from the bag or rolled.
We have continued to read Non-Fiction books during Readers Workshop and Writers Workshop and are working hard on our Specialist books during Writers Workshop.  Some of my friends have been so excited about their narrative writing that they are continuing to work on their narrative stories too.  We finished Unit 4 in Fundations today and completed our Unit 4 Assessment.  We will begin Unit 5 on Monday.
I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you next week for conferences.  Please make sure you visit the website to sign up for a date and time.  I am leaving it up to you to decide who comes to the conference.  If you would like it to be parent/teacher conference that is fine.  If you would like your child to attend with you, that is also OK.  Whatever works best for your family is what's important!
Have a great weekend.