Halloween in 5B

Dear Parents of 5B,
      We had a wonderful Halloween party today in 5B thanks to all of the delicious treats provided by all of you.  The children thoroughly enjoyed decorating pumpkins, compliments of Mrs. Carroll-Barbuto.  She also led the class in a game of Charades.  I was so delighted to see them thoroughly enjoying a game that required no power source.  Thank you to Mrs. Taranto for helping set up and clean up, as well as Mrs. Kee who was in charge of collecting our garbage.  (Sounds like fun, right?) A former parent, Mrs. Price, stopped in and took a couple of pictures for our yearbook.  I have asked for copies of the photos for both our scrapbook and our blog.  As soon as I get the photos, I will post them for you to see.  Happy Halloween!  Lester B.
    

Greetings From 5B...in the PINK!

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Dear Parents of Room 10,

            PINK!  On Friday, Slingerlands Elementary School went PINK!  The children and staff wore pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness.  Here is a picture of our class donning pink.

             PEACE!  As a member of the human peace sign I can tell you how impressed I was with your children’s peace rocks.  It was a beautiful day; warm and sunny.  And we haven’t been able to use those two words recently to describe our weather.  The entire school formed a peace sign on our backfield and Melanie Painter, the District’s Art Supervisor, took some photographs.  Mrs. Sieme, our art teacher, was the force behind the peace rocks and the human peace sign.  Special thanks to Mrs. Young who drew the peace sign on our field.

            CRAYFISH!  On Wednesday the children took their crayfish vocabulary test, and they did really well.  This is a good start for preparing them for their unit test, which is next week.  I am encouraging the kids to take home their blue binder that contains all of the information they need to do beautifully on their test.  I will be reviewing with them next week, including another “crayfish bee!”  They had a BALL with our vocabulary crayfish bees!  You should have seen how excited they were.  It was FUN!

            MEMOIR!  We began writing memoirs at this end of this week.  Memoir can be a challenging genre because children tend to write more of an autobiography than a memoir.  We’ve talked at length about the integral elements of a memoir.   They are writing their initial draft.  Throughout this process I will be teaching mini-lessons to help them write a meaningful memoir.

            GOVERNMENT!  “Who is the Lieutenant Governor of New York?  Do YOU know the answer to that question?”  That was one of the questions contained on the Government pre-test your child took this week.  Our first focus is the three branches of government.  While our discussion began with the three branches, the Presidential election and this week’s debate quickly became the topic of conversation.   It was a great conversation. 

            BOB DUFFY!  Did you know?  Robert “Bob” Duffy is our Lieutenant Governor.

WEEKEND!  Have a great weekend.  Hopefully we will see a little sunshine!      Lester B.

Greetings From Room 10

Dear Parents,

              This week I had the kids write their own “Weekly Reflection” summary.  I think it’s important that you have the opportunity to see how your child is progressing as a writer, so about once a month, the weekly summary will be written by your son or daughter.

            Our Patricia Polacco Author Study is progressing nicely.  I chose to study Ms. Polacco because many of her books are memoirs.  On Thursday, the children heard the book Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.  This is one of my favorites, and it’s an excellent example of memoir.  We will begin drafting our memoirs this week.  At this point the children have written and published three pieces:  Special Person, Special Place and Special Object.

            DARE began on Wednesday.  Officer Harrington began this 8-week program with an overview of the "new and improved" DARE program.  He also introduced us (via PowerPoint) to his two dogs, Willie and Stone.  The children are looking forward to meeting these drug-sniffing canines at some point in the near future. 

            The crayfish unit is winding down.  This past week the children identified and labeled crayfish anatomy, took notes about the crayfish, and learned how to identify the gender of crayfish.  This coming week the children will be taking a crayfish vocabulary quiz, and the following week they will take the unit test.  You should be seeing your child studying the contents of their blue binder in preparation for the culmination of this unit.

            We began Literacy Stations this week.  The children visited four stations including Time For Kids reading, biography reading, non-fiction reading and Scarecrow art.

            Our read aloud right now is a book written by my friend, Dawn Kolakowski.  Her book, Madison Hart and the Desert Jewel is currently being reviewed by publishers, so we are the first class to have the opportunity to read this great adventure story.  Dr. Kolakowski will be visiting our classroom in the near future to talk with the kids about writing.

            Have a great week!

Greetings from Room 10 - Week 5

Dear Parents of Room 10,

It’s hard to believe that we are ending our fifth week of school, isn’t it?  The school year is so driven by the calendar that the weeks fly by.  Your children have settled into fifth grade like pros.  They are a wonderfully behaved and attentive group of children, and it is a pleasure to come into school every day.  They are very engaged in learning, and they are kind and caring children.  Being a teacher at Slingerlands makes me a very lucky guy!!

Working with the crayfish is proving to be a very interesting and exciting science unit.  I hope your child has told you that a few of our buddies have molted and their exoskeletons are on top of one of their huts. This week we discussed the difference between inherited and acquired traits.  We also marked the crayfish with my daughter’s nail polish.  In addition, the children experimented with food coloring to watch the crayfish breathe.  Be sure to ask him/her about this interesting experiment.  Within the next couple of weeks the children will be taking a crayfish vocabulary test, so beginning next week, you should see your child studying crayfish vocabulary as they prepare for a quiz.  Finally, the children took notes on our crayfish friends based on a Power Point I created. 

This week we celebrated “Farm to You Fest” in our classroom compliments of our room parents, Colleen Carroll-Barbuto and Margaret Taranto.  The children enjoyed testing a variety of locally-grown fruits and vegetables including cauliflower, carrots, snap peas, beets, apples and kiwi.  Believe it or not, most of the children insisted on seconds, and they especially loved the fresh beets.  They tallied their “likes” and “dislikes” and the afternoon culminated with the creation of banners with catchy phrases to encourage their peers to consider trying fruits or vegetables they might not have ever tried.

         In writing we have completed our third piece based on the “special object” your child brought to school.  Next week, the children will be responding to a writing prompt as an initial, baseline writing assessment…yes, another assessment!  In addition, the children have been invited to write a story that will be shared with the “Story Pirates.”  I have given them a story starter/organizer.  This is an optional writing assignment, but I have encouraged them all to give it a try.