Sandy Hook Elementary School Reporters

By Alexandra Vetrano

Hi, my name is Alexandra Vetrano and I’m a fifth grade student at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I love Sandy Hook. In school I enjoy writing, math, and science. I have many interests, but my favorite thing to do is dance. Dancing is my passion. I am a member of the Monroe Dance Company at Monroe Dance Academy.

Mrs Toomey’s fourth grade class has just started an author study on Mem Fox. This goes along with their study of Australia. The children have read This Place is Lonely, which is about the outback in Australia. They really enjoyed it. Mrs Toomey thinks that it is a great time to be studying Australia because the whole world is watching the Olympics from Sydney, Australia at this time.

In math Mrs Toomey’s class has been working on place value, patterning, and graphing. Along with this, they keep studying their number facts. Also, in language arts her class has been focusing on developing main events in detail and description.

Although Mrs Toomey’s class has been working very hard, they found time to celebrate two birthdays in September. Katherine Will’s birthday was on the third and Tyler Paloian’s birthday was on the thirteenth. Mrs Toomey’s class is making fine progress as they get into the fourth grade routine.

Mrs Ford’s kindergarten classes have gotten off to a very exciting start! The students have been busy learning their daily routines in order to start each new day. At this time in Mrs Ford’s class the children are learning how to use writing and craft materials. They are learning how to hold a pencil correctly, cut with scissors, and that a little glue goes a long way, “Just a dot not a lot.”

Mrs Ford’s classes have learned many songs and have started reading many books to help them get ready for kindergarten. Mrs Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, Cat and Dog at School, and We Can Share at School are just a few of these books. After reading each book the children have a chance to discuss the book and share their ideas.

The children have been working hard on writing their first and last names. Along with practicing the letter formation, Mrs Ford uses the children’s names for phonemic awareness activities. Each day the classes take a closer look at one child’s name that they pick out of a basket. The children look at each name and make observations about letter names, letter sounds, number of letters, number of syllables, rhyming words, etc. Mrs Ford is very proud of her students for all of their hard work. Congratulations to Mrs Ford and her kindergarten students for getting off to a great start.

By Sarah Truitt

Hi, my name is Sarah Truitt. Right now, I am one of the four Newtown Bee reporters from Sandy Hook School. I love to write in a journal about what is going on, naturally I accepted when I had a chance to be a Bee reporter. I love to figure skate and go on the Internet, which explains that, I type a lot.

A few days ago I asked for information about Mrs Lynch’s second grade class. Lately in room four in Sandy Hook, many second graders have been very busy. They have developed a new spelling method. Mrs Lynch combined her Sitton Spelling and Blend Phonics to make a daily spelling and phonic drill. The students spend between 15-20 minutes on their new spelling routine using white boards and dry-erase markers. Mrs Lynch hopes to instill the same amount of time it takes to write your name (automatic and not even thinking).

Mrs Lynch is also very busy with attracting her students to magnets. These children are learning about attraction and repelling. They are learning how magnets are useful in our world today. Both Mrs Lynch and a student teacher are teaching this project from Bridgeport, Miss Calbo.

And most exciting the kids have started reading the Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel. The kids learn from Frog about being loyal and the best friend he possibly can be. Frog sticks by Toad through the bad times and good. The children like reading about Frog and Toad and their many adventures, just like what’s happening in room four, so many new adventures, too many to count.

Sandy Hook School – Mrs Bigham’s third grade glass has made a very busy schedule lately. They have been working on reading two of Steven Kellogg’s books, Chicken Little and Jack and the Beanstalk. I am sure the kids are having a load of fun reading his books. They get to compare Mr Kellogg’s version towards the original folktale.

In social studies the students are working on maps. They are learning about compass roses, continents, oceans, landforms, and legends. They are marking points on the map or the globe while learning about it. They practice basic math facts, addition, and subtraction. The children are finding different combinations of two’s and three’s addends and are trying to make the sum of one hundred. They are also writing story problems.

And like everything else isn’t enough, they are selecting their favorite writing pieces, from their writer’s notebooks and will end up adding better adjectives and make paragraphs and illustrations for a competed published piece. So there is the scoop of the third grade class of 2001.

By Tanner Schmidt

Hi! My name is Tanner Schmidt. I’m in the fifth grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I love to read, and my favorite subject in school is math. I consider myself lucky to have Mr Myhill as a teacher. Let me tell you a little bit about him.

Mr Myhill loves reading, writing, and math. He created an award-winning project called “reading as a writer.” The objective is to read a good book and find a rule the author follows. Then make an example of the rule and the reason the author uses that rule.

Mr Myhill is doing a year-round polyhedral project. The students design many polyhedrons. The stellated dodecahedron, for example. Mr Myhill also is a lover of words, and is always teaching new words to his students.

Here is a little challenge for you from him: try to find all 12 pentominos. Each has a perimeter of five square inches. It is easier to find them if you use five squares that are one inch by one inch. When you put them together they must tessellate, or have a full side touching a full side. Each pentomino has its own letter. The 12 letters are F, L, I, P, N, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z.

No rotations (turns) or reflections (flips) are allowed. For example, you could take a P, rotate it 180 degrees, and it would be a D. Then if you reflected the D, it would be a B. The P, D, and the B all counts as one pentomino. Mr Myhill is having his students design covers for their pentomino books. Some are making pictures of pentomio puzzles, using the grid, for their covers. Some are just doing pictures of the 12 pentominos. Other students are making their solutions for the most famous pentomio puzzle, the 6 by 10 rectangle, for their covers. The students are enjoying pentominos.

Now I’ll tell you a bit about Mrs Feda, also a teacher a Sandy Hook Elementary School. She teaches first grade.

Mrs Feda’s class is reading various ABC books, and each designing their own ABC book. Of course, all will be original. The students also had a lot of fun making alphabet soup.

The students are getting used to the routine of centers. The work done at centers (like art from the art center, for example) is sent home on Fridays. If a student doesn’t complete a piece of work during center time, they take it home to finish it.

Mrs Feda is also giving a practice page to her students each day for handwriting. She is also having them do work in a handwriting book that also has a page for each letter.

Mrs Feda also is doing a self-esteem poem with her class. A name is picked from a hat each day, and that person is nominated king or queen of the lesson. They wear the crown and the rest of the class fills in the blanks of the poem. These are the king/queen’s hair color, eye color, and age.

Sounds like fun, well, at least to a first grader. But if you’re in her class, you better pay attention! Mrs Feda has three sheets of paper on the board, one green, one yellow, and one red. Green is Ready to Learn, Yellow is Slow Down and Think, and red is Stop and Think. Each student has a frog that starts on green. If they don’t pay attention or something else like that, their frog moves to yellow. If their frog gets to red, they miss recess.

By Greg Rodden

My name is Greg Rodden. I am in fifth grade and I attend Sandy Hook Elementary School. I am ten years old and my hobbies are snowboarding and drawing. My favorite sport is baseball.

Mrs Terry’s second grade class at Sandy Hook is doing great so far this year. They have started an author study on Arnold Lobel. The children are beginning to read stories about Frog and Toad. They are also preparing to make up their own recipes for Tear Water Tea.

In math class they have made graphs about their birthday months. They found that the month with the most birthdays is September, with seven. They are also learning about patterns and how they must repeat three times.

Magnet investigations have been interesting to everyone in the class. They have found out that the force of a magnet can attract through paper, wood, metal, cardboard, plastic, air, and water. They have tested whether a magnet’s push or pull is stronger and they found out they are the same!

In Mr Sicbaldi’s third grade class everyone is adjusting to writing in their School Assignment Planner. Mr Sicbaldi checks the School Assignment Planners every morning. They are also adjusting on leaving the room to use the bathroom.

During September they will be working on reading strategies and using a “Story Map.” They are also starting to read chapter books.

In spelling they are learning the first 170 high frequency of usage words.

Mr Sicbaldi’s class will also be studying science. They will be using their fundamental skills of observing, classifying, estimating, measuring, and communicating. These will be taught by doing exciting experiments.o