By Alexandra Vetrano

Mrs Hammond’s students have started this year reading a variety of books in class. The children are working on developing their reading responses by using information in the text to back them up. The students are also writing a lot each day. In Writers Workshop the children are writing about their own experiences and memories. All the children are really enjoying it. The class has also been practicing cursive writing. All their writing will be done in cursive soon because the class is halfway through the alphabet.

September was a busy month in math. The class has been reviewing place value and how to regroup three-digit numbers according to different place values. They have also been working on basic addition and subtraction facts. Each week the children are assessed on their knowledge of these facts. Soon they will be working on multiplication.

In science the children are learning about the life cycle of plants. Each student is going to be growing his/her own Wisconsin Fast Plant. The students will observe and record data on their plants every day. In order to grow healthy plants the class has to read From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons. Also students have been observing a tree in their own backyard. They will be observing the effects of the weather and environment on that tree.

In social studies the class will be beginning a study on the Northeast Region of the United States. They will be using maps to study the landforms and climate of the Northeast.

By Tanner Schmidt

It’s Tanner Schmidt. This time I am writing about Mrs Divano, a third grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School (SHS).

In math, Mrs Divano is teaching her students about solving story problems. They are also working with coins.

In reading, the class is working on story maps and character traits. They are making predictions before they read and while they read, and identifying the problem and solution. They are writing entries in their journals about all this.

The class is making entries in their writing journal. They learned how to make a good beginning, and how to take an idea from their writing journals and make it into a story.

Mrs Divano’s class has begun a hands-on science unit with Wisconsin Fast Plants. They are growing lima beans and learning about the three main parts of a seed (coat, stored food, and embryo). This plant unit will continue for some time.

Social studies in Mrs Divano’s class is all about maps. Cardinal directions, compass rose, and other things found on most maps. They are beginning their study on the Northeast.

Mrs Divano has her students anxious to learn the cursive alphabet. They can already write the capital letters in cursive, and are itching to learn the lowercase letters and how to write their names in cursive.

Mrs Divano is a wonderful teacher, and in her class, quality counts!

By Sarah Truitt

Mrs Austin’s Class – A Fourth Grade On The Move

A very busy week had happened in room 28 lately. The children have just about wrapped up their study on Australia. As a matter of fact, this year has been more special to the fourth graders on their study of Australia. This is because the Olympics have been held there and the kids could have done some easy extra studying (heck, all you had to do was watch the television). It’s like looking through a whole textbook. But I doubt they would get away that easy.

The students have started learning about animal adaptations and camouflage. This is taught by their science teacher Mr Ballerini. He will teach them about the adaptations of animals and where they live, how they survive, and about predators and prey (the hunters and their victims). Mr Ballerini is probably going to do this with jokes and funny, along with seriousness. Also the students will take a walk down to the dam behind the school.

Once the students get in, in the morning, they will start what is called GROW. This stands for Geographical Regions of Our World. This will basically be their morning work. They can use their Writer’s Express, which has maps and Geography answers in it that can help them get through the sheet.

For spelling they have weekly spelling drills. Mrs Austin will read the words off. The kids will spell them in their journals and wait for Mrs Austin to spell it correctly. Then they will go over what type of word it is (noun, adjective, preposition, conjunction, etc). And like that isn’t enough. They have weekly five-minute multiplication tests. Eventually they will have five minutes to complete 100 multiplication problems. How much fun!

Mrs Dievert’s Class Is At It Again

So far, the kindergarten class of Mrs Dievert is off to a good start. That reason may be because of their study of the letters. They have listed all of the words they could think of that start with the sound of s. Playing teacher, each child got a turn to write the letter s on the board. Followed by a word with s. They filled up a whole piece of chart paper. They did a little project with their target word of Ss-sun. They made little suns on paper plates with an ABAB pattern of rays (small, big, small, and big) and they sung their favorite song Mr Sun. They will continue with ss for a few more weeks.

How can you forget the Gingerbread Man?! Before creating their own Gingerbread man, the kids read a few books about him like, The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and The Stinkycheese Man which is a parody of the Gingerbread man. After reading the kids had loads of fun creating the man. One of the little girls on my bus cried, “He had a red nose, and raisins for a mouth!” Well, how did I know, they lost him?!

While the morning class had fun making paper Gingerbread men, the others had fun making “lost” posters and enticing him into the room with dance music. They set a trap with M&Ms because they claimed that M&Ms were his favorite food. Did they find him? Of course, while walking around the building and looking for the Gingerbeard man, Mrs D said that someone called saying that they had found him running towards their classroom! He had M&Ms in his mouth and all! Their plan had worked!

Shoes, shoes and more shoes! The students had so much fun experimenting with their shoes. They had removed one shoe and made observations of the shoes that were in the middle of their little circle. They also read stories about shoes like Samantha Seagull’s Sandals which was about Samantha who tries to be different by wearing different kinds of shoes, from high heel pumps to fuzzy-wuzzy slippers. Then the students took off their other shoe and danced around in their sock feet. They did the “Chicken Dance,” “Twist,” “the Mashed Potato,” and the “Jerk.” Other stories that they read were The Shoe Grabber, Red Dancing Shoes, The Shoe Book, and Who Lost a Shoe?

So after reading this, you want to go back to kindergarten also. Boy those kids must have some really fun stuff to look forward to as the next few weeks go by.

By Greg Rodden

My teacher’s name is Mrs Erickson and she has a husband, dog and a daughter. Let me tell you how her class is doing so far this year.

In science the class is working on making terrariums and aquariums out of two soda bottles put together as one environment. We have started to put gravel, dirt, flower seeds, and water. As the days go by we have to put a little bit of water in every day for the seeds to keep growing into plants.

Also last Monday we went on an exciting field trip to the Pequot Museum. The Pequot Museum tells about the Pequot Indians and how they survived and ate. The models the museum has seemed so real. We had also gone down an escalator inside a glacier. It seemed as real because the water was dripping down the walls. We also walked on a bridge that was under a small river.

The children in Mrs Walker’s class have already started to read books on stories that are true and stories that are make-believe. They are starting a story called Keep the Lighthouse Burning Abbie, which is a true story about a girl who kept a lighthouse burning through a tremendous storm off the cost of Maine in 1856.

The class has also been working on their math strategies with “doubles” and Doubles plus one.” Most second graders don’t have a bit of trouble remembering the math facts for doubles up to 9…1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 3 + 3 = 6, etc. Many kids can recite these automatically.

On October 31 there is going to be Book Character Day at SHS. The way they do it is the children pick out a favorite book character and bring or wear a prop to signify their character. All the students will each get a chance to share their report. Mrs Walker will also choose a book character.