Mrs. Bullen's Blog: September 2014

September 16th is Picture Day! Don't forget your SMILE :)

Molly, Mari, Caroline and Peyton

As you can see we have been busy! Lots of wonderful hands-on science projects going on! Right now we are learning about the parts of a plant, biodiversity with a biome, and ecosystems! Students will be to the Gulf of Maine in December for an incredible learning experience!

"Milkweed Is Growing Here"

Interactive Science

Working hard in Science!

Molly and Emily working in their Interactive Science Journals

Molly and Mari dissecting a plant!

Bailey and Megan dissecting a sunflower!

Looking closely at the plant parts!

Julia and Addie hard at work!

Zachery and Michael plant dissection!

Don't forget OPEN HOUSE IS THIS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH FROM 6 - 7!
Hope to see you all there!

September 1, 2014

I hope everyone had a wonderful three day weekend with their families. The weather surely cooperated. What a beautiful weekend, even with the little shower on Sunday. I am so excited for all the wonderful learning that is going to happen in our classroom this year! We spent a great deal of time last week working on routines and spending time understanding that every moment during our day is precious and will not be wasted.

One of the most important parts of our day is our Morning Meeting time each and every morning. It is a chance for everyone to talk and share how they are feeling. During this time, we are working on building our vocabulary and language skills. Each scholar shares how they are feeling by choosing a synonym from our Feelings Board. They are practicing using rich language with words like jubilant, ecstatic, enthusiastic, woebegone, morose and many more exciting synonyms! It is a chance for everyone to be heard and a chance for all of us to practice being good listeners. This is my second year starting my day with Morning Meeting and I feel it is one of the most positive, exciting and important parts of our day! I love it and I am pretty sure my students do too! At the end of our meeting time, I give them a word of the day. We will use this word of the day for all of our transitions throughout our time together. We talk about the definition, part of speech, syllables, synonyms, antonyms, and practice using it is sentences. Like I said, not a moment to spare :)!

Hopefully everyone had a chance to check out our new daily planners. This will be a great tool to help students with responsibility, as well as managing their time. Please feel free to add notes to me. I will be checking their planners daily.

Here are some upcoming events for your calendar:

9/16 - Open House 6pm-7pm

9/18 - School Photo Day!

9/19 - Instrumental Music Demo

9/29 - Instrumental Night @ CPS 6pm-7pm Cafeteria

10/10 - Workshop Day!

10/13 - Holiday

10/17 - Grandparents Day 8:30am-10:30am

10/21 - Flu Shot Clinic (AM)

10/28 - Tooth Fairies

10/28 - Mahoosuc Performance (Crabgrass Puppet Theater)

10/29 - Tooth Fairies

10/29 - K-2 Halloween Concert 6pm (changed from K-3 to K-2)

10/30 - 3-5 Halloween Concert 6pm

10/31 - Halloween Parade (PM)

We will be starting our Place Values Unit this week, so please be on the lookout for our Homework Help Videos! I will post them here on our blog often. Any feedback on our Homework Help Videos would be greatly appreciated. I would love to know if they are helpful during homework time.

I am in search of my camera cord so my pictures are limited for this post, but I do have a cute picture of our "Garden Helpers." Our fifth grade garden is going strong! You should see the harvest this year! I think we will be cooking this week!