“Tasting Day”

The Brookside Second Graders celebrated our diversity on the half day before Thanksgiving by having a ” Tasting Day!”  Most of the students brought in ethnic dishes from home that came from the countries of their ancestors. They got to taste many foods that they may not be familiar with eating. This hands-on experience was a delicious culminating activity for our social studies Traditions and Customs unit. Thank you to all the families that contributed food to make our Tasting Day such a success!

Amber and Kaylee discuss what they are eating.

Some of the C8 boys couldn’t wait to fill their plates with all the yummy food.

The girls were exciting to try some new dishes too!

Zachary tries something new while Sam checks out the box filled with cannoli.

Elizabeth brought in an entire taco making station. She’s not from Mexico but she does love tacos! So do the other second graders!

Please head over to the student work page labeled “Student Work 17-18” of this blog to see closeup photos of the students’ dishes that are labeled with the name and country!

 

More November Happenings!


Parents that came to Parent-Teacher conferences got to see our turkey glyphs.  Each student made a glyph to display data about their Thanksgiving plans.

Thank you to all the parents who came to the Parent-Teacher conferences. Communication between home and school is very important to student success.

We finished that busy week with our yearly bus evacuation drills. The bus drivers instruct the students in the proper way to safely evacuate from the back of the school bus. Here’s hoping that they never need to use this knowledge!

Two fourth grade students help Haylee safely leave the back of the bus.

Jenna is preparing to leave the bus as Jeidyn patiently waits his turn to evacuate.

The following week we had not one… but TWO Xtramath Superstars receive certificates! Both boys completed addition and are currently working on subtraction!

Linton is proudly showing his addition certificate!

Logan sharing his Xtramath certificate!

Congratulations Linton and Logan! Who will be our next Xtramath Superstar?

November Happenings!

November started with some storm postponed events. The morning of November 2nd, we had a special visitor named Chris Poulos. He is a champion BMX bike rider who demonstrated his tricks while he taught the students important lessons about listening, following directions, making friends and going for your dreams.

Haylee was chosen to help with a special demonstration about making friends.

The children were reminded that these tricks take lots of practice and shouldn’t be tried at home.

Chris told them that even he makes mistakes. I’m really glad he didn’t make a mistake when he was jumping his bike over me and Mrs. Cooke!

That afternoon we had our Halloween Party and Parade! Here’s a photo of our C8 friends in their fabulous costumes!

The next day, Zero the Hero visited on Day 40. He got in the holiday spirit by leaving these little cuties as a treat!

Private Logan!

Thank you Mrs. Fisher!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday, Mrs. Fisher, a kindergarten paraprofessional, who is a veteran of the army asked for a volunteer to wear her army gear to show the kindergarteners. Logan was a willing volunteer and looked great in the army clothes! After they were done in kindergarten, they came to our classroom. Mrs. Fisher taught our class so much about life in the army and the things she learned as a soldier. It was a great way to get ready for Veteran’s Day! Thank you Logan for helping and special thanks to Mrs. Fisher for teaching us and for your service!

Uriah proudly showing off his Xtramath certificate!

Finally today, Uriah was the very first student to finish the addition program on Xtramath! Congratulations Uriah! On to subtraction!!

Boston Museum of Science Field Trip

After a long bus ride, we arrived just in time to attend a live animal show about how some animals mimic other animals. The live animals were a snake and an owl. Some of the students stayed after the show to see them up close and to ask questions.

Learning about how these two snakes look alike but are very different.

Another example of animal mimicry.

Then we went to the dinosaur exhibit and took some group photos!

Our class in front of an actual triceratops from Hell Creek, Montana. This is the same place that Mrs. Riordan, Mrs. Porcello and Mrs. Cooke went to DIG School to learn about paleontology and to dig for fossils.

How many students’ hands can fit in a T-Rex footprint?

Our class beneath the T-Rex!

Looking up at Mrs. Riordan taking the photo from above!

After breaking for lunch, we got to explore the museum to see many other exciting exhibits.

Maria balancing weights!

Checking out some info on this screen!

Learning the science of centrifugal force and having fun!

Swinging on the moon!

This playground gets the whole body involved while they are learning about science!

Science is AMAZING!

Arianna enjoying this hands on experience!

Miranda enjoyed balancing the weights too!

Thank you to Mrs. Anello, Mrs. Brandvold, Mrs. Cowan, Mrs. Horvath and Ms. Silva for being fantastic chaperones on this field trip! Special thanks to Mrs. Brandvold for taking many of these wonderful photos.

 

The Chromebooks Are Here!

C8 Students Learning with Technology!

The students on the Celtics table are working hard.

Today the students were excited to be able to use the new chromebooks to practice their math skills with a program called Prodigy. This video game based math program assesses the students and then provides practice that is individualized for each student. This highly motivating program is free for classroom use and kept the students engaged. We are fortunate that we now have these chromebooks available for this and other programs like Vocabulary/SpellingCity, Epic books, Xtramath, and more. Special thanks for Mrs. Bowie, the district’s technology integration specialist, for troubleshooting some problems we initially had with accessing the chromebooks. In the words of one of our second graders, “She is the best!”

Check out these students on the Red Sox table.

Students on the Patriots table helped each other signing in to the program.

The students on the Bruins table didn’t want to stop!

The Second Graders Are Going Places!

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Learning how to cross in crosswalks safely.

Earlier in the month, we practiced pedestrian safety outside Brookside. Thank you to the parents who volunteered to help us learn how to travel safely along and across streets and in parking lots. We put this information into practice on our walk back from our Shaw Farm field trip at the end of the month.

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Parking lot safety is so important!

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We are so lucky to have wonderful volunteers! We were glad to have two fifth grade friends join us in the safety lessons.

We finished the month of May with a special field trip. We started by being bussed to Chelmsford High School to watch Tom Chapin and Friends in a music performance. We were the first school there and had fantastic front row seats!

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Waiting for the show to begin.

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Trying to patiently wait for the rest of the audience to arrive.

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Almost time for the show.

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Curious about the instruments.

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Tom and his friends performing on stage.

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When the show was over, Tom came into the audience with his autoharp.

The children had a great time singing along with Tom Chapin and his friends. Tom and his friends were impressed that they knew the sign language to Family Tree. The children were surprise that his goodbye song to the audience was the goodbye song we sing at the end of the day in our classroom! (I learned the song from him!)

After the concert, we got back on the bus and headed back to Dracut to Shaw Farm. When we arrived at the farm, the children got to take turns feeding the donkey and petting the baby calves.

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Meeting the donkey.

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They could only pet the adorable calf.

They also got to go into the barn and see the grown milk cows and learn all about how they care for the cows and get the milk.

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Wally Biedron taught the children about cows and answered all their questions.

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Waiting to go into the barn

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Everyone got a turn to feed the donkey.

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Brian feed the donkey.

After they saw the animals, the students got to eat a picnic lunch and have a short recess.

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We took the time for a class photo in front of the tractor with our fantastic chaperones!  Then we carefully crossed the street to the farm store where we met Lindy Shaw who gave them a special tour to see where the milk is processed and the ice cream is made.

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Learning how the milk going into the bottles.

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We were lucky we came on a day when they weren’t bottling the milk.

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Lindy explained how her brother Mark makes ice cream.

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The ice cream making machines!

After our tour, the students got their ice cream and quickly joined the other second graders to eat their yummy cups of ice cream. Before long, it was time to walk back. We were very fortunate to have our school resource officer, Officer Quealy, and another Dracut police officer escort our second graders with two police cars for our walk back to Brookside. Then they surprised us by letting the students climb into the police cars to see what they were like inside. They even turned on the lights and sirens for us! I think the children really enjoyed their field trip and I’ll take a guess that they probably slept pretty good that night!

Thank you to the parent chaperones, Lindy Shaw, Wally Biedron and everyone at Shaw Farm, and Officer Quealy and his fellow police officer for making our field trip such a success!

Celebrating Special Children and Caring for Others in C-8!

We celebrate love and caring in the month of February. One of our classmates, Hannah, was recognized this quarter at the special PAWS recognition breakfast. Hannah was one of eleven children in the school to receive this recognition. She was nominated for her patience and kindness toward a fellow classmate when she helped him in their reading group. Hannah received her award from State Representative Colleen Garry. We are very proud of you Hannah!! You set a great example for the rest of the students!

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Hannah front and center after receiving her special PAWS recognition award.

 

We are also proud of two of our students who have completed the Addition level of Xtramath!

Way to go Brian and Victoria!

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Finally, as part of our Brookside Community of Caring, our class participated in the second grade Read-a-thon. They spent the entire day reading! This reading took the form of independent reading, buddy reading, listening to a book on CD or read aloud by a teacher. We even read math literature! The money we raised will enable us to create and donate book kits to the Dracut Library that can be used by the entire library system. Thank you to all the families and friends who generously donated to this special cause. What a great way to show that we care about reading and giving to others. I hope you enjoy looking at these photos of the Read-a-Thon.

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Comfy children reading on the rug!

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Snuggled up with their books!

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Gabriela and Alyssa….best buddies with their books!

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Reading is double the fun in C-8!

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Some of our boys took over the library!

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Gaige and Brian so deep into their stories they didn’t even see me capture this moment!

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Sharing a penguin book with a friend while istening to the CD at the listening center.

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Looks like a sleepover!

Lots of January News to Share!

We were so busy in January in C8! It started with a cookie decorating party we won from the PTO for bringing in the most boxtops!! (Thank you to the PTO!) The children got right to work after becoming experts with the ice castle decorating in December. Here are some photos of the yummy cookie decorating. IMG_3144

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Mischievous Mary Munching!

 

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Britney catches me taking her photo as she takes a bite!

 

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My guess is that Mia is enjoying her cookie!

 

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Nick just about to dig in to his candy covered cookie!

 

We are so fortunate to have volunteers working hard in our classroom this year. Here is a shot of just one of our hard working volunteers, Mrs. Sirois, testing students on sight words!

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Smiling Mrs. Sirois hands Chloe her list!

 

We celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and our diversity with a special poem and craft.

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Our class was very lucky to have a special smart projector and whiteboard installed in our classroom. We are still learning how to fully use it but it is an exciting technology addition to our instruction!

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It took a few days but our Smart projector and whiteboard are finally ready!

The smart projector arrived in time for us to be able to watch a live webcast from Antarctica. Through Time for Kids we were able to listen to a female penguin researcher talk about her work in Antarctica. We also found out that it was colder that day in Dracut than it was in Antarctica. (But of course it is summer down there now!) Here is a photo of the students watching the webcast.

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Pretty exciting to be able to see and listen to someone on the other side of Earth near the South Pole!

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The editors from TFK introduce the webcast and then we got to see and hear directly from the scientist herself!

Ice Castles and Many Thanks!

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Tom being very precise building his ice castle.

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Nick really got into his work while Mia looked on.

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Some students got right to work while others needed some thinking and experimenting time.

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Brady enjoying making his ice castle.

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They were working so hard that they didn’t notice I was taking their photo.

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More hard workers!

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Gabriela discusses her ideas with Mrs. Volpe.

The second grade students in C8 really had a good time creating ice castles on the Monday before vacation. Thank you to all the parents who sent in sugar cubes, frosting and candy to make this fun activity so successful. Thanks also go out to Mrs. Joyce, Mrs. Volpe and Mrs. Ware for helping us out by preparing the supplies and wrapping the masterpieces when they were completed.

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Special thanks goes to Alyssa’s brother who gave up his first day of vacation from his school to help our second graders! The second grade boys especially liked having a big fifth grade boy helping them.  I will post photos of the ice castle masterpieces under the student work tab. I tried to get every child’s ice castle but I missed a few because they were absent, dismissed, or managed to slip past me to the wrapping station without getting their photo taken.

Thank you to the generous families who donated food for our holiday party on Tuesday. It was both healthy and yummy! Finally I would like to thank all the students and their families who gave me a gift or a card. It meant so much to me that you thought of me at such a busy time of the year and I truly appreciate all the gifts.

While I am sad that vacation is coming to a close,  I look forward to seeing all the children tomorrow along with a new student that will be joining our class. Happy 2015 to you all and tell the kids that I’ll see them bright and early tomorrow morning! (Don’t forget to bring back your reading bag and your completed reading log!)