Fitzpatrick's Friends

Alien Project:
This week the students brought home directions for their alien project. Please feel free to email me with any questions you might have about this project. One thing that was not in the directions is the fact that each student will make a presentation. They will need to describe how they made the alien and what adaptaions it has for survivng on its planet. The students will be most successful with this is they have things written down on paper. They can just list the adaptations decribing how their alien will move, breathe, keep warm or cool, eat, etc. Let them use their imagination while taking into consideration what they know about the planet. A little research may be required. Use the rubric on the back of the directions as a guide. Hope they have fun!

On Friday afternoon we attended an assembly that was a follow-up to an activity we participated in last December. Three high school students did an activity about our community, and the end result was a mural put together with pictures created by the 3rd grade students. There is a picture of the mural in the slideshow below.

We continue to hear from Flat Stanley. This week we got information from Charsletown, NH, North Easton, MA and Naples, FL. The students continue to learn interesting things about other communities in the US.

Please notice that your child may now access raz-kids (a reading website) and xtramath by clicking on tihe link on this page! My user name for raz-kids is jfitzpatrickb

This week we remembered and discussed Martin Luther King, Jr. We read a book called Martin’s Big Words and the students wrote a response to informational text about the book. They had to explain why Martin Luther King, Jr. was deserving of the Noble Peace Prize in 1964. Next week everyone will write their own “I Have a Dream” poem.

We received more information from Flat Stanley. This week we heard from Austin, Texas and learned that Texas was the 48th state to join the United States. It is the only state that was once an independent republic. We also heard from Georgia and received lots of pictures of cotton fields and pecan trees. He even sent us some “raw” cotton full of seeds. The students learned that cotton comes from a plant rather than an animal, like wool comes from sheep. We heard from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It sounds a lot like Vermont in northern Minnesota. There is a paper mill nearby and lots of forests and lakes. Finally, we got a letter from Kittery, Maine Flat Stanley sent pictures of a Naval shipyard in Portsmouth, NH. We are certainly learning a lot about other places in the US!

We began learning the songs for our Space Musical. Thanks for returning the permission forms letting me know that everyone will be able to attend!

Rocket Ships!

This week we began our study of the solar system with a look at the Sun! We learned lots of interesting facts about the star that is the center of our solar system. The rockets have been coming in, and they all look great! Everyone was very creative, and we now have space ships “flying” around the room! Take a look at photos below.

Flat Stanley sends us information about places in the U.S.

We have begun to hear from the places our Flat Stanleys have visited. It is so much fun to receive post cards, letters, and other information from the places our friends and relatives have been. This week we heard from Erie, PA, Willington, NC, a horse farm in Ocala, FL, and a park in NY! We want to thank everyone for participating. I will keep you up-dated on other places we hear from in the future. Check out our map and some of the things we have gotten in the mail.

Reminders:
We will be presenting Interplanetary Jammin’ on Thursday, February 9th, at 6:30. Every child will have a part, so we want to make every effort ot have 100% attendance. If you need help getting your child to school, let me know.

Ski pants, boots, hats, and mittens are a MUST during the winter months. Please send your child to school with all their outdoor clothes and put your chuld’s name on them. Thanks!

The few days before vacation were busy with fun and challenging activities. The kids had fun decorating their gingerbread men on Monday. Hopefully, they made it home in one piece!
During our holiday party on Wednesday afternoon everyone did a nice job reciting winter poetry and many students memorized their poems!
Also, last week we brought netbooks into the classroom. Each child had their own netbook and worked at typing the response to literature pieces they wrote about Hershel, a character from the book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.

Happy New Year!
Upcoming activities:
1. If we have snow this week our class will begin cross-country skiing during PE class.
2. We will start a unit on space! Rocket projects are due on or before January 9th.

We had another busy week! On Tuesday we attended a puppet show put on by Puppets in Education. The goal of the show was to teach our students more about autistic children and how their brains work differently, but they are the same as all kids in many ways. Our students learned a few strategies for making friends that should work well with anyone! After the show and discussion, everyone got to handle and play with the big puppets!

We are in the middle of our Flat Stanley project. The students have written their letters about our community and are now working on making the Flat Stanleys to be sent to out-of-town friends and relatives. This week I hope to have everyone finish and address envelopes to be sent across the country! Thank you so much for your help with this project. We will report back when we begin receiving answers to our letters!
Another connection to our map/community units is our participation in the Globetrackers online site. Every week we follow Geo and Meri around the country and learn about new places and things. This week we visited Philadelphia, PA. We learned about the Liberty Bell. We also learned that Philadelphia is the world’s largest fresh water port!

Now that winter has arrived, students should be wearing boots, snowpants, hats, gloves, etc. Please LABEL your child’s clothes, especially snowpants. It makes it much easier to find them if they get lost!

Holiday Party: We will have a holiday celebration on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 2:00. Besides enjoying some holiday treats each student will be reciting some winter poetry. They will choose their poems tomorrow (Monday) and should practice them throughout the week. I would love to see everyone memorize their poem for the party!
I will send home a reminder to those people who offered to provide things for our party. Thanks!

We have had a very busy week! We finished our Colchester maps by locating and labling important places in our town. Our next job is to write letters about our town to send to friends and relatives who live in other parts of the country. We will also learn a little about the first settlers to live in Colchester.
If you can send us one or two addresses of people you think would participate, we will send out letters about Colchester in the hope of receiving letters from other places. It will be a fun way to learn about other places in the world.
We are also visiting a website each week called Globetrackers. Our class is following Geo and Meri around the country and learning a lot on the way. This week we learned about the Hoover Dam!

Our trip to the Flynn Theater this week was a great experience for our students. We saw and heard the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. What a treat! It was a good experience for the children to be exposed to classical music and the theater!

Mrs. Benay was a guest reader and teacher in our classroom today. She read a book to our class and then worked with a group during our reading time. We read a Scholastic News article about the myths surrounding the first Thanksgiving. Ask your child what they learned about the first Thanksgiving?
They settlers were not called Pilgrims.
They did not eat turkey. Instead they had deer and eels!

Other activities of this week…
We began reading Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl.
We worked on Study Island in the computer room.
We began a new math unit. We are learning about multipliction!
Our class reach their goal of responsible and respectful behavior and won the Osprey Banner!

This week we celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday by having our own Poetry Jam! Every student participated with a part in a Reader’s Theater play or by reciting Thanksgiving poetry! Our Reader’s Theater plays taught us about the Pilgrimms and all their struggles as they sacrificed to lead a life of freedom in a new land.

We also attended an assembly by NED. NED stands for “Never give up”, “Encourage others” and “Do your Best”! As the phots show us below…. Maddie and James were called up to participate in the assembly. James did such a great job with his answer that he won a special prize: the balloon “crown”!

We started making maps of Colchester this week. Each student is making their own map. Next week we will find and label locations on our maps. They look great so far!

Our class is now known officially as “The Bobcats”! The students voted on that name as our class name.

We have begun a year long study of communities. First, we will focus on what communties, are and why they are important to the people who live there. We are also focusing on our own community of Colchester. We have started by drawing our own homes and finding our location on a big map of Colchester on the bulletin board. It is interesting to see the “pockets” of homes (neighborhoods) in our town. It is also interesting to see how spread out the town is, and how far apart we are from some classmates.
We had visitors this week from the high school. Some students are doing a project about communities and asked the students to help out. Students learned that there are three important components to our community: places, people, and activities. The kids drew pictures of people, places, and activites they do in Colchester. Then the high school students will combine these pictures in a display.

I have been assessing your child in reading with the Fontas and Pinell reading assessment. This takes about 15 minutes with each student. I will share the results with you at your child’s conference.
Students will also take a quick assessment on addition and subtraction facts this week. The standard is high and difficult for some students to meet at this point in the year. We will keep working on these facts, and hopefully you will too.

• Red Ribbon Week: This week MBS celebrated Red Ribbon Week. Officer Fontaine visited our classroom to talk about the significance of the Red Ribbons. It’s all about staying drug free and making healthy choices.

• MBS students raise their new flag: We now have an MBS flag with our school logo on it… the osprey. The entire student body went out to the flag pole in front of the school to watch the first flag raising on Thursday morning.

• Reader’s Theater: All the students participated in a reader’s theater play during our Halloween Party. They practiced all week and did a great job. I think everyone had a fun time, too!

• This week we made a craft called The Pumpkin Man. After completing this activity the students wrote a procedure telling how to make it!

• We completed Unit 2 in Everyday Math. Most students still need practice with addition and subtraction facts. Please help your child at home.

We ended our week with a school wide pajama day! Mrs. Benay wanted to reward our students for their hard work the past week taking the NECAP exams. Many boys and girls wore their p.j.s as you can see in the pictures. We had a fun, relaxing day while still working hard on academics.
This week I introduced the class to an interactive web site called Globetrackers. Every week there will be a new adventure while we follow the characters around the U.S. and learn map skills, geography, and information about places in the United States. Students will keep a journal with facts they learn about the places we visit. At the end of each session we get to vote on what the characters should do next!
We will have our Halloween Party on Friday at 2:00. Every student will participate in a Reader’s Theater Play. Everyone has a script, so that they can practice at home. Please help your child practice reading their part aloud to you.
Other class activities:

We wrote “Pumpkin Poems” using different adjectives describing our pumpkins!
Wrote about our trip to Mazza’s
Practiced Type to Learn and Spellin City in the computer lab.
Started reading novels.
Learned Partial sums addition
Started discussing procedures