Animal adaptations

Monday the children will be starting an animal adaptation project.  This link has a fun matching game that helps review the adaptations of the polar bear, turtle, monarch butterfly and beluga whale.  Enjoy!

Food chains and food webs

Before vacation the children helped me put together a food web bulletin board.  They did a wonderful job identifying organisms within the New England biome, and then helped me place them near their food sources.  Please discuss with your child where all energy comes from, as well as how it travels through the food chains.  Here is the final product.

Rhode Island Philharmonic field trip

Yesterday we had a wonderful field trip experience.  The children got to play along on their recorders in a concert with the Rhode Island Philharmonic.  Here is a link that you can open to read an article about it, and view part of the concert.  The students were completely engaged and had a fantastic time.  Afterward we had a delicious picnic lunch on the sunny lawn of the Capital building.  Thank you to Mrs. MacMurray for arranging a grant to sponsor this trip, and for making all of the arrangements to make it happen!

Here's what's been happening lately!

It has been another busy week in room 23.  We have started working with Hands on Equations, a program which makes algebra fun and easy to learn.  Here are some pictures of the students hard at work.  

Ask your child about what they have been doing and learning with this program.    

We have been reading Bridge to Terabithia and discussing character traits, figurative language, and foreshadowing.  We will finish off the book by watching the movie and comparing and contrasting the two.  

We have begun to look at the differences between personal narratives and personal essays.  The children may come home from school sometime soon with some excellent strategies to persuade you for something special.  Be ready!

Last Wednesday and Thursday we took the ELA MCAS.  The students worked very diligently and should feel good about the excellent effort they exhibited.  

We have finished Earth Materials and are moving on to our last science unit of the year, Ecosystems and Food Chains.   We have begun our study of the American Revolution and are getting ready to take a close look at the heroes of that time.

Finally, we have started our DARE classes.  Officer Mucciarone comes in each Thursday, teaches a lesson, has some great discussions with the children, and answers any questions they may have.  The students are quite engaged and really seem to enjoy their time with him.