Get Ready for Tie Dye Tuesday!

Today we began preparing for Tie Dye Tuesday! We learned about the different lines that can be created with the rubber bands, and saw some shirts that were dyed in years past. We also learned that we will have ORANGE shirts (Mrs. Merten's favorite). Below are a few pictures showing us tying our shirts.

We are very excited for this activity on Tuesday. Please remember to wear clothes that are ok to get dye on, as this can be a messy activity. Notes were sent to parent volunteers earlier this week. If you volunteered and didn't receive the notice, please contact Mrs. Merten for details about Tuesday.

It is our hope that the children wear their shirts for the following events:
The Recorder Concert ~ June 2
Our Coffeehouse ~ June 7
Sports Day ~ June 8

Charlotte's Web

On Friday, we watched the cartoon version of Charlotte's Web! We were allowed to bring in a special snack ~ one that might be found at a County Fair like the fair in this book. We had some delicious treats ~ candy, cotton candy, candy apples, corn on the cob, and many more! When we finished watching this movie, we discussed the many similarities and differences that there were between the book and the movie. I think most of us liked the book the best!

Tile Project

Today, our artist in residence, Mrs. Cronin (Mrs. Merten's mom), came to teach us about painting tiles. She gave us a lesson about how clay items are fired in a kiln. Firing is the same thing as cooking, but it is much hotter- 1800 degrees! We used our Day of the Dead designs to create a tile which will look like the design. The hardest thing to get used to was the colors- the glazes look much different than they will when the tile is done. We hope to have the tiles back around the 2nd week of June. They will look much different!

What a Week!

Wow! What a week we've had!

In Reading, we began to read Charlotte's Web. This is one of my favorite books! I enjoyed it so much as a child, that I love to teach it to my students!
Our goals for this book are:

To read with expression (Please talk to your child about Reader's Theater!)

To understand the use of quotation marks (This is a writing goal, but it is also very important to understand how these are used in order to understand dialog in reading)

To understand characters ~ we are moving past character traits to characters changing over time, and finally to character's motivation. This is a very high level skill that the children are able to work on!

To infer (to use background knowledge + text to determine what is probably true)

The children are really enjoying this book, and are doing a great job with reader's theater.

In Social Studies, we wrapped up learning about the midwest. Our test is scheduled for Tuesday. We have 2 more regions to go!
In Math, we began to review our year in math in preparation for the MCAS. We are spending one day on each topic, reviewing the skills we learned this year. In Science, we finished our study of weather today, with the study of storms. I like to save the "best for last" ! Our science test is scheduled for next Thursday. Once we finish with this, we'll wrap up our year of science with our study of Electricity and Magnetism.


From the Teacher's Desk
This was a great week! Thanks to everyone for the wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week. The staff here really enjoyed all of the fabulous treats!