December 21, 2012

We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a very happy and healthy New Year!

We have truly enjoyed these past few weeks with the children!  The kids have been hard at work, and we couldn't be more pleased with the progress they have made, so far, this year.                     

Spotlight on Poetry 

Our new writing unit of poetry has truly allowed our writers to blossom.  The students were exposed to many types of poetry written by several authors.  We immersed the students in the many different poetic devices that good poets use.  The children then crafted their own poems! We are beyond impressed with what we are seeing.  Ask your child about personification, similes,and metaphors! 

When we come back from vacation, we will be revising these amazing poems to make them even better! We can't wait to see the finished products!

Check out some of our work in progress' below!

Reading Rocks!

The Marsen Team has continued their hard work in Reading Workshop.  Our focus has been on 'Wondering' in fiction books.  Children have been challenged to ask questions before reading a story and during the reading of a story.  The children then went back to their wonderings after they finished reading and checked to see if their questions were answered!

We are so proud of all their hard work in reading.  The children are now reading for 20 minutes, independently, in school! Our goal is 30 minutes! We are almost there!
Go Readers!

Look out for our newest blog in the New Year!

Enjoy the vacation with family and friends!

Science! Science! Science!

We are so proud of our Scientists' of the Week; Vishnu and Alex! Please check out the videos below to see the awesome experiments they shared with the class.  Vishnu was GROOVY with her lava lamp and Alex was ELECTRIC with his balloon and can! Science Rocks in Room 13!

November 30, 2012

The Marsen Class came back from the long weekend happy, well-rested, and ready to work hard!

We jumped right back into learning by continuing our work in Reading Workshop on "inferencing".  Ask your child about the books Erandi's Braids and Chester's Way.  These mentor texts were used to help better understand character's actions and what these actions tell us about the characters. Way to go readers! Everyone is doing a fantastic job inferencing in their own independent books! 

Our Scientist of the Week was truly a treat this week.  We learned about which beverages contain salt and which do not!  By.....Drum Roll Please..... Ethan Na!!!!!!!!!!!  See below to catch a glimpse of how Ethan (and the rest of us) found out the answer to his question.

Ethan N.