Starfish Gazette- May 6, 2015

Kidblog 

The kidblog is up and running! So many of our classmates have been writing to one another on our blog.  I encourage you and your child to go onto the site to create a new post or comment on a friend's post.  

Click here to access the starfish kidblog

*once click on the link above, find your child's name and enter in the word star as the password. 

Happy Blogging!

Here's just a glimpse of what we have been working on 

• Learning about the math vocabulary: whole, one forth, and half.  
• Used model magic to practice dividing shapes into fractions of equal and unequal parts
• Working to master our 1st grade No Excuse Words
• Searched for evidence in their reading to answer comprehension questions
• Played Last Starfish Standing.  The kids are amazing counters by 2's, 5's, and 10's. 
• Working on many special Mother's Day Projects
• Wrote acrostic poems about Spring
• Began observing chick eggs in our 3rd reading buddy's classroom.  We are sharing the experience with our third grade friends.  We are using this opportunity to practice how scientists observe and record data.
• Learning about contractions and performed "Contraction Surgery" on certain words.
• Continuing to learn about punctuation marks and learning to formulate a variety of sentences with periods, question marks, and exclamation marks.

Questions to promote "school talk"...

1) What did you do with model magic this week?

2) What did you do this week in your reading buddy's classroom?

3) Can you tell me where your new seat is in the classroom?  Who do you sit with?

4) What's your favorite free choice activity?

5) What do you like to play outside for recess?

6) What is an acrostic poem? Can you show me how to write one?

7) Tell me about Free the Horses this week?  What happened? 

Mark your Calendars

• Early Release - Wednesday, May 13th at 12:50
• Grandparent's Day- June 1st (more details coming home soon)
• Field Day- Thursday, June 11th
• Week of June 15th- Camp Sea Star Begins- Our classroom transforms into a campsite. 

We are seeking 2-3 small tents (ideally four person tents) and 3 coolers to store our camping materials (clipboards, coloring materials, and camping journals) for the week of June 15.  We are also looking for plastic disposable red and white camping table clothes to turn our tables into picnic tables.  Please email if your family would be willing to donate camping materials for our special week of fun! 

• Field Trip on Wednesday June 17th (Rain Date June 18th) to Great Island Common in Newcastle.  This is the ultimate field trip to share with your child, and I encourage at least one parent for each child to come along for a fun-filled day at the shore.  I would greatly appreciate having the extra hands and eyes to ensure our safety at the water’s edge!
• I am planning a end of year photo slideshow presentation for June 18th or 19th. I am not sure if mornings for afternoons work best for most people. I would appreciate any feedback from you!  We look forward to sharing many pictures from the wonderful year we have had together!

•  Last day of school is Friday, June 19th.

We are running low on a few items for our classroom.  We appreciate some donations

• Cleaning Wipes (Lysol or similar brand)
• Hand soap 

Learning about flexible thinking with our Social Detectives Program

Through the social thinking curriculum, students are learning fun, motivating ways to improve social and behavioral flexibility and to ultimately begin developing self-monitoring and self-feedback loops for their social behavior.  To develop an understanding of social thinking, students are being introduced to the idea that we all have a superhero, Superflex, in our brains and he/she is constantly battling the Team of Unthinkables (a variety of unexpected behaviors).  Currently, students are learning about Superflex and the unthinkable, Rock Brain. 

Superflexible Thinking provides mental flexibility of your brain to interpret verbal and non-verbal information based on different points of view or different contexts. Superflex helps us increase flexibility in social situations.  Superflex is a great problem solver and can think of many different solutions to problems. Superflex helps us to defeat RockBrain moments.

Rock Brain Thinking is synonymous with rigid thinking.  We teach kids that Rock Brain might try to the following:

·         Get stuck on doing only what you want to do

·         He/she will not let you compromise with others

·         He/she will get you to try one solution that’s not working over and over.

·         He/she will get stuck  on rules or make you get stuck on ways that you want to do things without thinking about others