On Thursday, October 16, 2014, nineteen of our oldest students visited Syracuse University’s campus to view Margaret Bourke White’s exhibit of 180 vintage photographs taken in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England and Italy in the 1930s and 40s. Prior to our field trip, Andrew Saluti, Assistant Director to SU’s Art Galleries, visited The New Read More >>
Archives for October 2014
Geometry
Our 5th graders have been working on all facets of geometry lately. They started with reviewing polygons during class and individual time on their contracts. They played games such as: Guess My Rule and Get it Together Polygon 1-4. The challenge lately has been measuring all types of angles using protractors. An angle hunt around Read More >>
Place Value Fun
Seven 3rd and 4th graders have been working hard in a place value class that has also integrated multiplication. We started with talking about skip counting on the 100s chart and what numbers would land us exactly on 100. We learned that 100 has the factors of 1, 100, 2, 50, 4, 25, 5, 20 Read More >>
Xerox – Learning to Read
To assist children learning how to read, we offer small group instruction that focuses on the six syllable types. Using Road to Reading, and Wilson Language,each week children receive instruction that meets them at their instructional level. Typically children meet in small groups with a teacher three or four times a week for 20 – Read More >>
Writing Workshop with Dana
We are working on short story structure: beginnings, middles, and ends. We have been discussing character motivation, dramatic conflict, and how to resolve things in an interesting and satisfying way. It’s a challenge to structure imaginative worlds, and it takes a lot of focus to show a dramatic arc in a compressed form. Our goal Read More >>
Cursive
Students in 3rd and 4th grades have been working on reviewing all of the lower case cursive letters from the clock climbers to the hills and valleys. As we finish up our lower case letters, students have been challenged to write two words in cursive, switch with a partner and print what their partner has Read More >>
Civil War Class Visits the Onondaga Historical Association
The oldest group of students are taking part in a social studies unit looking at the causes and events leading up to the Civil War. This is a continuation of the Westward Expansion unit they completed last year. They have had remarkable discussions about what freedom is, what you can own and Read More >>
Layers of the Earth
The youngest group of students has been learning about the layers of the earth. We started off our unit by reading parts of Gail Gibbon’s bookPlanet Earth/Inside Out and How to Dig a Hole to the Otherside of the World by Faith McNulty. As we learned about the many layers, we made small models out of clay and Read More >>
Upper Case Printing
Working once a week with our youngest children, we have studied and learned how to form the capital letters A through E. While this sounds like a simple task, there are many things to consider. First of all where to start the letter? This is hard for some youngsters who are used to forming their Read More >>
Native Americans and their Biomes
We started our unit by studying physical maps of the United States. We also looked at and discussed maps that show climate, and precipitation. Then we studied the biomes of North America and compared their boundaries to the physical map. After reading about each biome and sharing what each had to offer in terms Read More >>