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NORTH HAMPTON SCHOOL

Read Aloud

March 23, 2012

March of the PENGUINS!

Wednesday, March 28 Field Trip to Portsmouth Music Hall to see ImaginOcean

Personal Safety Speaker

Tuesday, April 3 Author Visit Sy Montgomery

Friday, April 6 Early Release - 12:15 p.m.

Upcoming Dates

Our Unit of Study about Penguins is “Going Swimmingly!”

Students are participating in an integrated unit, which combines reading, writing, math, science, and art activities. The children are very excited and eager to discover new things. In two short weeks, they have already learned many interesting facts about these flightless birds. Ask your child about Penguins! They love to share what they know.

Together, we have been enjoying the book Mr. Popper’s Penguins. We have been discussing the meanings of words as we read. We are finding many words that are new to us, and we are being detectives in order to figure them out. We now know that we can use the sentence or story events (context), to help problem solve an unknown word. We are also trying to think of other words that mean the same thing as these new, challenging words (synonyms). Students have been working to retell past chapters, and many are making predictions about what might happen next. We are making “mind pictures,” about what we see in our heads as the book is being read aloud.

! If you haven’t yet, consider reading a chapter book aloud to your child at home. You will be helping your child develop his/her comprehension, as you model what a strong reader thinks about as he/she reads. You can have very rich conversations about the text as you read, and share some quality time together as well!

Read-Aloud: Mr. Popper’s Penguins

Word StudyWe began our Penguin Unit

by doing a Making Words Activity. Students cut out letters and then manipulated them to spell different words, as instructed. For instance, we started by making the word in. Then students were asked to add a letter to in to make the word pin. Then they added another letter to turn pin into pins. Next, they rearranged the letters to change pins into spin. This continued, with students listening to directions, stretching out sounds, and rearranging letters to make words. At the end, we built the mystery word together, which revealed to students what our new science unit was going to be about: PENGUINS!

Other word study lessons these past two weeks have been on digraphs. We have met two of the H Brothers: Shane and Charlie. Shane likes it quiet, so he is always saying “Sh!” to quiet down his three brothers. Charlie likes to play with his train and say “Choo, choo!”

Students sorted pictures beginning with these sounds, as well as pictures beginning with s, c, and h. They also stretched out and recorded the sounds they hear for each word depicted on each picture card.

WritingStudents have been

writing about certain topics in small books. Since vacation, students have written and illustrated books about Four Leaf Clovers and wishes, Vacations, A Dream Trip, Noisy and Quiet Times, and Things I Make. We have been focusing on stretching out and recording sounds, using uppercase letters for the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences, and using lowercase letters throughout the rest of the text. Students are expected to reread and edit their pieces, with support.

We hope they are sharing these books with you at home! They have many creative and clever ideas.

Science We talked about the difference between fiction stories and

non-fiction, or informational, texts. We have been looking at and reading non-fiction books, in order to find true facts about penguins. We have been detectives on a fact hunt!

Initially, we had some questions about penguins that students responded to, based on their prior knowledge. Everyone made his/her best guess (yes, no, or I’m not sure). We wondered: Can penguins fly? Can penguins swim? Do penguins live in the North Pole? Do penguins lay eggs? We then read an informational text to find the answers. We discovered: Penguins cannot fly, but they swim very well. They live in Antarctica, or the South Pole. Like all birds, they lay eggs.

Students then went on a fact hunt with a partner. Our latest questions have been: What do penguins eat? Who eats penguins? What do we know about their babies? What is their family life like? Students have been very excited about discovering the answers to our questions, as well as uncovering other interesting facts about these unique birds.

Math We have been working on separating word problems about

penguins. For example: A Gentoo penguin made a nest using 45 stones. A Chinstrap penguin stole 27 stones.

How many stones are left in the Gentoo’s nest?

Many students are using base ten blocks and their corresponding symbols to solve these problems. To start with, they would draw the number of stones that were in the nest:

! ! ! ! ! (a line = 10; a dot = 1)

Next, they would see if they can easily take away the stolen eggs, or if they need to trade a ten stick for 10 ones.

! ! Then, they would show the 27 eggs that ! ! ! were stolen by crossing them out

! ! (here, in blue).

! ! ! Lastly, they would count the remaining ! ! ! ! eggs in the nest, which are the ! ! ! ! symbols not crossed out. Here we have

! ! ! 1 ten and 8 ones, which equals 18.

World Read Aloud Day!Mrs. Sherouse

arranged for readers

on World Read Aloud

Day.

We were fortunate to have two special experiences.

In the morning, we Skyped with Kate Feiffer. She read us her picture book Henry The Dog With No Tail.

In the afternoon, Mrs. Whittier came to our classroom and read us two of her favorite books: The Jolly Postman and Tikki Tikki Tembo.

We would like to thank Mrs. Whittier for sharing her time and her love of books with us. We would also like to thank Mrs. Sherouse for arranging these wonderful experiences!

Stacy Whittier reads to our class on World Read Aloud Day.

Thank You,

Mrs Whittier!