Say do you remember, planting in September?

Hello and welcome to our classroom blog! We have had a busy year so far! The first week of school was spent getting to know one another and establishing classroom routines. The students have been busy in our classroom garden! We read the story Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, and then worked in small groups to plant chrysanthemums. I am a huge supporter of the movement to make September 11th a national day of service. Each student was given a bulb to plant in our garden on September 11th. We discussed as a class how planting and gardening can be a meaningful service. Students said that the flowers make the school look better, they are good for the soil, and provide oxygen for us to breathe! WOW! Coming up this week is our trip to the Great Frederick Fair! This is one of my absolute favorite field trips, and I am sad to miss it :( Thank you in advance to those of you who are able to chaperone on the day of the trip. Mrs. Clark will be my substitute for the day, she has been an AMAZING sub/volunteer/PTA rep at our school for a few years, and is familiar with most of our students and their families. Thank you, Mrs. Clark! :) Enjoy what is left of our short week, thank you for your support! KM:)

Thank you very much to the families who contributed to Josh and Mrs. Oliver's last day gifts! With the money we collected, we bought Josh a green (favorite color) basketball, a stuffed bear, and two Eric Carle books! The students signed the basketball and one of the books. We purchased two beautiful bracelets from Chico's for Mrs. Oliver, as well as a lovely planter filled with daffodils. Thank you so much for your contributions towards the wonderful gifts for our wonderful friends. WE MISS THEM!! Thank you very much to the families who helped with the Strawberry Festival. A special thank you to Mrs. Humbert for arranging the sign up sheet for the game. We lucked out BIG time with the weather! We will be finishing up the school year with our drama unit. Students will be reading and performing plays, designing sets, and learning the construction of how a play is written. Thank you for your continued support - have a great week! :) KM

Final Flight of the Discovery

Final Flight of the Discovery

Long time, no blog!

Well, hello! Long time, no blog! I appreciate your patience and support as I have not been updating the blog nearly as much as I orginally intended to.

I know some of you are aware of the situation with my father. He has been recovering from a traumatic brain injury he sustained from a fall on Thanksgiving. Thank you so much for your kind words, thoughts and prayers during this time. I am so fortunate to have such supportive and understanding parents and students, thank you.

Next week's homework assignments have been posted, and the spelling words for next week will be available on Spelling City (link is in the "Links for Students" section of the blog) The spelling lists will be titled by number, as they are on the upper right hand corners of the lists that are going home. (For example, "List 21") Your best bet is to search by teacher name. Surprisingly enough, they're aren't too many Mawhinneys out there ;)

We have started our study of novels in Language Arts - we've started Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. This unit focuses more on the structure of a novel (chapter titles, table of contents, etc.) and provides opportunities for the students to utilize the before, during, and after reading strategies they've been practicing since Kindergarten.

We've wrapped up Chapter 5 (subtraction with regrouping) as of 2/23/12, and will be starting our Data Collection Unit! This involves using different types of graphs and surveys to show and use various forms of data. The link for "Create a Graph" is a fun website for students to explore the different types of graphs and plots.

Thank you again for your support! Enjoy this BEAUTIFUL weather!

:)KM