Kindergarten
As a part of Writer’s Workshop, the children in kindergarten have been engaged in the writing process creating Small Moment stories. These personal narratives allow the children to think, plan, draw and write about the tiny events occurring everyday in their lives. After completing each unit, each child chooses a piece of writing to celebrate and share. These photographs illustrate how the children of one kindergarten class were involved in this culminating activity. The children boarded the train and shared their celebration pieces with the person sitting next to them. Every time the whistle blew the children on the left moved up on the train. This “train ride celebration” provided the authors an opportunity to share their writing pieces with others.
First Grade
The month of January brought a New Year filled with many new learning experiences and fun activities. The first graders at Searingtown continued to celebrate Star Students in each class; learning about their peers likes and dislikes, families, friends, and interests. We also began a unit of nonfiction study, learning the many conventions that are important in nonfiction writing, such as a table of contents, a glossary, an index, bold words, diagrams, captions, comparisons, and the importance of photographs. In connection with this unit, we began writing nonfiction during our Writer's Workshop time, learning how to write information books starting, with How To books. As a kick-off to this unit, we read a book on making salsa and followed the directions to make salsa in our classes with our reading teacher, Mrs. Bowie. This exciting activity spiced up our interests and really got us brainstorming great ideas for our own how to writing. The first graders also began studying animals in Science, beginning with a month long study of bears! We learned all about bears: the different types of bears and their different habitats, diets, and adaptations they each have for their environments. The month of January has kept us very hard at work with so many new things to learn. We look forward to the exciting activities and learning experiences that are yet to come!
Second Grade
Searingtown’s second graders had a splendid start to 2010! During the month of January, the students explored nonstandard and standard forms of measurement in science, learned how to add and subtract with and without regrouping in math, and created their own characters for their realistic fiction stories during Writing Workshop time. Sharing our “Authors as Mentors” personal narratives was so exciting after all the writing, conferencing, editing, proofreading, revising, and publishing. Our daily word study Fundations’ lessons continue to be enlightening too. Going on a class trip to The Cradle of Aviation and the Firefighters Museum was educational, informative, and beyond excellent. Sharing our family treasures enhanced our social studies unit that celebrates our heritages, cultures, and traditions. Studying the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through poetry and biographies inspired us to follow our own dreams. Buying baked goods and donating money during the “Hearts for Haiti” bake sale helped support the earthquake relief effort in Haiti. The Theatre Works production of “Henry and Mudge” provided a very entertaining end to a very busy month of treasures, measures and pleasures!
Third Grade
Global adventures have begun in the 3rd grade! After learning about the five strands of Social Studies and doing a brief exploration of our own country, we are studying different countries around the world. For the remainder of the
year we will be “travelling” to Japan, Australia and Egypt.
In science, we are investigating the concepts of buoyancy! The children are very excited to find out what causes things to sink or float. We are conducting lots of fun (and messy) experiments in our classes!
Mrs. Williams organized a wonderful trip to the Hillwood Art Museum at C.W. Post. The children were treated to an engaging discussion about the Chinese art on display AND the opportunity to create their own art work to match the creative writing they did there. It was a great trip, and the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience!
Multiplication rules…literally! The kids are working on mastering their multiplication facts through practice and games. Ask your children to share a game at home with you!
In writing, we are learning what we are all “experts” at as we explore non-fiction writing with our All About books. The children are learning about the features of non-fiction writing, and their work is quite impressive! Thanks to our training from Teacher’s College and constant support from our Mrs. Wicker, we are all learning new skills and enjoying the journey!
Fourth Grade
January was just the beginning of a wonderful year of learning experiences that await fourth grade students in 2010.
Real-life drama continued to unfold in students’ writing, as they learned how important it is to stand in the shoes of their characters when they write their realistic fiction stories. Seeing the world through their characters’ eyes, students learned how to bring their characters to life. Through the use of dialogue, show not tell, and action-thought-action, students continue to create wonderful stories with characters who leap off the pages.
Fourth graders journeyed back in time in the moccasins of Pocahontas while reading Clyde Robert Bulla’s Pocahontas and the Strangers. Students were immersed in the culture of the Eastern Woodland Indians of New York as they identified the elements of historical fiction genre.
Fourth graders enjoyed their recent field trip to the New York Hall of Science Museum, and spent the day discovering how science applies to many aspects of their lives. By manipulating the museum's hands-on science and technology exhibits, students explored how things work in the world around them. At the museum’s astronomy lab, the constellations weren’t the only stars in the room. During the presentation, students had the opportunity to share their impressive knowledge of the solar system. One of the highlights of the day’s events was the demonstration of a dissection of a cow’s eye. Yes, you read that right. Perhaps you can ask a fourth grader to fill you in on the details. Of course, only if you have the stomach for it!
Fifth Grade
The first month of the New Year has passed quickly for Searingtown’s fifth graders. We left Simple Machines behind and moved into Light as the students worked to solve some of the mysteries of science. In cooperative groups students have been learning about reflection, refraction and the dispersing of light rays. Not to mention getting a closer look at rainbows!
Caring and compassion has been a lesson this month for the fifth graders as they participated in the Hearts for Haiti bake sale. Thanks to everyone for all the support and food for the bake sale!
Library
Oh the weather outside is frightful, / But the library is so delightful...
We have been so busy in the library! The beginning of January found kindergarten practicing alphabetical order and learning to "read" the bookshelves, while in first grade we worked on distinguishing between fiction and nonfiction by comparing informational books with Goldilocks and Ducks Don't Wear Socks. We have shifted focus now to prepare for our 2010 visiting author/illustrator, Laura Vaccaro Seeger. We read The Hidden Alphabet and Dog and Bear: Two Friends, Three Stories so far.
Second grade has been studying the Caldecott Award in the library in January, coinciding with the time of year the American Library Association announces the latest Caldecott winners. Each year, the second grade designs a new "Searingcott Medal" and selects books to win the award based on different criteria. This year we are experimenting with something completely new! Taking advantage of our Virtual Library environment, fourth and fifth grade students gave a "shout-out" to their favorite K-2 picture book. In the library we analyzed the results by graphing the data. Second grade will now deliberate over the top 5 books and choose the ultimate winner of the Searingcott!
Third graders started off the new year with Inquiring Minds Want to Know lesson, in which they examined visual images that caused them to wonder and question. Each third grade class was introduced to some of our online databases, including World Book Online, Grolier Encyclopedia, and CultureGrams. We have just started preparing for our Skype visit with fabulous author Dan Gutman. All third graders read a book from the My Weird School series and are now engrossed in either doing author research, creating book trailers, online character trading cards, OR creating book jackets for the Our Weird School series.
Fourth and fifth graders have finished up their research cycle. The research program looks forward to working with the students of Mrs.Taliercio, Mr. Fran/Mrs. Fruda, Mrs. Benzoni, Ms. Ruggiano, and Mr. Soloway!
Reading Room
We are thrilled to have this opportunity to be able to update you on the writing your children are doing as part of a unit of study on nonfiction writing! For the next several weeks, students across many grades will be celebrating their “All About” and “How- To” books.
How important this unit is to all of us. If you think about it, most of the reading and writing that we do is in nonfiction. Our children are asked to read and write nonfiction in almost all subject areas of the curriculum.
Looking ahead, assessments will be given by the state in history, reading, science, and college entrance exams…all based on his or her abilities to write nonfiction.ELL
Searingtown’s ELL department has been exploring the wonderful season of winter throughout the month of January. Our ELL students at the primary grades have been learning about all the fabulous activities there are to do in the winter. We have also been discussing the different articles of clothing we need to help keep us warm during these cold months of winter.
Our ELL students in the intermediate grades have begun learning about our culture and how we live in comparison to others. We have been discussing what our community and family life is like, while also examining people from other cultures, such as the Inuit people of the Arctic. It is fascinating to discover the many similarities as well as differences we share with people from other parts of the world.
Art
The 4th grades worked on understanding positive and negative shapes and balance by exploding a square with no sound! Some classes have continued to discover negative space in our natural world, such as the leaves of the bear's claw philodendron in the art room. Drawing takes intense concentration, so the room gets very quiet. The challenge is to slow your looking down so that your hand can follow. Not only do you need to coordinate your eye and hand muscles, but the larger muscles as well. Drawing requires you to find and remember connections between objects as you incorporate your own personal perspective into the work. This is a very complex task!
Physical Education
Mr. Lavey and Ms. Pasatieri have recently updated their Physical Education Webpage. It is full of information and photos, so please be sure to stop in and take a look!Gemini
Please see Mrs. Kenny's Gemini website to read about what's happening in Gemini.To find out even more about what's happening inside the classrooms, please be sure to check out the websites maintained by many of our Searingtown teachers!