February 18, 2020

Last week, Barn Swallows read books about kindness - The Secret Life of Squirrels A Love Story, Be Kind and A Boy and His Bear.  We also continued to read books about everyday heroes.  We read biographies of Dr. George Washington Carver, Wilma Rudolph, and Millo Castro Zaldarriaga (Drum Dream Girl).  When reading the biographies, our discussions focused on similarities and differences between themselves and the characters.  A question that I'm asking them when we read is, "What does this book have to do with me?"  For such young students, they had thoughtful discussions about how, although their lives are different from these people, they have things in common with them and are inspired by them.

During math, first graders continued working with number lines. We told stories about frogs jumping up and down the number line to help us add and subtract. We built a giant number line and used it to place numbers to count by 10s and 5s to 120. We figured out what numbers were halfway between others (5 goes halfway between the 0 & 10 on the number line; 50 goes halfway between 0 & 100; 60 goes halfway between 0 & 120) and placed them on the number line accordingly. Second graders finished creating scenarios that involve single presents (representing 1s) and parcels of presents (representing 10s).  They identified key information to include in a story problem, worked as a group and individually to solve story problems, and created their own story problems.  They also completed a short unit assessment.

Last Thursday, students made instruments out of recycled materials.  Students found creative ways to build drums, guitars, maracas, and other original instruments out of cardboard rolls, empty plastic containers, bottle caps, egg cartons, etc.  This week we glued everything together and will share them at this week's Celebration of Learning on Thursday, February 20th from 5:00 - 6:30. Thank you to the parents who volunteered to help with this project!

We will visit the library this Friday at 11:45.  If your child has their own library card, they will need their pin number and they can check out up to 3 books.  If your child doesn't have their own card, they can check out one book with my card to keep in class.

We will perform with our instruments at the All School Meeting on Friday, February 28th at 9:45 a.m.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at e.conway@fgcschool.org.