Plans To Keep Warm In 2018!

During the month of January we will be keeping warm with a fun, blanket/quilt/afghan project. Students have each been assigned a day to bring in their special item.  We ask students not to talk about their special item prior to sharing so we can have more fun with this project by playing a game of 20 questions.  This activity also helps us practice differentiating between questions and statements.

To kick things off we will read one of Mrs. Hoyt's favorite books, The Quilt Maker's Gift.  Mrs. Hoyt will bring in a collection of quilts. Students will snuggle with them, read wrapped in them and measure them independently over the next few weeks.  

 To start the sharing we play a game of 20 questions to see if the class can figure out what is inside the bag and what features the special item may have. Students will be practicing oral language skills by formulating questions and asking them in complete sentences! The students need to listen to each others questions to try not to "waste" any question by repeating something that has already been asked. After the 20 questions have been asked the special item is revealed and we compare and see how many things were guessed!

Next we are on to the math part of this special blanket project. The students will take turns measuring the special item using the base 10 rods. We instruct how to measure accurately so our calculations will be correct. Students will be measuring the length and width of the blankets, quilts and afghans and then we will be using nonstandard measurements to find out the area of the special items. Depending on how big the item that is brought in is the students will decide how the kindergartners will use their bodies to calculate the area. The choices are having the kindergartners stand on the blanket, sit on the blanket or lay on the blanket!

Our quilt adventures will continue as we create paper quilts that not only will involve precision in cutting paper shapes, but lots of sharing about ourselves as well.  The warmth of sharing and friendships will help us get through the cold  month of January!

We are looking forward to seeing what all our students bring in to share with us. Please be sure to note the date assigned to your child. Thank you for your help!

Happy New Year!

 Prior to the start of our December break we participated in a school wide show and tell event.  We traveled to Ms. Varrell's 2nd grade classroom and practiced all our social skills be introducing ourselves, shaking hands and taking turns sharing and listening in small groups.  We also had time to listen to some stories read by our big kid friends!
Ms. Miliano and Mrs. Hoyt brought our Qball and music so we were able to share some games and dances too!

 We also participated in a guided drawing exercise.  Students had to follow directions, not knowing what they were creating!  It was fun to observe and discover what they were creating!

By the days end students and teachers were exhausted and ready for our holiday break!  We hope all have had a terrific time with family and friends and are ready to dive into more learning and fun in 2018!

PTO Event Cancelled

Family Night Out Cancelled by Pine Glen PTO Hi Pine Glen families! Due to the inclement weather that looks like it’s on it’s way tomorrow, we’re going to have to cancel the Family Night Out scheduled for tomorrow night. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. We hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday break! Best wishes, The Pine Glen PTO

Show And Tell Day Is Coming!

School wide Show and Tell

Friday 12/22

Friday, December 22 - We will be having a Show and Tell Party.  We will be joining with 2nd grade friends from Room 211.  Events like these are exciting for the students but also important.  Each will have the opportunity to speak and share.  They will be asked what they are sharing and why.

What to send:  We suggest an item that can can safely be transported in the backpack such a special award, stuffed animal or favorite book. Animals, breakable items and toys that are weapons are not allowed.  We have discussed these expectations with the students.

Innovation Day

Each year Pine Glen hosts an innovation day in which teachers are encouraged to offer some new opportunities with students and to explore new things.  Today we had the pleasure of spending the morning with our 4th grade buddies!  We had fun making an assortment of winter and relaxing themed items.  Students worked at their own pace and had the opportunity to make snow globe faces, bear faces (with the message - Don't Be A Bear!), stress relief balls with rice, and special sunlight pictures.  We also walked around the school leaving surprise kind messages for people to find!  It was fun to listen to others finding the messages we left!

Snowman Bags!

Today students brought home snowman bags, decorated and filled with winter and holiday goodies!  Over the past few weeks we have begun to learn about the world and various holidays celebrated.  We have read stories and danced and we have created various projects and decorations.  There is much to share!

Mrs. Hoyt and Ms. Miliano would like to share some treasures and challenges with students.  In the bags please help your student discover a new book and a winter journal.  Our hope is that everyone will  enjoy a book or two write about their activities while home over the holiday break.  We have also enclosed a small Nutcracker doll as a remembrance of our trip to the see the Nutcracker performance and a scarf to keep warm with!

Enjoy all the treasures and creations and celebrate your time together with family and friends over the coming week!

Science Day Celebration!

We love Science!!!

Our class has a incentive program.  When we are successful at doing certain things such as moving quietly through the halls at school, remaining focused through our lessons and earning compliments for being role models we earn a scoop of popcorn kernels.  They are added to our popcorn jar and when the jar is full we vote on how to celebrate our accomplishment.  When we filled the jar Mrs. Hoyt and Ms. Miliano expected the celebration ideas to be requests for show and tell, extra recess or time to paint.  Instead students asked for a science exploration day!  How awesome!  We could not be more thrilled than to have a room for of eager learners.

If students are thirsting for science, then we had no other option than to spend the day being scientists!  We made predictions, completed experiments, made observations, and  analyzed outcomes, and boy was it fun!

To start the day we guessed what items combined  with candy canes would help them to dissolve quickly.  We put candy canes  containers with cold water, hot water and vinegar and oil  It took a short while for the hot water one to dissolve the fastest.  Then the vinegar and cold water mixes dissolved.  The oil did nothing.

Ms. P of the Burlington Science Center visited us with a chicken and alligator and a therapy dog named Scooter.  Ms. Chiccolini, Scooter's handler told us all about the work he does in the school system.  Ms. P brought us her chicken from home.  He really enjoyed strutting around our room!  It was very cool for us to pet an alligator and to learn the differences between alligators and crocodiles!

We witnessed a quick reaction as we created "snow" in the classroom!  See link to learn about the snow experiment.

Our scientific thinking was tested before lunch as we discussed that sometimes combining things we create new things that can not be taken apart....much like making cookie dough.  We also learned that other times we can separate items we have combined... like salad ingredients!  

When students returned from lunch they were met by our parent volunteer who furnished the class with proper scientist equipment!  We had goggles and lab coats for all along with containers and supplies for experiments!  

Our afternoon included causing an eruption with soda, inflating balloons with gas caused by chemical reactions, making slime and mixing up batches of elephant toothpaste!  

A special thank you to Allie's mom for joining us today and for bringing us so many wonderful supplies!

Thank you to Mr. Donoff, PG technology specialist and Ms. Fallon, PG art teacher for jumping in to help lead some experiments

We hope you will agree that we have some pretty cute scientists in room 103!

Our day of scientific celebration was a tremendous success!  We can not wait to earn more scoops of popcorn as we are already planning our next adventure!