Inside Out - The Movie

We will be watching the movie "Inside Out" on Monday, Dec. 21st with Mrs. Davis' class. It goes along perfectly with our guidance lessons.  Here is a quick note from Mr. Antonicci and Mrs. McCleary.

In guidance, students at UMS have been studying and learning about the zones of regulation.  As a fun way to connect to what they’ve learned so far classroom teachers will be showing the movie ‘Inside Out’ either the Monday or Tuesday before Christmas vacation.  This movie is rated PG.  Please let your child’s classroom teacher know if you have any concerns.  Also, if you are interested in reading the movie synopsis visit this link:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/plotsummary

Gingerbread!

We have started one of my favorite units.....Gingerbread!!  We have been reading lots of Gingerbread folktales and then comparing them using a Venn diagram. We have started a chart in class and we are hoping to build our own foam gingerbread houses next Friday, Dec. 18th. We also have Gingerbread Fred visiting our classroom. Each night, Fred goes home with 2 different students and each student will journal about his/her experience with Fred. This is a magical time of year!

Cupcake Treat

We had a cupcake treat with some very bright green icing on a few weeks ago!! We found that the green icing could be very stubborn to get off and someone commented that we looked like zombies so we had to take a group picture!

Harvest Celebration

We had a fantastic time on Friday!!  We did lots of spooky learning including reading about bats, browsing Halloween stories, we saw a quick performance, we made  monster math fact families, we created graphs using M&M's, we listening to scary music and we ended the day with our harvest party!!  I want to specially thank Faith Abair for organizing such a fantastic party! I also want to thank all the parents who brought in goodies! We had a deliciously good time! Here are some pictures from our day.

Lake Champlain Watershed Demonstration

We've been learning all about how Lake Champlain helps our town of Colchester!!  We had an amazing presentation this week from Stephanie Larkin, who works at the Lake Champlain Basin Program.  She came to UMS to talk to all of the second graders about Lake Champlain and how we can (inadvertently) hurt as well as help the lake. We talked about some of the major lake pollutants such as soil, manure, grass clippings, oil, factory waste, pesticides, salt, and gasoline. People use these products to help make their daily life easier.  However, we use them without thinking of the consequences when these products end up in the lake after a rainstorm. After we talked about these pollutants, we talked about ways to help keep the lake clean and free from pollutants.  People can "scoop the poop" when they have animals, we can plant trees, shrubs, and grass to keep soil from eroding into the lake, put fences around farms, create wetlands to help filter out pollutants, and post signs on storm drains that go directly to the lake. Picking up litter also keeps trash from getting into the lake.  The lake offers so many wonderful benefits to the town of Colchester like supplying our drinking water, providing various types of recreation like swimming and boating, we receive money from tourists coming to visit our town, some people even eat fish from the  lake. With all of these great benefits of having the lake in our town we want to protect it! Here are some pictures from our hands-on experiment!

Burnham Library Field Trip

We had such a great time walking to the Burnham Library last Wednesday! The weather was gorgeous and Hannah and Pam, the children's librarians, met us at the front door. They were so excited to have us visit!!!  They told us a little history about the library, answered our questions, read us a great story called "The Dullards" and then the students were able to walk around and explore. Many students checked out a book and everyone enjoyed reading their story.  Here are some photos from our trip.

School Wide Meeting

Last Tuesday, we had a school wide meeting and some of the students in our class presented. We wrote a classroom book on how to be a good friend and we read some of our suggestions to the school. Everyone who presented used a nice clear speaking voice while our audience classmates were great listeners.  I'm so proud of everyone!!

Fire Safety Presentation

The Colchester Firefighters came to UMS today to talk about fire safety. We learned about "Stay Low and Go" which means we stay low to the ground to avoid smoke and leave the house if the fire alarm is going off. We also talked about setting a meeting place with your family in case you need to leave your house quickly.  If a piece of clothing catches on fire, kids remembered to  "Stop, Drop, Cover your face, and Roll" until the fire is out. Students leaned about how to tell if a fire is on the other side of a doorway too. The last thing the firefighters did was dress up in all of their gear to show us that we shouldn't be scared if we ever see a firefighter dressed up with their mask, hood, and air tank.. They are here to help us!  The students were mesmerized and learned a lot. Here are some pictures from our presentation.