Weekly Update May 12, 2010

Working on the Murals with

Artist in Residence Mr. Maricio





Experiments with Wedges as Simple Machines

We Went on a Haiku Hike and Wrote Some Great Poems

What a Great Week
We've Had With the Beacons!

Reading /Writing: We are reading up a storm with independent books. We are also loving the classic read-aloud Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.

Poetry is the theme of the month. We dove right in by taking a Haiku Hike thus incorporating our integrated curriculum with Social Studies and Language Arts. Look forward to seeing students' poems on Grandparents/Special Friends day this Friday! As you read these poems, look for a "Kigo", a seasonal word or phrase in each poem. I thought this may be a challenging concept for second graders to get, but they showed their understanding right away. What an amazing group of poets!

We have just begun to integrate reading and poetry with Sharon Creech's book, Love That Dog. This book is written in journal format from a boy named Jack to his teacher. We watch as Jack, who starts out hating poetry, "Boys don't write poems, only girls do- he claims", learns to appreciate and write some of his own poems. The book features poems by Walter Dean Myers, William Carlos William, Robert Frost and many more.

Here are some poems written by the Beacons

based on William Carlos Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow:

So much depends upon

Seabury School

Glazed with mosaics

Rich in Friends-AW

So much depends upon

A white soccer ball

Covered with many grass stains

Next to the players- LB

So much depends upon

An enormous tree

With lime green leaves

And chestnut brown bark

In a school playground- AL

So much depends upon

A little village

With yellow slanted houses

High up in the mountains- PSG

So much depends upon

The sharp rock

And the tree - MT

So much depends upon

A giant whale

Torpedo through the water

Looking for food- AK

So much depends upon

The President of the USA

In a black suit

Writing papers- GB

So much depends upon a

Red wheelbarrow with

A flat wheel

So Jane could not work - NE

So much depends upon

My Mom

Short and sort of tall

Working hard- SB

So much depends upon

A house

Yellow and purple stars

In my neighborhood- RJ

So much depends upon

An airplane

4X 4 engines

Jetting through the sky- MJ

We are working on making our poem book and these are all included in your Beacon's poetry book.

But wait, there's much, much more, going on in our classroom!!

We are completing equivalent fractions in math, creating simple machines with wedges in science, learning about Asia in Social Studies, and studying current events through our Time for Kid's series...Whew!

Please don't forget about Grandparents'/Special Friend's Day THIS Friday!

Looking forward to another exciting week with your Beacon!

Betsy and Tamara