For 2nd, 3rd and 4th Grade Families - Eight Grade Independent Study Project

Dear Second, Third and Fourth Grade Families,

As part of the eighth grade experience at Abington Friends, students engage in an independent study project known as EGIS.  One of our eighth grade students is interested in learning more about the effect of age and musical background on absolute pitch, or perfect pitch. Our eighth grade student would like to meet with 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders to gather data, making note of their age, gender, musical background and asking them to hum a note. He will compare this information with what he has gathered from older students. He will be supervised while meeting with the students, and he will only need a few minutes with each child who participates. 

If you have any questions, or if you do not wish your child to participate, please let me know aemmons@abingtofriends.net.

Sincerely,

Andrea

Fourth Grade Practices Kindness and Imagination During Playtime

Recess serves as a necessary break from the rigors of concentrated, academic challenges in the classroom. Safe and well-supervised playtime offers social, emotional, and physical benefits to students. Students have the opportunity to engage with the natural world, play, imagine, think, move and socialize during unstructured play. It is also an opportunity for students to practice being kind and inclusive, independently and with teacher support.

Fourth graders at AFS typically enjoy two periods of unstructured play during the day. Students spent the first half of this year exploring the outdoor learning environment of new Headwaters Discovery Playground, creating make-believe stews using natural materials like pine needles and acorns. Fourth grader Maura said, “I practice pretend cooking outside, because I like to use techniques I make up.” Students have also observed creatures like spotted salamanders and toads in the creek, taken turns jumping from daring heights on the swings, and played pop-up-tag throughout the climbing structure and out on the fields.

As is a tradition for 4^th grade, we’ve begun to spend the afternoon recess in the open fields in front of the school in order to foster the ability to play without toys or a playground. The opportunity to play sports like kickball and disc golf that teach the value of sportsmanship, fairness, kindness and honesty. “Playing a game like kickball, you have to have good sportsmanship if you lose,” remarked fourth grader Oliver. 

The open space is also conducive to creative, make-believe games. Some students have created historically inspired games out of what they’ve learned in social studies that involve Native Americans or themes from Colonial America. Fourth grader Sofia explained, “by playing together and being together, we learn how to build a community.”

Estudio de un Héroe en 1º Grado / Study of a Hero in 1st Grade

To integrate with their social studies unit on “Heroes,” the first graders were introduced to a very popular héroe to the children of a village in southern México. His name is Ricardo Núñez Gijón and he has been making elaborate and beautiful traditional and not so traditional piñatas for many years. The students were introduced to this amazing person through George Ancona‘s book, “The Piñata Maker – El Piñatero.” This story not only brought to light a different kind of hero to the first graders, but it also helped introduce Latin American art as well as offer a glimpse of life in a Mexican village.

 

After reading the book, the first graders viewed a YouTube video that demonstrated how a piñata is made using different materials than the ones that Don Ricardo, or Tio Rico as the children of the village call him, used. 

Once done watching, the students were left with a desire to make a piñata. So, to indulge their appeal, the first graders were provided with the opportunity to create their very own mini-pull piñata using a toilet paper roll, tissue paper, ribbon, and tape. Once all steps were completed, each student filled their piñata with little pieces of confetti and three special treats. ¡Que rico!

Kindergarten Celebrates 100

 

The kindergarten students have been anticipating the 100th Day of School for a very long time. One friend even said, "It felt like a 100 years to wait!" Since the first day of school, the kindergarten  mathematicians have been keeping track of the days on our one hundreds chart and by a countdown of  place value with straws being added to the ones, tens and, finally today, the hundreds column. Be sure to ask your child how many groups of ten equal 100!

Counting 100 items for our "100" Museum

                                  

To be ready for the big day, the class also practiced counting to 100 by skip counting 2's, 5's and 10's. During the past week, items were carefully selected and counted at home for our "100"museum in the classroom. During the day the students figured out a variety of ways to count their items, deciding which way was faster, slower or even easier for some of the items would not stay in place and even rolled!

If I had $100, I would buy a nice
crocodile and it could sleep in my guest bed.

If I had $100, I would buy 100 ice cream cones.

  

Our celebration of 100 also had the students using their imaginations as they thought of what they would buy if they had $100. It was interesting to see what the value of a dollar could buy in a kindergartner's mind! Below are just a few of their thoughts.

 If I had $100, I would:

• buy a chocolate lab
• want to be in the Nutcracker
• buy some toy rangers
• get an expensive genie bottle
• buy a $100 fish
• go to New York with my little sister
• buy 100 watermelons for my family
• buy 4 puppies or 100 puppies
• go to Paris
• go to the bank and then go buy pizza to eat

If I had $100, I would put it in the bank!

If I had $100, I would go to Paris with Meadow.

        I wish I could eat 100 jelly beans.

After eating a special pizza lunch for our celebration of 100,  each child imagined eating a 100 of anything they wanted, and it was even guaranteed that it would not cause a stomach ache! Some of the delicious ideas are noted below.

If I could have 100 of anything, I would eat:

• 100 Swedish fish
• 100 pieces of sushi 
• 100 pieces of pizza
• 100 gum packs
• 100 jelly beans
• 100 ice cream cones
• 100 red Nerds
• 100 pieces of grape gum
• 100 candy apples and red apples
• 100 watermelons

If I had $100, I would buy chocolate almonds.

The joy of exploring the number 100 was evident throughout the day and the students have asked to continue working with this very special number! We have so many activities to celebrate the wonderful number 100 that our work will definitely spill over into the next few days. Our plans include drawing pictures of what one might look like at 100 years of age, building a collaborative 100 block structure and keeping track of our count with tally marks, using the hundreds chart to figure out what numbers, big and small, can be added together to make 100, and putting together the challenge of a 100 hundred piece puzzle. The number 100 has given us numerous opportunities to integrate and support developing math skills and concepts of number sense, place value, and addition while also integrating literacy, artistic and collaborative experiences.

Third Grade Welcomes the Year of the Rooster!

Happy 100th Day of School!

As a math teacher, the 100th day of school is one of my favorite days of the year.  There are so many fun things to do at each grade level that focus on the number 100.

As a lower school, we worked together to create 100 equations.  The charge was left fairly open- ended so that students could participate at their level.  This meant that the equations ranged from things like 2+2=4 to 6x5= 30 and all the way to 100 x 10² ÷ 16= 625.  Fourth grade seemed to especially like this activity!

It was great to see so many students get involved, and what was most surprising to me was that by the end of the first day, all 100 spaces for equations had been filled in!  This meant that I could put out a fresh batch of sheets for kids to continue adding equations.

We also did activities by grade level to celebrate the 100th day.  Some of those included in kindergarten, students discovered how many times they could do a specific activity in 100 seconds, such as how many times they could write their name or how many times they could stand up and sit back down again.  

First grade hosted a "museum" with exhibits of 100 objects.  There was a great variety!

In second grade, students rolled a die 100 times and graphed each roll to see what number they landed on most frequently; they also estimated how far they could walk with 100 steps and then tested it out to see how close they were to their estimate.

In third grade, students played a target number game, where they tried to get as close to 100 as they could, and they also used a 100 chart to create clues for each other to find a hidden message or picture. 

It was a great 100th day of school, make sure to ask your child about his or her experience!

The Genre of Fantasy Explored in Fourth Grade

Fourth grade students are discovering the structure of fantasy books as they read, think, write and engage in conversation in book clubs. Ella Enchanted, City of Ember and Into the Land of the Unicorns are the books being read by students in their book clubs.  Students are examining the craft of writing as well as reading. They have discovered that setting is very important in a fantasy book and that the author has the ability through their writing to bring the setting to life for the reader. 

Fantasy books that are exciting to talk about have well developed characters who change and grow throughout the course of the book. All three of these books have finely drawn characters that the readers care enough to think deeply and share their ideas in their book clubs. A quest is an integral part of a fantasy book as well and this helps mark the difference between fantasy and the realistic fiction genre. Reading and discussing fantasy books helps students to explore a world different from their own and to relate to characters that they might not encounter outside of a book, which also helps to foster empathy in the reader.

The Amazing Thrid Grade Acrobats!

Whoa, look at third grade go!

Whoa, look at third grade go!

Our third grade engineers in training are gaining a lot of experience with creating functional and structurally complete simple machines.  In science class, third grade is using building kits and guides to create a variety of simple machines. After going out to the playground to identify how simple machines are being utilized in as many ways as they could, students began building levers of their choice.  The students then used their imaginations and wrote in their journals about how they would transform their creations into playground equipment.  They all came up with wonderfully bright ideas that will come in handy as they prepare for the Invention Convention in April.