More Holiday Activities

Keep checking my delicious account for additional winter activities including Christmas math fun! Winter Delicious Activities

Holiday Wishes (and a total lunar eclipse)!

So much has happened in the past several weeks and now we are all at home (or some other nice place) trying to relax (I hope!).  I want to quickly share some websites on my delicious account regarding holiday fun activities and some information about tonight's lunar eclipse.  Delicious website link.  As reported in AOLnews.com, "As many as 1.5 billion people worldwide will be able to watch when the Earth's shadow creeps across the moon's surface early Tuesday morning, the first time in hundreds of years that a lunar eclipse will fall on the winter solstice."  The article goes on to say that, "Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory said according to NASA. "Fortunately we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one ... that will be on 2094 DEC 21."  Although the eclipse will take about 3 hours and 38 minutes (it begins on Tuesday at 12:33 am CST), NASA recommends that you check it out about 2:17 am CST when the moon should be covered with an amber glow.  The winter solstice marks the beginning of winter and is the shortest day of the year!
P.S.  Stay tuned - I will be posting information about our recent "Sit for Good" and the December book club meeting:)

Time of Sharing

As November ends today I don't want to forget to mention that Tess Joyce and her mother Heidi came to share Tess' journey from China to Tennessee right before the Thanksgiving break.  November is National Adoption Month and November 22 is a day of celebration in Tess' family as "gotcha day", the day Tess became part of her "forever family"!  All of the second grade girls were able to listen to Tess' story and to see the actual clothes she was wearing the day she met her new family.  It was a wonderful story and yet another reason to be thankful that we have such wonderful friends and families at St. Mary's!

Happy Thanks! Happy Giving!

As Reverend Bush said in the Moss Hall Thanksgiving Chapel on Monday, we should all say Happy Thanks and Happy Giving as we celebrate this Thanksgiving Day. Things have been busy around SMS and I am grateful for many things including Mr. Throckmorton, our Assistant Head of St. Mary's, who recently spoke to the SMS Parent Association about some of the exciting things happening in our St. Mary's classrooms in this technology-rich world. Mr. Throckmorton shared examples of ways that technology is being used as a tool to support and enhance the learning going on at our school. He also listed some titles of books that might be useful to parents in understanding the changes we are facing in educating our young people. Here are the books that Mr. Throckmorton mentioned: Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen; Facebook for Parents by BJ Fogg; What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis; Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers; The Global Achievement Gapby Tony Wagner; and Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner. We will all have the opportunity to hear William Powers speak in the Buckman Theater on March 29 at 7 pm.
Click here for some Thanksgiving activities: Thanksgiving activities  and games.

Return of the Penguins...

Second grade girls will have the opportunity to be "field researchers" as we follow the nesting habits of the Adelie penguins in Antarctica. Beginning around November 18 the students can record the time spent on the nests by the penguin parents. They will pick one nest to follow and mark how much time is spent by the penguins either on the nest or foraging for food. The students will record their information in their "field journals" (their SMS spirals). This is a voluntary assignment and computers in the classrooms will be available with the website bookmarked for easy access (and I am including the link here for you to check out at home or you can use my delicious page ) - penguin nest check link

Lunch Bunch and other tidbits:)

Sorry that it has been so long since I posted - I was sick last week with strep throat! I want to share a few things with you all. The Learning Lab has some new "students" - Mary and Jane, my new gerbil friends! Feel free to come by and visit them anytime. Also, I am attaching a few photos of my first "lunch bunch" meeting (4th grade students). I am here to help facilitate their project-based learning activities on Thursdays during the 1st lunch shift recess.

2nd Grade Lunch Book Club!

The first monthly meeting of the 2nd grade lunch book club was held this past Thursday, Nov. 4th. Almost 40 girls attended! Thank you to Jessica, Ansley, McKinley and Mrs. Moore for helping make our first meeting so successful. See you next month:)

This photo slideshow created with Smilebox

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Second grade students will have the opportunity to meet once a month and discuss books. The first gathering of the SMES 2nd grade book club will be on Thursday, November 4th during the lunch recess time in the Moss Hall Library (we will meet on the first Thursday of each month). All 2nd graders are invited to bring a favorite book to share with classmates:)

And let's not forgot the 4th grade girls -
Fourth grade students interested in pursuing a special interest project are invited to Mrs. Landaiche's office on Thursdays during their lunch recess. I will be there to help focus topics, locate resources, and plan the projects. I look forward to learning many new things with them!

Dr. Dia's Resources

Parents - you will find on the St. Mary's Episcopal School Learning Specialist page (inside St. Mary's) www.stmarysschool.org a list of resources from the recent Lower School Coffee Chat presented by Dr. David Dia. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns (email - glandaiche@stmarysschool.org).

Spooky Stuff:)

Go to http://www.delicious.com/smsresources for some spooky Halloween fun!

Did You Know?

I met with one class of second graders today and we talked about the reading tab of the Home Connect website. Did you know that your daughter can view her "bookshelf" of AR books? This is a fun way to see the books that your daughters have read and to look up authors that they like so that they can read more of their writing. This is the same website that they log in to practice their "math facts-in-a flash" and it can be accessed at http://66.192.137.231/RenaissanceServer/HomeConnect/Login.aspx/. Your daughter will use her AR login to access this site.

Fall Break Fun!

Welcome back to school! I hope that you all had a safe, happy fall break. My daughter, her friend and I attended a wonderful event held for the first time ever in the United States. It was the World Equestrian Games in Lexington, KY. There is a Renzulli "assignment" about horses - check it out if you are interested! Also, watch the video below to learn a little bit more about the games -

Apple Project Results

Free picture slideshow made with Smilebox

Cider and Cookies!

Today we are enjoying delightful Fall weather and getting ready to have apple cider and apple shaped cookies while we review the results of the online apple project. Schools from across the country participated in this project and shared the results of an apple seed count on an excel spreadsheet that includes our information. We will discuss "Johnny Appleseed Day" which celebrates the life of John Chapman and his efforts to spread apple seeds across the United States (his birthday was yesterday - September 26). Attached is a link to the project voicethread that includes two photographs and facts from St. Mary's - enjoy!
http://voicethread.com/?#u974468.b1251166.i6726499

Apples, Apples, and more Apples

How 'bout them apples?

All of our second grade girls are participating in an online collaborative project called, "How 'bout them apples?". We used a brainstorming technique called K-W-L to decide what we already "Know" about apples and then "What we want to learn" about them. The girls utilized several websites that are bookmarked at http://www.delicious.com/smsresources or www.delicious.com/smsgrade2 to write down interesting facts about apples that they are recording on chart paper in their classrooms. We will meet next week to share our facts (what we "Learned") and will post a few of them on a "voicethread" that is part of the project. I have also added "an assignment" to Renzulli Learning (http://renzullilearning.com/StudentLogin.aspx) about apples for those students still "hungry for information" (this is not really an assignment, but rather something that they can pursue if they would like to!). The Renzulli assignment can be accessed through the girls' inboxes on the homepage right after they log-in.

Getting settled in...

The students and teachers are all settling in to our 2010-11 school year. New teachers, new schedules, a different mix of friends in the classes and new things to learn! It is exciting to watch the year beginning to unfold. The 2nd-4th grade students have all completed an updated profile on the Renzulli Learning website (www.renzullilearning.com) and are already asking me questions about things that they can study independently. How fun! The activities that are on their pages should correlate with things that they are interested in studying; however, they can always choose something different. There will be an upcoming "coffee chat" focusing on engaging your child in learning from home (I can't remember the exact title and date and will post it this week). Please let me or Mrs. Poje know if you have any questions about this. Hope you enjoy the long holiday weekend!

Check out our "yummy" websites!

When Mrs. Lancaster (LS Technology Coordinator) asks the girls to go to their yummy website they all know that she referring to "Delicious.com"! Each grade level has their own page that can be accessed directly at www.delicious.com/smsgrade1; www.delicious.com/smsgrade2; www.delicious.com/smsgrade3; www.delicious.com/smsgrade4. Mrs. Poje and I also have one www.delicious.com/smsresources. These sites are excellent sources of links to introduce or reinforce skills that your daughter is learning.

Postcards from Pennsylvania!

Welcome back to school! I am so excited about this year and all of the special projects and activities that we will do together. Speaking of projects, I am including a link to a class in Gettysburg, PA that last year's first graders "skyped" in the Spring (2009). All of the first graders read the book On the Same Day in March, by Marilyn Singer, we measured our weather that day, graphed the results, and posted our information on a wiki - http://onthesamedayinmarch.wikispaces.com/Memphis%2C+TN+USA. The class from Gettysburg sent us digital postcards over the summer welcoming us back to school and they are posted outside of the second grade classrooms in Davis Hall. Here is the link to their class' website and voicethread of the postcards that they sent us- http://www.gettysburg.k12.pa.us/webpages/cswinn/class.cfm
Check it out!

Schools Attuned...

Early Childhood Learning Specialist Leigh Tucker and I attended a week-long training this summer based on Dr. Mel Levine's research entitled, "Schools Attuned to All Kinds of Minds." The program is based on nine neurodevelopmental constructs that we all possess and strategies that can strengthen areas of weakness. Specific interventions and accommodations were discussed in a case study format. This training pulled together information about how we all learn and the importance of helping each student understand their own particular strengths and weaknesses. It was wonderful spending time with Leigh and making some "new" friends from the great state of Texas!!

Louisiana Lagniappe

I was lucky enough to spend some time with Anne Johnson head of the Lower School at the Episcopal School of Acadiana in Lafayette, LA last week. Anne inspires me as we discuss the way that she implements her Schoolwide Enrichment Model program. My daughter and I even got to see the new school that they will be moving into in August - how exciting! I hope that we can continue our connection and collaborate on projects in the future...

Welcome to my blog!

I have just returned from attending the International Society for Technology in Education conference (ISTE) conference in Denver, CO. It was an inspiring and informative experience for me and my colleagues from St. Mary's. I can't wait to learn and explore this year with friends and students at SMS!!