This Week at Winsor

As a way to ensure that all of our community stakeholders, both local and beyond, can stay connected with our school, this will be the new platform for our school update. Going forward, please check the website for the Winsor update, as it will be linked in the Live Feed:

http://smithfieldri.apptegy.us/o/william-winsor-elementary

Our new website has a wide array of information and resources. Regular visitation to our website ensures that all of our partners in education can stay connected with our community of learners.

Keeping Up With Kindergarten

Happy New Year and Welcome back! We hope you all had a relaxing break!

In Mrs. Lakeway’s class for Reader’s Workshop, we started applying our new strategy of Making Connections to our reading. Before the break, we read the stories, The Mitten and The Hat by Jan Brett. We began by making connections to our own lives (Text to Text). Some students said they had lost a mitten or hat at school or have enjoyed a snowy day! Then we focused on identifying Text to Text connections. Students were able to discuss how the wintery settings, characters, and the fact that the animals wore knitted clothing were the same in both books. Students wrote about these connections during Writer’s Workshop too. Students focused on using beginning sounds, lower case letters throughout their piece and their picture matching their words. They worked so hard on these masterpieces.

In Ms. Staruch’s class we have started a new unit in Reader’s and Writer’s workshop all about Ecology! This week we learned about what an Ecosystem is and discussed the plants and animals that live in our ecosystem. Once we were experts on our ecosystems, we studied a brand new ecosystem- the Savanna. Did you know that the movie The Lion King takes place in the Savanna? Thinking about The Lion King really helped us identify lots of plants, animals, and nonliving things that you can find in the Savanna. In writing we are working on writing non-fiction books about the Savanna. In our new Savanna books, we have some new Focus Correction Areas to “earn stars” for- we now have to write 2 true facts about a topic and have correct beginning and ending sounds when we sound out our words.

Kindergarten also put their knowledge of numbers to good use and have started learning about addition. We met Gus the Plus and Ellie the Equal sign. We practiced writing number sentences with these special symbols. Students also had a chance to model story problems with counters. As a challenge, they created their own story problems (verbally) and shared them with the class!

This Week/Last Week’s sight words: two, new, black, come, little, what

This Week/Last Week’s Fundation’s letters: H, I, J K, L

• Next week, List #1 of our “Sight Word Practice Papers” will be coming home. (Probably on Tuesday)

• As the weather gets colder, feel free to send in new “extra clothes” for your child. (Some students have shorts and T-Shirts in their bags.)

Learning and Fun in Grade One!

2019 is off to a great start!!! The children are settling back into our classroom routines and enjoying being back at school.

In honor of the New Year, our students made home and school resolutions for 2019. Be sure to ask your child what their home and school resolutions are – many of you will be happily surprised.

In Fundations, we began our chapter on glued sounds – ang, ing, ong, and ung. Trick words for the week were: why, my, by, try.

In our math series, we began our chapter on place value. Students have been counting by tens, identifying numbers using tens and ones. Continue to review these concepts along with math facts at home. Flashcards are a great way to practice fluency.

We began our new unit in Science, Air and Weather, by observing and demonstrating that air takes up space, can move things from place to place, and can be felt on your hand if you blow it through a straw. Today our scientists wrote about their observations in their science journals. We are looking forward to making parachutes next week.

Mrs. Keenan’s class is very proud and pleased to announce that 41 goodie bags were made and delivered to the residents of Hebert’s Nursing Home. Everyone had such fun filling the bags and writing letters that would hopefully put smiles on the faces of the seniors at Hebert’s. This project could only have been possible as a result of all your wonderful donations. We thank you, parents! Well done, 1K!!

We would like to thank all the parents for their support in all we do in first grade and wish all our first grade families a Happy and Healthy 2019!!!!

What's New in Grade Two

Happy New Year, Grade Two Team! We have started 2019 out with a bang!

This week we all became "geologists"! Our scientific study of Pebbles, Sand, and Silt started with brainstorming some questions that are lingering in our minds about rocks...

*What are the names of the rocks?

*What do rocks feel like? Temperature? Texture? Smell like?

*Do all rocks have the same properties?

Dull, shiny, hard, flaky, sharp, smooth, rounded, spikey, colors...

*What do rocks sound like when they make contact with other objects?

*What will happen if we rub them together?

These questions led us into our observations and experimentation. While using magnifying glasses, paper plates, black paper, and individual baggies of 6 rocks, we compared the rocks to other rocks AND to our friend's rocks. As a grade two team, we generated a list of characteristics/properties that we observed. Here are few examples of the words that our "geologists" came up with:

reddish, rough, smooth, dense, shiny/sparkly, flaky, speckled... We used this rich vocabulary to record our individual observations in our new Science Notebooks.

After we discovered their characteristics, we rubbed the rocks together to see what would happen. Many of our "geologists" collected dust/particles while rubbing the various rocks together. Some of the rocks cracked/pieces fell off. A few of our friends reported that the rocks developed a gross smell and/or appeared to be smoking. These findings were recorded in our Science Notebooks, as well.

Next week, we are looking forward to investigating what happens when these rocks are submerged in water.

Just a few friendly reminders for the second half of second grade...

*Our supplies are running very low! Please check in with your child to see what supplies they need replenished in their pencil box.

*The temperature in our classroom fluctuates. Please encourage your child to dress in layers for inside and outside.

As always, we truly appreciate everything you do at home to support your second grader!

THRILLS IN THIRD

Our third graders have been learning many new topics and working hard in all areas. In Math we continue to work on multiplication fluency and have begun to apply our knowledge of multiplication to the concept of area. It has been so impressive to see our students’ growth and task persistence on these challenging tasks. We continue to work on Collins writing and our different focus correction areas. Students have been revising their writing and looking carefully for errors in capitalization, punctuation and spelling. They have also been learning about fragments and run-ons and trying to improve their writing by correcting these mistakes. We have launched brand new units in Reading and Science. We are piloting the ARC reading program in which we will be studying weather phenomenon in depth. In Science we have also begun to investigate the weather concept of temperature and will continue to integrate our learning in these two areas over the next several weeks. The students’ enthusiasm for their new projects has been wonderful to see! Have a great weekend!

Learning More in Grade 4

The new year started off well!

Students started our research unit which integrates reading and writing. They are all researching an animal. This week, students were reading to find the physical and behavioral adaptations of their animals. The end product of this unit will be books created by the students which will be shared with others. They are very excited about this!

We started Chapter 5 this week. It is all about multiplying two digit by two digit numbers. If students are not fluent with their facts at this point, they will be required to study at home. More information about this will be coming home on Monday.

Students tested items this week to see if they were an insulator or a conductor of electricity. They LOVED this investigation! Ask them to tell you what they learned!

The Fabulous Five

In Reading Workshop, we continue with our Informational Text Unit. We have been learning how information is organized in an informational article or text. Our focus this week has been how nonfiction readers recognize how information is organized in compare and contrast structures. We learned note-taking strategies for compare and contrast such as utilizing a venn diagram, a T-chart, or a Triangle-gram and then were required to take the information from these strategies to compare and contrast two or even three ideas in a written response. It was great to observe that many students were going back into the text to cite their evidence and explain what it means in their written responses.

In math, the students continue to work with the concept of rounding numbers and have explored the process of rounding decimals. They applied their knowledge to help them estimate sums, differences, products, and quotients. They learned that rounded decimals and estimation can help them add, subtract, multiply, and divide more easily. Currently, the students are adding and subtracting decimals in real-world situations. We have discussed money and science measurements as examples of real-world situations where adding decimals is required and applied.

As we continue to set sail with our Explorers Unit in social studies, the students were very excited to learn about the Columbian Exchange and how the transfer of plants and animals brought new foods into the diet, how hunting practices changed, and how the agricultural output expanded for the Europeans, Africans, and Americans. Students explored their own journey as they researched which plants and animals came from the old world to the new world. Students worked in small groups and were required to choose two animals and two plants and then wrote and performed their own mini play to explain why they had chosen those plants and animals along their travels.

Winsor musicians are filling the halls with music! Kindergartners have just begun to learn about the shape a melody can make, and we are working on how music can move up and down. Grade One is busy adding a xylophone bordun to wintry songs, and we will soon begin to focus on rhythms such as quarter notes and eighth notes (Ta and Ti-Ti). Second graders are learning a traditional Russian dance, and are showing a lot of growth with the three pitches, mi, so, and la. Third graders have just started practicing one of our first songs on the recorder using B, A, and G. If you haven’t heard “Hot Cross Buns” yet, get ready! Our fourth graders are working hard earning Recorder Karate Belts, and we will soon be adding a low E and D to our note bank. Grade five Band is beginning to practice some really exciting music for our Spring Concert, and they can’t wait to perform it for an audience! Stay tuned for the Spring Music Concert date, as it will feature every grade at Winsor!

Art Update!

Happy New Year!

If you would like your student to wear a smock or old t-shirt for painting days in art, please send it to Miss Burrows in a plastic bag with your child's name and class on it! We are beginning to paint a lot more, so please be mindful when sending students to school on days that they have art class. :)

Kindergarten Students are currently working on collages of animals inspired by Eric Carle.

First Grade Students are transitioning from Mixed Media Still Life Flowers inspired by Dutch Artist, Vincent Van Gogh and French Artist, Henri Matisse to cityscape collages inspired by African American Artist, Romare Bearden.

Second Grade Students have begun "Starry Night" inspired drawings. Students will create feelings of movement by using a variety of mark making techniques.

Third Graders are working on a few different things. They just finished creating "Self-Portraits of the Palm of their Hands". Students looked closely at the lines on the palm of their hand to create an abstract work of art. Many artists zoom in on nature to create abstract artwork. Some artists we have been learning about are The Boyle Family, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Franz Kline. Third grade students are simultaneously working on large scale papier mâché sculptures.

Fourth Grade students have been doing a lot of drawing work this year. We started the year off with "Sneaker Self Portraits." Students learned the process of drawing from observation, so that they can draw realistically. We focused on doing blind contour drawings and used a range of values to help our shoes look 3D. Ask your students to teach you how to draw! Now, 4th Grade Students are in the process of creating black and white paintings inspired by Dutch artist, Jan Hendrix. Students are gaining understanding of positive and negative space as well as composition while working on this project.

5th Grade Students have been putting in an exponential amount of time and energy preparing for 5th Grade Flava which will be on Tuesday, March 5, 2019! We are having so much fun and are so excited! Obviously, the collaborative project we are working on is a surprise!

For more updates and photos of what we are working on in Art and Design, please check out the "Art & Design at OCRS and William Winsor" Facebook page. Click "Photos" and "Posts" to see old projects!

Save the date!

William Winsor Art Show will be on Thursday, May 30, 2019!

NEWS & NOTES:

Kindergarten registration for the 2019-2020 school year begins soon. Please check our website for more information:

http://smithfieldri.apptegy.us/o/smithfield-public-schools/page/registering-a-new-student

Our next School Improvement Team (SIT) meeting is February 5th at 3:30pm in the Winsor library. Please join us as we will discuss the progress made on our school improvement plan.

It is not too late to sign up for Winsor's Got Talent! The show is on Friday, February 1st and rehearsal is scheduled for Wednesday, January 30th.

Thank you for being our partners in education. We wish everyone the best for a restful weekend!

Email: backerman@smithfield-ps.org
Website: http://smithfieldri.apptegy.us/o/william-winsor-elementary
Location: 562 Putnam Pike, Greenville, RI, USA
Phone: 401 949-2059