UMPS News from Mrs. Hanssens

Upper Moreland School District	UMPS News from Mrs. Hanssens Leadership. Enrichment. Acceleration. Partnerships.

	April - May 2008 Second Grade LEAP students are digging deep online trying to find fun and factual information about our township, our region, and our state in order to create a quality Artifact Box to mail away to the Artifact Box Network. For the Artifact Box, students need to create 25 clues and attach them to meaningful artifacts which will all be placed in our Artifact Box and shipped to a mystery elementary school. The mystery elementary school will ship us their box as well. Then we have to solve their clues to find where in the world the mystery school is and the mystery school will solve our clues to find out where in the world we are. To support this unit, Dr. Millie Wintz from the Upper Moreland Historical Association has volunteered to be an ongoing guest speaker. Dr. Wintz is able to bring to us historical artifacts and the history of local buildings. This projects is really exciting for the students because it incorporates online learning with all of the major subject areas in school. For students who love social studies, there are geography clues, historical landmark clues, famous people clues, state history, local manufacturing. For students who love science, there are weather clues, soil clues, vegetation clues, and animal clues. For students who love math, there are population figures to calculate, recipes to gather and make, and data about our school to organize. All of the students have opportunities to read and write through the research process and the clue writing. This unit tends to be one of the students favorite LEAP experiences! If you would like to follow up with some activities at home the following websites are recommended: Pennsylvania: The Keystone State Pennsylvania Firsts Printables: Nine printable activities. This link is to the first activity. Hit the Next button each time to access the next activity in the sequence. Discover Pennsylvania Second Grade Literacy classes are now finished their Beyond Words Unit, and you will be receiving an End of Unit Assessment to review and sign. Students will be gathering all of their writing from this unit and publishing their very own book! First Grade students are studying the work of Dr. Benjamin Bloom and learning Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking. This unit introduces the students to how the brain works and why certain tasks take longer and are harder to do than other tasks. If you would like to learn about Bloom's Taxonomy at home or follow up with some activities at home the following websites are recommended: Understanding Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking Whale Webquest based on Bloom's Taxonomy LEAP Museum Night: Monday, May 19, 2008 6:30-8:00 PM Please mark this date on you calendars! Students from grades 1-5 will be exhibiting a showcase of their work from this school year, as well as performing a Reader’s Theater and some works of William Shakespeare with a LEAP touch! Come and see the talents and creativity of our entire elementary LEAP students all rolled into one delightful evening’s entertainment! Refreshments are normally provided by the LEAP parents and (of course) we always have Mrs. Lipski’s famous Museum Night punch! We hope to see you there! February - March 2008 Second Grade LEAP students are nearly finished their Super3 Projects. Again, the students are working on their projects in school only. This way, they can receive ongoing feedback on their time management skills, resource gathering strategies, and problem solving skills when they encounter difficulties. Integrated into this project is how to use Microsoft Power Point. Every student is preparing a Power Point presentation to share their research and projects with others. Students should be studying and using in their daily language the words on their third LEAP Vocabulary List. The test for this unit will be on Thursday, February 21. In Second Grade LEAP Literacy classes, students are more than halfway through their Beyond Words Unit. Parents should have received the results of the mid-unit assessment on the LEAP Report Card Comment Sheet. This month's lessons involve a lot of fun with multiple meaning words and the evolution of words over time. For example, they will be writing and publishing whimsical questions in response to William Coles' poem, "Foolish Questions." Foolish Questions By William Cole Where can a man buy a cap for his knee? Or a key for the lock of his hair? And can his eyes be called a school? I would think—there are pupils there! What jewels are found in the crown of his head, And who walks on the bridge of his nose? Can he use, in building the roof of his mouth, the nails on the ends of his toes? Can the crook of his elbow be sent to jail— If it can, well, then, what did it do? And how does he sharpen his shoulder blades? I'll be hanged if I know—do you? Can he sit in the shade of the palm of his hand, and beat time with the drum in his ear? Can the calf of his leg eat the corn on his toe?— There's somethin' pretty strange around here! FOOTNOTES: Adapted from an American Folk Rhyme First Grade LEAP students are still completing their Interest Inventories which will be sent home for parent review and input. In addition, they are being given an introduction to Reader's Theater. This introduction will focus on acting dramatically, reading with expression, using props, and identifying an author's purpose. In addition, first grade student now have a LEAP into Learning Center in their regular education classrooms. This center contains independent, interest-based activities that they students can work on if they finish a task early or if they do not need a particular regular education lesson since they have already mastered that skill. The activities are self-checking so students can receive feedback immediately after they complete the task. In addition, Mrs. Hanssens collects the completed tasks, provides feedback on each student's progress, and sends home the work each month for parents to review and return. As always, if you have questions or comments about the Primary School LEAP Programs and Services, please email them to Mrs. Hanssens. Enjoy the long Presidents Day weekend! December 2007-January 2008 LEAP students are busy, busy, busy with their interest-based, independent projects. All projects are following the Super3 Model of Plan, Do, and Review. A sampling of the topics are listed below: What are the secrets behind magic tricks? How do geysers works? How is bubble gum made? How do magma chambers affect volcano eruptions? What is the history of music? How can I use personification in my writing? Students are working on their projects in school only. This way, they can receive ongoing feedback on their time management skills, resource gathering strategies, and problem solving skills when they encounter difficulties. Students should be continuing to study and use in their daily language the words on second LEAP Vocabulary List. The test for this unit will be on Tuesday, December 18. In LEAP Literacy classes, students recently finished publishing their moon poems. Each poem has either a simile or metaphor to demonstrate a specific characteristic of the moon. Once the accompanying illustrations are complete, you will be able to view the poems online. As part of this unit, students are nearly finished the reading of Frindle, and they have most sections of their Research Project complete. In the upcoming weeks, we will be using this research and the actions of Nick Allen from Frindle to examine how language changes and evolves over time. In math, LEAP students are working on tiered lessons for Unit 3 Stickers, Number Strings, and Story Problems which focuses on place value, addition, subtraction, and mathematical problem solving skills. Students will be receiving log in information in the upcoming weeks so they can have online access to math resources which are directly related to concepts we are using in class. Have a wonderful winter break! November 2007 Not only will there be real students in Room 48, there will also be miniature, two dimensional portraits of second grade LEAP students hanging in the room! The students first Microsoft Word technology project is nearly finished, except for a few manual artistic additions which are being completed at home. The miniature portraits were the culmination of our Characteristics of Productive Learners lessons. So, if you are visiting the Primary School for American Education Week, please stop in the LEAP room to view these projects! On November 2, the second LEAP Vocabulary Unit and results of the first unit test were distributed to all LEAP students. I can see from the results of the tests that some students need additional study skills instruction, and I will be meeting with those students in a small group to review how they are currently studying and what they can do to strengthen their study skills. Students who have demonstrated they already have strong study skills will be online using teacher-selected Junior Vocab Minutes from The Princeton Review and developing their own Vocabulary Journal. Parent may view all of the Junior Vocab Minutes, by visiting The Princeton Review website. The test for the second LEAP Vocabulary unit will be on December 18. For LEAP math students, we are coming to the end of The Great Coffee Challenge which was given to us by Mr. Arney. The challenge was to calculate for Mr. Arney how much coffee needs to be sold each month in order for the Primary School Staff to keep a permanent automatic coffee machine in the office. The cost of the machine is $160.00 per month. While solving this challenge, students shared, learned, and discussed numerous problem solving strategies such as Make a Table, Choose an Operation, Guess and Check, and Draw a Picture. On November 15, the students will be presenting to Mr. Arney their conclusions and advising him how to track the amount of coffee sold in the building each month. In return for all of their hard work, Mr. Arney has promised the students a tasty treat....hot chocolate from the new machine! For LEAP literacy students, we are continuing with our Beyond Words Unit. This month students will be analyzing the poetry of Emily Dickenson, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and Vachel Lindsay. In addition, they will be creating and publishing their own poetry. For independent reading sessions, students are enjoying the antics of Nick Allen, a character from the novel Frindle by Andrew Clements. As the students read, they are required to reflect on Nick's actions and the changes in language that Nick is able to bring about in his school. Parents should expect to see homework each week related to our classwork. In addition, there will be ongoing assignments from the Research Project on Language. Tune in to this space again for the publication of our Moon Poems! I suspect that Mr. Arney will be appointing some poet laureates after he reads these publications! Special thanks goes out to Mrs. Meinhart who visited our classroom the first week of November to demonstrate the connections between words and music, especially in the area of poetry. She played for us music that would be an appropriate accompaniment to the words of Carl Sandburg's Fog poem which was the first poem the student read as part of the Beyond Words Unit. September-October 2007 To start the year off properly, the Primary School LEAP students will be learning the characteristics of productive learners and what they do both inside and outside of the classroom. We will look at how to use our time wisely and how our feelings impact our work in the classroom. We will be role playing various situations and learning how to be an advocate for ourselves. To increase our literacy skills and to develop our study skills, we will have LEAP Vocabulary Units throughout the year. In September, we learn how to study and how to incorporate our vocabulary words into our writing and daily conversations. Students have four weeks to learn six vocabulary words. Parents will be receiving a copy of the first unit on Thursday, September 20 to keep at home and to help your child study throughout the four weeks. The first vocabulary test will be on Thursday, October 18. Mrs. Hanssens will be pushing into regular education math and reading classes twice a week to support differentiated instruction for gifted students. Read Differentiated Instruction for Young Gifted Children: How Parents Can Help.