This blog is maintained by Partners in Education (PIE) kids.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Mrs. Nachtigal's K-1 class gets FANCY!

Mrs. Nachtigal's K-1 class recently enjoyed hearing the story, Fancy Nancy, written by Jane O'Connor. The main character in the story is a little girl named Nancy, who believes that more is always better when it comes to being fancy! She dresses fancy, decorates her room fancy, teaches her family to eat fancy foods and Nancy even speaks fancy by using very fancy vocabulary words. Words are transformed from plain words into fabulous, fancy words like this: purple becomes fuchsia, feather becomes plume, great become stupendous and driver becomes chauffeur. It's a very exciting story, you will just have to read it yourself to see!

                                                            


The K-1 students in Mrs. Nachtigal's room are working on making their own vocabulary fancy. Mrs. Nachtigal has created a word cloud in her classroom. Each letter of the alphabet it displayed on a cloud and hung from the ceiling, it looks very fancy by the way! Whenever students encounter a fancy vocabulary word it gets printed out and attached to a corresponding letter cloud. The students are having so much fun thinking of fancy words to hang from the word cloud. The best part is the kids can use all the words that are displayed in their own story writing. What a fun and fancy way to inspire creative writing!
























Saturday, February 23, 2013

Welcome to the farm!! Learning Spanish in PIE K-1


Mrs. Barlow-Layne's K-1 class is working on a bilingual display called, "Vengan a ver mi granja!" which translates to "Welcome to my farm!" The class sings the Spanish song in class and then connects it to a Social Studies lesson. Students are learning about the different types of farms around the world and in Warwick. The young children in Mrs. Barlow-Layne's class were taught how to use speech bubbles in their writing and you can see them on the poster depicting the animal sounds in either English or Spanish. 


Being exposed to foreign language instruction at an early age has many benefits. Read the attached article to find out how studying a foreign language can help your child grow in their own language development.


Monday, February 18, 2013

February PIE News

The K-1 classes have been very busy over the last two months practicing their reading, writing and illustrating! The teachers have created author study lessons for the students to enjoy. The students have been introduced to several different authors by reading their stories. They have learned about the parts of a story - title, characters, setting, problem, solution, and the ending. In some K-1 classrooms the children have been acting out their favorite stories by using a puppet theatre.

The kids have also been writing about and illustrating story characters, story settings and their favorite parts of a story. Students have learned how to use a graph in Math and now some classes are using these graphing skills in Reading. Students in one classroom are graphing the amount of books they have read, students in another class are using a graph to show the different parts of a story. The teachers have done a wonderful job getting the kids excited about reading!




PIE 2 - 3 classes will be putting on a play!

It's a mystery all about somebody trying to take all the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes out of Warwick. It is called, "Mother Goose and the Rhyme Robbers" and every PIE 2-3 student will be in it! 

The play will be performed during the school day on Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 and the evening performance will be from 6:00 - 7:30 pm. Almost all of the rehearsals will take play during school. There will be a parent-helper meeting soon! In the meantime these are the areas in which the teachers will need parent help:
  • stage crew
  • costume repairs
  • creating sets & props
  • backstage chaperone
  • make-up artist
  • choreographer
  • musical technician
  • 8 moms and 8 dads who would like to be a part of the show!!



Courtyard Clean-up PIE 4 - 5

The PIE 4-5 classes have an organization called, "Courtyard Cleanup PIE 4-5." The organization is making an effort to beautify courtyard #2 at Sanfordville school. Students have places boxes around the school where you can donate your empty plastic water bottles. The bottles are then exchanged for money that will be used to purchase plants, tools, etc. 

The students are also hosting an Organic Seed Fundraiser. Since the "Courtyard Cleanup" focuses on renewing and preserving nature around the school, the Organic Seed Fundraiser seemed to compliment the students goal of creating a sustainable environment.


Art Easels 

The PIE 4-5 classes will begin a new project within the next few weeks. Students will be building their own art easels to use outdoors in the spring. The teachers are looking for donations of wood and for tools to use on the project. If you know how to build, are handy with tools and can cut wood, the teachers could use your help! The easels will be constructed in the classroom until the weather gets warmer and then small groups can work in the courtyard. Below is an example of the art easel!