June 20, 2016 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

The year flew by so quickly!  I can't believe it has come to an end!  The year has been filled with wonderful and memorable experiences for both the children and me.  My eighth year of teaching has proven to be a very special one thanks to all your support and all your children.  I enjoyed getting to know each student and watching them all grow and learn throughout the year.  They were all so enjoyable to work with and it is amazing to see how far they have come.

I would like to thank you all for your cooperation and support throughout the year.  I couldn't do this program without the help of our parent volunteers who I thank wholeheartedly.  I thank you for your help in the classroom (especially with the messy art projects), for chaperoning our field trips, for helping with our celebrations, for coming to our Kindergarten Museum, and for everything you did behind the scenes to make this year wonderful.  Learning is a collaborative experience and fostered through teamwork…teamwork between the teachers, children, and parents.  So thank you for being part of our team!

Just a reminder to continue reading to your child and have your child read to you.  It is so important that books remain a big part of their lives.  I would like to recommend a website that will be useful to you and your children while looking for summer literacy activities.  The site address is:  http://www.readwritethink.org/beyondtheclassroom/summer/

I’d like to wish all of you, parents and children alike, the best of everything in the coming years.  I hope that exploration and learning will always be intriguing to you and your children.

Have a safe and happy summer!

Melanie Duncan

Patterns with the Temperature

We enjoyed keeping track of the temperature every school day as part of our daily calendar routine.  Students checked the temperature every day, used the color-coded thermometer to determine which color link to use, and made observations about temperature patterns.  The students got really into it and were even cheering when their predictions were correct, when we reached our first "white" day (below 20 degrees) and when the temperature finally reached the 80s again!  We even did some graphing and comparing at the end of the year.

Walk to Wildwood Park

We had a wonderful day at Wildwood Park.  The students did great on the walk and enjoyed playing all day and eating pizza too!  It was a fun way to celebrate the end of a busy and exciting year in Kindergarten!

We Met a Real Policeman!

Mr. Mason came into our classroom today to talk about his work as one of the custodians here at Francis Wyman.  One of the many neat things about Mr. Mason is that he also works for the police department!  The students enjoyed asking him questions and listening to him talk about how he helps our community!  He encouraged the students to learn their parents' names and phone numbers in case they ever get lost and he talked about ways to stay safe in our community.

A Visit from the Burlington Public Librarian

Miss Amanda from the Burlington Public Library visited our school today to talk about some of the summer programs offered by the library.  Please check out the link below to learn more about them.  Information also went home in your child's folder today on a bright orange flyer.  It sounds like there will be some fun things going on at the library this summer!

http://www.burlington.org/departments/library/children/index.php

3D Map of Boston

Our map of Boston is complete!  The students worked very hard to create a 3D map of the area of Boston we toured a couple of weeks ago on our field trip.  It shows the area of Beacon Hill and the Public Garden and includes the State House, Louisburg Square, the Charles River, the Swan Boats, and many other buildings that are found in Boston.  The students added other details too, such as trees, stop signs, traffic lights, and even a playground!  If you look carefully, you can even see ducks swimming in the Charles River!  This was a wonderful way for students to recall things and places they saw on our field trip, learn some map skills, and discuss important parts of a city.  We read Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey before the field trip and then reread it again afterwards.  The students were more engaged the second time and were excited to read about the places that were more familiar to them now that they had actually been there and made a map of the area.

"Protect the Popsicle"

Our class participated in the "Protect the Popsicle" engineering project with Mr. Musselman from the Burlington Science Center.  I have been working with Mr. Musselman to design lessons for the new Weather and Sunlight unit that will be taught in Kindergarten next year.  We decided to try it with our class this year to see how it went and what we could do differently next year.  Our class was the first to try the project and we had great success!  

The students were presented with the task of building a shade structure that would protect a popsicle (freeze pop) from melting so quickly on a sunny day.  The students did a wonderful job using background knowledge, being creative, and working cooperatively in small groups to design and build shade structures.  

The first step was to make a plan.  The students chose which materials they would use and drew sketches of the structures they planned to build.

Next, the students shared their ideas with their group mates and then started building!  They used black paper, white paper, popsicle sticks, clay, and tape.  The tricky part was getting the structures to stay standing!  It was fascinating for me to walk around and engage the students in discussions about why they were or were not using certain materials or why they were building it a certain way.  It was fascinating too, to hear the students "respectfully disagreeing" with each other as they attempted to mesh all their ideas together into one structure!

We couldn't test out our structures on the same day that we made them because the sun was hiding behind a bunch of clouds.  This past Wednesday was the perfect day for our test, though.  The temperature was cooler but the sun was still shining.  The students discussed the best position for their shade structures and determined how to put their popsicles in the shade.  We put one popsicle directly in the sun so we could compare it to the others.  While waiting for the popsicles to start melting, the students shared design details and predictions with the rest of the class.  They seemed proud to share and excited to see what the results would be!

The popsicle that was left in the sun started melting rather quickly.  It only took 10-15 minutes for it to turn into a lot of liquid!  Mr. Musselman and I helped the students pour the liquid from their popsicles into graduated cylinders so we could compare the amounts of liquid from each popsicle.  The popsicle that was left in the sun had 35 mL of liquid and the others (that were protected from the sun) had only about 10-13 mL!  The difference was significant and showed that the students has successfully built structures that protected an object from the heat of the sun!

The students recorded their results and compared amounts.  They also participated in a discussion about how they would modify their shade structures to be even more effective and what we can learn from this experiment.  I was impressed with their ability to make applications such as "Wearing darker colors on a sunny day can make you warmer," and "It's better to wear lighter colors when it's hot."

The students in Room 115 made some great scientists and engineers!  They enjoyed the hands-on experience and commented several times on how much fun they had!  Hopefully they will remember and apply what they learned this summer on those really hot days!