Welcome to Room 10!

By now, I hope you received my welcome letter in the mail.  I have been busy setting up Room 10 these past couple of weeks, and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new friends!  This blog is a place for Room 10 families to access important information about the classroom.  I strive to provide regular updates throughout the year.

You may choose to subscribe to this blog via your email address.  This will allow you to receive updates when a new blog post has been created.  Look for "Follow by email" located on the right side of the blog's main page to subscribe.

Some families ordered their classroom supplies via the PTO.  Others are choosing to purchase their own.  Either way, here is the link to the list should you still need it:  Grade One Supply List.  Many thanks for your contributions.  They are appreciated!

A welcome letter was sent from Principal Missy Bilsborough highlighting important back-to-school information.  Key details about our new school hours, morning drop-off information, Parent Information Night, the elementary school handbook, and more can be found in her letter via this link: Back-To-School Info

More information will be coming to you soon.  In the meantime, if you have any pressing concerns or questions, please feel free to shoot me an email:  kravinski@email.medfield.net.  Enjoy these last few days of summer.  I look forward to seeing my new friends on Wednesday, August 31st!

Stony Brook Field Trip

On Tuesday of this week we headed off to Stony Brook Nature Center in Norfolk for our spring field trip.  It was a picture-perfect day!  The children learned a great deal more about organisms and the different things that are needed in habitats such as forest, field and pond.  Think.... water, food, space and shelter.  We were lucky enough to see many different types of birds, plants, trees and insects as we hiked along the paths at Stony Brook.

Many thanks to our chaperones George Mix, Nicole Crocker and Blake McDermott for joining us on our adventure.  We all enjoyed a picnic lunch outside upon our return and then the children did an amazing amount of writing detailing their time at the nature center.  It was a great day indeed!

 

Our Garden is Open for Business!

Well, Room 10's garden is up and running for another season!  On April 27, with a beautiful sunny day on our side, we headed outside to begin planting.  Prior to putting the seeds in the dirt, however, we did what any good gardener would do and planned our approach.  We...

• Wrote our "Respectful Gardening Rules" so that we use the space with care, and respect for nearby classrooms.
• Brainstormed all the different types of vegetables and flowers we might like to grow, and learned that certain types will do better given our space and timing parameters.
• Broke up into four gardening teams, determined which seeds each team would plant and labeled our plant stakes.
• Invited Mr. Ravinski to come a day ahead of time with his rototiller to prep our soil.  He agreed!
• Coordinated a few parents helpers for the big day..... many thanks to Blake McDermott, Inger Kenworthy, Patti Allen and Michelle Mix for their extra sets of helping hands!
• Purchased fresh sets of seeds, salt marsh hay for our path, a new hose and spray nozzle.  Many thanks for the donations to our garden fund!

Pictures tell the story best, so take a peek below to see how our garden opening unfolded.  It was a lot of fun and we had many laughs.  Your first grader has surely reported that since then we have several new seedlings popping out of the ground.  Fingers crossed that our lettuce will be ready for harvest in time for Salad Day in June.  More soon about our garden's progress in the days ahead!

Teamwork!

We have been working on a number of projects requiring teamwork lately....  making signs to welcome visiting author Melissa Stewart, building geometric structures / designs, and measuring the length of our tables.  These kids sure do work together with enthusiasm and an eye towards shared problem-solving!

We did some garden planning this week, and we will be exercising our teamwork muscles for certain when we return from vacation and prepare to PLANT!  Happy vacation to all!