On The Lookout!

My second chapter book of the Spring Break was, Martin Bridge On The Lookout! Written by Jessca Scott Kerrin this was a delightful book for independent readers of all ages. This book contains three chapters and follows the adventures and misadventures of Martin Bridge and his three best friends. Chapter one has a party guest arriving at Martin's house the day after his birthday party! Chapter two has Martin missing his class field trip to the dinosaur museum. Chapter three follows the adventures of a missing class pet at Martin's school. Each chapter was delightful to read with interesting surprises that I never expected. Check-it out!

It's Time To Vote!

It's time to vote for the Beverly Cleray award book for 2007. We have had all the books on display in the library and each of the upper grades has been exposed to at least two of the books during library time which allows us the privilege of voting which of the books we think should be awarded the prestigious Beverly Cleary Award. If you want to read one more of the nominee books before we vote grab a great book at the public library or local bookstore.

Watch for information on the 2008 nominees coming soon!

M-1, M-2 and C-6 Open Lab Times

M-1 and M-2, I will be offering open lab times for any of you who would like to work on your vacation stops. We will be completing our vacation travels next week, April 2-6 and begin creating our power point scrapbooks April 9-13. If you need more time to travel and collect information come to the following open lab times. Note some need parent written permission.

Wednesday and Thursday

8:00-8:45 *

3:15-3:45*

Wednesday and Friday

lunch recess

*Parent permission required to work in the lab

C-6 you may come during Friday lunch recess

Who Killed Zoe?

I wasn't sure if it really was Brody even though he had been convicted and was serving time for her murder. I thought it could have been the Judge, maybe the drifter, or any one of the people living at the lake who was tired of her wild behavior and had just snapped in a moment of anger. I now know who did kill this young girl but I'm not going to tell you! Twister Summer by Willo Davis Roberts was my first Spring Break chapter book read of the week. For the mature (soon to be Middle School ) reader this book is full of mystery and suspense. Not only who killed Zoe but who is trying to keep Cici quite? Will Cici and Jack become a couple? So many questions in this book. Check it out next week when we return to school!

Stars Of The Week

A-3...Tono, Jatzery, Justin

C-3...Chase, Araya

C-5...Colin, Michael P., Cody, Michael C.

M-2...Spencer D.

We're Off On Vacation!

M-1, M-2...5th graders are off on their virtual vacation. They are visiting sites throughout the Western United States and gathering their information for their Power Point Scrapbook.

Map Skills

C-4, C-5…4th and 5th graders have been working on map skills both with the state of Oregon maps, various other state maps. We will be moving on to playing Map Coordinate Bingo with a USA map. We will learn how to use the map grids to locate states and other information.

Power Point Projects

C-1, C-6, M-1, M2 …4th graders are taking the notes they made on their Endangered Animal report in Microsoft Word and are now putting the same information into a Power Point presentation. Some students are working with a partner and some are flying solo. These are exciting days as we see computer skills sore!

Hamster Reports

B-4, B-5, C-1, C-2, C-3…All began the typing of their hamster reports in Microsoft Word this week. We look forward in the days to come to see these reports taking shape.

Katchine Dolls

B-3, B-6..The 2nd graders from both of these classes were the last of the second graders to complete the story The Mystery 0f The Eagle Feather by Elspeth Campbell Murphy and made the Katchine Dolls that follow the reading of this book. 1st graders worked on learning computer parts as well, and were treated to the story of Somebody and The Three Blair’s by Marilyn Tolhurst. We compared this story and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Dewey Decimal and Historical Fiction

B-1, B-2… Began to learn how the library non-fiction section is organized using the Dewey Decimal System. We have started checking out non-fiction books every other week from select parts of the non-fiction sections. Last week we focused on the 000, 100, 200,300, 400’s. Ask your child if they know what type of book is located in each of their 100’s classifications. The book that set the stage for our non-fiction venture was, What Marion Taught Willis, by Brook Berg.

B-1 and B-2…We also completed our Historical Fiction book Buffalo Before Breakfast B-1 and Tonight On The Titanic B-2 by Mary Pope Osborne. Ask your child what Historical Fiction is all about.

Computer Parts

A-3, A-4, A-6, B-6…These 1st graders learned the correct names for the parts of the computer and what each of those parts of the computer does. We got to see the insides of a computer, and practice our listening skills with a computer coloring sheet. Ask your child about the following computer parts: Mouse Pad, Mouse, Keyboard, Central Processing Unit (C.P.U.), Monitor and Screen

Stories and More Stories

A-1…Our DLC students have been treated this past couple of classes to books about Diversity and how we are all different. We spent Friday making noodle faces. This showed how everyone can look different. Some of our story favorites for this unit were: Just The Way You Are by Marcus Pfister and What I Like About Me byAllia Zobel Nolan and I't Okay To Be Different by Todd Parr.



A-2, A-5… Both AM and PM classes were treated to one of my favorite books, The Great Fuzz Frenzy, by Janet Stevens. Ask your child about this fun book.

What Happened This Week In Media?

We had a very fun and busy time in the Library this last week. Locate your child’s class to see what they are learning. Each class is doing something different. Feel free to see what other classes were doing as well.

So Many Star Students This Week!

It was another great week at Harritt in the library and computer lab!

A-6...Jacob M, Matthew, Anthony, Jonathan, Mark

B-1... Michael

B-5..Tianna

C-3... Christy, Araya, Holden, Geovany

C-4...Wayne, Jeff, Dylan, Skye M., Michael B, andrew, Troy, CodyLisala

C-5...Micheal P

C-6...Derek, Ethan, Kyle

M1...Christofer

M-2...Sergio, Emmalee, Daisy

Which Book To Choose?

That is the question, after attending the Bureau Of Educations seminar by Peggy Sharp on the top children's books for 2006. Listed below are Dr. Sharp's top ten picks for the year. I intend to pick a few more than these ten great books Dr. Sharp shared with us that day. Be watching here for postings of new great books for our library.

All About Almanics

With my absence last week this offered a perfect time for students to take a break from the computer projects we have undertaken. During this break all third-fourth grade classes were shown the value of the Almanac as a reference tool and the wonders of this reference book for a wide variety of facts and information. Ask your child to tell you what they learned about the Almanac.

Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Hamsters and Maps

We have a variety of activities going on in the Library at this time of the year. Not all classes are doing the same activity or reading the same books at this point. Use the paragraphs below to give you direction and to check with your child as to what they are leaning at their Media time.

Realistic Fiction and Historical Fiction are the concepts that the lower grades were focusing on last week in the Library. First graders continued with the concept of Animal Fantasy, Realistic Fiction, and Diversity. Second grade has started talking about Historical Fiction as we read a Mary Pope Osborne chapter book and discuss the realistic parts and the fiction aspects of these chapter books.

Third graders have begun a major project to finish out the year. We learned how to listen for key concepts and how to take notes as Mrs. Wanek read a non-fiction book about hamsters and the care of hamsters. Now we will take these key points into the Computer Lab and work on our Microsoft Word skills to make a booklet all about hamsters.

Fourth and some fifth grade classes have taken the study of their endangered species a step further and have began to do reference material research and continued learning to site our sources for information. We will now take the additional information into the Computer Lab and learn to create a Power Point project on our endangered species.

Some fifth grade classes have been learning map skills, not only for the state of Oregon, but for other Northwest states.

M-1 and M-2 have undertaken a major project to finish out the school year. We are planning a "Virtual Vacation". Students were given a list of points of interest. They were then given the task of locating these places on a US map and marking them in their correct location. Once these locations were marked they then decided where they would like to travel. We used Map-Quest on the Mac laptops to figure out travel time and mileage between the points of interest. Next week if the State testing is completed we will then move back into the Computer Lab to begin our reseach on the the selected points of interest. Our goal is to bring all this information together into a "Virtual Scrapbook" in Microsoft Power Point.

Feel free to stop in at any time and see what your child is doing in the Computer Lab. Keep your eyes on this site for offereings of extra lab times for sudents so they can advance in these projects beyond our regular class times.

Stars For This Week

It was a crazy week as the flu bug hit the Wanek home hard yet even in my absence my students continued to shine bright. The following names were added the the "All Star Wall"

B-3...Tamrat, Lyndsey
M-1...Christian, Matthew, Emmalee, Isabel
M-2...Katie

Thanks guys for being Star Students in my absences. Your behavior shows other out side the Harritt School family what kids at Harritt Elementary are really like.

Read Across America

Read Across America Day was celebrated at Harritt on Friday, March 2nd. This is a day that is celebrated not only throughout Salem Keizer, but all across the United States. You can learn more about Read Across America by following the attached link. (Read Across America). At Harritt teachers selected to have students celebrate each day with a fun activity such as twin day, crazy sock day and backwards day. Each of these special days tied into a book or character created by Theodor Geisel ,otherwise known as Dr. Seuss. Read Across America is celebrated on March 2nd each year, which is also Dr. Seuss' birthday. This year also marked the 50th birthday of the story The Cat in The Hat.

Harritt students also enjoyed a rotational story time as they spent the last part of Friday visiting four different classrooms. They were treated to a story by a different teacher in the Harritt building other than their own regular classroom teacher. It was a great wrap-up to the weeks activities.

What A Bright Week!!

We added 26 more names to the Star of the Week wall this last week. We even added two more kindergarten students this week. Here are the Sinning Star Students of this week:

A-2 (PM Kindergarten)....Madison, Cameron

A-3...Tono

A-6....Mark, Jonathan,

B-2...Kyle

B-4 ...Kanoa

C-1...Paige, Hannah, Shakira, Max, Grace, Stephen

C-2... Araya, Gabe, Gabbi, Paige, Reed

C-4... Cody, Jeffrey

C-5...Cody, Loagan

C-6... Ethan, Audrey, McKenzie, Chalynda

We also found two shelve elves in the first grade A-6 class!

Jadah and Gaige were caught helping to keep our shelves neatly organized.

Thank you Jadah and Gaige!