Ms. Puglissi's Class Getting Recorder Ready

The third grade students have been working hard learning their lines and space notes on the Treble Clef to be recorder ready!! In music class this week the students learned what a mnemonic is! The students worked together to create their own musical mnemonic to remember their five line notes E,G,B,D,F on the Treble Clef! The mnemonics were meant to be silly and make us laugh! Some very creative examples by the students included: Elvis' Guitar Broke Down Friday and Every Good Boss Deserves Fudge! 

Characters Come To Life Through Dialogue In Mrs. McGuire's Class

Last week Mrs. McGuire’s class discussed how in a story, dialogue is the words characters say. Dialogue helps the reader imagine what the characters are like and how they act. Together, the class created a list of "speaker's tags" that can make the story more interesting instead of repeating tags such as "he said, she said". Students also discussed the use of punctuation and quotation marks. On day one, the class looked closely at a pre-written dialogue and identified the speaker's tags, the use of quotation marks and punctuation. On day two, together students brainstormed a dialogue and wrote a story as a class. On day three pictures were added.  The task was to work collaboratively to write a dialogue between two friends who were having a disagreement. The children worked together to brainstorm a dialogue, they shared the pen, and "performed" their dialogue for the class. Every child participated in one aspect or another. Now students are working on dialogues individually.  

Meeting the Demands of Common Core Math Standards in Mr. Parisi's Class

 Students in Mr. Parisi’s class engaged in a math lesson utilizing counters as a manipulative to practice creating groups for repeated addition and arrays for multiplication.  Dayton Avenue School is meeting the demands of the Common Core State Standards in mathematics through a commitment to curriculum development and hands-on activities for students.  

National Recognition for Dayton Avenue Courtyard

The courtyard at the Dayton Avenue School has been recognized as a Certified Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. The third-grade students, along with their teachers, Mr. Burns, Mrs. Dries, Mrs. VanTronk, Mrs. Damboise, and Miss Lucia, worked collaboratively throughout the year to achieve this goal. The children participated in hands-on learning activities while providing local wildlife with food, water, shelter, and a place to raise their young.

Fall Writing Activity in Mrs. Rubin's Class

Students in Mrs. Rubin’s class recently brainstormed descriptive words that describe autumn.  The posters included autumn looks like, autumn smells like, autumn tastes like, autumn feels like, and autumn sounds like.  Afterwards, the class used their charts to write autumn sensory poems. 

Mrs. Smith's Fifth Grade Class Differentiates Instruction

For the last several years Dayton Avenue School has worked with nationally recognized school consultant Judy Dodge in the implementation of differentiated instructional strategies.  Recently, in Mrs. Smith's Readers Workshop students completed a carousel activity.  The goal of the activity is for small groups of students to move around the room, working collaboratively, to answer questions related to the lesson.  This instructional strategy provides the opportunity for each subsequent group to build on the knowledge of the previous group.  Furthermore, this activity creates a meaningful classroom experience that deepens student understanding of content and promotes teamwork.