WMA in the Classroom 2013-2014

WMA in the Classroom First and Second Trimester Highlights

ECC Highlights          

Johnny Appleseed Celebration Halloween Parade and Party Christmas Concert and Treats with Parents New Year’s PJ Bash Valentine’s Day Party My Heart Belongs to Jesus (Valentine’s Day) Winter with Snow Flake Bentley Wild Weather Soup Centers George Washington Carver (Scientist and Inventor) Mae Jamison ( First African American Astronaut )

Early Childhood Class...

Getting a Good Start

Montessori...

Discovering their World The Montessori all-day students baked pumpkin bread in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The pilgrims and Indians shared a Thanksgiving Feast in the classroom. They had a wonderful Christmas Show, too.

Also, all dayers have been preparing vegetables to make salads for St. Columba’s Shelter for men in Philadelphia.

Pre-K...

Having a Ball

Pre-K Highlights 

Highland Orchards in West Chester—apple picking, building a scarecrow, running through a hay maze, making apple cider from an apple press, and eating delicious apple cider donuts!

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The Lower Merion Conservancy in Gladwyne—learning about the different types of trees and leaves

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Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania—each child had a favorite scene or character from “Peter Pan.”

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Enjoyed having their grandparents come to school for a Thanksgiving Prayer Service which was held in the Cafeteria.

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Love having a fourth grade Big Buddies! They get together once a month and have fun.

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Decorated Johnny Appleseed Hats and Big Buddy read a story to a Little Buddy

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Decorated a small pumpkin

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Strung beads to make Native American Indian necklaces

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Big Buddies read a favorite Christmas story to their Little Buddies and helped them make reindeer hats.

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Student Appreciation Day—The Olympics!

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Dr. Seuss Birthday Celebration

Kindergarten...

Making its Mark

Kindergarten Highlights  

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Blessing of the classrooms in September Making “Who Will Tell the Story?” Halloween costumes with eighth grade Big Buddies and trick-ortreating at McAuley Convent Sibling Day on November 13 November voting booth Thanksgiving Prayer Service and Breakfast Christmas Craft Day Dozens Day on December 12 Annual Christmas Program American Heroes—Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Underground Railroad February Prayer Service and Olympic Medals Learning about Peru Dozens Day 100 Day

Grade One...

Giving Back

Grade One Highlights 

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Field trip to Colonial Plantation: making candles and learning about colonial life in the 1800s.

Working hard on their 90 acts of Mercy in the classroom and on the playground Learning all about sentences—capitalization, punctuation, and naming part and action part.

Created stories for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas Visiting Saunders House and spending quality time playing games with the residents Busy December—gingerbread house making, visits from St. Nicholas, and Santa with a Snack, hearing an old time favorite story—The Polar Express with Mr. Stritch, book/card exchange in the classrooms, and lots of excitement!

Grade Two...

Growing by Leaps and Bounds

Grade Two Highlights 

Received the Sacrament of Reconciliation

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Created QR codes on Main Idea

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Explored Geometry by making shapes out of marshmallows and toothpicks

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The Polar Express Day –connected literature with creating candy trains, drinking hot cocoa, and watching the movie.

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Field Trip to the Camden Aquarium and learning about “Animals and their Habitats”

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Loving working with our classroom iPads

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Implementing Journey’s Reading Series into the classroom

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Working with and having fun with the residents of Saunders House

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Created crafts and reading books with Big Buddies for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas

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Enjoying the new classroom furniture which creates a more cohesive learning environment

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Skyped with students in Nicaragua and Canada

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Persuasive blogs asking Mrs. Stetser for a week without uniforms...it worked!

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Famous People Biographies

Grade Three...

Exploring the World

Grade Three Highlights 

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Johnny Appleseed Day—made apple butter.

Took turns slicing and dicing the apples, added a dash of cinnamon and let the crock pot do most of the work.

Read some great stories about the life of Johnny Appleseed and worked on some fun crafts. Before they knew it, the sweet aromas spread throughout the classroom (and down the hallway), and third graders were ready to taste some yummy apple butter!

Made their musical instruments out of household products as one of its STEM projects!

The entire third grade rocked its performance at the Christmas Concert! They looked so cute in their festive green and red (mostly red) attire.

Baked Thanksgiving pumpkin bread with their parents Completed Pennsylvania biography research on famous Pennsylvanians Christmas Around the World Native American Habitats

Grade Four...

Second Floor, Here they Come!

Grade Four Highlights 

Made a wind turbine that beat the model from the kit

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Made seasonal projects with pre-k Little Buddies

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Collected toiletries for Bethesda Project

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Field trip to Solebury Farms

Religion 

Studied Creation

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Created Diamante Poems

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Studied Old Testament figures – Prehistory through the Patriarchs.

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Studied Catherine McAuley, St. Francis of Assisi, Rachel Carson and Chief Seattle

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Studied the Liturgical Calendar and colors

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Created Advent calendars

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Studied the Advent Wreath, Jesse Tree, O Antiphons and other Advent symbols.

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Read and studied the Sunday gospels in Venture magazine

Math 

Mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication and division

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Working on their stock project – students “bought” $10,000 worth of stock and are tracking it using Excel and Yahoo Finance. It lasts all year long!

Language Arts 

Reading Genres: Historical Fiction, Mysteries, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, Realistic Fiction, Biography, Non-Fiction

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Skills and Strategies: Previewing Text; Making Inferences; Making Connections; Comparing and Contrasting; Classifying and Categorizing; Identifying Cause and Effect; Questioning, Visualizing, Using Context to Build Comprehension (physical setting, historical time period); Summarizing, Responding to Text; Evaluating Text; Character Analysis; Elements of a Novel or Short Story; Determining Author’s Purpose; Exploring Diverse Perspectives (author, characters, readers)

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Novels Read: The Secret School, Stone Fox, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Snow Treasure

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Writing Projects: Descriptive Paragraph; Beginning-Middle-End Mystery; Persuasive Letter; Opinion Essay; New Year’s Resolution Paragraph (refresher on paragraph structure following winter break); Writing a Story Sequel

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Writing Skills: Narrowing Ideas and Creating an Objective; Brainstorming Ideas and Details (providing examples to strengthen ideas); Strong Word Choice; Organizing and Planning; Sentence Fluency and Paragraph Structure (clarity, cohesiveness, flow, etc.); Effective Transitions; Revising and Editing; Providing Constructive Criticism during Peer Conferences; Conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar); Publishing; Presenting Written Work to an Audience

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Grammar: The Sentence (subjects and predicates), Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives

Grade Five...

Learning about Themselves

Grade Five Highlights 

Visits to Catholic Worker Clinic in groups of four to assist the clients in writing Christmas and holiday cards

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A parent of a fifth grade student spoke to the students about careers.

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Visited the Sisters at McAuley Convent to sing at Christmas

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Field trip to Palmyra Cove Nature Park

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Baked pumpkin bread for Thanksgiving

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Learned about Confirmation and how to prepare for receiving this sacrament

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Learned about saints and how they model what it means to be Mercy

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Created SCRATCH programs about the saints. Each student created a storyboard based on an act of mercy or pivotal moment in the life of a saint from a book he or she read.

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Completed a research project on Canada, creating giant postcards about the territory or province they studied in Social Studies

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Learning a lot about fractions and mixed number as well as how to add, subtract, multiply and divide them. They will be moving on to decimals very soon.

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Wrote a personal narrative on an important moment in their lives, and took several Weekly Skills Tests that focus on grammar and vocabulary building.

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Read the novels Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick and Eggs by Jerry Spinelli. After reading a class novel, students engage in Socratic Seminars to discuss major themes and concepts in the novel including: friendship, loss, forgiveness, and family. Students wrote a fiveparagraph literary essay on both novels on a topic of the class’ choosing.

Grade Six...

Piloting New Programs

Grade Six Highlights 

Team-Building Day in the fall

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Learning programming by creating animations in Scratch, an online community and programming language

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Celebrated Halloween and Christmas with their Little Buddies

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Went to see the Pompeii exhibit at the Franklin Institute which integrated the social studies and science curriculum. They also saw a CBS 3 Weather Show. Students also went to the planetarium and saw a film on how everyday man’s daily technology originated from technology founded for use in space exploration.

Language Arts 

Piloting Chromebooks and using them for vocabulary review on quizlet, taking quizzes, completing discussion boards, submitting projects, and compiling/sharing information in our online classroom (Edmodo)

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Read independent novels that students chose from the library and wrote a proposal to have the book be made into a movie. They also created a trailer for their future movie.

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They read the book, Bridge to Terabithia, which was the source of a lot of great discussions, a Socratic seminar (graded, student-led discussion) and philosophical chairs.

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Students wrote an informative research paper on the topic of their choice; many students chose an Olympic topic and those students created a group presentation for Community Gathering.

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My brother, who just returned from serving overseas as a Navy Seal, came in to visit the 6th grade before he left (In October). We learned all about what it's like to be a Navy Seal and students got to ask questions about his job. Students practiced letter writing while he was away (we sent him decorations and cards for Christmas and a special letter via e-mail for Thanksgiving).

Math 

Learning about fractions and integers and how to add, subtract, multiply and divide them. After mastering decimals, they will be moving on to ratios, percent and proportions

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Learned about prime factorization and factor trees and how to find the GCF and LCM using factors trees.

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Spent time solving equations using the inverse operation to isolate the variable.

Social Studies 

Currently studying Ancient Greece and Rome

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Previously studied governments, culture, and the effects of geography for the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, and the empires of Middle East, India and China

Religion 

Compared Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism

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Studying the Covenant made with Abraham and its continuation through Jacob, Isaac, Moses and Joshua and the leaders described in the Book of Judges

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Learned about The Exodus and The Exile

Grade Seven...

Almost There

Grade Seven Highlights Science 

Writing a formal lab report using a rubric

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Labs including Designing an experiment to test an Earthworms Response to a Stimulus; a Dichotomous Key to classify organisms; Denaturation of Proteins; and the Plant Cell/Onion Tissue

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Created an advertising campaign for National Nutrition Week to help teenagers eat a healthy diet using technology

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Using a digital online scrapbook to compare a plant or animal cell to a building

Language Arts 

Read Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, and Skyping with the book’s author, Jordan Sonnenblickm and wrote a character analysis essay on the main character of the story

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Studied S.E. Hinton’s young adult classic novel, The Outsiders and dressed as Greasers and performed skits, which allowed them to display their understanding of various literary elements present in the novel

Social Studies 

Learned about the history of our country’s early years

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Learned about our Constitution

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Prepared for future forensic tournaments

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Participating in the 20/20 Challenge, which is trying to solve 20 global problems in 20 years. This year's topic is poverty. Students are working with two other schools, the Baldwin School and the International School in Japan. Great critical thinking skills are involved.

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Studying the Era of the Roaring Twenties

Religion 

Interviews on vocations

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Drew a picture of Saint Andrew Taegon

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The Our Father rewritten in students’ own words and then put into Tagxedo

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Celebrated the feast of St. Francis of Assisi with pet photos and a prayer service

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The Maryknoll Essay Contest

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Created Memorial Cards to commemorate those who have passed on.

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Created a three-minute online retreat using Prezi

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Painted the chairs that were distributed to each homeroom as part of our theme

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Created postage stamps to depict the dignity of man (God’s creation)

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“As a shepherd protects his sheep, who protects us in life?” assignment on Edmodo

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Created a Tzedakah (Charity Box) to collect money for those in the Phillipines

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Gospel Reenactments

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“Simon Birch” and learned how to write a paper based on a media presentation (Catholic-scripture based)

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Yearlong Catholic Genius Contest run on Socrative (Cherubims vs. Magisteriums)

Grade Eight...

Preparing for the Future

Grade Eight Highlights Science 

Writing formal lab reports using a rubric

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Labs, including Measurement; Mass Volume and Indirect Measurement; Speed; Newton’s Three Laws; Energy in a System and Conservation of Energy

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Project on safety design features used by auto manufacturers and presented it to the class using technology

Social Studies 

Visit to the National Constitution and met Congressman John Lewis. They also received an autograph copy of his book. The class had researched the life of John Lewis before their meeting.

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Learned about the events of 1974 to 2013. This knowledge should help them to better understand what is going on in our world today.

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Learned about the Progressive Movement. Each eighth grader researched a topic that interested them, wrote a persuasive speech and then delivered it to their classmates.

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Preparing for forensic tournaments

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World Affairs Council Model UN program

Religion 

Participated in the Catholic Genius Contest (Socrative)

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Viewed Oscar Romero movie and wrote a critical-thinking paper on it as a follow-up to a Catholic social justice lesson on Oscar Romero

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All Souls Day field trip to East Laurel Hill Cemetery

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Marian apparition group projects using Prezi

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Gospel Reenactments

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Saint Francis of Assisi prayer service

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Students love the new assessments and texts in religion. No tests!

English 

Research papers about a topic of their choice. They spent many weeks brainstorming, researching, taking notes, writing and rewriting.

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Group project, where they connected current events to their textbook, And Justice for All

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Writing their own Christmas stories for their Kindergarten buddies

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Began To Kill a Mockingbird. They will be reading the story, discussing it, and doing writing assignments.

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Created collages about themselves. This connected to To Kill a Mockingbird because one of the main characters is coming of age. Eighth grade is a time to get to know yourself before you enter high school.

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Learning about transitive and intransitive verbs.

 Math 

Research project, titled “The Green Car,” in which students gathered information about the amount of barrels of petroleum, air pollution rating and evaluated the levels of greenhouse gases. They collected the data, graphed it and evaluated the information in a formal report.

Highlights from WMA Giving Tree

Mercy Day Mass

Olweus Meetings

Homecoming

Christmas Concert

Carol Night

String Ensemble at McAuley Convent Winter Carnival

Chinese New Year

Student Appreciation Day Olympics