Sixth Week: October 6-10, 2008

    It only seemed appropriate that this being "Fire Prevention Month" and the Second Grade going to visit the town's Emergency Facilities, that the week be punctuated by two evacuation drills. One was announced and one was not. For both, we practiced evacuating to what has been called our Secondary Evacuation Site. For the latter, the Fire Department was here to observe procedures. For our Classroom Extension to the Emergency Facilities, I want to thank the EMT crew who demonstrated with some real kids, the back board and neck collar for stabilizing potential neck and back injuries so they can load the  "patient" into the ambulance. They also used the stethoscope, then showed them the back and the cab with the radios.

    Many children were surprised to learn that the Police Station was once the Post Office as shown by a huge mural of the Pony Express delivery to Colonial Kennebunk. In the Police Station, Officer Carney pointed out the all-important Dispatch Center then we visited the Squad Room , Interview Room, and the Briefing Room before seeing the interiors and trunks of a squad car and the Animal Control Officer's car.

    There was Soooo much to see in the actual Fire Station as well as numerous Fire Fighters there, were eager to tell us about everything. A fire fighter donned all his "turn-out" gear from the steel-toed boots through the hood, helmet, mask, and tank so that they  could emphasize the look of a fire-fighter to help eliminate any fears. They explained that the goal of the gear is to cover all the officer's exposed skin and to keep out smoke which seems to be equally dangerous as flames in a fire situation. The differences between the ladder truck and the engine/pumper trucks were explained as well as the vast assortment of tools to help in both fires and car accidents. It was very impressive!

    Although we debriefed and made lists of what we had learned on this second "field trip" about community helpers, we did not start the thank you letters yet. We were still correcting the letters to the four other previous destinations so they can be delivered. My personal "thanks you's" go out to these parents who gave up an afternoon to keep us safe on our trip: Ann Charlton, Louise DeLorenzo, Diane Guay, Lisa Palmer-D'Orso, and Bill Van Deinse. We did take a break from the "Magic Treehouse volume : Vacation Under the Volcano during my "Teacher Read" portion of afternoon snack time to listen to some of the Community Helper books from the Kennebunk Free Library.

    In Writers' Workshop, Mrs. Lisa Erickson Harris has been helping the children transfer their "Favorite Summer Activity"  Power Plan onto the color coordinated strips. Next they will copy over the corrected strips onto a sheet of paper to have a finished product. In the area of creative writing, Mrs. Lisa VanDeinse helped pass out samples of 5 different kinds of apples in a sensory experience to elicit describing words. From their Writing Notebook lists of adjectives for Apples, Acorns, and Leaves, she helped them create their first acrostic poems with another choice being "Autumn" .

    In Readers" Workshop, we finally started Reading Groups with the books ranging from fiction, nonfiction and biography (Columbus, of course). Along with the groups, the children received their first "Center Contracts" for activities from a limited number of choices until they get used to how the whole system operates smoothly.Several of these centers will change weekly to add more variety such as the Listening Center and  Poem Pocket Chart.

    Lastly, in science we continued the Life Cycle Unit expanding from observing and recoding tree growth to human growth. Today we began measuring and recording fall data  of our height and making painted hand prints which we will glue into our notebooks then measure the length for that data. Along with foot size and head circumference, we will repeat this process in the spring to compare and, hopefully, observe growth.