Snowy Week!

When I arrived through the side door late on Thursday due to trees fallen across a road on my commuting route through Hinesburg, one student greeted me with, "What? Are we in Buffalo or something?"  It's been a fun and funny week.  Apart from the Snow Day, we did a lot of science.

Science  and Reading:
On Tuesday we had "The Engineers" working with us.  These gentlemen are retired IBM employees who have been working this year on several projects with our new enrichment teacher.  In preparation for their work with us they have collaborated with art teacher, MC Baker, music teacher, Danielle Trasciatti and the Equinox teachers.  With them we are studying the science of sound: waves, frequencies, pitch and so on.  They brought useful equipment for demonstrating the relationship between the length of an object and the speed of its vibration.  We also noticed that a speaker converts electrical energy to vibrations and sound.  We look forward to continuing this work that integrates the arts and science.  Each student will ultimately build and learn to play an instrument called the Kalimba.

One student demonstrates frequency.

This pole has a different frequency; why?

We continue to study animal adaptations and practice close reading of nonfiction texts.

On Thursday we learned about Conifers through a Four Winds interactive presentation.  Thanks Shani!  Students learned to identify tree species but the shapes and habits of its needles. We followed up a bit with a look at some interesting pine cones.  Thanks Alex!

Writing:
Students have been busy finishing and typing the first drafts of their realistic stories.  Next week we will revise them for sharing.  Our goal is to finish final revisions by vacation.

Math:
In third grade math students continue to work on rounding three digit numbers, organization of data and using pictographs and ratio tables.
In fourth grade math we continue to work with fractions of wholes.  The focus of the work is primarily on comparing fractions and finding equivalencies.

On Friday Ms. Fisher and Sage visited.  It was a fine conclusion to a week full of special treats.  We also had a presentation by a group of Voyager students about the benefits of using refillable water bottles.  This group designed one (it's a beauty, high quality, camel) and is selling it here at school for $6.00.  As you know that we have one week left until our holiday break.  It promises to be another busy one.

Enjoy the weeknd!

Last Week in Review

Literacy & Science:  This week was a busy one!  We continue our science reading with nonfiction texts and strategies including making inferences and supporting claims with evidence, and identifying and using key vocabulary terms, including adaptations, genes and species  Students practiced their comparison writing strategies describing similarities and differences between a set of identical twins.  

Math:  Third Grade mathematicians are  tackling the multiplication chart.   This activity helps everyone make sense of multiplication by looking at regularity and patterns.   The December calendar focuses on fractions and this month’s Number Corner work involves creating a classroom collection of objects to accumulate a total mass of 1,000 g.   Fourth grade mathematicians are also working on fractions!   Students are making fraction tool-kits with various pieces.   

In Fourth Grade math students took a pretest and reflected on it.  They have begun a unit on fractions.  There has been a lot of work with equivalent fractions as well as some work with the terms improper fraction, mixed number as well as a whole unit.  

Writing:  Authors are working hard to finish the first draft of their realistic fiction drafts.  Next step is tying them into Google Drive.  We reviewed the “checklist” that outlines the narrative standards for writing for both third and fourth graders.  Students will use this tool to self-monitor and self-assess as they work to bring their story to a close. Later this week, students will use the collaborative nature of Google Docs to share their writing with a partner, and support each other in revising and editing using the comment feature.

Engineering, what?:  For the next four weeks we’ll be working through an integrated science/art/engineering project with Ms. Rogers, Mrs. Baker and two engineers who are retired from IBM.  These volunteers and colleagues have been working with Equinox teachers and Mrs. Trasciatti-Holmberg to design a unit of study on sound.  Each student will end up building a Kalimba (thumb heart originally designed in Africa) and learning to play it.  Our class will be working with these folks on Tuesdays only.    

Notes:

• It’s that time of year...please make sure your child comes prepared for outdoor recess each day.  As the temperature drops, it is imperative that all children have appropriate clothing and gear (coat, hat, gloves, snowpants, boots) for outdoor play.     Tomorrow is supposed to be snowy!  I hope everyone will bring snow pants.             
• If your child did not bring home a class picture, please let me know.

• Pajama day was fun!
• We have a sound track for Wonder now, which we have finished reading.  We have begun reading The BFG by Roald Dahl.
• Ask your child about claims and evidence regarding the shark, the dolphin and a tiger.  A full account of this scientific discovery can be found on our Kidblog.

Wonder Links

Here are the links we looked at today in class at the end of our first read through of Wonder as a whole group.
The Annotations

Next we have a link to the trailer for a movie that doesn't exist...It's a trailer for the book entitled Wonder.

Today we began the day, unsurprisingly, with talk of what we are thankful for and how each of us will spend our Thanksgiving this year.  This group of students seems to take nothing for granted: not family, not siblings, not food and shelter and not vacation!  They really are thankful for what they have.  I too am utterly grateful to be working with these students in this school for this year.  This important work is challenging and rewarding.  I appreciate the opportunities I have with students and colleagues  this year.  I also appreciate the community support here within the school and from you, the parents of these students.

Over vacation please take a look at some of  the work your child has done so far this year.  There are a couple of ways online that you can do this.  In addition to Kidblog, students are doing work in Google Classroom.  This week we have been learning more about the genetic code and specifically inherited and acquired traits.  Have your child show you how they documented evidence for their learning on these topics.  In Kidblog you will be able to read about famous author Jeff Kinney’s visit. Follow this link if you would like to see the presentation he gave at another school.

Math:

In fourth grade math we have been discovering the connections between multiplication and division.  Students have worked hard to understand what it means when a quotient has a remainder.  We have read about this, built models of division problems and made conjectures about what exactly a remainder is.  Our current definition of a remainder is:  When the divisor is not a factor of the total, you will have a remainder.  Julia H. made this conjecture and it has been widely proven and accepted.  You can see there is great mathematical thinking going on!  We have also been studying the analogue clock and elapsed time.  On Friday, we had the Unit 2 Assessment.

Literacy and Science:

We have taken a bit of a break from our realistic story writing to do some science writing and to reflect on Jeff Kinney’s visit.  His presentation was accessible and far reaching, as you will see when  you read the student posts!  Most compelling was his sharing of his writing process and the fact that it took years and years of hard work and perseverance before he was actually discovered and later published.  He was both open and humble with this very large audience (the whole school).  We offer many thanks to Karen Hennig, our school librarian for working hard to organize this event.  We are also grateful to The Flying Pig bookstore in Shelburne for sponsoring author visit!

Part of our reading instruction this week has been in connection with the Science program mentioned above called Seeds of Science, Roots of Reading. We have been working on recognizing and using the features of nonfiction texts (captions, headings, titles, subtitles, illustrations) to further our understanding.  We have discussed the differences between observations and inferences as we learn about genes, heredity and so on.  Students have been working in partnerships throughout this unit. They have been engaged and productive!  The integrated approach is a vibrant part of both our literacy and our science learning menu.

We have been reading a variety of books this week.  Our Principal, Mrs. Parks, shared a book about the engineering process with our class yesterday.  We have also read Weird Sea Creatures, a new book gifted to us from the Book Fair. We appreciate each of our new books and information cards! I hope you will have time to read with your children over the break.

I wish you all a cozy and satisfying Thanksgiving week!

The Week in Review

Hello!

It has been a productive week here in Equinox House!  For a variety of reasons, students did not complete weekly updates this week. You'll have to rely on my perspective.

Literacy:

This week, some students started reading groups.  Reading strategies continue to focus on vocabulary, making inferences, attention to detail and questioning the text.  Students in groups are participating in Guided Reading sessions with me.

Young writers continue to write scenes for their realistic fiction stories to get to know their characters better and to develop their plot line.  Students are focusing on character development in Wonder.   Morning work challenges (DLR - daily language review) included concepts of antonyms, “guide words” and alphabetical order and syllabication.  

Math:

This week fourth graders have continued to multiply two digit by two digit numbers.  They are practicing using strategies by building arrays.  Students are also using what they know about single digit numbers and multiples of ten to calculate large products.  

Third grade mathematicians have spent the week working equal groups.   “Using equal groups to arrive at the total” as the Core Math Idea has allowed practice with halving, doubling, arrays, and skip counts.   

Science:

We are reading a book called The Code which is about inherited and genetic characteristics.  We have examined photos of fruit flies and we are looking at those of people as well to recognize variation and relatedness. Students have begun to recognize differences between inherited and acquired characteristics in living things.  This distinction is central to the science content knowledge being presented in this unit.  Another goal of the lesson is that students will practice making inferences.  This has been a goal in previous lessons in this unit as well.  

Awards:

These are given at Friday Kiva where we also give Xtra Math, Lexia, Digital Passport and various other certificates.

We have finally decided on a Student Award called The Stupendous Student!  This award will be given by a student to a student who displays the following:

-School SMARTS (Safety, Mindfulness, Acceptance, Respect, Truthfulness)

-Empathy

This week Henry was nominated by at least three of his peers. He is the first to win the Stupendous Student Award.

The teacher award is given by me.  We call it the Student of the Week Award and it recognizes students for special attention to their own particular school challenge as well as the great attributes any particular student naturally brings to our classroom community.  

Please Note:

• Booster cells are still being awarded for students who follow adult directions the first time!  
• Coat Drive:  CVU is partnering with the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program in a coat drive - please bring in your gently used winter wear and leaving it in the box in the WCS lobby until 11/21/14.  
• ¾ Chorus is cancelled for Wednesday, 11/19.

Weekly Updates

This week we have had some fun and unusual learning experiences.   We’ve watched some music videos, studied the gubernatorial elections, virtually toured the outside of the Vermont State House and toured Washington, DC.  We have even had some free choice.  We have done less blogging, Global Read Aloud and taken a day off of science.  We also had Four Winds which is always a treat!

Writing:  Students have added to their story arcs by writing scenes for their characters. Third and fourth graders also took a local standardized writing assessment.  In fourth grade students had to write an informative article based on a non fiction  article about an animal.  They chose one of three animals to study.  Third graders had to write a persuasive essay based on some new information.  These writing prompts are aligned with the English Language Arts Common Core standards. They were administered in ways that approximate what we expect in the SBAC testing sessions.  

Math:  In fourth grade math we have been working on deepening students’ understanding of multiplication.  We have continued our practice with multiplication arrays.  From there we have used sketches and base ten materials to multiply single digits by multiples of ten.  We have also used ratio tables to understand multiplicative relationships.  Also,  throughout the week we have continued to work in Work Place stations to practice math facts and  multiplicative concepts.  

Students in third grade math have been working on strategies for multiplication.   Using the Great Barrier Reef as a backdrop, everyone practiced the strategies of doubling, repeated addition, and loops and groups.   The November Number Corner markers model the array strategy.   Students are encouraged to use freerice.com to make multiplication facts automatic.  

Reading:  Our reading remains largely independent except during science class when we have very guided reading in nonfiction texts.  We are just beginning to have guided reading groups.  

Science:  We finished our unit introducing the idea of variation among living things.  Thursday’s Four Winds session helped us revisit some of this thinking.

We continue to work on demonstrating expected behaviors.  The school wide reinforcers or SMART cells and their boosters have been in play this week-there is an added competition.

Next week's sharing theme is this: Share something important to you. It could be a memory, an upcoming event, a souvenir, Something. If you get a chance, please help your child prepare for this. Thanks!

Harvest Halloween

Thanks to everyone who helped make Friday such a great day!  Ms. Fisher and Sage joined us for much of it, which was a real treat.  We enjoyed the outdoor time at the third and fourth grade harvest party as well as our Stone Soup festivities.  The biggest surprise for all is that the stupendous students loved the stone soup.  After all that worry about having to taste it, most came back for seconds.  We may have to make that again.  The students were proud of their contributions: fresh corn, quinoa, peppers, onions, blue potatoes, white potatoes, fingerling potatoes, celery, and carrots, carrots, carrots and basil. We had two Readers' Theater plays that were great too!

As for the week in review...

This week, both our reading and science work focused on the concept of compare and contrast.  As part of the GRA, we read Sky Color by Peter Reynolds and students were asked to choose a second Peter Reynolds book to compare and contrast it with.    In science this week, students explored nonfiction text features including captions, diagrams, headings and photographs.  Students also wrote structured comparisons of two canines, the fox and the wolf.

Students made lots of progress in Xtra Math and on Digital Passports-many moving up a level in math or completing all of the digital safety work with an 80 % average or above. We are making great use of those Chromebooks!

In fourth grade math we had another assessment-this time of the Number Corner concepts presented. That spanned two days. We also had a band demonstration one day (see students' blogs). In the two days of instruction and practice, students explored the relation between linear base ten units and area. We used arrays to multiply multi-digit numbers. Third grade math also had what Ms. Ward calls a stop and go week. There were some assessments and some practice on how to take an assessment. Students began dabbling in multiplication.

In writing we continue to work on our realistic fiction. Students got to know and develop their characters by 'walking in my character's shoes.' These sketches are posted on Kidblog

Notes:
 - Fourth Grade Band Sign Up due Friday
 - Jessica Lamorey and Katie Cuttitta will return on Monday
 - Stephanie Bliss will finish on Monday as a Substitute
 - Monday will be an After-School Volleyball Demonstration by CVU 

It has been great meeting with you parents in the conferences over the last several weeks.  If you and I have not had a conference, please contact me to set one up.  

Reading:  We continue to read Wonder and are closely examining character development, voice and perspective.  Our Global Read Aloud (GRA) books for the past two weeks were I’m Here and Ish.  Students have engaged in rich discussions in class about the author’s message.

Math:  During Number Corner, students in Grade Three Math have been working with volume measurement using milliliters and liters. The class is creating a rainbow of colored water while practicing measuring 250 ml. Number Corner also involves an introduction to multiplication through the game, Frog Jump! Unit one math lessons have revolved around showing multiple pathways to solve two-step number problems with addition and subtraction. The finale of unit one was the assessment on Friday. Next week will be the October Number Corner assessment.

Fourth Graders continue to build multiplicative reasoning as they work with multi-digit multiplication and early division.  In Module 1, students use base ten area pieces to investigate place value patterns, as well as model and solve single- and double-digit multiplication problems.  In Google Classroom, a Doc with support games for Unit 2 has been shared.  They are welcome to use this valuable resource as their fact practice.

Theme (Science):  We are well into our science investigation - Variations and Adaptations of Living Things.  Students are really enjoying this science and literacy integrated unit, and are observing characteristics of living things that show relatedness and variation.  listening to bird calls to distinguish between songbirds and nonsongbirds was a treat!  Ask your child what birds we listened to!  Students are reading nonfiction text, observing animals in photographs, watching videos of animal movement and listening to bird calls to distinguish songbirds from non-songbirds.  We are also beginning a mold investigation!

Writing:  In writing we are guiding students into what many fiction writers consider the heart of fiction: character struggle and motivation.  We have created believable characters and now we will decide what this person wants or hopes for.  In our next writing sessions we will try to balance a combination of hopes and obstacles.  

We framed our blog updates by having each child choose a topic and each had a checklist with which to review and edit their own work.  These narrow parameters have helped us post in a more timely fashion.

Community:  We are working on internalizing our SMART behaviors whether or not an adult is present.  We have played some fun games including pictionary-ish and charades using the animals from our science unit.  We are finally beginning to get our Jobs going too!  Overall we have had a great, full week!

Next Week:  The WCS Harvest Festival will take place at school on 10/31 during the day.  Your child will need to bring a few things-please see the separate post.

Science, Global Read Aloud, Theme Time Spiders!

The week has been busier than ever!  Likely we have had more fun than ever too! We have added a science/literacy block with Ms. Ward’s class and the joined the Global Read Aloud project.  We continue to try to post a weekly reflection from every student and from me!  We have not quite figured out how to do this in the time we have and have ‘clean’ work.  

We've enjoyed the reading of two books during Read Aloud this week.  We continue to read Wonder and students have felt great empathy for the main character, Auggie as he faces  some cruel social challenges.  We are also invited to shift perspectives as we hear from his sister, Via.  I have encouraged students to draw on these moving passages as we develop our own ideas for writing realistic fiction stories.  

As members of the Global Read Aloud project we are studying the books of Peter Reynolds.  This week we read The North Star.  Students have written several reflections connected to this book. The book itself focuses on each person’s personal journey and choices.  We will all be  blogging to connect our thinking about reading Peter Reynold's books as a way to connect beyond our classroom and Williston walls!

Our class is studying science topics with Ms. Ward’s class.  We are doing close reads to learn about the variation and relatedness of organisms, adaptation, heredity and so on.  We are implementing a program called Seeds of Science, Roots of Reading as one way to address the Next Generation Science Standards.  Students have enjoyed the partner reading of these nonfiction texts with their vivid photographs and interesting concepts.  We all enjoy partnering with Ms. Ward’s class.  

As I’ve mentioned above, in writing students have spent time finding ideas for realistic fiction stories by examining small moments from their lives. noticing and collecting these small moments has been very challenging.  We are learning to find characters in our own experience that we can use. This involves some dramatic story telling on my part.  

We love using the Chromebooks.  One challenge has been figuring out how to complete the much needed editing on the first draft of blog posts.  We continue to grapple with this. Once again most posts will be published on Monday.  

In math fourth graders completed the work for Unit 1-multiplication and division.  They took the unit test on Friday.  On Monday we will begin some work on measurement.  There was no paper homework last week rather I sent links to games that will help deepen the conceptual knowledge of factors, multiples, prime and composite numbers.

That’s all for now, oh...except that we saw a spider emerge from it’s egg sack in the kiva on Friday and we had a great time at the Potluck on Thursday! Please remember that next week is a three day week for students and please sign up for a conference with me using the link I sent.

 

Better Late Than Never...

Sorry we did not get our posts up Friday!  Students used a ‘story frame’ that I posted in Google Classroom to write their blog posts last week.  This morning they were able to copy and paste their entries into Kidblog pretty independently.  It is great to see their skills build.

We are beginning our work in our Writer’s Notebooks.  Our first unit of study will be realistic fiction.  We are following  the Lucy Calkins curriculum.  Right now we are searching for small moments that can be seeds for important stories.  This week we’ll also be working on character development.

During Reading I have been conducting assessments as students read, make connections and visualize.  This is also the work we are doing and discussing in Read Aloud as we have read Wonder. With the other Equinox classrooms, we are participating in a Global Read Aloud.  With other participants around the world we are doing a Peter Reynolds author study (The Dot) and responding to the texts.  Today we read The North Star. You can learn more about Global Read Aloud via this link.

Multiplicative comparisons are the focus of our math work in my class.  We are working with multiples, strategies for ratio tables based on multiples and the phrase “X times as many as.”  We are continuing this work during the week.  We are working in Work Places playing games designed to deepen students’ knowledge and skills with these concepts.  In third grade math students are working on strategies for practicing adding and subtracting numbers.  There has been a lot of work on the concept of equivalency. They are also working with Work Places.

Starting on Tuesday our class will pair with Ms. Ward’s during Reading block to begin an integrated science and literacy program.  We’ll be studying adaptations.  

We hope to see you this week at our family Pot Luck in the cafeteria on Thursday.  It will be a great chance for us all to socialize.  

Week 5 Review

It has been a grand week.  We have spent lots of time using our Chromebooks.  As you know, students wrote and posted their first posts directly.  We discussed the standards for my approval.  Students agreed that they would prefer not to have mistakes in their posts.  This really slows down the process because at this point, editing is still such a challenge!  This week's goal was to have each student make sure all words that needed to be capitalized were, all sentences ended with appropriate punctuation and the 'our' was used rather than 'are' when appropriate!  This was hard work but well worth it.  Some students will finish this work on Monday.  

We are still decorating our Writers' Notebooks.  They are looking good! 

In Reading we have begun the book Wonder.  We love it.  We are discussing the three types of connections we use as Readers to make construct meaning: text to self, text to text and text to world.  We had several group connections today during Read Aloud.  Choosing 'Just Right' books remains quite a challenge for many students.  

In Fourth Grade math we are working hard on multiplication strategies and multiplicative reasoning.  We are using arrays a lot to construct and deconstruct numbers.  I think everyone now knows what a prime or composite number is; we know about factor pairs, multiples and we especially practice multiples of twos, threes and fours.  

We began word study this week.  We have six groups which ensures smaller groupings.  Students are assigned to groupings based on their developmental spelling stage.  We work with words in a variety of ways, depending on the group.  It has been a treat to get to know more Equinox students and to see my core students among them.  The team is building cohesion with all among its new members!

Our Responsive Classroom routines which include developing cooperative habits and all of our SMARTS (safe behavior, mindful behavior, accepting behaviors and truthful behavior-and overalls elf control are developing well.  Theys students do love to learn and are quite results oriented.  They also love to sing and play which makes Friday Team Time a real treat.  

   

Week 4 in Review

Hello!

We had a great week! As you will see, the  highlights are typcially around dramatics!  We have enjoyed using funny voices and accents.  We greeted each other in operatic voices, did book talks in fun voices and have generally enjoyed being dramatic.  This class loves to sing and act things out.  I'm looking for ways to capitalize on those passions with our learners.  They are also very pleased to be using the Chrome Books more and more.  They have been incredibly careful and responsible while using them.  Ms. Hennig, our librarian went out of her way to give us positive feedback

She wrote:
"I had to email you to tell you how AMAZING your students just were in my Library Exploratory class...They were all model students, and I am so proud of them and just had to tell you."  We loved getting that email!

Thank you for your support of the Weekly Reading and Math Logs!  We are glad to be getting that started.  We are still working out the Fourth Grade Math homework.  This week we did a better job of matching it with the work we are doing in class.  This week we spent several days building arrays and talking about dimensions, factor pairs, prime, composite and square numbers.

On Friday we had our first Kiva Awards and Team Time.  All students participated.  It was a blast!  Ms. Weegar and I also taught two parts of a four part song.

Reminders:

• Picture day is this Wednesday, 9/24
• Fourth graders may want their own bike helmets for PE this week.
• Please send a note to me with your child in the morning if there is an end of day change whenever possible.  Or send me an early morning email.  Here is why:  students are typically anxious about these changes and check in with me repeatedly throughout the day.  When I don't know about the change, it is difficult to be reassuring.  Thanks for your help with this.  
• This week we shall work on decorating our Writer's Notebooks.  We will use magazine pictures, colored paper and such.  Students are welcome to bring photos from home too.  

As always, thanks for your support!  Have a great week.

Monday News

We had another busy Monday today!  You will notice that your children came home with Reading and Math logs so that they can track their reading and math practice this week.  Third graders have not logged on to Xtra Math at school yet-I'll make sure that we do that tomorrow.

We also sent home a homework contract.  Hopefully it makes sense to you to plan a way to support homework but also to preserve family time.  I certainly do not want homework to rule your lives and would prefer it takes up a small and productive part of each evening.  Let me know how I can help.

We owe an apology to parents of fourth graders: We sent home homework that we did not prepare students for last week.  That Thursday homework was meant for this week.  Ms. Weegar and I  ARE SO SORRY. We will review it in class later this week.  Hopefully that won't happen again, but if it does (ie your child has no idea how to do the work), please send it back unfinished!

Also in today's folder you should see a flyer advertising school photos.  Picture day is next week!

Fourth graders did use bikes in PE today and they will for the next 3 classes.  Bike Safety is the topic being addressed.  Please know that there are helmets here.  If your child wants to wear their own, he/she may bring it from home.

Check back later for more photos...

We met Sage!

9/9

Today Ms. Fisher and Sage visited!  It was great to see both of them.  Students were warmly greeted and they got to touch Sage if they wanted to.  Ms. Fisher explained the susceptiblity of infants to germs so students mainly touched Sage's legs or feet with clean hands.  Ms. Fisher spoke with kids, answered questions.  She also wanted to hear about students so each took turns telling her about important things in their lives.  We showed her how to play Predator and Prey too.

It was a real treat to have those two around!

On another note, I'm still trying to share our First Day Portraits...  Maybe if you click on the link you'll get to see the slide show!

First Monday

After three weeks of school, we finally have had our first Monday and it turns out our Monday schedule is pretty fun!  We have both Physical Education and Exploratory in the afternoon. Today we also had a Kiva meeting.   Ms. Birdsall introduced the Chrome Books and previewed some assignments on Digital Passports (www.commonsensemedia.com).  We are so eager to get our hands on those devices.  Now that they are almost ready for students, we are working in the Tech Lab to get ready reviewing passwords on multiple accounts (network, Google, keyboarding, etc) and protocols for safe and responsible use.  We are also having conversations about how we will use the Chromebooks and tomorrow we will do some 'paper blogging.'

After Kiva we had our first library session. You may notice that each student now has a beautiful plastic bag to keep library books in. The idea is that students keep these bags all year.  They are to protect the library books from back pack mishaps.  Keyboarding Camp also began today-students got some practice using Typing club.     As a result of all the extras this morning, math and snack both got shortened.  Students were flexible and accepting of the changes.

Our afternoon in class work focused on creating SMART posters.  As you know, at Williston Central School SMART is an acronym for Safe, Mindful, Accepting and Truthful.  Students are working in table groups designing posters to 'advertise' this.  As I said, it was a fun and busy day!

We have lots of photos to share already.  I'm looking into a variety of ways to post them.  Mostly I have highlights of the last two weeks including:

• First Day of School photos
• Card Tower photos
• First Day of Quiet Reading
• Team Time with Ms. Schoolcraft's class and a parachute 

You may have noticed the information on Type 1 Diabetes went home today in folders.  There is a student who has this disease and she and her mom presented to us on Friday.  It was very impressive.  I wonder if any of your children spoke to you about it.

Well, I'm off to figure out how to post a slide show.  I'll be updating this blog at least once a week so please be sure to check back!

Here is a link to a slideshow that Mrs. Baker, our art teacher, created last week.  We are anticipating the celebration of International Dot Day in Equinox. Check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_veGIapWow