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