May 8th Post...Delayed

Now that the weather is warm there is no denying that we are in the final weeks of this fine school year!  We have so much going on at school and I know that you all have a lot going on at home.  We hear about it at school.  Listening to each other about what is happening in our lives outside of school is a favorite pastime of ours.  We know that two people are moving into new houses (brand new, hard not to envy them from my 1889 pad), one family has a new dog, another family has a seating arrangement around their fire pit, still others are juggling new jobs, and that is what I can easily remember without even mentioning the various sports, musical and dance endeavors you all are supporting!  

There is no end of too much to do at school either! Outside our class there are busy workman.  They are working to improve the drainage system around the school.  Inside we have worked on SBAC testing every day.  It seems that many students are finding it interesting and even fun but it is rigorous!  in addition to that we are composing the rough chapters of our informational pieces.  Most students have finished at least four of the five chapters they need to write.  Today we looked at informational text features that help writers convey their emphasis or use to help readers learn about something.

One of the changes I’ve noticed in teaching the informational text writing unit is that we are not developing a research paper.  Students are actually writing about what they know.  They are writing as if they were teaching others about their topic.  We have only just begun to look up a few facts based on very specific questions to enhance the writing.  The purpose of this shift is to focus primarily on aspects of writing rather than on research.  Also we are incorporating fact finding into all kinds of our work-it can be an essential part of any kind of writing.  

Next week we will likely put a pause on this work while we develop our informational writing on Peacemakers.  Students are working using focus questions to scan texts for the information they need.  This fits nicely with the writing they are doing (described above).  We will be having an open house on the morning of May 27th to share the Peacemaker work.  

Third graders focused on attributes of quadrilaterals this week.  Students worked collaboratively to create and share “shape posters,” identifying and describing the unique characteristics of squares, rhombuses, rectangles and parallelograms.  Our May number corner “workouts” take area and perimeter to the next level on the calendar grid, and offer a “chance” for students to explore probability by rolling 2 dice five times  each school day, multiplying to find the product, and analyzing odd vs. even products.  Fourth graders are working on unit 6 as well.  Students worked through problem strings involving ratio tables while solving problems about packs of pens and cases of water.  It is amazing (even to the teacher in the room) to use new strategies, such as  ratio tables and known facts  to solve multidigit multiplication problems.   Eventually we will get to standard algorithms but by the time we do, students will really understand what the steps mean.

I apologize for not having posted this Friday, when it was written.  I hope you all had a great weekend!

The Week in Review

When you see this format, you know I have lifted the message, in large part, from Ms. Schoolcraft!  

Literacy:   Students are reading various texts, including fiction and nonfiction selections, and are practicing oral reading fluency and comprehension strategies, specifically summarizing and inferences.  Most students are perusing at least one biography. The emphasis in our library times is on this genre.

Math:  Third and fourth graders are beginning unit 6. Fourth graders finished their work with geometry and angles with a unit 5 assessment on Friday.  In grade three, unit 6 focuses on geometry and in grade four, the unit is about multiplication & division, data & fractions.  Third graders completed and reflected on a pre-assessment for the unit, and finished April number corner activities with a bang!  Please encourage and remind your mathematician to practice his/her math facts at home.

Theme:  After constructing a working definition for what a ‘peacemaker’ is the week before break, students learned about large-scale peace efforts over the past several decades.  Students have looked for three facts about a number of peacemakers and soon will choose one to study more extensively. Each child will be completing a research project over the next several weeks. This project will culminate in a celebration with families.  

Writing:  Our informational text pieces are becoming more and more sophisticated each day!  Students are working hard develop their tables of contents so that they include some elaboration. Further, they have begun to draft chapters.  Students are expected to have first drafts finished by next Friday.  The next two weeks will include revision, editing and opportunities to add nonfiction text features (photos and captions, diagrams, maps, glossary, etc) to their finished product.

SBAC:  Third and fourth grade students will be taking SBAC tests beginning next week.  Thank you

for remembering to have consistent, early bedtimes next week, as well as encouraging your third or fourth

grader to relax and do their very best in the testing sessions beginning next Tuesday.  Stamina, stamina, stamina!!  Please help make sure your child has plenty of water and a protein-rich breakfast and snack(s) especially over the course of the next few weeks.

Have a great vacation!

Hello Families!

Here’s a double dose (two week) update!

In writing we are working on informational texts.  Some of the themes we are working on currently are:

• choosing a topic you already know a lot about!
• organizing your information in a variety of ways
• creating several tables of contents to explore the above idea
• determining sub topics for each chapter
• ...and that is as far as we have gotten…

Students continue to write blog posts and to answer questions in writing about their reading.  We have a strong emphasis on RESTATING the question when we are answering one in writing.  We also had students respond to a written prompt on Wednesday.  They we used the same prompt in November to assess their skills and their growth.  There has been a lot of growth!

In fourth grade math we have been learning about area and perimeter.  We have discovered the formulae and what each one means.  Students have worked with measuring tools and with tiles.  We also spent two days engaging in an SBAC practice test.  

In third grade math students have also been learning about area and perimeter.

We have been learning some Geography lately too. It came up recently that most students love maps but didn’t know a lot about geography.  I have also observed that students really want to use Google Maps but need some structure to their use. We started learning about the seven continents last week.  This week we have been finding names of the European countries.  We also found the area of some of those countries.  Next we have studied a huge map of the United States.  Students found the area in square miles for nineteen countries in the US.  We compared those in size and found them on a large map in our Kiva.  We learned about New England and we noticed the four corners area of the south western US.  We will continue with these conversations.

Another fun shift in our work has been sharing books through playing Charades!  So fun.  We brainstorm book titles we all know and then we act them out and guess the titles.  

We will begin reading biographies together after break. Have a wonderfully joyful time with your children over the vacation!  

The week in Review

I have so enjoyed meeting with you and your children during our conferences.  It is always so interesting to see my students show off their place and their work to their parents.  Their abilities to describe their learning and act as hosts is an important piece of their learning.  I also enjoy getting to know each of you more.

As you may know, I was out of the classroom at a math training on Wednesday.  The Guest Teacher is someone who was last in our classroom sometime in 2014, last fall or early winter.  She was really impressed by the growth in the students.  She has a great time with them.  Abe did a wonderful job as the Assistant leading Morning Meetings.

Students have been working on their second persuasive/opinion writing.  This time they wrote about their favorite Red Clover books.  These pieces are almost finished.  Next week we are moving into informational (report) writing.  The blog posts are requiring much less supervision from me.  I can see lots of improvement in the students' writing.  Remember, if you do not see a blog post any week, please ask your student why.  I post all submissions that meet this basic criteria: Titles must have appropriate capitalization,  sentences must have proper punctuation and no run ons, and the post must make sense.  Students are able to revise and submit from home too!

One game we played this week involved naming countries.  I learned that we have not studied enough geography!  Many students do not know the difference between a state, country and continent.  I'll continue infusing our work with some learning about Geography!

In math, fourth graders have begun to study geometry.  They have learned to measure angles, figure out perimeter and today we distinguished between parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines. The third grade program seems to run parallel to GR. 4.  I'll speak with Ms. Ward for further detail about their work this week.

I feel so fortunate to be working with your children in the remarkably wonderful setting that is WCS.  As teachers here we are often noticing how overbooked we are with incredible community building (Minute to Win It) fun, enriching (Concert, Sound Waves, Engineering, etc.), and important (all of the preceding plus BAND) offerings here.  We are having a ball and learning all the way.  It's a privilege to be teaching in Equinox this year!

Reflecting on Last Week

Three of the high points of the week occurred on Friday. Students went to Jump Rope for Heart.  Those who went expressed pride for having raised money to help people affected by heart disease.  Meanwhile back at the ranch, so to speak, students participated in their math class.  Next they had seventy minutes to create a slide show about a topic of their choosing.  I suggested a slide show to accompany their persuasive essays but encouraged them to choose a topic they were interested in.  The only stipulation:  students could not choose a topic they'd already used many times (hockey comes to mind...)  This student centered, self directed project brought out the best in students.  They produced some of the best work they've done.  Soon I'll post their slide shows but first we need to learn about and create source lists.

In other writing news students have been working on their second persuasive essays.  We will use these ones to assess students ability to construct a well organized persuasive essay.  Students have used a graphic organizer to plan for these essays.  The topic is "My favorite Red Clover Book."

Fourth grade math students started a new unit this week on Geometry.  We used pattern blocks to problem solve measurements of different angles.  Our new vocabulary includes: right angles, acute angle, obtuse angle, straight angle and zero angles.  Third graders continue to work on measurement and calculations.  

Reading groups have continued to meet and we did plenty of SBAC preparations.  In grade level groups students met to take practice tests.  This week we had one session of collaborative work.  Students in grade four had discussions about what animals need to survive.  Third graders discussed ideas related to our solar system.  The following day each group entered the 'secure portal' to take a language arts test related to the topic of their age groups.  Student encountered nonfiction complex texts and were asked to answer questions about the texts.  Some were multiple choice while others were essay questions.  The tests are rigorous and interesting.  It is good that we have these practice sessions!

Vernal Equinox Today

Our Morning Meeting leader, Avery, eagerly told us that today (Friday) marks the vernal Equinox.  It is especially fun to talk about the Equinox when one is part of a group with the same name.  We wish the real spring would arrive soon!  We'll be learning more about what the Equinox is on Monday.

In writing this week students tinkered with the final drafts of their persuasive essays.  Many students posted them on their blogs.  Students shared them in class in a 'round robin' sort of arrangement.  In our class meeting after the shared readings, students clearly articulated that reading each other's work helps them reflect on their own.  Other themes emerged too.  Students were able to reflect on the whole process-how long it was and sometimes discouraging and the delight they now feel in having a finished piece.  That is helpful as we return to our realistic fiction and then move on to a report writing piece.  More about that later!

In math, Ms. Ward reports, "Third Graders are exploring measurement concepts including volume, mass and length this week.   An adventurous work place was introduced; focusing on hands-on opportunities for estimating amounts and measuring to find the exact quantity. Number Corner involves measurement of time intervals and ideas about fractions." In Grade Four students learned about metric conversions. Specifically they learned about conversions from grams to kilograms, meters to kilometers, milliliters to liters. They also reviewed all of the math content in Unit 4. This included many methods for calculating multi-digit addition and subtraction problems, elapsed time, using data from ratio tables to solve problems and measurement. On Friday, students completed the Unit 4 assessment.

We have renewed our interest in expanding our vocabulary.  We are using words that come up in Red Clover books as well as those identified in reading groups.

We look forward to our parent teacher conferences which begin on Monday.  Please remember, no regular school for students on Monday.  

2015 Be Money Wi$e Poster Contest, submitted by Ms. Baker

2015 Be Money Wi$e Poster Contest

Each year the State Treasure's office and the VT Bankers Association have a poster contest to celebrate April as financial literacy month.  The poster is judged on expressing the theme, artwork, content, and creativity.  The theme of this year’s contest was, “To Build a Money Plan, I will . . .”   The State Treasurer will recognize the student poster contest winners at an April 9thceremony. Students placing first in each division win a $100 cash prize and their school a $100 cash prize.

When I spoke with the contact from the treasurer's office, she told me that WCS artists have really outdone themselves.  She stated that WCS artists showed perseverance and grit.  She said that it was obvious that our students read directions, understood the theme, and pushed themselves.

3 honorable mention students:

Varsha Karthikeyen Swift 7th grader (note: she recently moved out west)

Grace Koutras (Voyager 6th grader)

Abby Niquette (Equinox 4th grader)

Elementary School division:

3rd place - Karina Bushweller - Equinox 4th grader

2nd place - Griffin Cote - Swift 5th grader

Middle School division:

FIRST PLACE- Maggie Warren - Harbor 7th grader