Last day

I can't believe it's the end of the school year! It's been such a wonderful year and I have enjoyed this group of students so much!

Here is a video I made for the class. We watched it several times this week. We hope you enjoy it. Have a wonderful summer!

What's that in the sky? Paper airplanes!

Important Dates:

May 28 - no school
June 15 - last day 11:00 dismissal

We had a school wide celebration on Friday! Mrs. Garcia's class came down to help our class make paper airplanes. Then, the whole school went outside and tried flying them through different obstacles such as hula hoops. It was fun for all the students. Here is the link that we used to teach us how to make the paper airplanes. There are videos and templates to printout. Paper Airplanes

Literacy:

We are working on writing our own fiction stories. While writing, we are also using what we have learned during reading. That means thinking about character, how to get characters in and out of trouble, and the lessons that character learn. I am amazed by the writing of the class! I can't wait to send home their stories!

The students have loved library this year! Mr Gile always makes books come to life with the wonderful voices he uses and he helps students find books for any interest! Thanks Mr. Gile for making books come alive!This past week was our last time to take out books for the year. Please look around at home and send back and library books you find.

On Tuesday, a librarian from the Winooski Memorial Library will come visit us to get the kids excited about visiting and using the library this summer.

Math:
We have been working hard defining the attributes of different shapes. We are using words such as straight, curved parallel, angles to describe shapes. We also have been working on decomposing (breaking shapes apart) and composing (putting shapes together) shapes in different way.

Hooray for our Foster Grandparent!

Important Dates:
May 21 - library
May 25 - early dismissal (12:15)
May 28 - no school
June 15 - last day 11:00 dismissal

This week Nana and I went to the Foster Grandparent Recognition Dinner. It was a fun evening and a nice way to celebrate all the support the foster grandparents give to our school.

Literacy:
You would not believe the thoughtful discussion our class has during read aloud time. One day, I had to get our reading coach, Jen Lapointe, so she could come down and here the sophisticated thoughts the students were sharing!

During read aloud, we focused on reading the Tacky books by Helen Lester. We referred to her books during reading and writing time. Her books helped us during writing time as we worked on our own narrative fiction pieces. We analyzed the Tacky books and realized that Helen Lester started the book with strong character development, included patterns, dialogue, and got her characters in and out of trouble. We played around with those same ideas in our own stories.

One group of students in our room read a series of books by Dori Hillestad Butler and loved them so much, that they wrote to the author. I'll let you know if we hear back from her!

Math:
We have started our geometry unit. Be sure to ask your child all about the shapes and the attributes of the shapes we have been learning about!

Happy Mother's Day

Important Dates:
May 25 - early dismissal
May 28 - no school
June 15 - last day 11:00 dismissal

I did a terrible job taking pictures last week, I only ended up with 3 pictures from the entire week! I will do a better job this week. I promise!

I hope all our families enjoyed the Mother's Day presents the students made. The pinch pots were made in art with help from Mrs. Crandall. Then each student worked thoughtfully to choose flowers and arrangement them in their pots. Thank you to all the mom and guardians that provide support, love, and joy for the children in our class.

The fire alarm went off in school this past week. Our class (and all of JFK) did fantastic! They were silent walking out and waiting for the all clear to go back in. Sara Raabe was so impressed she gave everyone popsicles!

On Friday, we saw the fourth and fifth grade production of The Wizard of Oz. Everyone did a great job!


 Literacy:
The authors are working so hard at creating interesting adventures with characters that you want to read about again and again. Eventually, we will be working on our own series of books.

Math:
We took a unit test on Friday. I'm so impressed with the class did on it! These were hard concepts but through the whole unit, the class pushed their thinking, took risks, made conjectures, asked genuine questions, and increased their flexibility with numbers.

Spring has sprung!

Important Dates

May 7 - library
May 9 - early dismissal (12:15)
May 25 - early dismissal
May 28 - no school
June 15 - last day 11:00 dismissal

We have really enjoyed the nicer weather. It's great to be able to go outside with just a light coat or even no coat at all! Hooray for spring!

We had a great time with St. Michael College Professor John Tapper's science museum! Professor Tapper's students created hands-on science activities. I think we could have stayed there all day!

Literacy:
We have started our new reading unit. This unit is all about story elements. We are working more with comprehension and deepening our understanding about how stories work. We will be looking at different book series and looking at themes in books.

We also started a new writing unit. We are learning how to write our own stories! We are having fun created our own characters and having them go on adventures!

Math:
Wow! we had super math thinking this week, including some amazing conjectures as we developing our understanding of part, part, whole in addition and subtraction. More on this next week!

Opinion Writing Videos

Important Dates:

April 23-27: No School

April 30 - Library
May 9: early dismissal
May 25: early dismissal
May 28: No School

Please fill out the family survey.

Our students did a great job working on all their opinion writing during our unit. Mrs. Mormile's fourth grade class came down to help our class make videos about one of their opinion pieces. The fourth graders and first graders did a great job using adobe spark video.

Here are links to all the videos. Enjoy!

Binti - JFK is the best  

Keigan - Tag is the best recess activity  

Ankita - rice is the best breakfast food  

Kaiden - tenrec is the best pet (yes, it’s a real animal)  

Zayd - JFK is the best  

Lilly - JFK is the best  

Mohamed - best pet is the platypus

Aili - best season is summer

Aryan - Chips are the best

Jenny - JFK is the best school

Chace - Cheerios are the best

Bella - indoor recess is the best

Bishara - Rice is the best

Andrew - Baseball is the best sport

Filson -

Lots of fun and learning!

Important Dates:

April 16: Library
April 23-27: No School
May 25: early dismissal
May 28: No School

Please fill out the family survey.



Literacy:

This week we have focused a lot on our opinion writing unit. On Monday, Mrs. Mormile's class is coming in to help our class create their own videos based on their favorite opinion piece that they wrote. I will find a way to showcase the work when we finish. The opinion pieces are fantastic! The emphasis this week has been on writing our hook and goodbye (introduction and conclusion).

 At the end of last week, we did squeeze in a fun buddy read time with Miss Bushey's class! Our class did a great job reading with expression and talking about the books they read with the kindergartners. The first graders also were able to help the younger students with books they brought in to read. Mrs. Lapointe also came in to join in with the fun!

Math:
Our new math unit builds on all the previous units. We are back to solving story problems (addition and subtraction) and learning new strategies.

This week we started exploring fact families. A fact family are three numbers that can be used to create 4 equations (2 addition and 2 subtraction). 2,3,5 can be made into:

2+3=5

3+2=5

5-2=3

5-3=2

The mathematicians have been discovering rules about fact families in small groups and in partnerships. Then, they are sharing their discoveries with the whole class. 

April 1, 2018

Important Dates:
March 26: Library
April 12 and 13: Parent Teacher Conferences
April 23-27: No School

We've done a lot since our last update!

It was great seeing so many students at the Fun Fair on Friday, March 23. Thanks to everyone who was able to come and support the PTO and our end of the year field trips!

We also filled our heart jar and had a celebration out on the big playground. My favorite part of the celebration was watching Jenny coach kids as they learned to climb the rock wall section of the playground. Good coaching Jenny!

Literacy:

We read The Day the Crayons Quit last week and then wrote letters to convince the crayons to come back.  We also read The Perfect Pet and students then wrote opinion pieces about which pet would be the best for them. Mohamed had us all convinced that the duck billed platypus might make a great pet!

We also did buddy reading with Mrs. Thompson's class. Our class is enjoying sharing their reading with others.

Math:
We finished up our place value unit. Everyone took their place value test on Wednesday. I'm impressed with the hard work the class put into this unit. I'll share the tests with you at parent/teacher conferences.

Fun Fair on Friday!

Important Dates:

March 23: Fun Fair 4:30-6:30
March 26: Library
April 12 and 13: Parent Teacher Conferences
April 23-27: No School

I'm updating our website early this week so I can remind families about the Fun Fair. Fun Fair is Friday, March 23 from 4:30-6:30 I hope to see you there!

Don't forget our book order is due Friday also! Here is the link: Scholastic Book Order. Our online code is DZPMV. Please get your order in by Friday, March 23.

Our new School Resource Officer, Officer Jason Ziter, came to our morning meeting on Monday to introduce himself to us and talk to us about school safety. He gave the kids a chance to ask questions and talk about any worries they had.

Literacy:
The writing this class is producing is wonderful! We have learned how to write an introduction and conclusion in our opinion pieces. We are using transitional words and phrases such as: because, another reason is, also The students write and write and write!

During reading workshop, the students are starting to understand what type of books they like to read. From 10:45-11:30, you can find kids all over the room reading their books. Favorite books include atlases, books by Mo Willams, and a new favorite series some students are hooked on: King and Kayla by Dori Butler. 





Math:
Our core math idea has been breaking apart double digit numbers. Now, we are also learning how to add double digit numbers which means the students have to break them apart, reorganize them, and put them back together! Amazing work these mathematicians have done!

March 16, 2018

Important Dates:

March 19: Library
Jump Rope for Heart: March 20

March 23: Fun Fair

I sent home a book order form today. Here is the online link in case you want to do your order online: Scholastic Book Order. Our online code is DZPMV. Please get your order in by Friday, March 23.

We fit a lot into this week!

Sara Raabe came in on Tuesday and talked to the first grade about school safety. The kids asked great questions.

Mrs. Demore's third grade class came down and read their nonfiction books they wrote.

Tracy Towers, the Tooth Tutor came to our classroom on Friday and taught us how to take good care of our teeth. We learned about visiting the dentist, brushing, and flossing. Each child has a bag that they brought home from Tracy.

We also had a whole school celebration! The entire school played bingo and it was a blast!














Jump Rope for Heart will be on Tuesday. We had to change it due to the snow day.

Literacy:
We started our opinion writing unit for writing. The students are learning how to state their opinion and back it up giving multiple reasons. In reading, the students are becoming the Boss of their Reading! This means they are monitoring their own reading to see if what they are reading makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, they are developing strategies to help figure out the hard words.

Math:
Wow! Lot's of great work in math this week! Students are deepening their understanding of tens and ones. We have also introduced greater than and less than signs. We also are working on  telling time to the hour and half hour.

Back from vacation!

Important Dates:

March 11: Daylight Savings Time

March 12: Library

March 14: Early Dismissal

        Social Media Presentation 5pm

March 16: Report Cards Home

March 23: Fun Fair

I'm so sorry I didn't update over vacation. I ended up being super busy and the time got away from me!

It was so good to see all the students this week We had such a great time catching up with each other. We ended up taking 15 minutes during the morning to just chat with friends! We had so much to tell each other.

Literacy:
We finished our nonfiction units in both writing and reading! To celebrate, we invited Mrs. Moulton's class in to hear our nonfiction teaching books that we wrote ourselves.

Then, we invited Miss Bushey's kindergarten class in and we read nonfiction books to them. Our class had prepared questions to ask the kindergartners throughout the reading to check for understanding.


Math:
The mathematicians continue to explore and build on their understanding of place value, using tens and ones. This is a huge leap in learning and requires flexibility in number sense and counting. This week, we introduced clocks and telling time to the hour and half hour.

100th day, Valentine's Day, and more!

Important Dates:

February 19 - Library
February 26-March 6 - No School

Another great week with lots of learning and fun!

This week we went to the Vermont Food Bank Veggie Vango for the first time. The kids did great but a couple grabbed a little too much to carry. The kids were very appropriate most saying, "Thank you," when receiving the food. I plan on bringing the class to the food bank on the scheduled dates. For more information:

http://www.wsdschools.org/vt-foodbank-dates-for-2017-18-school-year/

We celebrated the 100th Day of School on Monday. One of the activities we did was to read 100 books! Here is a picture of the list we made of the 100 books!

Valentine's Day was a fun but quick celebration! Since we had just an early release, we weren't able to do a lot of activities but we did enjoy opening all the Valentine's Day cards.

I sent home a book order form today. Here is the online link in case you want to do your order online: Scholastic Book Order. Our online code is DZPMV. Please get your order in by Friday, February 23.

Literacy:
We are almost done with our unit about becoming experts at nonfiction. The students are examining nonfiction books and thinking about the decisions the author made when writing the book. This critical thinking is then applied to their own writing of nonfiction books. The class has written books ranging from gymnastics, sports, cats, Nepal, Somali words, and more!


Math:
We have started our unit on place value. During this unit, the students will be learning how to break apart 2 digit numbers. This week we used tens frames to represent 2 digit numbers. Next week we will be introducing base 10 blocks.