Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday Break. Get some rest, relax and enjoy time with your families! I'll see you in the New Year! Nancy

PTO December Minutes

> PTO Minutes, December 2012 > > Convened at 6:05 > > Principal's Report: > December Highlights: > Adequate Yearly Progress work underway at SCS and at the CSSU level to address the corrective action required based on students with special needs > Alpha Play was a great success, congratulations to all who participated > Budget Meetings continue > congratulations to Emily Vigneault on the birth of her new baby, Aaron Matthew! > Professional development: Continued common core work during the in service days before Thanksgiving off site conference for some staff on "Understanding and Working with Developmental Trauma in Children", Schoolwide data analysis for Reading and Writing. > > Treasurer's Report > Accounts are in good standing > > Fundraising update > There are 4 local coupon books left, so far $440 has been raised from these > Hannaford's helps schools has ended, get receipts in to Alice by Thursday of this week, 13 Dec. > Holiday Fair was a great success for all teams and participants. 100+ tables were present, which is probably a new record. Fun was had from end to end. > Direct Solicitation Letter: to raise money for the PTO at year end, Alice has drafted a letter for team representatives to use in raising awareness of the PTO as a receiving organization for end of year donations. We are a registered non-profit and all donations are tax deductible. > Angel Fund: every three years the Angel Fund reaches out to the PTO to ask for members to champion cash donations to this great community resource. The Angel fund assists families in need who are identified through the work of teachers, staff, guidance counselors and social workers. Three years ago when the last push was made, 5% of SCS kids were on free and reduced lunch. Now, 15% are on free and reduced lunch. Consider this fund as another organization for your end of year giving. > Red Barn Fundraiser will begin after the start of the year. Great fundraiser of local products. Tasty local products too. > > Fund Spending: > Over $5000 dollars from the PTO was granted to teams and UA in November during the grant process. Grants were approved for more Kindles in the library, iPads for the music program, Brain Pop software for the entire school and more. In addition, other funding sources were found and pursued to total nearly $7000! Great collaborative experience in helping fundraising dollars go directly to work. > John Gailmor: Alice will contact John soon to begin arranging this event in April > Flynn Art/Dance series: Grant was put in this week for this program . Will know the status in two weeks. > > Other Business: > Open discussion about the two vote budget process. If anyone has any questions about it, please contact Dave Connery of the School Board. We need a small group of public relations personnel to sell this concept to town voters as a state requirement, not a gross increase in taxes. > Coat Drive continues. Donate all winter gear at the SCS Office. > > Mark your Calendars: > International Potluck Dinner, Friday 18 Jan 6-7:30 PM > Community Budget Forum: Tuesday 8 January, 7PM > "Anxiety in Children and Adolescents", a talk by SCS Parent, Elena Ramirez, Psychologist Doctorate, 15 January 6 PM > > SO SO SO MANY THANK YOUS THIS MONTH: > Mark Fragola for printing colorful Holiday Fair Flyers > Sharon Harkness, Leslie Borrok, and Courtney Tharpe for putting together the Holiday Fair > Jessamyn Walker, Valerie Richardson, Katie Kennedy, Deb Buley, Fiona Kovacik, Susan Dunning and everyone who helped setting up and cleaning up the Holiday Fair > Dave Kelly, Bob Miller, Randy Mushtare, the rest of the custodian staff and Allan Miller for all their help setting up and cleaning up the holiday fair. > Rita Daley and Teresa Shuptrine for the Holiday Fair bulletin board > > Next meeting: Tuesday Jan 8th 6 PM

Discovery Table

This week Colin shared his Discovery Table. He told us all about his trip to Belize. He had a wonderful map that he shared to show where he went during his trip. He also had a journal that he shared about his time there. The team was engaged with what he had to share and he did a wonderful job. It made us all want to go to Belize!!

Visiting Thai Teacher

On Tuesday our team had a visit from Chalinee Samutphong, a visiting teacher from Thailand, who is spending the months of December and January in our classroom. Here is some background on her: My name is Chalinee Samutphong, and my students always call me “teacher Nina”. At present I’m teaching grade 10 students and they are 15-16 years old. I started working here in 2006 and I taught grade 7 and 8 in that time. This school is called “Wattana Wittaya Academy”the first boarding school of Thailand. There are only girls in this school, kindergarten, primary,junior and senior high school. At this school I have been teaching grade 7 – 12 for six years and I have terrific experiences about teaching here. Senior teachers, students and alumna sometimes teach me many things that I have never known before like having the good relationship, being the proper lady, and also being the mother role. I have the duty in the morning and in the evening about waking students up and taking of them to be neat in how to make a bed well, keep clean with their stuff reading books and doing homework in the evening.I can teach any age of students and I think I can manage how to teach them well because I have been teaching for ten years. Before I started working at Wattana Wittaya Academy I taught in my hometown before. I taught grade 7 for the first year, the students in the University for the Second Year, the vocational students and the girls in the boarding school. When I teach I always use the methods and the process that I have learned to create the lesson that make students are interested in. I like doing the teaching materials to have students train and practice by themselves like computer program “E-learning” and sometimes in class there are many students who aren’t smart and try not to pay attention to learn. I usually use cooperative learning method to make them work with friends and sometimes they are afraid to give or share opinion to the teacher but when they have group works they can do it very well. My special skills I have, using computer to make teaching materials from many programs, playing Thai instrument “Thai flute”, singing, playing volleyball, swimming, doing some Thai dancing, drawing and painting, acting about drama performance and cooking. I think my special skills I have will be useful for your students and I try my best to do it. I had the experience when I went to Canada last three years; I taught the kids how to play Thai children’s games and they were enjoyed so much. Yours faithfully, Miss Chalinee Samutphong While on our team she taught us how to say "thank-you" in Thai which is "Khob--Khun". She also taught us how to greet one another. To greet a boy and say hello you say "Sa-wad-dee-Krub". To greet a girl and say hello, you say "Sa-wad-dee-Ka". To greet a teacher you say, "Sa-wad-dee-Kru (the teacher's name)". The greeting is called "Wai" and they put their hands together and bow as they do it. We learned about the schools in Thailand as well. All students have to wear uniforms to school everyday. They start the day at 8 am and go to an assembly where they sing the national anthem. After the assembly they go to their classroom but they have to take their shoes off first. They have a 20 minute recess at 10:30 am. At 12:30 they get a lunch and break for an hour. They can purchase whatever they want for lunch and have a lot more choices than we do. Their day ends at 4 pm but every student has a job to help clean-up before they go home. We also learned a little about Thailand itself. We learned that their are 60,000,000 people in Thailand and that 6,000,000 of those people are in Bangkok. The King is called "Nai-Lhuang" and the Queen is called "Pra-Rajini". People bring food to the Monks each day because they are not allowed to cook. Thailand is known as the "Land of Smiles". The elephant is the symbol for Thailand. They have a special festival called "Loy Krathong" each November on the full moon. People float flowers to apologize to the Gods for using the water. They make a wish when they float the flowers which are called Krathong. At night they float lanterns into the sky and have fireworks.

A Visit from a Thai Teacher named Nina

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Week of December 3rd

I can't believe it's December! Where has the time gone. This week we have started talking about characters in our stories during independent reading. In Guided reading groups we are working on reading response questions and how we need to turn around the question and put it into our response when answering the questions. In writing we continue to work on our Information text books. They are coming along nicely. We are publishing these books and will share them with families after the Holiday break. In Social Studies we are learning about how the Iroquois Native Americans lived. We will use the information we learn about the Iroquois and compare it to our lives today. For our final project we will choose which time we would rather live in and explain our reasons why in writing or by creating a project. For math our core idea right now is that Mathematicians use strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems quickly. Together as a class we are coming up with generalizations to help us solve these problems quickly. So far we have come up with a generalizations for adding/subtracting zero and adding/subtracting one. We started adding/subtracting two and will finish this on Monday. To come up with these generalizations (I can use math to show why something is always true...)students solved some examples and then thought of what strategies they used to get their answers. Check out the examples below along with our new Generalization bulletin board. Students have come up with some generalizations about odd and even numbers as well. Your children are becoming advanced math thinkers. It's nice to see them come up with these generalizations on their own as opposed to just telling them.

Discovery Table

This week Theo shared his Discovery Table. He taught us about the water purification process. He focused on the filtration step. Over the weekend he built a device to filtrate water. He had several sections that the water ran through. There was a part with charcoal that it ran through. He explained that when they first tested it the water came out black and that he had to break up the charcoal into smaller pieces. There were 3 areas that the water filtered through including the charcoal. It was great to see the research he did on this process and that he took the time to build his own water filtration system. The students were very engaged during his presentation. Check out his pictures below:

5th Graders share their Science Journals with us...

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Week of November 26th

Wow! I can't believe that November is over and December starts tomorrow. Where has the time gone. I hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving and had an awesome week with your children. This week in math we continue to work with addition and subtraction facts. We will continue this over the next few weeks. In writing we learned how to take notes on a topic and are using this information to add to our inforrmational books. In Social Studies we are learning about Native Americans and comparing their lives to our live today. In Reader's Workshop we continue to work on fluency and are focusing on character develop in our independent reading and groups. On Thursday we had the privilege of going to a 5th grade team where the 5th grade students shared their science journals with us. This is great preparation for us as we will be working with Science Journals on our next science unit starting towards the end of January. Check out the pictures in the Smilebox from our little trip. I want to thank all of the families who are helping out in some way for our table at the Craft Fair. Thank-you for taking the time to do this. Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy

Fastt Math

Fastt Math is a web-based program purchased by the Shelburne Community School to provide students with an opportunity to memorize facts in a research based way. We have upgraded this year to the “Next Generation” of the program and student response has been great! The “Fastt” in Fastt Math stands for “Fluency and Automaticity through Systematic Teaching with Technology.” Based on research about how information goes from working memory to long term memory and on knowledge of how children develop fluency with basic math facts, FASTT Math is proving to be a great resource for students who use it 5 or more times per week. Your child’s teacher recommended an operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division) based on classroom performance and assessments. When students first log in (or if they wait 30 days between lessons) they are given a typing test and fact fluency test that customizes the program for his/her ability level. When your child has mastered all of the facts in the operation that he/she started with, we can move him or her on to the next operation. Some students will be using Fastt Math at school and all students who are enrolled in the program can use it from home. We strongly recommend that you encourage your child to complete the lessons at home. Research shows that completing a minimum of 5 lessons per week allows students to make significant progress. Students completing more than 5 lessons per week move even more quickly. From what we’ve seen so far, the games and activities included in the new program are motivating students to use the program. To use Fastt Math: Find the Fastt Math link on the SCS website (from the home page to “Curriculum” then “math”) Once you are at the FAStt Math site, click “Go” and it will ask for your username and password. Usernames are first and last name - all lower case with no spaces, for example “johnsmith”, and the password is “math”.

Week of November 12th

It was so wonderful to meet with all of you for conferences. It was nice that your children got to share their Portfolios with you and show you some of the work that they have worked hard on. Thank-you again for coming in. This week we finished up our Unit on Chemical Engineering. We worked to improve a playdough recipe. (check out the pictures below) Unfortunately we did not have enough time to really perfect it but students now know the process they need in order to do this. They were given some optional homework in their Friday folders if they would like to work on this at home and then bring in a recipe to share with the rest of the class. It will be neat to see if there are similarities between the work that students do. When we return from break we will be starting a Long ago and Today unit which focused on Native Americans. Last year our focus was on Colonial America. I hope that everyone has a restful vacation and a Happy Thanksgiving! Nancy

Week of November 5th

It was a busy week. We had Hands Nature on Wednesday. I would like to thank Colleen, Lynn, Cecelia, and Caitlin for coming in and teaching about Predators and Prey. We learned about some animals that were prey, some animals that were predators and also some animals that were both. We put on skits that showed how prey can protect themselves from the predators. We heard a story about the cycle of life and why it's important to have both prey and predators in the world. We ended the morning by working with a partner and drawing super predators with special adaptations to help them find their prey. We learned a lot!! We were also lucky and had a visit from a women from the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. She brought several instruments from the orchestra with her and told us about the different sections that the instruments belong to. After we got to try out the various instruments thanks to some wonderful parent volunteers and student interns from UVM. I'd like to thank Kay, Kathleen, Dave, and Yutaka for helping us out. Some of the instruments we got to try out were flute, harp, cello, violin, xylophone, drums, tamborine, trumpet, trombone, and the baritone horn. We have some future musicians in our midst:) Please remember for conferences next week to bring your child with you so that they can share their portfolios with you. I am looking forward to seeing everyone next week. Have a wonderful long weekend, Nancy

Hands on Nature and VSO Petting Zoo

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Seminar for parents on Mindfulness in Schools comes to SCS

On Tuesday evening, November 13, from 7:00-8:00 PM, Shelburne resident Marilyn Neagley will present a free seminar on mindfulness to all interested adult community members in the SCS Library. This presentation will be of particular interest to parents and care-givers of children at Shelburne Community School, where mindfulness training has recently been introduced and integrated into parts of the curriculum. The goal of this forum is to inform parents & care-givers of what's already going on in schools. Marilyn will introduce mindfulness to parents and show how mindfulness can look when introduced to a classroom. Then parents & care-givers can help reinforce the mindfulness exercises that the children are learning in the classroom. Marilyn is the Director of Talk About Wellness (www.talkaboutwellness.org) and co-editor of Educating from the Heart (www.marilynneagley.com). She has led three in-service trainings for SCS and has most recently presented at the Vermont School Counselors’ Conference and at the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children. This seminar is presented by the SCS PTO as part of its mission to strengthen the partnership between the home and the school. Marilyn’s presentations are sponsored by grants from the Ferguson Foundation and from Holly Bartlett Johnson of Wind Ridge Publishing. Free babysitting will be provided by the PTO. Please contact Alice Brown, 985-4918, if you have any questions.

Week of October 29th

A huge thank you to those parents who sent in treats, juice and paper products for the 'Harvest" party this week. We had a terrific time. We read a Halloween story, played games and made spider wrist bands. It was a fun party for everyone. We had a visit from Madeleine's Dad, Dave, during science this week. Dave is an engineer who shared with us the engineering process of designing and improving bike helmets. A big thank you to him for taking the time to share this information with the team. This coming week, on Wednesday, November 7th, we will be taking our class picture. This is also picture retake day so if your child is having their picture retaken please send in the original picture that was sent home and dress them appropriatelyfor this. We will also be visiting the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Petting Zoo on Thursday, from 8:30-9:30 am. If you are interested in helping with this activity, please send me an email. Finally, a quick reminder to sign up for a parent conference on our web page if you have not already done so. Have a great weekend!

Chemical Engineers, Hands on Nature and the Imagination Playground

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Week of October 22nd

This week was a busy week. We got to be Chemical Engineers. We were working for Creative Juices Company and surveyed consumers in our classroom to find out the best color for their strawberry orange juice. They made 3 colors for consumers to choose from and then graphed the results of what everyone chose. They then wrote a Product Research data report and then wrote a friendly letter to the President of the company to let her know our results. Ask your child what they discovered. Pictures of our Chemical engineers can be seen in this week's slide show. We also had Hands on Nature this week. We learned about beavers and muskrats. We talked about how they both adapt, dressed our UVM intern up as a beaver and got to test our teeth as a beaver chewing a tree (carrot) so it falls over and eating bark(chocolate) of of the branches (pretzels). Check out our pictures in the slideshow. I'd like to thank Colleen, Cecilia, Lynn and Caitlin for coming in and presenting the information and coordinating the fun activities!! This was our last week at the Imagination Playground. The class was very inventive this week. There were several vehicles made and some great beds for resting:) Photos are in the slideshow. In math we have learned about army, formica, leafcutter and harvester ants. We sung songs to learn about them and then recorded information about where they live, what they eat, what they look like and other interesting facts into an ant journal. We have then spent a couple of days solving ant problems. We will solve some more ant problems next week and then make our own ant problems. You'll get to see them at your child's conference. Please remember to sign up for conferences the week of Nov. 13th. You can access them on this blog or on our website. I am hoping families will come with their child so that your child will be able to share their portfolio of work with you. Have a great weekend, Nancy

Week of October 15th

This week was a short week. In math we have begun our new intergrated unit and are learning about ants. We watched a short video about ants yesterday and read 2 poems and have already learned a lot about ants. We started with making charts about "what we know about ants" and "what we wonder". I was very impressed with what the students already knew about ants. After reading the poems today we were able to answer two of our "I wonders". Check out our charts below. In science we are learning what an engineer does and what technology actually is. Have any of your children shared this with you? If not ask them. I was surprised by what technology actually is. Next week we have Hands on Nature and will be learning about beavers. Some of the book orders have come in and books were sent home today. The rest of the orders should be here soon and I will send them home as soon as they come. Just a reminder that the Unified Arts Curriculum night is next Tuesday along with gift wrap pick-up if you placed an order. Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy

Our Shelburne Farms October Experience

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Week of October 8th

This week in Math we finished up Unit 1 and will begin Unit 2 next week. Unit 2 is an integrated unit where we learn about ants and math at the same time. The Big ideas for Math will be problem solving, communication and connections. In reading we are focusing on reading our stories closely. This week we wrote about a character that we learned about in a story we were reading closely. We will continue with this next week. In writing students are still writing about things they know well. This week we focused on how we can use partners to help us brainstorm an idea for what to write about, and how they can help us make our stories better. We had a wonderful field trip to Shelburne Farms. On this field trip we focused on the different types of matter and how they can change from one form to another. To do this we made bread, cheese and butter. The students did a wonderful job and I believe a lot of them now want to be bakes. They also explored the environment over at Shelburne Farms to locate solids and liquids. Check out our slide show of photos from Shelburne Farms. You will want to look at Mrs. KillKelley's slides as well on her blog because we mixed the first and second graders into 4 groups. Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy

Discovery Table

A student sharing about his Discovery table. He taught us the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. Did you know that neither of these animals are green?

Imagination Playground

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Week of October 1st

This week we got to use the Imagination Playground. The Imagination Playground combines the sensory, motor, and intellectual development benefits of block play in a flexible and adaptable format that encourages greater collaboration and physical activity. Joplin James, a Kindergarten teacher here at Shelburne, was able to bring this back to our school for another year. The children were excited to be able to use it again this year. Check out our pictures from our first day of use. We will have access to it once a week for the month of October. In math this week we started some new workplaces. Some of the workplaces that we are some games such as compare and contrast numbers where we count by 2s, there is a sorting and patterning activity with frogs/bugs/buttons or shells to use, they are looking at likenesses and differences with an activity called "What does not belong?", and they are using pattern blocks to extend patterning. We have one more week and we will finish with our first unit of math. In writing we continue to look at mentor texts of authors who write about their lives and things that they know. Students are doing their own writing on things that they know about or activities from their lives. We have also talked about the writing process and the different steps we should take as writers such as brainstorming; writing a beginning, middle and end; rereading and making our stories better and editing. Next week we will focus on using partners to bounce ideas off of and sharing our writing with them so that they can help us make our stories better. Next week we will be going to Shelburne Farms on Wednesday. We are excited to talk about matter and make butter, bread and cheese. It should be a great field trip! Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy

Week of September 24th

It was a nice short week. This was our first week of only regular activities. In math we have been talking a lot about growing patterns and sorting. We have been extending these growing patterns and then analyzing our sorting with venn diagrams. In Reader's Workshop I have met with each child to discuss his/her book box and making sure they have "just right" books. We also have partners for Reader's Workshop that we get together with after independent reading to share what we learned, talk about a favorite of the book, discuss unknown words or to read together. The students are also using post-it notes to mark spots in their books to help with these partner discussions. I have been very impressed with their writing so far this year. We have been talking about how writers write about what they know. I shared the book, "Long Shot" by Chris Paul which is his true story about his determination to become a basketball player. We talked about how he wrote about something that he knew well. I also shared the story "The Best Story" by Eileen Spinelli which was about a little girl who wants to write the best story in order to win a contest. She eventually learns in the story that the best stories come from the heart and are things that she already knows about. Through the next couple of weeks we will continue with these stories about things that we already know about. This week we will be finishing up our Social Studies Unit on Community and Citizenship. Have a great weekend, Nancy

Math Fun and Fire Safety

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Week of September 17th

This week we finished up reading the Red Clover books. We worked on some projects to go along with the books and became watercolor artists, writers/illustrators and wrote Dear Me letters about what we are passionate about and want to do. We then voted for our favorite Red Clover Book. The classroom and team winner was "Me...Jane" by Patrick McDonnell. The story tells about the life of Jane Goodall. If you or your child is interested in learning more about Jane Goodall you could check out the following link: http://www.janegoodall.org/media/news/animal-planet-accompanies-dr-jane-goodall-global-excursion-during-roar-campaign. On Wednesday it was Fire Prevention Day. We had some guest Firefighters come and talk to the team about what to do in case of a fire. They also talked about tools vs. toys and the importance of not playing with tools. Some examples of the tools they shared were matches, candles, lighters, etc. Then we went out to the Breezeway and practice how to stop, drop and roll and walked through a smoke house with fake smoke (only those children who wanted to). We also got to take a look at the outside of a Fire truck. In the afternoon we practiced our first school-wide fire drill. Our class was in Art so they got to experience what they would do when they were outside of the classroom. It was a fun day! Today I sent home a letter about Fastt Math. My hope is that children will do this from 3-5 times a week to help with their math fact fluency. It's important that students become fluent with their math facts as this a foundational piece to being successful in mathematics. I was happy to hear from a lot of the class that they have already been working on this at home. I have access to reports to show how students are doing with this program. If you have any questions about it, please let me know. In Social Studies we are talking about being a citizen in a community and what our role is in that community. We brainstormed together the different communities that we are a part of: school, classroom, neighborhood, family, town, state, world, and sport teams/clubs. Next week we will talk about on our different roles in each of those communities and come up with an idea of what we can do to make a community better. Have a great weekend, Nancy P.S. Just a reminder that their is no school next Wednesday.

Shelburne Farms/Hands on Nature Photos

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Week of September 10th

Well we made it through our first full week of school. You will probably see some tired children tonight at home. The heat is tough. At least it looks like it should be cooler all next week. This week we continued to read some Red Clover books. We read, "Swirl by Swirl", "Blackout" and "Grandpa Green". Ask your child about these books. We will finish our last 3 books next week and will vote for our favorite. I will let you know what our classroom favorite was next week. We had our 1st Hands on Nature lesson this week. We learned all about spiders and their body parts. We learned how they are different from insects. We got to see real live spiders to look at their body parts. Ask your child what they learned about spiders! We also had our first Field trip of the year. We went to Shelburne Farms as a Team. We broke up into first and second grade groups and went on a Scavenger Hunt. We looked for living things under logs in the forest and for different types of seeds. We then got to see the Chicken Parade and play with the animals at the Farm Barn. Some students even found some eggs. Hopefully your child shared this experience with you. It was a wonderful Day!! Have a nice weekend, Nancy

Week of September 4th

This week we began our first unit in math along with our first batch of work places. The first work places are all exploration. Students have been able to explore geoboards, geoblocks, unifix cubes, math buckets (shells, buttons, glass blobs, frogs, and bugs), pattern blocks and square tiles. They love being able to do this. It gives us a chance to revisit the routine for work places for the rest of the year. In Literacy this week we began our Unit on Red Clover books. We read 3 of them this week along with the 1st Grade Classroom. We read "The Princess and the Pig", "Three By the Sea" and "Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy". For "The Princess and the Pig", 2nd Graders paired up with a 1st grader and compared & contrasted this story along with two other Fairy Tales ("Puss and Boots" and "The Sleeping Beauty"). I was very impressed with their notices of what was the same and what was different in the stories. For "Three By the Sea" the 1st & 2nd graders were broken up into small groups and acted out scenes in the story. This was a lot of fun to watch and see how creative they were with the scenes. I want to thank the families who were able to attend our Curriculum Night last night. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to attend. For those families who were unable to attend, I sent home the Curriculum Night packet in your child's Friday folder. Please let me know if you have any questions. Also in the Friday folder this week was their first homework assignment. They have a Fundations packet and a reading log. I explained it all to them this afternoon but if you have any questions about it, please let me know. Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy Below is our 1st Share of the year:

First Week of School

Our first week of school was wonderful!!! It felt like we never left. It was nice to start school knowing most of the children already. I believe not only for me but also the students in the class. It's great to have them back. We have two new students who started in our class; Hailey and Jay Jay. Everyone did a wonderful job of welcoming them to our classroom. We are also meeting new and old friends from the first grade classroom. We have done some team building with them outside playing some games. We are even all signing in for lunch in one classroom. We will alternate the classroom monthly between here and Mrs. KillKelley's room. Check out the classroom promise we all agreed on together and then signed. Next week we will begin our Community Unit. We will be launching our Reading and Writing Workshops through the Red Clover books. We will also be starting our first Math unit entitled "Sorting, Patterning and Numbers". Don't forget our Curriculum Night next Thursday, Sept. 6th at 5 pm. Have a wonderful weekend, Nancy

Field Day, Being Engineers and Making Ice Cream

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End of Year

Wow it has been a busy end of the year. We had our Spirit week last week and had a lot of fun; Wacky Hair Day, Beach Day, Board Game Day, Backwards Day and Ice Cream Sundaes. I want to thank everyone for the beautiful hanging basket and gift certificate! The basket looks beautiful on my porch and I am excited to go and use my gift certificate. Last Friday we were fortunate enough to have Corey's mom come in to our class with some friends from IBM. They talked to us about engineering and we got to build structures our of spaghetti and marshmallows. The goal was to work together in small groups and to make the structure as high as we could. We had some very successful engineers. Check out our photos above to see our creations. Jack from the second grade classroom did his Discovery table on icecream and we had the opportunity to make icecream as a class. What a treat. It was delicious and fun to make. See our photos above to see the work in progress. We also had a wonderful Poetry Slam. Every student in both Firefly and Dragonfly shared a poem that they wrote and illustrated. It was great to watch them get up in front of everybody and read their poems. We'll have to work on volume next year:) It was a successful event that we hope to do each year! Some photos of the event are in the slideshow above. Field Day pictures have finally been posted in the photos above as well. I hope that everyone has a wonderful summer. I have had an amazing year with your children. They are wonderful and I am looking forward to my time with them again next year!! Have fun and I will see you in August, Mrs. Nakhleh

Jog-a-thon, Garden and Hands on Nature

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Week of May 21st

I can't believe we are nearing the end of the year. There are only 12 more school days left. Yesterday we had our Annual Jog-a-thon. This is always a favorite with all of the students. They love it. I was so impressed with their determination to run as many laps as possible. Everyone in the class set a goal for themselves and it sounded like everyone made or exceeded their goals. They ran for about 40 minutes and then had a popsicle. At lunchtime we got to go our with all of the K/5 Teams in the school to have a picnic lunch, listen to a DJ and dance, and to play on the playground. It was a good day had by all! At the beginning of May we had our last two Hands On Nature days. We learned about Bird songs and about dandelions. Ask your child to identify some of the birds in the morning and I bet you he/she will be able to. We also learned how tough a dandelion is and about the different parts of a flower. Ask your child to tell you about these. In writing we are writing various poems. We have learned how to write Lantern poems, Haikus and Acrostic poems. Everyone is loving writing poetry. Wait until you see all of their great work. In math we continue to work on our farms. We have now added chickens, cows, goats, pigs, and sheep along with the house, barn, silo, and tractor. All we have left to do is add the horses and gardens. We should be wrapping it up in the next couple of weeks and will be sending home an invitation to come in and see your child's finished product. Next week will be our K/2 Field Day. It will be on Friday from 9-11 am. We are looking forward to this. Keep your fingers crossed for Nice Weather! Check out our Spirit Week in the upcoming events! Have a wonderful long weekend, Nancy

Shelburne Farms Photos

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Working together and Farming

I am happy to report that week 1 of my solo weeks has gone smoothly and has been a lot of fun! I have planned my own unit for these weeks that connects a math unit on farming with reading and writing strategies. Everything is brought together under the central life concept of "Interdependence."

So far, this week, we have started to learn about the different interdependent parts of a farm, which work together to produce the food we eat. The class is really enjoying building model farms and adding to it, as we learn about buildings, machines, and jobs on a farm. They have also made farm folders and used farm money to pay for everything they "buy" for their farms.

In reading, we are reading about and discussing the word "interdependence"? We have been reading some really good stories about different examples of how people count on each other, such as family, friends, and community. In writing, we are working relating these examples to our own lives, by writing letters about interdependent groups of people we belong to. Everyone has been having a great time talking and writing about how they help others and what their responsibilities are in different areas of their lives.

I have a lot of fun and exciting things planned for next week to continue learning about farms and how we all work together to be successful. The class will be split into groups and creating different projects together about farms. They will all be writing a song, acting in a skit, and building a model farm over a span of three days. These model farms will be based on the ones they are making individually, but they will have to pool their ideas together and create one group farm. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have up their sleeves!

Have a wonderful weekend,
Ali

Week of April 2nd

Wow it's hard to believe it's April already! Our week began with a presentation from Madeleine on "African Animals". Madeleine told us some interesting facts about several animals that you will find in Africa such as the zebra, giraffe, cheetah, and crocodile. We found out that her favorite is the cheetah. Great Job Madeleine! Last week Max began our week with a presentation on Ocean Life. He shared some shells, coral and had a great video that students watched during Choice time. He even made up a game that students could play where they learned about various sea life from a book brought in by Max. Great job Max! Check out their pictures above.

Last week on Thursday we went to a concert in the gym which was performed by an orchestra called "VYO Sinfonia". It was a real treat! The students were excited to hear some music from "Harry Potter" and learn about the different instruments found in the orchestra.

For the past 2 weeks Ali has worked on some lessons with the students on cooperative learning. They have worked together to direct each other in making pattern block patterns without looking, having to trade puzzles pieces to make 3 circles without talking and this week they were each given a specific job (facilitator, reporter, recorder, and materials manager) and together designed a pattern block picture. They will be using these skills over the next 2 weeks during Ali's solo weeks. They have done a terrific job working together.

In math we wrapped up Unit 5 and will begin our Farm Unit next week. This will be an interdisciplinary unit like the Penguin unit. It should be a lot of fun for the students. They will be building farms, learning about the different farm animals and having to earn money in order to purchase items for their farms. It will be a great learning experience.

In writing we will be wrapping up our Opinion writing by vacation. When we come back we will start a unit on Poetry.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Nancy

Week of March 19th

Aren't the weeks just flying by? This week, we made a point of enjoying the sunshine a little bit by going outside during Choice Time for a couple of days. We had a great time running around and hope the warm weather is here to stay.

Our week started off great with Cory's discovery table on Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus. So interesting!

In math we are continuing to learn about geometry and had a lot of fun finding a lot of different ways to make cubes and pyramids out of polydron pieces. Thursday and Friday we colored in grids of 9 squares each with different colors and designs and brainstormed ways we could sort them. We realized that there are so many different ways we could sort them into groups, we couldn't even name them all!

In literacy, we have been discussing opinions and thinking about details that we like in our favorite books. The class has been writing lots of letters about their favorite books so you may see some addressed to you in the next couple of weeks!

I have been having such a great time subbing for Mrs. Nakhleh and it has been an excellent experience for me. I feel so lucky to have been placed with such a great class and am looking forward to my solo weeks.

Have a great weekend,
Ali

Chaperones Needed

We will need some parent chaperones to go to Shelburne Farms with the class on May 10th. We will be learning about farming. If you are interested please let me know. Please remember to chaperone you need to have filed the appropriate paperwork. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank-you,
Nanyc

Hands on Nature

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Week of March 12th

This week we had Hands On Nature. The students learned about twigs. There was a puppet show. They played a game of I-Spy with a partner to show the importance of really examining things closely. Then they got to examine real twigs so as to understand their functions, including terminal buds, lenticils, leaf scars, lateral buds, bud scale scars,ring of lines marking how much it grew in a year. They then dressed up Haley as a twig and explained the parts again. Each child had the opportunity to make a twig with a pretzel and jelly beans. They chose between lateral and alternating buds to make their twigs. Hands on Nature then concluded with "Be A Tree Fantasy" where each child pretended to be little trees in the forest through the seasons. I'd like to thank Lynn Wilkinson, Cecelia Halliburton, and Lisa Warne for teaching this lesson.

In math we are continuing with our geometry unit. We worked on using pattern blocks to make various shapes and experimenting with different ways of making these shapes alternating various pattern blocks and coming up with three different ways to make the shape. A few students want to take one of the shapes and see how many different possibilities there are to make this one shape using hexagons, trapezoids, rhombuses and/or triangles. Stay tuned to see what happens. We also learned a couple of new games. One was "Last Shape in Wins" and the other was "Pattern Block Find and Fill". Ask your child about these games.

In writing we completed the On Demand Task and have started a new unit on Opinion Writing. This week we focused on talking through books that we really like and why and then finding evidence in the story to show why we really like the story. The students worked with a partner to share their thinking. Next week we will take what we have done orally and put it into writing. We will use a letter format to share these opinions. The class is off to a great start.

Next week I will be out of the classroom for 3 days. I will be attending a conference in Philadelphia on Differentiated Instruction. Ali will be subbing for me during these days. It will be nice for the class to have someone they are familiar with and great practice for her solo weeks ahead.

Unified Arts Conferences

K-5 Unified Arts Teachers, as well as 6-8 World language teachers will be available in their classrooms, on Monday, April 16th, from 3-5PM for Parent Conferences. Please feel free to schedule a conference, or simply stop in. We look forward to seeing you.

Dr. Suess

SCS was welcomed back from vacation on Tuesday with a Read Around America Celebration. We celebrated the birthday of Dr. Seuss with a K-5 assembly, a school wide 7 minute "Drop Everything and Read" time, guest readers throughout the day and a bunch of Dr. Seuss activities. Sue Schaefer, Patty Spagnolo, Nancy Colbourn and Allegra Miller were all guest readers in our classroom. This was a terrific way to get back into the swing of things at school. Check out their pictures below.

Firefly First Grade completed our CSSU Science Inquiry Assessment this week. This assessment required students to sort rocks into 2-4 categories, name the categories, give the sort a title and then write a letter to Echo about how they thought these rocks should be sorted. Everyone did a fantastic job with this and had fun in the process.
Next week we will be completing the CSSU Spring On-Demand Writing Prompt. This prompt will require students to write about why baby animals have to stay with their mothers. Then we will begin a unit on Opinion writing where we read Mentor texts and respond to what characters do or how they feel.

Next week will be the final week for this Social Studies/Science rotation. Our new units will begin the week of March 19th. Mrs. Nakhleh will be teaching "Changes in the Earth and Sky". I will be teaching "Physical Geography".

A reminder that report cards went home today in Friday folders. If you have any questions or concerns about them please feel free to contact me. Conferences are being held in April and will be centered around your child and the work they have done during the 2nd trimester. Please check the wikki schedule on the Firefly webpage to confirm your time. If you have not signed up yet, please do so sometime in the near future. I would like to have students to attend these conferences with their families.

Have a great weekend,
Nancy