Well, here goes. This is my final blog post for 2020-2021. When this year started, I was terrified and uncertain about how to make it through. I didn't think I'd be able to teach, have fun, or laugh. I was worried that the students would be distracted and unhappy.  The curriculum seemed daunting, and I felt unsure I'd be able to do it any justice. Your children, every one of them, made the year amazing. They were resilient, flexible, happy, funny, silly, hard-working, and overall fabulous. I am forever grateful for them, and for all of you for your support. The year was memorable, and I will certainly never forget any of them!

Thank you all for coming to our little Awards Ceremony today. I apologize for the technical glitches,  and I appreciate your patience. Here is a link to the recording of the ceremony in case you were not able to attend. As I said during the ceremony, ALL of the students deserved ALL of the awards, and it was hard for me to choose. They all shine!

I enjoyed seeing each of the students as they came up to get their Memory Books at MRP this afternoon. I wanted so much to hug them, but I know it would have made me cry, so it's probably just as well that hugging is discouraged right now! I have had many teary moments today, and I think Monday will be hard. There aren't many jobs that require saying goodbye to your entire team every 9 months! This crew is particularly special, and I am so sad to see them go.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your donations of materials, support, creemees, suggestions, and so  much more. It has been my pleasure getting to know you all and loving your children. I hope to see you all around!

 The big news of the day today was Move-Up Day, of course! The class left here yesterday feeling nervous, worried, excited, and anxious. They arrived back here today all excited and bubbly, wearing their brand new BRMS t-shirts! They are truly feeling like 5th graders now, and I don't know how I will keep them contained next week!

I have no academics to tell about other than the reviewing we have been doing. But there are a few important updates to tell you about. Please read carefully!

• Next week is Spirit Week here at JES. I believe you have received this notification, but here is the link again just in case. It should be a fun way to end (almost) our year!
• Next week, please consider sending in a reusable bag with your child. We will be cleaning out our desks and there is a lot of STUFF to bring home, including all of the writing from their portfolios from the past 5 years. 
• On Thursday next week, we will be watching a movie (The Secret Life of Arrietty) and I have gotten permission from our health office to allow the kids to lie on the floor with pillows and blankets, and to give them popcorn and popsicles. I will send home a reminder on Wednesday, but in the meantime, please let me know if your child can't have popcorn. It'll likely be SmartFood popcorn. We would do pajama day, but it is also Spirit Week, and that would interfere. Blankets, stuffies and pillows will have to be good enough.
• We are all set with t-shirts! I know a few of you said you would supply your own, but I have enough for everyone else (and a few extras) thanks to Amanda. We will be making t-shirts on Tuesday, so please be sure you send your child's in if you aren't using one from the classroom!
• On Friday, we will be going to Mills Riverside Park for our final 4th grade celebration. You are all invited to join us for the Memory Book ceremony at 1:30. We will start promptly, so you may want to arrive by 1:25. This will be a masked and distanced event. Feel free to take your children home from MRP if you would like. Otherwise, they will ride the bus back to JES and have dismissal as usual. We DO have school on Monday, but it will be a day of cleaning and perhaps watching another movie. All of our celebrations and goodbyes will be done by then, so it will be a "holding" day.
• Finally, I will be having an "awards ceremony" for the class on Friday morning at 10:30. Each student will be receiving a separate award. I wish you could all join me, but that is not in the cards this year. I would like to invite you to join us virtually if you can. I know it is a work day and many of you have other commitments. This ceremony will only last about 15 minutes, and it will be fun and casual. I will send you the link next week, and I hope you can join!

I hope you all enjoy the weekend and stay cool!

 SBAC testing is over! I am so impressed with the grit and determination I saw this week and last. It's good to have the testing behind us so we can move on to finishing things up and having some fun!  We all enjoyed a creemee today, thanks to Ange Smith. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

Sadly, (and surprisingly -- since I rarely find myself at a loss for words...) I don't have much to report on this week. We are still finishing up our graphic novels and our book group books. As students finish up, they are free reading and free writing, giving their peers some time to finish, and giving me some time to do some final reading assessments.  The graphic novels are adorable! They will get to bring them home when they are finished, and I plan to scan them and share them with each student so they will  have a digital version forever.

We had a lovely walk to the river on Monday. Mr. Bouchard showed us all various spots that had evidence of glacial activity MANY years ago. We used topographical maps and learned how the distance between the lines on them show us how steep the landforms are. Yesterday we used ice and sand and made our own "mini-glaciers" and investigated to see what would happen when we dragged them across "land" made from modeling clay. It definitely helped to visualize the effects that glaciers have had on our land!

I have decided not to teach the beginning of another math unit. We have covered all of the units that are required for 4th grade, and we have covered all of the "benchmark understandings." My personal feeling is that it is counterproductive to cram any new learning into full brains so close to the end of the year. Instead, we will do lots of fun reviewing of the skills we have learned this year. 

I just heard from parent Amanda Edson that she bought white t-shirts for the entire class! She got youth medium, youth large, and adult small -- some of each. Next week, I will see if I can match each student to a t-shirt that fits him/her, and we'll make adjustments as we need to. Of course, if your child needs a different size or you have already gotten a t-shirt, no worries! We are flexible.  Thank you, Amanda!

I feel lucky every single day to be a part of this community of students AND parents! Your support, your communication, and your willingness to help have made this crazy year feel almost normal! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Your children are amazing, and so are you.

Enjoy your long weekend!

 Hi Families,

I am so proud of this class for all their hard work this week, especially during the SBAC testing. They were focused and tried their hardest, and my heart swelled watching them being so earnest! The SBAC testing is long and arduous, and they rocked it out of the park!  The language arts portion is done, and we move onto math next week.  Halfway through!

I have tried to keep our academics a little more casual this week so that their brains didn't get fried, but we did do some work. In math, we worked hard on the distinction between division story problems and multiplication story problems, and what strategies can be used to figure out which is which. This class is really getting good at using a variety of strategies to solve division problems -- most of the small errors they make are calculation errors (not knowing their basic multiplication facts) and not about conceptual understanding. I am so happy with the progress they have made!

In reading, we are still working in our book groups and trying to practice writing in our notebooks. I will really push them on this over the next few weeks because I know it will be an expectation in 5th grade. I am hoping a few weeks of practice will show them that it isn't so bad!  I have started doing my final reading assessments, and it makes me smile to see the growth.

We continue to work on our graphic novels/narratives during writing time. I am loving some of the drawings and story ideas I am seeing, and I can tell the students are  super excited about their writing! I haven't decided how I will celebrate this unit yet, but we will manage to celebrate somehow!

Here are a few important pieces of information:

• On Monday, we will be taking a walk with Mr. Bouchard down to the park behind the Red Mill. This will be a fun and informative way to finish up our geology unit. We will leave school at around 9:00 and return in time for recess at 11:00. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this.
• You will be receiving a communication about our year-end celebration from the office later today (I think!) We are having our 4th grade celebration at Mills Riverside Park on June 11. We will take the bus over to the park at about 11:30. All of the 4th graders will be able to enjoy a fun, unstructured play time together (with the pods mixing, masked) until lunch time. We will have a picnic lunch. Then, we will have our annual Memory Book ceremony, during which each student will get a Memory Book from Mrs. Graf. Parents are invited to join us for the ceremony (masked and distanced, of course!) at 1:30. We will board the buses right after the ceremony to head back to JES in time for dismissal. If you attend, you can take your child directly home with you if you'd like. I wish we could do more to celebrate these wonderful students, and I especially wish we could invite all of you to join us for the entire event, but it will be a really fun day and I know they will enjoy themselves. Our last day of school is the following Monday (June 14) and we will spend that day just enjoying each other's company and cleaning out our desks. Then it will be time to say goodbye....

I think that's it for this week. As always, reach out if you have questions or concerns. Enjoy the weekend!

 What a beautiful day! We enjoyed Taiko drumming outdoors first thing this morning and then had lunch outside this afternoon. It's been a struggle to get everyone outdoors regularly with the rainy, cold weather. Today made it possible and we took full advantage!

Academics this week were simple: We read our books and worked HARD to write about our reading in our notebooks. We started drafting our last narrative (graphic novels for most) and we practiced division over and over and over again!  We have learned and reviewed three or four different strategies for long division, and now we just need lots of practice. Ask your child to show you how she or he would solve 1,448 divided by 4!  Ask how s/he will know if there is a remainder or not. You'll be amazed at the skill and understanding!

The big topics this week have been Taiko, SBAC, and the track meet. It seemed like everyone really enjoyed the drumming. Sensei Stuart showed them a lot of cool drumming techniques. He also taught them the importance of self-control and respect for the sensei, or teacher. It was a wonderful opportunity and I wish we could have had more of it! The track meet was also really successful. The weather was perfect, and I really enjoyed seeing all of the students cheering each other on in a healthy, inclusive way. A few were disappointed in their own performance, but in the end they realized that the fun outweighed the disappointment.

SBAC testing starts on Tuesday morning. We will do the ELA (Reading/Writing) first. The first session is more short answer and reading for comprehension. The second session involves lots of reading and writing. We practiced this one today, and I tried my best to assure the class that even though they need to try their best, this test is just a snapshot of ONE moment in time! For equity reasons, I am going to have all the students use school-issued headphones for the testing. If you child has fancy headphones from home, please remind them that they can't use those for SBAC testing.  Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns about the SBAC testing.

I think that's it for this week! We are busy planning a fun celebration for the end of the year. It looks like parents may be able to join, from a distance, for part of this celebration, although details and guidance change regularly. I'll give you more information as I get it!

I hope you all enjoy the lovely weather this weekend!

Happy sunny Friday! I have counted the days, and there are only 25 school days left. Wow. We are making it through this crazy year!

Academics this week have been pretty simple -- here's the rundown:

Math: We have moved from multiplication with large numbers into division strategies. Our work mostly focuses on how to "partition" the larger number into groups, always remembering to use multiples of 10 and 100 to partition large chunks at a time. I use the metaphor or moving 1,000 jellybeans from a vat into 6 bags. I could do it one at a time, or I could scoop 100 jellybeans at once, making the job more efficient and easier! This takes practice, and we are definitely not done yet.  But this is our last math unit, so we are taking our time.

Reading: The students have all chosen a new book group book, and the groups met once this week to hammer out some details. They discussed how many pages to read each day, what sorts of questions or topics they want to discuss, what expectations they have of their group members in terms of notetaking, etc. I am trying to give them a lot of space and time to take responsibility for these decisions since they are ALMOST 5th GRADERS!

Writing: I have enjoyed holding the students back this week (I say I am "torturing them" and I love hearing the collective groan...) making them do a lot of pre-planning for their final narrative piece. They are planning the plot, the problems their characters will encounter, the traits their characters have, and the way their stories will begin and end. Today we talked about the importance of a "backstory" which guides the choices our characters make. They are EAGER to get going, and I will let them start their actual drafting on Monday. They are like horses waiting to leave the gate at a rodeo!

Science: We finished up our energy unit today. The main focus here was on stored energy, whether in a rubber band that gets twisted or a hill that a marble rolls down. It was fun to see them work together (briefly) in groups to test some marbles and tracks. The concept was simple, but the learning was fun! Next week we will begin our final science unit about geology.

There is A LOT going on next week! Here's a brief schedule with some details:

Monday and Tuesday: Spring photos. The students are allowed to bring a prop that shows who they are, what hobbies they have, etc. I can't guarantee which day they will have their turn, so it would be a good idea to have the prop here on Monday and leave it here overnight if they don't get their turn that day. If you have questions about props, please contact Ms. Erica.

Monday: TAIKO Drummers will be here! We will see them perform Monday morning.Then our 2 PE periods next week will be spent learning how to drum!

Thursday: Track meet. I believe Mr. Steinman sent you all a letter about this. It should be a fun day. Think SUN!

In between, we will continue learning, reading, writing, and do 2 SBAC practice tests. We will be BUSY!

I think that's everything. Thank you all for the kind cards and gifts and flowers for Teacher Appreciation Week. I appreciate our partnerships! 

Have a wonderful weekend.

 Hello! It's hard to believe we just had a vacation -- once we are back in the classroom, it feels like we never left. We have worked hard this week, and we have 6 more weeks to go. I can't believe that the time is going by so fast.

Here's a quick rundown on the week:

Math -- We are still working on multiplying and dividing large numbers. The students ALL have good and efficient strategies for solving multiplication problems, and I am really excited about that. The bigger issue is that many of them still don't know their math facts, and that makes their answer incorrect despite the strategy being efficient. I know that memorizing your math facts is BORING, but I highly recommend that they all find ways to get those facts into their memories so they can access them fluently when necessary.  We just circled back to division with large numbers today. We are solving problems like this:

The apple orchard picked 1,548 apples. They can put 6 apples in each bag. How many bags of apples can they fill?

Here's how we solved it today, after asking if they could fill 100. How about 1,000? How about 200?

6 X 100 = 600

6 X 200 = 1,200

6 X 50 = 300

6 X 8 = 48

6 X 255 = 1,548

So the answer is 258 bags with one apple left over. We are working to use what we know about the magical 10 and 100. If we can multiply something by 10, then we can multiply it by 5 by halving it. Then we can multiply it by 15!

Reading -- We are getting ready to launch our final unit of the year, which will be a genre-based book group unit. The students will get to choose what genre they want to read, and then they will read with friends, jot their ideas, and get together to have discussions. I think they will enjoy this, and it will give them more practice with coming up with IDEAS about characters.

Writing-- We finished our essay unit this week! I'm impressed with the literary essays the class wrote, and particularly with their ability to find and use quotes to prove their opinions. Good for them! Today we did our final assessment, and I am looking forward to reading their essays over the weekend.

Science-- We have started the second and final bend of our energy unit. This unit is all about stored energy. We are making a variety of fun manipulatives that use rubber bands to store energy. Next week we will try out the rubber band roller cars we made today, and we will also use "bumper coasters" and marbles to learn about energy transfer. I hope the rain lets up so we can do some of this outdoors!

I was out yesterday for a medical appointment, and I will be out again on Monday for a personal day. I am never out so often, and I apologize for the 2 days so close together. I look forward to seeing the class on Tiesday.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Friday! And happy vacation! We are all certainly ready for a little break. This class has worked hard all week, and they are ready to rest and play. Here's the rundown for the week:

Math: This week we continued practicing a variety of strategies for solving double digit multiplication problems. We added a new strategy, which the class named "landmarking." This means changing one number to an easier number before multiplying, then compensating by adding or subtracting. Here is an example:  22 X 18 can be changed to 20 X 1 8 (because we all know how to multiply by 10, and therefore by 20!) 20 X 18 = 360. Then we need to compensate by adding in the final two groups of 18, so 22 X 18= 396. This is tricky for some, but fortunately math is flexible and we all find the strategies that work best for us!  We also learned to solve 4-digit by 1-digit multiplication problems. For this, we simply use expanded notation and multiply each part separately. Ask your children to show you an example!

Reading: We finished up the week by reading our choice books and jotting ideas about our reading. This class really enjoys reading, and I can always count on them to be totally focused during reading time. I hope they will read over vacation!

Writing: We are still working on our literary essays. I was hoping to finish up this week, but I think we need one more week after vacation to get completely finished. This week, the class learned how to select the best quotes from their books to prove the points they are trying to make in their essays. Providing evidence for your thinking is a critical writing skill, and really a critical life skill as well!

Social Studies: We finished our very quick unit about Vermont's geography, and I am impressed with how much this class learned! They all know where the major mountains and rivers are located, and they can label many important landmarks on the Vermont map! 

Our new vocabulary words this week were ornate, jovial, jubilant, and versatile. Unfortunately, they didn't all make it into the visual dictionary, but that is okay! You can use them at home, and that will make a huge difference. I caught a few students using jovial in their essays, and I was jubilant!

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful week with your children. I will miss them!

 Hi Families,

What a gift of nice weather we have had the past few days! I have tried to get us outdoors as much as possible. Between all the supplies we need and all the insect life that scares some people, it has been a bit of a challenge, but we have persevered!

Here's the rundown on the week:

Math -- We are fully involved in our final  multiplication and division unit. In this unit, students learn a variety of strategies for double digit multiplication and division with larger numbers. Here is a chart that shows the strategies we have learned. so far. As you can see, we don't teach the standard algorithm that we all learned when we were in school. Instead, we teach the students to think about how to use their multiples of 10 to solve these equations. It seems like it's much harder, but it really gets at their understanding of place value. They are getting it!

Writing -- we have been working hard on our literary essays. This means we have discussed what that even means, seen a sample of one, and worked on coming up with a thesis to write about. Some students are writing about picture books (which I highly recommend because it's much easier to find quotes!) while others are writing about chapter books.  Their theses are mostly about character traits ("Sally is brave because she___________and because she _________________.") Some are writing about the theme of the book or how a character changes from the beginning to the end.  Although we spent a lot of time writing persuasive and opinion essays, this sort of literary analysis is different! We are working hard!

Reading -- we are still reading on our own and in small groups, remembering to jot our ideas about the characters, the setting, or anything else we think about. These kids love to read, and I am always thrilled to see them get lost in their books.

Social Studies -- we spent some time this week learning about maps in general, and the Vermont map specifically. We have learned what states (and country) surround us, what major rivers and mountain ranges exist in Vermont, and which counties surround Chittenden County. We have looked at a lot of different kinds of map (precipitation maps, population maps, topographical maps, etc.) and we are getting really familiar with our state.

New words this week were limber, cordial and abundant. Enjoy getting those into your daily conversations!

Thanks to those of you who have signed up for conferences. I look forward to talking to you about your child! These are not mandatory conferences, so just sign up if you feel the need.  If you need help with signing up, let me know.

We will have one more busy week next week before a well-deserved vacation! In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend.

 Hi Families!

Last Friday, our day ended with a power outage, so I never got the opportunity to send a blog post. I meant to do it once I got home, but of course I got distracted... Sorry!

It's been a busy week here. I am so attached to this class and feel so much pride in all of the work they've done during this difficult year. They are resilient and flexible and earnest -- and they are learning so much in spite of the challenges of masks, desks in rows, etc. What a group!

Here's what's been going on:

Math: We are finished with our fraction unit! The final assessment was today, and I was pleased with the results. Yesterday we made a list of all we have learned, and it's a long list: equivalent fractions, placing fractions on a number line, adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers, multiplying fractions by whole numbers, and so much more!  Wow! They should all be very proud of all they have learned.  Next week, we will begin our final multiplication and division unit, learning long division and also double digit by double digit multiplication. Stay tuned!

Reading: We finished up our social issues book clubs last week. Once again, I am impressed with how much the class learned about ways to identify the issues in books, and at their desire for justice and equity in general. They expect the world to be a good place, and I love that about them! We have talked a lot about how so many fiction books have social issues in them -- they should be able to continue this work on their own. This week, and for the next 2 weeks, we are just free reading. I am reminding them of all the strategies I have taught them so far this year, and they are choosing to read whatever books they want. While they read, I am conferring with them individually and working with some students in small groups. In preparation for report cards, I assessed each reader and I feel like they have all made so much progress in their ability to read and comprehend!

Writing: I feel like I am beating a dead horse, but we are STILL working on our essays. We finished up our opinion essays, and everyone wrote a persuasive essay in two weeks. We printed those today and shared our favorite parts. For the next 2 weeks, we will write literary essays, using some of the same strategies to write about books. They are all getting SO good at finding a thesis and at using paragraphs.

Science: We did a very quick unit about natural resources and how humans use them to make electricity. Last week, the kids all researched one renewable and one nonrenewable resource, and they compared their pros and cons. This group is all set to save the planet!

Social Studies: Today we started a new unit about Vermont's geography. We discussed a variety of landforms and what they look like. Next week we will begin looking more closely at the map of Vermont.

Here are a few more important notes:

Report cards come home on Monday. Since we were in the middle of the fraction unit when the trimester ended, the scores for that part of the math section will be only a partial score -- you will see an updated score in the final report card.

Conferences: We are holding parent conferences at the end of April. These are optional, of course. I will be sending home more information about them and  how to sign up next week.

Masks: Please remember to pack extra masks for your children. We are going through them really fast here at school, and I notice the students needing new masks after every recess and PE class. Having a few extras in their backpacks would be wonderful.

4th Grade Celebration: Thank you to all of you who have reached out to Miss Fecura about the Memory Book. I think we have plenty of parents working on that, but we will reach out again as soon as we know more about how we plan to celebrate the 4th graders at the end of the year (COVID protocols permitting!)

I think that's everything. Please, as always, be in touch if you have questions about anything. We are a team!

 Happy sunny Friday!

Wow! We had SO much fun today! With my wig and my dark eyebrows, I became Ms. DuCharme. The students all had such interesting names, outfits, and backstories, and we all did our best to call each other by our new names all day. Despite the craziness, we actually got a lot of work done today! This class has learned how to have a blast and then get serious again quickly!

Here's a brief update on our academics this week:

Math: The fraction unit is HUGE and we are spending a lot of time on it. In this bend, we are focusing on adding and subtracting fractions. This is easy as long as they have common denominators, but it's a little harder when you have to consider equivalent fractions in order to get to an equation that has the same "units." We are practicing and practicing, and the equivalent fraction piece is coming together!

Reading: This week we have been working hard to deepen our book club conversations. It's easy to get together with your group and retell what has happened or make predictions about what will happen later, but it is much harder to share ideas and analyze the characters, the author's moves, and the themes. We watched 5th graders doing this beautifully on a video, and I think it was good for the students to see, specifically, what they did to have a successful and important conversation. We have another week of Social Issues reading, and I am hoping to hear a lot of fabulous conversations to finish it up!

Writing: After all of our build-up to writing today, we ended up not having time for any of it! We spent some time talking about current events instead, and then we shared, played a game, and had a little lighthearted fun. Who doesn't need some of that on a Friday? We will get right back to our persuasive writing on Monday!

Science: Today we learned the difference between renewable and nonrenewable natural resources (coal, solar, and wind specifically) and what those terms mean. We learned about how wind is made (by the sun heating the land and water) and how coal is filled with the sun's energy. Next week, we will learn more about other energy sources (hydro, natural gas, etc.) and the students will learn the pros and cons of each.

Thanks for sending in all of the chromebooks -- I think we are all set!

New words this week are: minute (as in tiny), initiate, and drawl. Try using all of those in the same sentence! I initiated a discussion with a lady who had a minute southern drawl....

I hope you all have a wonderful, warm weekend.

Hi Everyone. Happy sunny Friday! It feels and looks like spring, and the kids are feeling it too. Today was a fast and chaotic day! Here's the scoop:

Math: We are deep into our fractions unit, and this is hard work! We are spending a lot of time looking at fraction models and trying to decide which fractions are bigger and which are smaller. We are also trying to determine equivalent fractions. I've spent a lot of time teaching the students to understand that the denominator tells us how many pieces to break the whole into -- and we are getting much better at this! The students worked in groups to make decks of fraction cards this week. They played "Capture Fractions" (like War with fractions instead of whole numbers.) We also put a classroom deck onto a number line on the bulletin board, always comparing the fraction cards to landmark numbers like 0, 1/2, 1 and 2. This is a big unit so we will be spending at least 3 more weeks learning about fractions. Stay tuned!

Reading: We are still reading our social issues books and discussing important things like which character has more power and why. We have discussed what "categories" we belong to and the concept of intersectionality. This class is SO in tune with the issues in our world. I am constantly impressed by their thoughtfulness about social issues. They are going to change the world one day!

Writing: We are just finishing up our opinion pieces. We are not having a publishing party for these because they were just a foundational practice to get us ready for out next big writing piece -- a persuasive piece. We will start those on Tuesday. Feel free to talk with your kids about what topics they might want to address and who their audience might be. Every year, it ranges from letters to government officials to letters to Ms. Graf. Sometimes kids write to their parents, so don't be surprised if you get a letter trying to convince you to get a dog, build a pool, etc.  They can be very persuasive!

Word Study: This week we learned about suffixes and prefixes and base words. We learned that the spelling of the base word never changes when you add a prefix, but sometimes does when you add a suffix. So far we have only practiced with base words that don't need any changing, but we will do this same work for a few more sessions, and we will get to dropping silent e and changing an ending y to an i. 

Our new vocabulary words this week were gripe, fatigue, dormant, and frank. Enjoy using those in your conversations this weekend!

Science: We have just started our unit on natural resources. Once again, it amazes me how much this class knows about climate change, energy, and how we use Earth's resources. We will learn about renewable and nonrenewable resources and the pros and cons of each. This will be a quick unit since the students already have a lot or prior knowledge.

Chromebooks: As you know, JES is asking students to begin leaving their chromebooks at school. Thank you to those of you who have already sent in your chargers and chromebooks. Friday of next week is the deadline for students to begin leaving their chromebooks here. Many students have expressed frustration at not being able to connect with friends on their chromebooks anymore, and with the pandemic around us, I sympathize and understand it is hard to feel so isolated. They can certainly get on their gmail by visiting google on any device -- they just need their email addresses and their lunch number. Their password is JES followed by the lunch number. Let me know if you have questions about this.

Folders: Starting this week, I am sending home all completed work in the blue homeschool folder on Fridays. I have not had a good system for this so far this year, and I apologize! When I ask the students to take work home, I often find it in the recycling at the end of the day. I'm hoping the folder system will help get the work into your hands so you can see it and then YOU can decide whether to recycle it or not!  Please help your kids get into the habit of emptying the folder and getting it right back into their backpacks so they can bring it back on Monday empty. Thanks!

I'm off the get my vaccine -- I see happier days ahead! I hope you all enjoy your weekend.

 Happy Friday! I can't believe it is already February vacation. The time will tick by so quickly after we get back -- I'd like time to slow down a little!

The big news today was our auction. Thank you all SO much for sending in items. We had 70 fabulous items for bidding. We set it up like a real auction. The kids got to look at the items ahead of time, and they all had sticks with numbers on them. They had bidding sheets where they got to keep track of what items they had bid on. It was so much fun! We talked ahead of time  A LOT about how they would feel if they were outbid by a friend so that I could prepare them for that disappointment. There were a few sad kids, but mostly they were SO kind to each other, and some even bid on items to give to their less "rich" friends. In the end, I think everyone had fun and learned a lot of life skills through this entire project. They were my guinea pigs, and I will use their suggestions to make the checkbook/job/auction project more successful next year. Ask them to show you their checkbooks! They are cute, thanks to my husband who made them all for us. I wish I could have taken some photos of the auction in action, but I was too busy being the auctioneer! My throat is parched from all that auctioneering!

Aside from the auction, we had regular school this week as well. We continued working on finding equivalent fractions, and we even started learning about decimals. I think the decimal work actually created a lot of "aha" moments! We are learning a lot of math!  This unit will continue after vacation.

We are still reading our social issues books and thinking about power versus powerlessness, fairness, identity, and how social issues affect our lives. I love the conversations I am hearing in the book group discussions. These kids rock, and they are clearly interested in the world around them! 

Our opinion pieces are coming along. We are learning how to add mini-stories to each paragraph to really explain our opinions. I love the organization I am seeing -- the students are learning to use paragraphs! We will finish up these pieces shortly after vacation and then we will move into writing persuasive pieces. I can't wait to see what they come up with. They are a dedicated and passionate group of students! Have I told you I love this class?

Our new vocabulary words this week were fluctuate, deplete, and dilemma. I hope you can throw those words into your family conversations!

Enjoy the vacation! I hope you get to spend some quality time with your wonderful children. I will certainly miss them!

Happy Friday, Happy Chinese New Year, and Happy almost-Valentine's Day!  Despite all of those exciting things to celebrate, we have had a terrific week here in the classroom. Here's the rundown:

Math

We started off the week reviewing what a fraction is, how to recognize a few basic fractions, and how to put them on a number line. Then we moved into more complicated work, looking at fractional parts of a rectangle, and finding equivalent fractions. This is hard work, and I plan to move slowly so no one feels left behind. Here is the family letter explaining what I hope we will all learn during this unit.

Reading

The class has been reading books in their "Social Issues Book Clubs." They have learned how to identify the social issues based on when the character is struggling, when they, as readers, feel uncomfortable, and when the character feels powerless. They are reading, taking notes, and having conversations with each other on chat, in person, and on a shared slide presentation. Talking about books is so powerful, and I can tell how much they are enjoying this!

Writing

We have spent the week planning our opinion writing pieces. The planning involved coming up with an opinion and 3 ways to defend it (or 3 pieces of evidence.) Today the students started drafting. This is basically a 5 paragraph essay (or will be, once it is done.) It will have an introduction which ends with their thesis statement, 3 body paragraphs (1 for each of their 3 reasons), and then a conclusion. I love this writing unit because it helps so much with organizational skills and teaching young writers to use paragraphs. I can't wait to see the finished products! I will be sure to share them with you so you can enjoy them too.

Social Studies

We are finishing up our Civics and Government unit, and so many of the students want it to continue! I don't think I've ever had a class beg me to keep discussing government before! They are just so very committed to justice and they LOVE discussing controversial issues. Today we started our final project, which is all about finding a way to be an activist. Most students are making posters to hang around the school. Some are thinking about other ways, such as creating a public service announcement, starting a petition, etc.  I love seeing their passion. I hope they stay passionately involved in their communities forever!

Thank you to those of you who have sent in some items for our auction. There is still time if you would like to donate a few things. We will have our auction next Friday, right before vacation. This week, we learned about charitable giving and how it can give people a tax break, and a few generous students who have extra "money" in their accounts decided to donate so that I could level the playing field a little. I love our little classroom economy and will be sad to see it end.

Finally, our new vocabulary words this week are commotion, mediocre, eradicate, and competent. Enjoy using these words over the weekend!

 

 It was a fun Beach Day in the classroom today! The morning was pretty exciting, but we settled down and got a smooth groove going for our academic time this afternoon.  The sun is shining, it's Friday, and it feels good to have another week  under our belts.

We finished up our math unit this week. I am impressed by the students and their ability to use the US algorithm to add and subtract really large numbers! Making the 10,000 chart, while tedious, really  helps us understand how the number system works. We are ready to move on! Next week we will start our fraction unit. Since the students really didn't get much time to learn about fractions in third grade, we will start slowly with a lot of review so that we build a solid foundation. I will send home a digital copy of the family letter so you have more information about what our goals will be for the unit.

In reading, we have started our "Social Issues Book Clubs" unit. I am so proud of these students for having such a good grasp of the most important issues of our time! They are so filled with compassion and a desire for fairness and equity. So far, we have discussed what a book club looks like, we have read a number of picture books with social issues, and we have discovered that we need to pay attention to the parts of books that make us uncomfortable in order to find the most important issues. The students seem really stoked about their new books, and they are begging for reading time! That makes me smile from ear to ear.

Our new writing unit has also started. We are doing opinion writing. I started with a pre-assessment. Then I gave the students the checklist and a mentor text so they could set some goals for themselves. Then we began a class essay about why Vermont is a great place to live. Our opinion pieces will have a claim (or thesis) and 3 reasons, followed by 3 paragraphs (one for each reason.) Our Vermont essay starts with the claim "Vermont is a great place to live because it is beautiful, it has lots of yummy foods, and it has a variety of weather." We then wrote one paragraph about the beauty, one about the foods, and one about the weather. Ask your kids to tell you more about this process!

Today in Social Studies, we learned about Vermont's government and who runs it. Next week we will learn about how a bill becomes a law. We will look at one or two actual bills and have a healthy debate, just like our General Assembly does! I'm amazed, once again, at how much these kids have soaked up, and how much they care about what could be a dry topic!

Quick reminders about Valentine's Day: Bringing Valentines is totally optional, but they need to be brought for everyone if they are brought for anyone. No food or candy is allowed. We won't be having any sort of party, but the class will have a chance to pass out Valentines next Friday. It will be an otherwise normal day.

New words this week: cogitate, replenish, exasperate. Enjoy!

Have a restful, replenishing weekend!

 Happy chilly Friday! We were indoors all day today, but the sunshine certainly helped!

We've had another busy week this week. We made a 10,000's chart, which meant we had to make 100 one hundreds charts! The students discovered that 100 X 100 is 10,000, and that working with those large numbers is hard. A few of them jokingly accused me of child labor, but they got the chart more or less finished in only 3 days -- a record in all of my years of teaching! Today we started adding and subtracting using large numbers, with story contexts about stadiums and seating. This is a whole new level of conceptual understanding, and I plan to take my time and make sure we all understand before we move on to our next unit -- fractions. Gulp.

Since we are between reading and writing units, I gave the students the opportunity to free-read this week. They had been doing some independent research on a topic of their choice, and many of them opted to continue that reading during their research time. I love seeing them choose to read nonfiction!  During writing, we started learning about figurative language. We learned to recognize and to write similes and metaphors, and I am hopeful that these will start showing up in their own writing soon!

We continued learning about the government this week. We learned all about the 3 branches and what each one does, and how they all work together to create a balance of power. Today we made 3 Branches Cootie Catchers, and I asked the class to bring them home to test their grown-ups. Please ask your child to show you this fun activity! Next week we will learn about the difference between Republicans and Democrats, how a bill becomes a law, and what our Vermont government looks like. We will wrap up our civics unit before February break and move back into science.

Valentine's Day is coming up, and here are a few things you need to know:

• Nobody has to participate at all, but if your children want to be involved, they need to give a Valentine to everyone in the class.I will place a class list on the Bitmoji classroom so that your  kids can access it.
• Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions, we cannot have any candy or food items, even if sealed and store-bought, handed out for Valentine's Day.
• I plan to have another crafting hour -- next Friday-- and the students can use that hour to make Valentine cards for their classmates. I have plenty of materials that they can use, and I plan to keep it simple. If your child prefers to buy Valentine's cards or make them at home, that is also fine. They can also start their cards here and then take them home to embellish or finish them. I am flexible, but I wanted to give everyone materials and opportunity to participate, and to take one more thing off your plate at home.

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns about this. 

Finally, we got back to our class dictionary this week, Our new words are extract, elusive, anguish, and wrath. Enjoy using those around your kitchen table or on the slopes!

Have a wonderful weekend, and stay warm!

 It has been such a fast week! I have really enjoyed meeting with all of you, and I feel like I know your children better now!  This week has flown by. With Monday's holiday and me being out on Wednesday, it feels like it has been a pretend week!  

We HAVE managed to get a lot of work done, however. Our math work is coming along, and this week we learned how to use the US algorithm for subtraction to subtract across a middle zero. We are also using much bigger numbers now, and working with thousands can be confusing. I am really pleased to see the students using a variety of strategies as they solve increasingly difficult subtraction problems! Next week we will begin making a "10,000" chart and discussing how to manage adding and subtracting huge numbers!

We had our writing celebration today. I am including this link to a padlet where you can see everyone's books (I hope this works -- sometimes technology is still a mystery to me!) I love these books! They all worked really hard and it shows. Of course, this is just a snapshot in time -- some of them are unfinished, but like all writers, we had a deadline. We will take next week to learn about figurative language and try our hand at a few other fun writing activities. Then we will move on to opinion writing, another one of my favorites.

Along with opinion writing, our reading focus will return to fiction as we begin to tackle "social issues book clubs." This is always a difficult unit to feel happy about because the list of social issues the children come up with makes me sad. On the other hand, reading about them and seeing the resilience of the characters makes us all feel hopeful, and gives us many strong opinions to write about! I am currently trying to find multi-copy books at all of our reading levels so we can create some sort of book groups. I still haven't figured out how they will share their ideas with each other safely, but I will keep you posted. Be sure to ask your children to tell you about our read-aloud, Front Desk. It is intense, but oh-so-good!

We have taken the week off from our class economy so that our subtraction skills could have a chance to catch up. I think we are ready for more next week! I am going to start the week of by giving everyone their paycheck, along with a stimulus check.... (it's not real money, so why now?) This will give us another entry point to talk about our government and what it does for us, which is the topic of next week's lessons anyway. I love it when the academics from different areas all intersect!

I have been neglecting our class vocabulary for a few weeks, but the students have been asking me, so they miss it! We will be back to learning 4 new words a week starting on Monday. Stay tuned!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

 Happy sunny Friday! I have so enjoyed meeting with some of you this week during our parent conferences, and I look forward to seeing the rest of you next week. It is always nice to connect and spend some time talking about your children.  For those of you who haven't had your meeting yet, it seems like it might be best to join the google meeting from your child's chromebook (or another chromebook) since the link is through my google classroom. If this won't work for you for some reason, let me know and I will set up a separate google meet for our meeting.

The big news this week is our classroom economy. Everyone has been paid, paid rent and taxes, and received penalties and/or bonuses.  Subtracting our checks from our check registers has proven to be far more difficult that I anticipated, so we are taking a week off (having our own version of a "shut down"-- and maybe I'll give them all a stimulus check the week after!) so that our subtraction skills can catch up.  The class is disappointed, but we WILL get back to it the week after next, and we will extend the final date by a week.

Speaking of subtraction, we are learning a variety of subtraction skills, leading up to using the US algorithm (which is what we used to call "borrowing.") Before I teach the class how to do that, I need to make sure they have a solid grasp of place value. Here is a look at the strategies we are currently using:

I hope this makes sense! In the third example, we have learned that we can go over to the "tens house" when we are short ones, but in that house, the people are all stuck together in groups of 10. We can't borrow only what we need -- we MUST borrow an entire 10 and bring them all with us over to the "ones house." It's not the way WE all learned to do subtraction, but with the solid understanding of what goes in each "house" or place, the students will be better prepared for doing this with larger numbers.  Let me know if you have any questions about this!

We are just about done with our nonfiction reading and writing units. I am really impressed by the writing the students have done. I see a lot of great organizational skills and a lot of pride in their work! I will not be printing these since some of them are 15-18 pages and they have a lot of color. But be sure to ask your child to share them with you digitally. They are really lovely! We will be moving on to opinion writing soon. This class certainly has some opinions!

Speaking of opinions, we had our first "current events" conversation today. We discussed the importance of respectful conversations, and we learned how to have a "hands-free" conversation so that it felt more like a discussion. We also talked about how all of us have different reactions to the news, and we have to consider how it affects each of us based on our identities. We also discussed how important it is to know what each of us can control and can't control, and what we can do to take care of ourselves. We discussed the events that took place in Washington DC last week, and I was surprised and please to see how well-informed and wise they all are! Some spoke a lot, some just listened, and some had some excellent questions. This class rocks!  I hope to discuss current events every Friday from now on. They are hungry for this kind of mature conversation! 

Discussing current events goes along well with our unit on democracy and citizenship. So far we have discussed what "democracy" means, what the constitution is, and what rights and responsibilities citizens have. Next week we will get into the Bill of Rights and the balance of power. Great stuff!

I hope you all enjoy a restful weekend. Remember that there is no school for students on Monday. I look forward to seeing them all on Tuesday!

 This is a rather long blog post, so please stick with me.... Happy New Year! I am so happy to be back with all of the students again. Yesterday was the first day we had a full class, but we are all here and healthy, and that is wonderful!  Getting back into the routine has been easier for the students than I anticipated, but we did spend a little bit of time reviewing expectations and safety protocols. We are all back in the saddle now!

Before going into the details of our academics this week, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the recent sad and disturbing events in our news. I know that some of the students must be aware of these events and are probably confused or frightened by them. I have tried to balance the need to give them space to ask questions and express their worries with the need to keep with our routines. Since no one said a word about it to me, I stuck with our routines while keeping an ear out for any conversations that needed to be addressed. Ironically, we started our unit on Democracy and Citizenship today, and nobody brought up the news from the White House at all even though there was ample opportunity. I am sure the issues will come up over the next few weeks, and I plan to do my best to answer any questions with facts. Please let me know if your child is feeling confused or frightened and you need any support from me.

Our Democracy and Citizenship unit will be a repeat for the students who were in my class last year. Unfortunately, whenever you go from a multi-age to a straight grade classroom, half the kids are going to miss something and the other half will have to repeat something (in science and social studies, at least.) I think this unit is critical, and particularly in an election year. The main questions we will be answering are: What is democracy? What are the rights and responsibilities of a citizen in a democracy? How are laws made in Vermont? How can citizens be involved in their democracy?  I see students getting excited about these topics every year, and I hope this year won't be an exception!

We have started our new math unit -- Addition and Subtraction with Large Numbers. In this unit, students learn to use increasingly efficient strategies to add and subtract BIG numbers, ending with the standard US algorithm. This is trickier than it sounds. Up until now, they have been taught to add the hundreds, then the tens, and finally the ones. That is pretty ingrained! When they add numbers using the US algorithm (with "carrying and borrowing" the way we used to do it) they have to start with the ones place! So far, we have worked on addition, and in just 5 days, we are using the algorithm successfully! The students are begging me to write more problems for them on the board! It is an amazing "AHA" moment for them. Subtraction is coming along soon, and that is a totally different thing.... Stay tuned!

Reading and writing are moving along. We are learning some strategies to make our nonfiction writing more interesting, such as mixing facts with ideas, adding humor, and adding introductions and conclusions. We are also learning how to tackle difficult vocabulary and how to summarize what we have read. Both of these units will be completed in a week or 2.

Finally, I want to remind you all that report cards are coming home on Monday, and conferences will start on Wednesday. I think the easiest way to manage the conferences is for you to all use the google meet link that is on my google classroom. Here it is again, just in case Conference Link.  I will do my best to finish each conference on time, but please be sensitive to the fact that the conference before yours may not be quite done when you try to join. If that is the case, please just wait a few minutes and then join. You are more than welcome to have your child join the conference -- but I will leave that up to you.  Here is the Conference Schedule. Please let me know if you have any questions about your conference time or about conferences in general. I'm happy to help!

I hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend. The sun is shining -- which is a nice way to end the week!

 I can't believe this will be my last blog post for 2020. I'm happy to be saying goodbye to this year, but surprised at how fast time has flown by!

Despite the fact that the students are all ready for a vacation, we managed to get some good work done this week. We finished up our multiplication and division unit! Of course, we will never completely stop multiplying and dividing -- that work will continue through math menu until later in the spring, when we will have a similar unit with larger numbers. After vacation, we will begin a unit about addition and subtraction with large numbers (into the 10 and 100 thousands!) We will learn to regroup and use the standard US algorithm ("carrying and borrowing.") This unit is my favorite -- everyone is always successful, and learning about place value really helps with every other kind of math!

Our literacy units will both continue into January. This week, the students practiced finding the main idea and supporting details in parts of the books they are reading. They took notes and tried to figure out what was really important to write down. They also learned a few different strategies for elaborating in their own writing. They are begging for writing time, which is lovely!

Today we had our first "Maker's Space" day. The students really enjoyed being creative with a huge variety of craft items! Many surprise snowflake gifts are finished and wrapped! We will have another hour of crafting time on Monday so that we can make sure everyone has a chance to finish. I love this kind of activity -- everyone can find a way to participate!

I am still waiting on a few parent conference sign up sheets. If you can't find yours, feel free to email me and we can find a time for your conference. I have a schedule ready to share with you, but I am hoping to hear from everyone before it is finalized.

This week's vocabulary words were scrutinize, immense, and serene. We didn't get to put all of them into our visual dictionary, but we did try to use the words. See if you can use them too!

I probably won't write a blog post on Tuesday (although I might...) If you don't hear from me, I hope you all have a wonderful vacation!