Welcome Back!

Welcome back to a new school year!  We had a very busy first day of school.  Our class played a familiar math game, started a classroom scavenger hunt, talked about classroom expectations, went to Art class with Ms. Holmes-Heiss, and had our Technology Integration class with Ms. Arlyn.  I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow!

Classroom News

Green Up Day:

On Friday, our class we worked with our buddies from Mrs. Shedd's class to "green up" our school grounds.  We had fun working together on this special project!


Staff Appreciation Week:

A big thank you to everyone who sent in flowers, notes, and food for the staff breakfast!  You brightened my week!

Congratulations!
 
Congratulations to Edith!  She won a third place award in the PBS Go Writers Contest for her book, Poems: VT's Five Seasons.  Thanks for sharing your beautiful poems and illustrations with us, Edith!



Upcoming Events:

Thursday, May 12th:  K-3 Spring Concert 2:30 pm in the EMES gym
        You are welcome to join us for this special event!


Tuesdays, May 17th and 31st:  E.C.O. Lessons
         Please help your child come prepared for an afternoon outdoors.


Monday, May 30th:  Memorial Day (No School)

Friday, June 10th:  Field Day

Writing Update

Third grade writers will be wrapping up their opinion writing unit this week.  Students have been working on creating persuasive pieces that have a clear claim.  The claim is then supported with relevant details and evidence.  As a class, we have worked on convincing readers which book is the best in this year's Red Clover Award competition, and what Vermont tree is the most noteworthy: the apple, maple or fir.

During the last few weeks of school third grade writers will be working on a traditional literature reading/writing unit.  This work will be integrated into library and technology classes with Ms. Arlyn and Mrs. Christy.  Students will be writing either an original fairy tale, trickster tale or a "fractured" fairy tale in collaborative teams.  The final writing projects/stories will be done on iPads using a storybook creator app.  This promises to be a wonderful integrated project!

Second grade writers have continued to work on their opinion writing.  The focus for this week has been elaborating by adding specific details and examples for each reason.  Students have been thinking about their audience as they write and figuring out evidence that might convince their readers . For most of this opinion writing unit, second graders have focused on writing about books:  a favorite book or series, a favorite character, or a favorite part in a book.  This week, we started to write about our opinions on a wider variety of topics, such as:

               *  Which animal makes the best pet?

               *   If we could pick a super power, what would we chose? 

               *  What is our favorite sport?

               *  What time should we go to bed?

 It is exciting to share our opinions with each other!

         

Classroom News: E.C.O. Field Trip and Spears Lesson

E.C.O. Trip to the Liebermann's house:

We saw baby goats, chicks, frogs, frog eggs, and insect larva.  It was exciting to learn about life cycles for many different animal groups!  A big thank you to the Liebermann family for inviting us to visit their home and frog pond!

When we returned to school, students created blog posts on Kidblog telling about a "small moment" from our visit.  Check out our blog posts on Kidblog, which can be accessed via the EMES library webpage.

E.C.O. Spears Lesson:

This Tuesday, we participated in an action-packed lesson that focused on forces and motion.  First, we played motion tag.  Our main lesson activity was spear throwing, which was so much fun!  Students worked in teams to figure out the best throwing techniques, take photos on iPads, and record data about the distance of each throw.

Here are some photos from our last two E.C.O. lessons:

 

K-3 Spring Concert This Week

EMES K-3 Spring Concert

Thursday, May 12th, 2016

2:30 pm in the EMES gym

Performances by students in grades K-3

Special appearances by EMES Chorus and Jazz Band

Family and friends are welcome to join us for this special event!

 

Classroom News: Happy Spring!

In math, second graders continued learning about two-dimensional shapes.  We read the book Shape Up, which led us through some fun exercises that helped us explore the features of polygons using graph paper, a homemade "angle measurer", and pretzels!  We also worked on Cover and Count sheets where we covered larger shapes using different combinations of pattern blocks.  Very fun!

We have been working with Ms. Arlyn on our KidBlog posts during our Technology Integration times on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Students have been blogging about their animal groups, favorite Red Clover books, and the book The Matchbox Diary.  It is exciting, but challenging to write, revise, and edit a blog post directly on the computer. Soon, we will start commenting on each others' posts.

In literacy, second and third graders read Scholastic News magazines that focused on animal adaptations.  The second grade article focused on adaptations that help snow leopards survive in their habitats. Third graders read about the ways that coyotes have adapted to live in cities.   After reading and answering questions, our whole group talked about the main idea of each article and gave details that supported the main idea.  We also watched a short Scholastic video about adaptations.  

On Tuesday, March 28th, we will have our next E.C.O. lesson.  Please help your child come prepared to spend the afternoon outside.  

Other spring E.C.O. dates are on the following Tuesdays:

March 29th

April 12th

May 3rd

May 17th

May 31st- Final lesson of the year

Please let me know if you are interested in joining us for a lesson.

Thanks to Mrs. DeForge for teaching us about the "eagle cam" that is currently focused on an eagle's nest in Washington, D.C.  There are two newly hatched chicks in the nest who are frequently fed by their mother, First Lady.  We have not seen the father, Mr. President, but one student who checked later on in the day saw him bringing a fish to the nest around 6:00 pm.  If you would like to check out this website at home, here is the link:

Eagle Cam

Thank you to everyone for returning your conference sign-up forms.  I am sending home a conference schedule.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Classroom News: Geometry, BeeBot, Writing Celebration, and E.C.O.

Another busy week in the second and third grade!  On Monday, our second grade class started a new geometry unit with a discussion about the features of two-dimensional shapes.  We talked about the names of various polygons, such as triangles, quadrilaterals, hexagons, and octagons and counted the number of sides, angles, and vertices on each polygon.  This was a great opportunity to talk about the meanings of word parts, such as "tri" and "quad".  Throughout the week, students created shapes on geoboards and sorted polygons based on their number of sides. 

On Friday, we also used our geometry shape cards in a sequencing activity using BeeBot.  Students were given a description of a shape on the mat and then created a short program with a sequence of steps that would lead BeeBot to that location on the mat.  BeeBot also made an appearance during our greeting in morning meeting on Thursday.

On Tuesday, both 2/3 classes went outside for E.C.O. lessons that focused on Becoming Coyotes.  We played a food chain tag game that helped us to understand the relationships between the populations of rabbits and coyotes, as well as the importance of plants in the food chain.  Students worked in groups to create skits that told about events that often happen in coyote's lives, such as the birth of new pups, finding food, or rejoining the pack.  We learned about the many different sounds that coyotes make to communicate with each other.  Then, we moved from the field to the woods for a "coyote scent" game, in which groups hid a "pup" and then used a spray bottle with a balsam or mint scent to mark their path.  Other "coyotes" in our class had to follow the scent to find the pup.

The third graders invited the second grade writing classes to join them for a writing celebration on Wednesday afternoon.  It was a wonderful opportunity for second graders to hear the interesting "expert books" written by their classmates in Mrs, Christy's writing class and to learn about some ways to "lift the level" of their own writing.  

Groups finished performing their animal plays for each other this week.  Each group also led the class in a Moving Through Space movement activity, in which we moved according to the verbs they had selected for their animal group.  We were very busy scurrying, slithering, fluttering, hopping, and moving in many different ways.  Students also worked on their final animal group and adaptation assessment.  I have been so impressed the ways that students have been demonstrating their understanding about animal groups, features, and adaptations through their artistic creations and in writing!

On Friday, I sent home information about our upcoming student led conferences and a sign up sheet. Please return the form or email me with your first choices for times as soon as possible.  I will send a conference confirmation note home by next Friday.

Animal Verbs Movement Activity

Writing Celebration

Math Games and Geometry Sorts

Math with BeeBot

E.C.O. Lesson:  Becoming Coyotes