The Week of October 16, 2017

Block castle creation!

Upcoming Events
Our Union Bank Day is Wednesday! If your child is interested, please contact me here at school and I can send home the informational packet.  Brandi Locke is parent volunteer. 

November 10th, 2017 
Veteran's Day 
No School Teacher In-service Day

Related Arts Schedule

Monday- Music with Mrs. Towle
Tuesday- P.E. with Mr. Hutchins and Library Class with Mrs. Bryce ( Remember those sneakers and books!)
Wednesday: P.E. with Mr. Hutchins
Thursday- Art with Mr. Lee
Friday- Guidance with Mr. Lee 


Classroom News

Reading and Spelling Homework

On Monday, your child will bring home their reading bag. Students will pick 4-5 “just right” books to bring home and read. My expectation is that they read these books to you for about 10-20 minutes per night. Please record their reading on the book log that is in their home-folder. Please feel free to read additional books you have at home or any Raz Kids books, and include them on your child's reading log.  If your child is reading a chapter book at home, just have them read a chapter or two each night and record that on their log. Remember to return reading logs in your  child’s HOME-FOLDER, and I will take them out and give new logs out as needed. 

Spelling homework will begin November  6th.  Each week, I will send a packet home on Monday in your child’s home-folder. It will include a brief outline of our learning targets and background information for you to help at home. Your child will have a word sort, and a trick word ( sight word) practice activity. Packets should  be completed at home or at homework club, and should be returned on Friday.

Waterville and Belivdere Long Ago and Today 
This week we continued our study of the past and how it was the same or different from today! We unpacked our village kit from the Vermont Historical Society. It was so much fun and really interesting to hear the students ideas and thoughts! I set up our classroom to be an old fashioned store and gave each child a shopping list. They quickly discovered that the items they were searching for weren't in our store- only the materials needed to hand make their items! Students shopped for sweaters, scarves, socks, lamps, butter, toys and applesauce! On Wednesday we made our own butter in class! This week we will try on some old fashioned clothes and notice what clothing was like long ago 

Shopping for a new dress in the olden days
meant shopping for fabric, sewing needles and thread!

Here it is! Our homemade BUTTER!! 

 Readers' Workshop
This week in reading we began a new unit of study on schema. Schema is the prior knowledge we have that is formed by our experiences. On Monday, we answered the question, why do people read? Students did a fantastic job articulating the many reasons we read. We discussed fiction books, nonfiction books/ informational books. Students thought of purposes for each type of book and then sorted the books in their books bags to see which type of books they have the most of! Next week, we will work on activating our prior knowledge, building and growing our schema and what to do when we have a misconception! 

Working on writing! Students really love writing their small moments stories
which we work on during Readers' Workshop too! 

Number Corner/Math

Workshop

Students sharing their measurements
of each other! These students worked on
writing 10 1/2 inches to describe
the total amount of Popsicle sticks used. 

In math we worked on a fun new measuring project! Students learned to make estimations about the length of objects in our classroom. We used Popsicle sticks to measure friends, tables, books shelves and more. Each time applying our past knowledge when estimating the lengths of items. We reviewed combinations of ten and worked on identifying ten and some more too! We have begun writing our own number stories about the picture cards on our calendar. Students are really applying their past knowledge about our picture pattern on the calendar this month... and we think we've got it figured out! Students are so engaged and love Number Corner each morning! 








All in all for a short week we got A LOT done. I just love working with all of these kiddos! They are such a joy to be with, and make the days fun! I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend. I have LOVED the beautiful weather.
~Mrs. Marcelino 

The Week of October 13th 2017

Upcoming Events

Parent/Teacher Conferences and Student Early Release Day

October 18th

Just a quick reminder that on October 18th  our students will be sent home at 11:30 so that we can meet for our conference. At our conference, we will talk about your child’s fall assessments. We will also talk about learning goals for your child in reading, writing, math as well as social and emotional goals. There will be chairs set up outside my classroom door. Please sit and wait there, and I will greet you as soon as I am finished with my other conference. I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you!

Scholastic Book Orders are due October 18th

No School October 19-20

Reading Homework Begins

October 23

Reading bags need to be returned each day. Please fill out your child's reading log with them. If you have any questions please give me a call or email me!

Classroom News

Reading and Spelling Homework

Next Monday, your child will bring home their reading bag. Students will pick 4-5 “just right” books to bring home and read. My expectation is that they read these books to you for about 10-20 minutes per night. Please record their reading on the book log that is in their home-folder. Please feel free to read additional books you have at home or any Raz Kids books, and include them on your child's reading log.  If your child is reading a chapter book at home, just have them read a chapter or two each night and record that on their log. Remember to return reading logs in your  child’s HOME-FOLDER, and I will take them out and give new logs out as needed. 

Spelling homework will begin November  6th.  Each week, I will send a packet home on Monday in your child’s home-folder. It will include a brief outline of our learning targets and background information for you to help at home. Your child will have a word sort, and a trick word ( sight word) practice activity. Packets should  be completed at home or at homework club, and should be returned on Friday.

Readers’ Workshop

This week we will begin working in small reading groups. We have spent a lot of time learning the expectations at our literacy stations, and the children LOVE their BINGO boards. The students know how to read to themselves, buddy read, work on their small moments stories and listen to reading on Raz-Kids. While they are working independently, I will begin working with small groups of students on reading skills. The students are grouped by their reading level. During our reading groups we read fiction and nonfiction texts, learn decoding strategies, and practice sight words. The following day we meet again to reread and talk about the book. We also ask and answer questions about the book. In the coming weeks, we will begin responding to these questions in writing in our reading response journals.

Writers' Workshop

WE LOVE WRITING!! One of our favorite times of the day is during our Writers' Workshop! Last week read some awesome mentor texts to help us work on our introductions. We read Shortcut by Donald Crews and noticed his interesting way of beginning his story. We worked on envisioning how we could revise our own introductions. Students are working hard at writing their stories in order and have done a great job sharing their writing with their peers.  We also learned some spelling strategies to help us be brave when we really want to write those long, exciting but hard words to spell!!

Waterville and Belvidere Long Ago and Today

This week we unpacked our school kit from the Vermont Historical Society! It was amazing and your children loved it! They were so surprised to see how a teacher would have dressed in the 1800's and we all had fun checking out my dress! We were so amazed to see the way books looked, how children wrote and the way they children were disciplined in the 1800's.  The children made their own horn books and loved writing with their quills and ink! Thank you to Wade Chivington for volunteering to make the quills and ink!

 

Shelburne Museum Trip

Thank you to all of the parents and family members who came along with us on the trip! We had such a great time! The weather was windy but beautiful!  Our children were well behaved and totally amazed by the things they saw! It was magical seeing their faces when they hand dipped their candles, made their own ice cream and took an old fashioned spelling test!! This was the perfect trip to really help them see and experience what life was really like back then! 

The Week of October 6th 2017

Upcoming Events

 Our October special share day schedule was handed out at Open House. I've also packed an extra copy in students folders. 

Shelburne Museum Field Trip October 13th
We will leave W.E.S at 7:50 and will not return until 4:00. Students need to be picked up at 4:00. Please contact Stephanie Castonguay to make after school plans if needed. Students can stay at the after school program until 4:30.

Chaperones, be on the look out for your groupings and an overview of our day which will come in your child's home folder early in the week.


Parent/Teacher Conferences and Student Early Release Day
October 18th 
Students will be dismissed at 11:30 following lunch.
Please contact Debbie in the office to schedule your conference

No School October 19-20 



Morning Meeting 
We began our special share day schedule on Thursday! Students brought items from home to share with our class! We practiced asking questions and sharing our comments. Thursday and Friday are our special share days but students have opportunities to share with their words throughout the week. 

                                                                                           

How was life the same or different long ago?

This week we explored our driving question for this unit of study... How would life be different and/or the same if I lived in Waterville and Belvidere long ago? Students first "unpacked" what long ago means by creating a timeline. We read a short book called Ella's Time Line that helped us to understand connections between our number path and a timeline. We also placed familiar pictures of people from history on our timeline. Students shared their prior knowledge about George Washington, Abe Lincoln, FDR, Martin Luther King Jr. and Barrack Obama. We then learned some interesting facts from long ago about Waterville and Belvidere.  We had such a fun time learning some of the popular names in the 1800's! Each child chose a new name that they will be called while we work on this project. They practiced writing their name on real slates!! It was awesome when everyone volunteered to clean the slates! Up next week, we will open our kits from the Vermont Historical Society. We have on loan the school kit and the general store kit. Each kit contains artifacts from the 1800's that we will use in our learning. 


Did you know...

Waterville was formerly called Coit's Gore?

There was a grist mill, knife shop, oar shop, soap factory, hotel, doctor's office and an inn all located in Waterville?

There were 7 schools in Waterville and 5 schools in Belvidere?

The Back Road in Belvidere had many businesses including a grist mill?

Students practiced writing their old fashioned names on slates. 


Readers' Workshop
This week we continued to build our reading stamina and practice all of the different literacy activities we have learned this year. Students are doing a great job with reading to themselves, buddy reading and reading on Raz Kids. This week we learned how to do some fun spelling puzzles and continued to book shop for just right books. We also began a fun game called Literacy Bingo. Students have a bingo board which has all of the literacy stations on it. This week we practiced the expectations for each station and when students completed an activity, they colored in the matching square on their board. Our goal is that we will get all stations completed which we call a "black out"! 

Writers' Workshop
This week we continued to work on our small moments stories! If you haven't completed your Writers' Block list with your child, please do so over the weekend- I packed extras in their home folders. This week we reread a great mentor text called The Night of the Veggie Monster!  We noticed how the author Andrew Clements zoomed in on a small moment in time. We also spent time noticing his special touches... which we call "author's craft".



SKILLS Time 
This week we began SKILLS. Each day from 10:00-10:30 students are broken up into small groups to work on literacy SKILLS that are important to their reading and writing development. These groups are flexible and have specific goals. Every six weeks we reassess students and their progress towards these goals. Students may be regrouped at that time. Make sure you ask your child about their SKILLS activities!!




Math Workshop
This week in math we leaned some fun new games! Our focus has been on subitizing- this is where students quickly recognize groups of organized things. We worked on our number racks, and played some fun games using tens frames. Students love working at stations during math and have learned a game called Flip and Write where kids recognize dots on a ten frame and write the numeral to match. We also learned a game called Ten and Some More where kids again recognize dots ranging from 10-19 on the twenty frame. They practice writing the equation to match!  This month in Number Corner we have a fun but intriguing pattern for our calendar. Students are working hard to explain their thinking with clarity and precision. When we finish this unit of study, students will be bringing home all of their work to share with you. 

Students are busy at math stations! They are learning to keep track of their work 
 in their math folders