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