Hi Everyone,

With winter break on the horizon I want to keep you posted on the upcoming events we have.  Students have been working hard to to earn their next green thought day celebration.  We decided that as a class we would like to combine this celebration with a winter celebration.  With that in mind, we will be focused more on a celebration of each other, our learning, and community rather than placing an emphasis on the holidays.  If you would like to contribute snacks to this celebration please shoot me an email: Cguggemos@wwsu.org.  We would love a combination of healthy and fun sweet treat this year, keeping in mind that the gluten free students in the classroom should be included as well.

Reading

Last week we began our non-fiction unit.  Students have continued to look for sign-posts in their reading, but relating to non-fiction this time.  Eventually students will be assigned an author to study, looking at their craft, writing styles, and which sign-posts they use.  

Writing

Students have begun drafting their realistic fiction pieces.  Our plan is to have a complete first draft completed by Holiday Break.  We have spent weeks getting to know our main characters, creating problems and solutions, brainstorming setting, and creating internal and external characteristics for our protagonists.  Stay tuned to Seesaw for more of their work in writing.

Theme:  

Our geography unit is well underway.  Students have spent time researching political and physical maps, physiographic regions, and counties.  Our next project will begin looking at important Vermont landforms, where students will have a plethora of choices to show me what they have learned in the unit thus far!

iMove:  

iMove cross-country skiing is coming up soon.  The permission slip coming home is to sign your child up for one of the choices (skiing, snowshoeing etc).  The blanket permission slip signed at the beginning of the school year allows your child to participate in school field trips so we just need an activity choice this year!  Students without slips returned will be placed in groups based on availability.  

Important Dates:

Winter Celebration: 12/21

Winter Break 12/22-1/1

iMove permission slips due back: 12/15

Have a great weekend,

Mr. G

11/12/17

Hi Everyone,

I hope the adjustment into winter was as smooth as possible last week.  I think we were all equally shocked when it went from 75 to 25 in what seemed like one day...With that in mind, please make sure that your child is coming in for the day with warm weather gear.  Students go outside for recess daily unless we have rain or unusually cold temperatures.  

Field Trip

On a similar note, we took a brisk fall/winter walk to the new town library.   We learned about the bridge artwork project at All School Share this week, and went to check out two submissions for project.  The choices were between a train mockup representing historical buildings in town, or colorful bird sculptures.  The reactions and votes varied, some students loved the birds while others liked how the train design represented memorable places in town.

Reading

Students continue to write fiercely about fictional texts in reading class.  This coming week students will put together what they have learned about writing pit-stops and summaries, into a longer form of writing.  Depending on the pace of student’s learning, we will begin a unit on nonfiction authors either before or shortly after Thanksgiving break.  

Writing

Many of you saw clips of your children’s paragraph writing recently.  With that unit wrapped up both classes have started a new realistic fiction writing unit.  We have started learning about a range of strategies to conquer fiction writers block, how to create story ideas, and expectations so far.  Stay tuned and keep an eye on Seesaw for writing samples!

Important Dates:

-November 22-26-Thanksgiving Break

-December 1st-After School Cross Country Ski Forms Due

-December 2nd-River of Light Lantern Parade from 5:00-6:00 pm

Have a great week,

Mr. G

10/29/17

Hi Everyone,

It was wonderful to see you all at conferences this week.  Keep an eye out on Seessaw for updates on goal setting!  

Reading

Students have continued working on writing about reading using a new system used to look for important moments in fictional texts.  We will soon move from writing pit-stops into summaries, and eventually a longer version of writing in the weeks to follow.  We have also been using a new read aloud, The Wild Robot to understand character traits and development.  

Theme

Students wrapped up the week and their most recent science unit.  Many of the final testing moments can bee seen on Seesaw.  Students worked tirelessly designing and redesigning Flugtag vehicles to withstand large amounts of kinetic energy.  We will be working on a fun inquiry science project this week and moving into the first social studies unit of the year to follow.

Writing/Word Study

For the last two weeks students worked through a paragraph refresher unit.  Students began the unit writing on either the golden, or the platinum rule.  After two weeks learning in either my classroom or Ms. Figdor’s, everyone made great progress!  Check out their paragraph writing samples on Seesaw!  Both classes started initial assessments this week to begin working in spelling groups.  All four teachers on the floors will be team-teaching spelling this year in order to meet the specific needs of developing spellers.

Important Dates:

11/7- Picture Retakes

11/22-11/26- Thanksgiving Break

Have a great week!

Mr. G

10/13/17

Dear Families,

What a busy two weeks it has been since my last update.  We have been working on a range of activities from Flugtag to marble runs, from signposts to pitstops!  Read on to find out more!

Reading

We have finished setting up expectations and routines for reader’s workshop.  Students are buried in their books, running into signposts, and taking pit stops along the way.  Does that sound strange?  Well this year I implemented a new system that students are using to write about reading.  We started learning about signposts, or a place in a book that makes readers stop and think.  Students learned good readers not only read prolifically, but think about what they are reading.  We learned about our first three signpost moments this week, to include: aha moments, contrasts and contradictions, and words of the wiser.  Students use these moments to take pit stops, also known as writing about reading.  

Science

We are almost finished with our unit on energy collisions/potential and kinetic energy.  Last week we started the first arts-integrated science project of the year, where students used knowledge of potential and kinetic energy to design giant marble runs in the art room.  There are some great photos from this activity posted below.  Additionally, we have moved into the final phase of the unit, Flugtag.  Flugtag is a worldwide event where participants create homemade flying machines.  Students have been working in partnership to design their own machines for a classroom Flugtag.  These machines will be launched from a ramp on my desk, with an egg inside.  Students are tasked with using their knowledge of energy collisions to keep their egg-passenger safe!

Writing

Students wrapped up the first week of a paragraph writing refresher unit.  Students are grouped between my class, and Ms Figdor’s class to best accommodate student needs.  Stay tuned for more Seesaw posts with student writing samples moving forward!

Upcoming Events

iMove Hike:  10/19

Conferences: 10/24, 10/25, 10/26

Have an amazing weekend,

Mr. G

9/29/17

Dear Families,

With most of the community building and team building wrapped up, we are diving deeper into our traditional academics.  Many of the students in class were eager to begin reading, math, and academics with a growth mindset to boot!  Below I will outline a few things that we’ve been up to the last couple weeks, and any important events coming up.

Reading

In reading we are coming to the end of setting up reader's workshop.  Students have been working on strategies to sustain independent reading, how to avoid reading distractions, how to make sure you understand the author’s message, and how to solve unknown words in their books.  Check out your child’s Seesaw account to see a few examples of the work they have been doing in reading lately!

Students will be coming home tonight with their first reading homework of the year--wooohoo!!  This year students will be handing in reading logs every-other Friday.  Students are expected to read 30 minutes each night, five nights per week.  They are always welcome to read more, but this is the requirement.  Please help your child remember to record their reading, but at the end of the day, it is their  responsibility to record and turn in reading logs.  The first reading log will be due October 13th.  

Science

Student have been busy working through a unit on potential and kinetic energy.  They have been exploring many different ways to understand and apply their knowledge of these two types of energy.  If you haven’t done so with your child already, check out the website linerider.com.  Ask them to create a track and demonstrate their knowledge of potential and kinetic energy.  We have also built a few different models using the VEX robotics kits to include pendulums and vehicles.  

Math

This week we learned about collecting, representing, and analyzing data. As a class we collected data on the number of raisins in a box of raisins. Students learned how to organize data in a data table, create line plot graphs, and develop questions that could be answered using the data they collected. Next week students will come up with their own testable questions. They will collect their own data, represent their data as a table and graph. Then they will create questions for the class to answer about their data.

Flynn

On Monday, October 2nd Grades K-4 at TBPS are headed to the Flynn Theater in Burlington for a performance of My Father’s Dragon. With talking animals, a daring rescue, a flying dragon, buried treasure, and lots of humor throughout, this fabulous adventure is brought to the stage using puppets, masks, inventive scenic effects and original music. Enchantment Theatre Company presents the story of a compassionate and courageous young boy and his unlikely friendship with a splendid yellow and blue striped dragon.

We are leaving school at 10:45 and will be returning by 2:00. All students & staff will ride the bus to the Flynn Theater in Burlington for this performance. We will be eating lunch on the bus (thanks to permission from the bus company) therefore:

1. No peanuts or tree nuts!  Please read the labels.
2. No glass or plastic containers.
3. No lunch boxes or water bottles.  Please place your child’s lunch in a paper or plastic bag.

All classes with allergies will ride on the same buses.

The PowerSchool forms that are updated at the beginning of the year have a blanket permission slip for field trips so we are not sending home separate ones for this trip. Consider this notification of our trip on Monday, October 2nd. If you don't want your child to go you will need to make arrangements to pick them up that day before 10:45 (please notify the office if you are going to do that).

Upcoming Dates:

NO SCHOOL- 10/6 & 1/9

9/14/17

Dear Families,

We have been very busy the last few weeks working to build our classroom community.  We have participated in a variety of teambuilding scenarios to work on skills that include:  communication, compromise, helping each other, paying attention to the needs of the group, creative problem solving, and the ability to ask for help when it’s needed.  These activities are fun, but the main goal is for students to internalize the strategies they used working together in games, and apply it in the classroom.  We have also been spending time learning more about our classmates, by sharing the amazing memory boxes that each student brought in to share.  

Students will begin MAP testing next week.  The results of these assessments provide teachers with information on each student in regards to their reading and math development.  This information will allow Ms. Figdor and I to deliver content at a level that aligns with each student’s needs.  Students will be taking the math assessment on Monday with Ms. Figdor, and the reading section with me on Wednesday.  If you have any questions about this new tool please let me know.  

We have had an amazing first learning experience in science this week.  Each student was asked to make a prediction about what they think would happen to a gummy bear when left in cold water overnight.  Every single student predicted that their gummy bear would dissolve in water, based on a similar experiment we did last year with Gobstoppers.  What we found is that they actually absorbed water, and some even tripled in size!!  We took the experiment even further by changing the liquid, or the gummy animal used.  Choices included corn syrup, milk, water, gummy worms, and sour gummy worms.  After a process of elimination we decided that it was the water being absorbed, regardless of the object placed in it.  

Students will be coming home each week with Friday Letters.  These letters will help you know what your child has been up to at school during the week.  The will come home on Fridays (naturally) so be on the lookout for them!  

Upcoming Dates:

¾ Open House 9/26 from  5:30-6:30

Picture Day- 9/22

¾ Team Building Day at Dac Rowe- 10/2

Have a great week,

Mr. G