Dear Families, It is hard to believe that it is almost February! There is a lot going on in the 3-5 grade classes. IXL: All of the 3-5 grade students have been given passwords for IXL. This is an online program that students can practice math, language and social studies skills. We have a month trial membership for our students. The students in Ms. Foster's literacy class have the option to do IXL "Language" practice at home instead of their usual packet. Students who plan to do their language homework on IXL, should choose a category to review and spend 20-30 minutes practicing the skills over the course of the week. I will be able to see students' progress and areas that they are successful at and need continued work. The program is fun and students are really enjoying the practice. It is excellent review for the upcoming SBAC testing in May. Grade Three Math: Third graders are working hard in math. We introduced unit fractions and have been using pattern blocks to find equivalent fractions. This week our focus we will be finding fractions on a number line. We have one more week of Unit 4 and then will be moving into a second multiplication and division unit. I encourage third graders to keep practicing their multiplication facts. Students can find fact practice by fact set on IXL! Grade Four Math: Fourth graders just finished Unit 4 and will begin the next Unit, Geometry and Measurement. There is a lot of vocabulary in this unit. Feel free to allow your learner to look up definitions for homework if needed. The following link will bring you to an overview of the unit, which does include many of the new words along with examples and visuals! www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR4-U5.pdf Grade Five Math: Students in fifth grade have been working diligently to understand decimals to the thousandths place Students are expected to read, write, add and subtract these decimal numbers. They also have begun working to divide larger numbers, but will continue to do so in upcoming weeks. The next unit overview can be found here: www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR5-U4.pdf Ms. Foster's Literacy: Third and fourth graders continue to work on their IB unit. Students have been investigating natural hazards and developing a slide show on cause and effects of their chosen natural hazard. Students are also reading about human impact on the earth and our natural resources . Today, we read an article about plastic straws and began to write opinion pieces on whether plastic straws should be banned. We are looking forward to sharing our opinion pieces with you when they are finished. Mrs. Morrissey's Literacy: Students got back on track with their independent reading this month. A Tower of Books challenge and the reading logs are helping greatly. Students reflected on their reading habits during the month of January and set goals for February. Please keep encouraging reading at home! Students have been writing weekly letters about their books and Mrs. Payne and myself have been writing them back. Students have also been exploring synonyms and sorting them by levels of intensity. The conversation the students have about the difference between various words, like chuckle, chortle, cackle or guffaw, for example are incredible. We have also been touching upon the ancient Olympics in Greece and will be looking at ancient Olympics compared to modern day Olympics. What is the same or different? We will tie in current events in order to compare and contrast. Feel free to share any resources, articles, or videos that may pertain to our exploration! The photos below are from Pinball Wizard Club: Early Act Club: The 5th and 6th grade EarlyAct Officers did an excellent job meeting with the Rotary Club of Middlebury on Wednesday. They were poised and represented Salisbury very well. They reflected great enthusiasm and commitment for the projects they are planning. On Thursday, February 1st, from 11:45-12:30 we are having Jared Moats come to talk about the Mother Pine project. Students in other grades will now join in the conversation and action!
There are many opportunities for fun in the next few weeks and they are outlined in this week's newsletter from Ms. Canales. Click this link to read about the possibilities: www.acsdvt.org/cms/lib/VT01918853/Centricity/Domain/13/Newsletter%201.23.18.pdf Upcoming Dates: Thursday, February 1-World Read Aloud Day Skype with Dan Gutman Friday, February 2-Band, Progress Reports go home, Movie Night at 6pm (Cool Runnings) Saturday, February 3-Basketball Open Gym, 9:00-11:00 (see newsletter for details) Sunday, February 4-Chipman Hill Park hike (see newsletter for details) Tuesday, February 6-Band Concert at Salisbury, arrive 6:30, concert begins at 7:00 (Black pants/white shirt) Wednesday, February 7-EARLY RELEASE DAY
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Above, students from Weybridge, Ripton, Cornwall and Salisbury rehearsed for a band concert on February 6th at Salisbury School! Band members will perform at 1:15 for fellow students, family and friends and again at 7:00pm for family and friends. Band members are expected to wear black pants and white shirts and arrive at 6:30 that evening. Ms. Metcalf sends all information hoe in student binders, so be sure to look there for any information you may be wondering about. At the All School Meeting this week, Ms. Foster was recognized for her hard work in becoming a National Board Certified teacher! Way to go, Ms. Foster! 3rd Grade Math: Students have just finished working on mass, volume and length using the metric system. We are now working on unit fractions. We will be exploring fractions in a variety of ways over the next two weeks. In addition, we continue to work on addition and subtraction using the standard algorithm. Several third grades have completed the work of learning their multiplication facts through 12. They are now using the Xtra math computer program to help them develop fluency. It is a grade level standard that students will be fluent in their math facts by the end of third grade. I encourage your third grader to practice his/her facts nightly at home. 4th Grade Math-Students are working hard to master the subtraction algorithm with larger numbers. It can get tricky with those zeroes! Students were also introduced to decimals beyond the hundredths place. We began exploring the thousandths place and made observations about how it compares to the hundredths place and so on. We will continue working with decimals and multi-digit subtraction for two more weeks. 5th Grade Math-Students took a mid-year assessment this week and we discovered areas of strength and concepts that need review. They are just about to finish Unit 3 and will begin the geometry unit this week. News from Ms. Clapp: 3/4 Science--In our Cause and Effect unit, students practiced obtaining information to describe that energy and fuels come from natural resources and getting them affect the environment. They then collected data from several stations to see how speed and energy are related. They took their data to construct a science claim to describe this relationship. Now, students are designing inventions to reduce the impact of natural Earth processes on humans. Through this lesson, they have been learning how important brainstorming is in the engineering process. They will be doing some inquiring into a natural hazard of their choice and the cause of the natural hazard and what effects it has on humans. 5/6 Science--Students are finishing up the three explorations they had in Cause and Effect relationships. One exploration was to use print and media resources, complete simulations on the computer, and do an investigation to determine the effect of resource availability on populations of organisms. The other was doing a science experiment, and reading and using media and computer simulations, to learn about the relationship between different air masses and weather events. The third station was about the cause and effect relationship between humans' per capita consumption of resources and the effect on Earth's systems. As a class, we focused on the relationship between increase carbon dioxide's effect on the atmosphere system. Moving forward, students will take one of these cause and effect relationships and engineer an invention to help either: keep an ecosystem balanced, reduce the effects of weather hazards, or reduce humans' effect on Earth systems. MOVING TO 1:1 CHROME BOOKS, OH MY! Salisbury has new Chromebooks and all students in grades 3-6 were assigned one that they would specifically work with during the school day. This will help us to meet Digital Age Learning as outlined in the ISTE Standards for students which were (adopted by Vermont in 2017). Students and teachers are very excited about the Chrome Books! Student Teacher, Stephen B (AKA-Mr. B) visited Mrs. Morrissey's class on Tuesday. He stopped by during lunch to meet new students and reintroduce himself to students he worked with two years ago in Ms. Foster's room. He will begin observing in Mrs. Morrissey's room the week of January 29th, then heads out to teach at an orphanage in Haiti for a week. When he returns from that incredible experience he will rejoin the class for the remainder of his semester. Students were excited to meet or see him again! So, if hear your learner talking about Mr. B in the coming weeks, this is who they are speaking of! Class Books-When students worked with author Natalie Kinsey-Warnoc in the fall they researched and wrote stories, most were family stories. Students worked hard on these pieces and we are sending one from each student out to a publishing company in order for them to help create a hardcover book for us. One story and illustration from each student will be in the book. Order forms are being sent home. If you would like one, please fill out the form completely and return it. If you do not want one, please check the gray box at the bottom of the page "No" and just sign your name. If we get all the forms back per grade, we will receive a free book for the classroom to keep. We can then rotate the book to homes for a few weeks and then put it in circulation at the school library! Valentines Day-Students are invited to distribute Valentine's to their peers on Valentine's Day. If they would like to create a mailbox for the Valentine's they should bring in a cereal box this week. Class lists will be sent home the following week. Literacy: Third and Fourth Graders are working on their first IB unit. This unit is an integrated literacy/science unit. All students have chosen a natural hazard to study and make a google slide presentation on. Fifth graders are beginning to look at why people choose to live where they do. They will explore these ideas in science and social studies and will read and write about their learning during literacy. Upcoming Dates:
Monday, January 22nd-No School, Inservice Day Wednesday, January 24th- -(Grades 5/6) 7:15 EarlyAct Officers to Rotary Club of Middlebury Meeting @ Rosie's, -(Grades 3/4) Middlebury College students will be visiting Forest Classroom, dress appropriately Thursday: Pinball Wizard Club, JUNK NEEDED! Friday, January 26th- Band, bring instruments Come Alive Outside presentation Friday, February 2nd-Movie Night, Cool Runnings to celebrate the beginning of the Winter Olympics The slideshow below include photos of the 5/6 medieval celebration! Upcoming Dates:
January 16, Tuesday-All School Meeting January 18, Thursday- Pinbox Wizards (Bring small junk!) January 19, Friday-Multi-School Band rehearsal at Salisbury (PLEASE REMEMBER YOUR INSTRUMENT!) Dear Families, We are excited to begin the New Year with lots of new learning opportunities for the third, fourth and fifth graders. All of the students will be engaging in our first IB inquiry unit. Third Grade Math: Third graders will begin a new math unit this week. Our 4th unit focuses on measurement and fractions. During this unit, students will be work on telling time, they will be introduced to elapsed time problem solving and model and compare fractions in a variety of ways. In addition, we will continue to practice addition and subtraction using the traditional algorithms and fluency with multiplication facts through 12. Attached you will find the unit overview for Unit 4: Measurement and Fractions. www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U4.pdf Fourth Grade Math: Fourth graders will begin unit 4 this week. They will solidify the use of the traditional algorithm when adding and subtracting larger numbers. Half of the unit also deals with various measurement systems. www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR4-U4.pdf Fifth Grade Math: Fifth graders will finish up unit 3 this week, continuing their learning with decimals to the thousandths place. Right before break they were working to multiply and divide large numbers by 1/10, 1/100, and 1/1000. We will review some of these concepts and then apply it to some real life situations. Third and Fourth Grade Social Studies: Third and fourth graders will continue their geography studies by working to learn the location and capitals of all 50 states. I am attaching a link to a fun resource that will help your student practicing the states by region. www.yourchildlearns.com/mappuzzle/us-states-capitals-regions.html Science/Outdoor Classroom: Outdoor classroom will continue throughout the winter months. However, on short weeks (of which we have three in January), there will not be outdoor classroom. It will also be cancelled if it is necessary to have recess indoors on that day. Upcoming Dates: Tuesday, January 9-Winter Concert Friday, January 12-Band/Instrument lessons resume *(Tentative evening band concert on 2/6 @7pm) Monday, January 15-No School (Martin Luther King Jr. Day observed) Monday, January 22-No School/Inservice day A few photos and an all-school skating video from December! CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE SKATING VIDEO:
www.wevideo.com/view/1045492348 |