Dear Families, Literacy: The 3-5 grade will be starting a new IB Unit on with the Central Idea: Interconnectedness of human structures can impact society’s perspective and promote or deny social justice and equal opportunities. As part of this unit, students will be studying about social justice and reading biographies of people who have made a difference in this area. Our lines of inquiry will include:
We plan to end this unit with a biography wax museum where students will dress up as a chosen figure and present their research on that person. Math: Third graders will continue to work on multiplication and division over the next few weeks. We are working toward the goal of having all third graders fluent with the multiplication and division facts through 12. Please encourage your student to review his/her facts at home! Fourth graders are working with many geometrical concepts. This unit has a lot of vocabulary! Students are using protractors to measure angles and are making conjectures about the sum of angle measures in various shapes. We will continue in this unit for a couple more weeks. Fifth graders just finished a unit on multiplying and dividing larger numbers. We will be working to multiply and divide fractions and decimals in the coming weeks. We will also review how to find the volume of a three dimensional figure. IXL Students have all received usernames and passwords that will follow them for the next year. We encourage students to work on this site every now and then, for 10-20 minutes at a time, at home. We do not want students to be spending lots of time in front of screens. However, the activities on the site are directly aligned to our teaching standards and provide instantaneous feedback. So, if there are times at home and you hear, "What can I do?" or "I'm bored!", feel free to encourage IXL! There are also times we are working to practice various skills in the classroom using the site. Student Led Conferences: Students will begin preparing for Student Led Conferences. You will be receiving a note will a list of available conference times. Please fill out any times that work for you and email the times or send the form back to school as soon as possible. Friday, March 9, has been set aside as a Student Led Conference day. There is no school for students on March 9. The students will be preparing their work for this conference and practicing their presentation. We hope that you will be able to make the scheduled conference times. Science 3/4: In their cause and effect unit, third and fourth graders have been focusing on how natural hazards and weather events effect people and the classwork focused on landslides. We will extend this study into investigations into erosion. Students will brainstorm how water, wind, ice and vegetations effect erosion, and plan some experiments with the stream table into the effects of these variables. Science 5th: Fifth and sixth graders are finishing their invention projects that focus on minimizing humans' impact on the environments. They have engineered some great ideas for combating some of the problems we humans create for our home planet. They will move into a new unit on scale, proportion and quantity that will focus on constructing a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6 billion year old history. They will also use data to determine the scale properties of objects in the solar system. Shakespeare Documentary Launch: This past year 4th and 5th graders had the wonderful opportunity to participate in Shakespeare, It's Elementary! Throughout the weeks they documented much of the success. On Thursday from 5:30-7:30 they are celebrating the documentary and will play it while also having fun. All are welcome, but 4th and 5th graders may see themselves in the movie! The following link will bring you to a video we created about the Pinball Wizard After School club: www.wevideo.com/view/1081400157 ***Mrs. Canales included a lot of important information in her email update today. Here is a link to the school website with the newsletter and attachments: www.acsdvt.org/salisbury We look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks with conferences! Upcoming: Friday, March 2-Instrument lessons Thursday, March 8-ACT 1 Parent Night, Student Led Conference available slots Friday, March 9-Conference Day, No school for students
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The band students performed for classmates and families last week! Mrs. Morrissey's students teacher, Stephen Bissainthe is back from teaching at an orphanage in Haiti! Students are thrilled to have him joining for the next few months. Students will be referring to him as Mr. B! This week students will be working to tie up any loose ends on various projects, writing assignments, math units and books. The slideshow below includes many, varied pictures. Enjoy! Third Grade Math: Third Graders have started a new math unit. Our focus will be on multiplication , division and area. You will find a unit overview below. Students should continue to work on fluency with the multiplication and division facts. There is excellent fact practice on IXL! www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U5.pdf Ms. Foster's Literacy: We are finishing up our combined science/literacy unit. Third and fourth graders have become very interested in the human impact on the natural world. As part of this study, students have written opinion pieces on the use of straws. Please talk to your student about this issue! Upcoming:
Tuesday, February 13-Recycled Instruments during music Wednesday, February 14-Author Skype, Melinda Long and students are invited to bring in Valentines for classmates Friday, February 16-Pinball Wizard Club share (Time to be determined) Next Week: Winter Break 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 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 The countdown is surely on, we can feel the excited energy buzzing throughout the building!
This week: Tuesday-Otter Valley students to Grade 4 Outdoor Classroom Wednesday-Dollar Store Thursday- Clif book give away Skating (1:00-2:00) Bring helmets and skates if you have your own. Friday-No School ***January 9-Winter Concert*** All groups in all classes will be working to finish things up this week. We are working to finish book group books, various writing assignments, math assessments, spelling and vocabulary units and other projects. It is so nice to come back in January without having things hanging over our heads unfinished! Your child will be coming home on Thursday with 1-2 brand new books. We hope you encourage your learner to read daily during the break. They have 11 days off and should definitely pick up those new books! We have thoroughly enjoyed spending the later half of 2017 with your children. We will think of each and every one of them as we meet to plan and prepare for the 2018 part of the school year. Thanks for all that you do! We will update the website again next year! (Wow!) Grade 3 Math: It is a busy December in Third Grade. Third graders are hard at work on their current math unit addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers. Students have been introduced to the standard algorithm for addition and subtraction. We will continue to work on the algorithm this week. Third graders are also hard at work on their multiplication facts. Most students have become fluent with their twos and fours and working on their eights. Students are encouraged to bring home fact cards to practice each night! It is a standard that third graders will know their multiplication facts by the end of third grade. Grade 4 Math: Fourth graders are working hard with fractions! They are using various models to find equivalent fractions. You will see clocks, egg cartons, rulers (number lines) and Geoboards in the coming weeks. We use these tools to build a conceptual understanding of the concepts. Some students have realized that their is a relationship between the numerators and denominators with equivalent fractions and are testing out some theories. Grade 5 Math: Fifth graders just completed Unit 2 and are moving on to a unit that explores the relationship between decimals and fractions. We begin by sticking to what students are familiar with, money. Then we move on passed the hundredths place though and work with some very small values. We will investigate these values with base ten pieces and other grids. Students will work to add and subtract these decimals and fractions. Grade 3 Social Studies: In Social Studies we have been keeping up on "Kid Current Events" with Scholastic News. In addition, we are working on geography. Third Graders are currently working on learning to spell all of the continents and oceans and being able to identify them on as map of the world. They will be having a test on Tuesday 12/12. Once students learn the continents, they will work to identify the 50 states on a map of the United States. Students will work through different regions of the United States, until they have memorized the entire map of the USA! Literacy: Students are hard at work on their November/December book projects. Most students have completed or almost completed their books that they have been reading at home for their 20 minutes of nightly reading. Third and fourth graders are working on their book project and summaries in class. Fifth graders will primarily be working on their projects (essays) at home. Please check in with your child to see if he or she has finished his/her book! SHAKESPEARE: Students were fantastic in Twelfth Night by Shakespeare. It was a really fun day, night and overall experience. I took some video throughout the nine weeks and put them together to create this short overview. It is certainly not professional, as it was shot with my phone with lots of background noise, etc. If you are up to just enjoying the students enjoy themselves and each other while learning, take a look! SHAKESPEARE VIDEO: www.wevideo.com/view/1021500048 Wednesday Night Literacy Event: We hope you made your reservation for the Wednesday evening Literacy Event. It should be a great evening with a delicious dinner, activities, free books, story telling and more! This will be our only December evening event. Our winter music concert will be in January. Pinbox Wizard After School Opportunity: Paperwork will go home this week regarding an after school opportunity for students in grades 3-6. On Thursdays through the month of January, after school from 2:30-3:45, students can stay at school and work to design, build and play with Pinboxes that they create. If you would like more information about the actual Pinboxes, check out the website www.pinbox3000.com/ . We have 20 kits available, so if your learner is interested be sure to send the form in as soon as possible. 4th-6th Grade Field Trip: Students in grades 4-6 have read the national bestseller, Wonder by R.J. Palacio. The movie is rated PG and via commonsensemedia.com is recommended for ages 9+. The story portrays a powerful message of kindness. We are excited to be able to view the movie together after sharing the story in the same way. We have had many important conversations about the story, the characters, and so much more. We are sending home permission slips to ensure you are comfortable with the movie for your child. The admission for the movie is $8.00. We hope to have the permission slips and admission in this week. Other Upcoming Events: This Week: Wednesday, December 6th: Family Literacy Night at school, 5:30 Thursday, December 7th: 4th Grade to Otter Valley, Early Release Day Friday, December 8th: Band concert 11:00am, Movie Night, 6:30 Next Week: Tuesday, December 12th: Grades 4-6 field trip to the Marquis to see Wonder (9:00) A FEW PHOTOS FROM THE PAST FEW WEEKS IN MS. FOSTER'S ROOM. BINGO NIGHT
This Friday, December 1st at 6:00pm is Salisbury's Annual Bingo night! The fundraiser supports the week our students spend at Camp Keewaydin when they are in 5th and 6th grades. Although the 5th and 6th graders collect prizes and run the show, all students end up benefiting from the money raised. Spread the word, invite your family and friends and we hope to see you Friday! Fifth graders-prizes are due ASAP! BAKE SALE Typically we sell baked goods and drinks at the Bingo event. We are hoping that 5th and 6th grade families can help provide items for sale. Coming Up: Wednesday, November 29: Picture Retake day Thursday, November 30: 4th grade to Otter Valley's Nature Classroom, 9:00-11:30 Friday, December 1: Bingo, 6pm Monday, December 4: 6:30 ACSD Board Meeting at Salisbury Wednesday, December 6: 5:30 Literacy Family Night (Look for details this week!) Thursday, December 7: 9:00-11:30 G4-6 to OV Forest Classroom/EARLY RELEASE DAY Dear Families, Thank you for helping your learner with the family story project. Students have started making plot mountains of their stories and are beginning to write a historical fiction story using their research. We can't wait to share the finished products with you! Natalie Kinsey-Warnock will be at school on November 20, to see students' work. If your child has not brought his/her family story paper work back to school, please send it in as soon as possible! November/December Book Projects: Students will be choosing books for their November/December book project this week. Third and fourth graders will be working on a "Cheeseburger" book summary and fifth grader will be writing an essay on their book. Please encourage your child to read for 20 to 30 minutes each day. The book projects will be due on Friday, December 15. Third Grade Math: Third graders have just completed Unit 2, Multiplication and are beginning Unit 3: Addition and Subtraction of Large Numbers. We are also working on completing the Fall Number Corner Check Up. Please see the attached link for more information about our upcoming math unit. www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U3.pdf Fourth Grade Math Fourth graders also just completed Unit 2 and will begin Unit 3 later this week. They are completing the Fall Number Corner Check Up. The following link will provide you with an overview of the unit. www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR4-U3.pdf Fifth Grade Math Fifth graders are still working through Unit 2. Students are working hard to find ways to find equivalent fractions to add and subtract fractions. They are also finding ways to determine a "better buy". Next time you are shopping with them, point this out. They have made observations about unit prices on price tags as well as how to determine of the unit price if it is not given. Math Games: You will also find a link to math games that are recommended by the Math Learning Center. These math games will help your child practice some of the skills they are learning in school. www.mathlearningcenter.org/families/bridges2 The photos below are of Grades 3/4 Morning Meeting fun! Important Dates: Tuesday, November 7-Shakespeare Wednesday, November 8-Early Release Friday, November 10-5th Grade at STARBASE Wednesday, November 15-Grades 4/5 to THT in the morning Friday, November 17-Grades 4/5 to THT all day, Grade 3 to THT in the afternoon SHAKESPEARE EVENING SHOW! The slideshow below includes 4th graders during Buddy Time with first graders! |