Can-Struction!

We will be participating in a can-struction effort in our school next Thursday. This effort will use canned food products to create a structure.  Each class will collect canned items and subsequently create a structure from all they have collected!  This will act as a food drive, and all canned goods collected will be donated!  We will be collecting cans Monday through Thursday, and will be making our creation on Thursday.

We also will be working to publish our books on VT history today.  Students have put an incredible amount of work into these books, and are feeling proud of the work they have done.  These books will be formally published by us, by hand, and will be presented to the public on Wednesday February 19, 2014 here at EMES during our celebration of learning in the evening.  Later today a student will be asked to take photos of our publishing work, and these will be posted a bit later on today.

Throughout this short week we have also been focused on building our understanding of math facts.  We are working with one-digit multiplication expressions to build automaticity, and are working on the impact of changing one of the factors in an expression into a multiple of ten.

Also, a long-term sub has been hired for my paternity leave!  It will be....drum-roll...MaryBeth Langevin!  She is an incredibly experienced long term sub who taught in our school just this fall.  As a licensed teacher she brings expertise and pizzazz.  We are looking forward to a visit with her (she will visit our class before my leave starts), and to a productive time while she is here.  My leave is scheduled to be between the February and April breaks.  While I am looking forward to my time at home with Stephanie and "Gizmo," I am also pleased to be returning for the end of the year.

I hope this finds you well, and you have a restful and relaxing weekend.

Dave

What a week!

 I apologize for the "photos only" post on Friday.  I honestly got sidetracked, and am just getting back to the blog now.  We have been plowing forward working in our class.  So much is happening, it is difficult to summarize.  We are working on creating some typed versions of VT history books, working on the tricky concept of division, learning to research and take notes, and so much more. 

Creating non-fiction text on Google Docs is very exciting.  This will be our first type-written published piece.  We are working on creating the text, with photos, now, and will be learning from Mrs. Knoedler how to bind our work into books suitable for presentation and heirloom-ness.  We will be using this new found skill later in the year as we will be creating expert books on subjects of our choice.

 In math we are working on division, this can be a tricky skill to learn, and we are treading lightly into it.  We are working currently with division problems that can be solved using multiplication strategies.  We are investigating what happens to numbers when they are split into groups of different sizes.

We also have started work on researching some choice topics.  These range from hamsters to sisters!  We will be working with some online research tools and practicing taking notes!  Again I apologize for the light-amount of posting, and resolve to increase posts in the future!

-Dave

Welcome Back!

Hey what a great short week to return to school on! We jumped right back into things we had focused on previous to our break. We continued work on our writing abiut Vermont History, reviewed our skills in multiplication, practiced some of our old routines, and learned some new ones.
Upon our return we found our school in a much different state than we left it. Our entrance is new, our gym-cafe-tori-nasium is different, even our classroom rug was new! As is to be exoected our class took all if these changes in stride as we quickly adapted to our new surroundings and the new routines that match them.
After out incredible field trip to the Vermont History museum the week before break, we have lots of informational writing to do! We are beginning the process of creating pieces of writing using Google Docs, and will eventually be publishing our work with embedded pictures from our trip.

Speaking of our trip, I realized i failed to post any pictures, here is one!

The tower was really cool, perhaps a bit slippery, but fun.

We also continued our work in math. We have been working with multiplication and all students successfully solved the expression 18 x 7! Check with your student to see how they solved it.
I hope you all have a restful and refreshing weekend, and let me know if you need anything from me!
-Dave

A wintery fun week!

Another great week. As always we have pressed forward in our learning in many areas. We have created some short non fiction books, continued work on our expository books about Vermont, increased our understanding of multiplication, and are getting ready for our field trip.
Early last week we had a pre-assessment for writing. We were writing about a topic of choice that students are exoerts in. It was so cool to see the different topics students chose. We had books about wolves, books about snowmobiles, books about monkeys and more! We are also working on self assessment of these writings to help us improve our writing in a holistic way. Students have udentified areas where they can improve and are creating goals to help them improve their writing!
In math we continue to work with multiplication. We are working with array cards and Cuisenaire rods to this end. We are finding different equations that can be re-composed into larger equations.

We are also getting ready for our field trip next week! We will be travelling to the VT history museum to add to our informational writing about VT. We will also be taking photographs to use in out non fiction books! Many if you have expressed interest in attending with us, and I will be in touch with you regarding that early next week!
Have a great Friday and relaxing weekend.
-Dave

Announcement of exciting personal news!

Hello all, this post is to announce that my wife and I are expecting a baby in late February!  I had planned to make this announcement before the December break but have decided that now is the time!  I will be on parental leave from the beginning of February break, until the end of April break.  This will be about a six week leave from school, and I am looking forward to getting to know my little "Gizmo" during that time.  My long-term substitute will be MaryBeth Langevin.  She has worked as a long-term sub in this school before, and is already known by many students.  She is a fabulous replacement and will continue the nurturing and learning-rich environment we have in our class. 

If you have any questions regarding this initial announcement please contact me and I will respond promptly.  Thanks again, and hope all is well with all of you.

Dave

What a great short week!

This week we have been working hard in so many areas. We have begun writing some non-fiction text, continue to work with multiplication, practiced making connections from our books and so much more!
During discovery and literscy we are working on researching different aspects of the history of Vermont. For this undertaking we are using research skills to find the answers to questions that we are curious about. Students have been using online resources for this work, and the information they are finding is fantastic. We will be using this information to create some non-fiction books that should be published by the December break!

Groups are sharing information about the history of VT.

In math we have been working with factors and multiples. This week we worked to find the factors of 100, 200, and 300 as a class. After this students worked to find the factors of a multiple of 100 of their choice, ask your student which one they picked. We also have been working on looking at different factors and "predicting" which multiple we will get to if we count around the room. For more info. about this ask your student about this picture:

We also have worked on making connections to books we are reading. This week we revisited some old favorites from previous book groups and searched for text to text, text to self, and text to world connections in them.

'Trina is stoked to find one of her old favorites!

Finally it was so nice to meet with so many if you in the past week. If we still need to schedule a time, I will drop you an email. As always if you ever need to contact me during the week, the contact tab at the top of the blog has all the information! Have a great weekend. -Dave

Exciting stuff!

As always we have been working hard and making new discoveries. We are working with multiplication in math, creating informational text, researching Vermont's history, and so much more.
In math we are working toward automaticity in multiplication. Students are working with array cards and multiplication equations to build their knowledge base. We are also continuing our work with the American Algorithm.
We are also working on a new and exciting piece if writing, a non-fiction book about Vermont! We are doing some online research, and will be increasing our knowledge and information base with a trip to the Vermont History Museum.
The research we are doing is very exciting. We are using a research tool called the Super-3. The Super-3 consists of three parts, plan, do, reflect. We are currently working on the first parts if this as we are looking at resources and creating questions that we think we can use these resources to answer.