Weekly update!

After a refreshing break, we got right back to the tasks at hand.  We are beginning to immerse ourselves in cursive...this will be a focus for us until the April break.  I call this cursive immersion because students will be working at the pace that is most comfortable for them.  For this immersion we are also practicing the art of Zen and cursive.  We are working really hard to get our mindset open to see what we already know about cursive, which will allow us to see our success with cursive.  On our first days everyone created cursive writing, and zero students felt a failure!

We are also starting a mini-unit on energy and motion.  For this work we will be using min-skateboards and inclined planes.  We will design these inclined planes to do two different things, maximize distance and maximize speed.  We will also be making conjectures about how energy relates to speed, and hopefully designing and using a speed-trap to measure the speed of our mini-skateboards.

Here are some authentic reflections from the week:

This week I was very proud of my partner  and the whole class for succeeding in the  skateboard challenge to see how far the skateboard can go.   A lot of people made awesome  ramps  and the rampes worked to.   Our  ramp  went very far.    It was a short week with a lot of cool stuff and  I am excited to be back.

This week we worked in discovery and my partner was Eliza and she had  a lot of good ideas and we had some wood and some ramps and a skateboard and I had a good idea because my idea was to make the make the beginning of the ramp high and then we had a ruler at the end of the ramp and then the skateboard will jump the ruler and then that was a long ride for that little skateboard.

This week we worked with cursive writing and ramps and I learned that friction is the reason there is fire when the astronauts come down from outer space.  This week we also did cursive like I said earlier and if your come it is so much easier and by the way when you write cursive you might want to know this slow makes fast.  Well that's the week. Bey bey!

(In this awesome week of  school.) Well maybe not a week of school. How about three days of school. We just got back to vacation we have been working on our math. And the new exciting thing we have been doing in class is energy and motion. Yesterday 3/3/16 we were working with  little tiny  skateboards to see how much energy they get to go down the ramp

I hope you have a restful and enjoyable weekend!

-Dave

Upcoming events and a week of har work!

First of all, we have a few events coming up.  Next week we will be finishing our food drive collection (on Monday), showing our school spirit (all week), and inviting you into our classroom on Wednesday evening for a learning showcase!

Spirit Week:  

Monday : Class color Day- Show your class spirit by dressing in the color your class picks!  SLT members will come around to classes with a hat full of color names your class will pick from. Our color is WHITE!

Tuesday : Sporty Day- Wear your favorite sport jersey or even dress as your favorite team player!  

Wednesday : Country Day- Yeehaa! Wear your favorite flannel shirt, and maybe even cowboy boots! Dress as a western.

Thursday : Crazy Hat Or Hair day- Choose a safe, respectful way to show your spirit with crazy hat or hair!

Friday : Sweats Day- Not comfy cozy day but sweats day.  Wear you favorite sweat pants and or sweat shirt, and be comfy all day!

Showcase of learning:  Wednesday evening 5:30-7:00.  Please come and check out the genealogy work we have been doing!

As usual I will round out this update with a few authentic student reflections from the week:

This week we are making scrap books for our genealogy project.  

I like this week because we are doing some more progress in the genealogy program. I will be done today!

This week I have been working on my scrapbook and Genealogy! I have it almost done and I also get to have hot lunch today at the valentine,s feast.It has been an awesome week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! .

-Dave

Weekly update!

Hey gang, we are clipping along.  Our energy is high and our focus is tight.  We have been entering into division in math, moving forward with our story keepers project, and diving into a new book.

In division we have been talking about the notion that division is the inverse of multiplication, as well as repeated subtraction.  To solidify this understanding we have been writing word problems, evaluating them to see if they are indeed asking us to divide, writing the expression that matches them, and finally solving to find the quotient!

Our work with Natalie Kinsey-Warnock is super exciting.  This week we went to the town clerk's office to look at some primary sources, and we saw a Victrola!  We will be moving forward with our family research in the coming weeks, and are looking forward to producing and showing off the fruits of this work.

Also, we have started a new book during our read-aloud and writer's workshop.  The Tiger Rising, is a beautiful book by Kate DiCamillo.  Throughout the course of this book the main characters learn a lot about themselves, and how the world works.

Have a great weekend!

-Dave

Information coming home tonight.

Hey gang, there are two pieces of information coming home tonight.  One is an information letter about chaperoning our Boston trip in the spring.  I have already heard interest from 3 parties (Josh Scribner, Denise Roy, and Scilla Gilbert), and we are looking to form a grand list by Wednesday 1-20-16.

The other piece of information is a permission form to travel to the Town Clerk's office.  This mini-trip will be happening on Wednesday 1-20-16, and we will be going at 1:30.  If you are able to join us, have a level 2 background check, and would be willing to drive some students down that would be great.  Please let me know as soon as possible so I can get transport organized.  

Thanks,

Dave

A very exciting week!

As usual we have had a very exciting week.  We have pushed into our investigation of division, moved into some research and informational writing, and been learning about electricity.

All of the above a very interesting, and the students are putting great effort into all of it.  However, this week we are also launching a genealogy unit with the help of Natalie Kinsey-Warnock.  She will be here for 7 full days over the course of this month, helping us investigate the stories that are embedded in our extended families!  For this work students will be talking extensively with you and your extended family in order to unearth these stories.  The first portion of this is in the form of a family tree.  Each student has one in his or her resource folder.  Please, over the coming weeks help them fill out as much of it as you can.  If you have questions about this, please drop me a line or an email!

Also this week there is a letter with an update about our Boston trip this spring.  There are new dates in this letter as well as information if you would like to accompany us.  Please check it out, and again, if you have any questions please let me know.

I hope you have a restful weekend!

-Dave

Working right up to the December break!

As usual this update will be a composite of student reflections on the week.  We are really chugging along and making progress everyday.

We did awesome stuff with electricity and ukers are now bringing home their ukes. In library we are using pixler.

This week we did lots of work with division and models. We also did some work with electricity and it’s source and how it works. Well that’s the week. bey bey

This week we were playing the grinch game in p.e it is one of my favorite games. We had a chex mix sale, I saw one person who got like twenty bags.

What I loved so much about this week is that I got to bring my Uk home to practice and show my parents what I have learned.  I also loved this week because in Art we did a lot of x-mas projects.

This week, we started a new topic, electricity. So far, we have learned about full circuits, and cells (batteries) by watching a video. We also learned about motors, with an article from The Way Things Work. A website taught us more about circuits, and Mr. Willard taught us about bulbs, light, and, heat. We have also experimented with circuits, using, “aligator” clips, a power source, and either a motor, or a bulb.

We started electricity and learned a lot about it like how a motor and a circuit works.

This week we got checks mix. There was a line around the corner. Students were getting checks mix for their  parents, themselves, and their younger siblings.

This week we worked on electricity and yesterday we also tryed to make are lights light up and my partner was Kameron and we liteup 1 light bulb than we liteup 2 and we did that one and than we did 3,4 and we got up to  and that was fun and I love what we were doing.

This week we started a unit (to take place of reteach) on electricity. Again I was not there yesterday (Thursday,) but, this time I was going to an eye doctor appointment. I also shared two times this week.

Have a great weekend!

-Dave

More authentic reflections from the week.

As has been the pattern, much of the content for this post will come from authentic student reflections.  I will be copying and pasting their work with as few edits as possible, as I prefer to show the true authentic work.

We are getting ready for the December break, and as is the custom here at EMES we will be having a gifts fro giving workshop on Dec. 21.  Below is a link to sign up if you would like to volunteer with this event.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4aacab2daa8-gifts

If you are interested in volunteering just follow this link, and choose some times that work for you!

Also this week, you will notice your student(s) coming home with some of their work, this is so they can show it off!  This is always fun and please try to remind them to bring their notebooks back to school on Monday.  

We worked furiously on our book posters.

This friday my class is playing the grinch game. My teacher just has to play the grinch game in a good way.  I like to be a hoo not a grinch because all the grinch's do are kick around hula hoop to make people bring the light bulbs back to the mountain.

At recess today i'm going to play football we pick teams with team captains I hope i'm on my brothers team.

I am so excited for pe because we are playing the grinch game I love it because there are some grinches a max and hows dawn in howvil.

I really liked reteach this week, because I learned a lot! I also liked reteach because I got to do a lot of writing.

This week we were working on are book posters and I did me poster about The One And Only Ivan and we also are bringing are Abenaki project home and i cant what to bring are Abenaki posters home and I love my Abenaki project.

This week, we finished our posters. We have been working on them all week. Yesterday (Thursday) I could not finish them because I had a doctor’s appointment.

Have a great weekend!

-Dave