April 27, 2018

Good Morning,
  The kids have been busy writing their non-fiction books about the sugaring process.  They will spend two weeks working on this.  This piece is used for a district wide assessment and will be their final piece for the non-fiction unit.

Clara's picture in compliance with our policy 

  I am leaving at 11:30 today.  The kids will go to lunch, recess, and art and then Sally Utter will be in to work on Weekly News with them.  My daughter has a team camp in Fort Ann and we need to leave early this afternoon.

  This week Lev and Caroline interviewed Clara.  Here is what they found out.  Clara is a student at the Waitsfield Elementary School.  She is 8 years old.  Her favorite thing to do in school is PE because she gets exercise.  One of her hobbies is riding a bike because she gets to be with her dad.  Her favorite food is lettuce.  She loves the Waitsfield school because of all of the kind people.  Her favorite sport is soccer. 

Notes:
*Our class has averaged 8-9 kids in school all week.  There is a variety of reasons why but I do need to lay out a May challenge.  May is a very busy month of finality work.  There is a lot of assessment and wrap up tasks.  I need to have the next 5 weeks seen as crucial to your child's learning and then we can start thinking about the end of school.  Thanks for both your understanding and support with this.

*There is reading homework this weekend.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,
Tommy

Good Afternoon!  I hope you all found a way to enjoy the lovely weather this past weekend had to offer.  For those of you who were able to get away and/or take some time off, I hope you found it relaxing and enjoyable.  I spent the week working with some 3rd graders from the Lawrence school district (in MA).  I taught a third grade math acceleration academy to kids who gave up their vacation to become stronger math students.  It is my 5th year of doing this and I enjoy the experience. 

We had a wonderful circus week with Troy Wonderle.  I hope you all enjoyed the performance.  I know you can watch it online through  the Mad RIver TV website.  Troys energy and positivity are very uplifting and contagious.  I saw many students taking risks, putting in extra time to master a skill all while feeling supported by Troy.  Troy's circus residency has certainly become a favorite and I look forward to the next time we get to work with him.

This week the students are writing their final non-fiction piece.  I am combining my states of matter assessment with the need for each student to write a non fiction book that has them go through the entire writing process independently (brainstorm to final draft).  The students will be writing books about how to  make maple syrup and candy and identify the 3 states of matter throughout the process. 

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a good week.

Peace,
Tommy

April 2, 2018

Good Morning,
  I hope that you all had a great weekend.  We will be heading to the Hartshorn Farmstand on Wednesday.  We will leave at 12:20ish.  Eric Mongeon, Kaiya Korb and I will be driving the kids.  Feel free to come along if you wish.  As I stated in Friday's post, this visit will allow us to achieve some of the other goals in our study of states of matter and allow for kids to make sure they have a true understanding before they write their informational books about sugaring.

STUDENT INTERVIEW #3:
This week Lev and Caroline interviewed Liv Kielich.  Here is what they found out about Liv.
Liv is seven years old.  Her birthday is November 16th.  She likes field trips because she gets to have fun with her friends.  She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up because she will get to play with animals. She also likes recess because she gets to play outside.  Her favorite sport is basketball because you can make good friends. 

To the right is a picture of Liv (inline with our confidentiality policy).


NOTES:
*We are starting to slip as a class.  At the beginning of the year, the students did a great job of being at school by 7:40.  It has slowly gone int he other direction.  Today I only had 6 kids on time for school.  Please help with tis needed 5-10 minute adjustment.

*Homework bags.  Please make sure your child returns their bag each day.

Have a great week.

Peace,
Tommy