December 17, 2021

 Good Afternoon,

I hope everyone is having a fabulous week. Let me start by setting the tone for the week. We had kids getting their 2nd vaccinations, we are close to a long vacation where many families celebrate big holidays, we had snow, rain, and mud, the kids earned the school wide celebration of popcorn and a movie (Mountain Film Festival) and for the cherry on top we added a circus coming to town (school). Oh yeah, and we taught! The good news is your children were rock stars. We had a ton of fun this week and their enjoyment was evident all week long.

Troy Wunderle and brought his Big Top Adventures to the gym of the Waitsfield School. During PE class, the students have been learning the talents and equipment needed to perform in a circus performance. They have been practicing all week. The final performance will be on Tuesday afternoon. IF POSSIBLE, the children are being asked to wear dark pants and a plain bright colored top. If there is writing on the top, please have them turn it inside out. However, there is no expectation that you go out and buy something. So, please don't. If you would like to watch the live stream of the performance, please be on the lookout for an email from the school. You will get that next week.

During guidance, Ms. Ashley has been working with the class on honoring December's theme of a month of giving. She has worked with the class on giving thanks to a variety of people that do things for your children and/or for our school. Today they worked on making cards for me. While I was out of the room, during guidance, they made cards and hid them. I was then given clues to find the cards. The kids were really excited about this. I decided that we needed some card searching music. Here is a short clip from today.In math this week, the first graders were all about addition and subtraction facts. All of our activities were focused on these skills as well as some story problems that required the students implement the kills they have been working when trying to solve story problems. Ms. Figdor reports: This week in second grade math we wrapped up unit 3. On Friday we took the end of the unit assessment. Students were asked to model their mathematical thinking in a variety of ways. The second graders in Mr. Young’s class are very good at showing their thinking in multiple ways. In second grade we strive to become flexible problem solvers. Being flexible as a problem solver is one math practice that leads to being strong mathematicians.

NOTES:

*I am not sending homework bags home today. However, there is a note about the circus in their bag.

*You all have been doing a great job with kids having boots and sneakers. I truly appreciate the effort.

*I am going to plan a little celebration for the kids on Wednesday. I don;t need anything for it. I want to do this for them.

This will be the last post until after the break. I hope you all have a wonderful break, for those who celebrate, Happy, Merry, (You fill in blank here). I am looking forward to the start of 2022 with this group.

Peace,

Tommy

December 10, 2021

 Good Afternoon,

  This week has certainly flown by.  We have done a variety of really exciting learning activities and lessons, so let's get to the summary. 

Coding:  Mr. Mongeon continued leading our class through our coding unit.  The students are absolutely getting into this unit.  They have started writing their own codes to make a simple interactive game on their i-pad.  We will use the afternoon of December 22 to play each others games.  Ask your child about the game he/she is starting to create.

Math:  The 1st grade math students have been working on developing fluency within 10.  Specifically, what makes 7, 8, 9.  We have been doing this through a variety of card games, as well as a motor-cross game.  We also discussed the concept of even and odd numbers and looked at the numbers 1-20 and why they were odd or even.  Ms Figdor had this to say about 2nd grade math. "This week in second grade math we continued to use an open number line to model subtraction problems. Students are currently using “adding up” and “subtracting back” strategies on a number line and are becoming more efficient in solving problems. In addition, students have been working on being flexible thinkers during math class. They have been doing this by solving problems in more than one way and trying to understand how others solve problems. We have learned several new games this week to continue to practice our addition and subtraction basic facts. Next week the focus in second grade math will be adding by place value."

Writing:  The students continued to hone in their ability to state and defend their opinion on a specific focus.  The students are learning to state their opinion, defend it with three or more reasons and then restate their focus as an ending to the piece.  So if you ask your child to clean their room and they say they don't want to and proceed to give you three solid reasons why; I do apologize!

Geography:  Today the students finished their books that helps them understand the relative size of themselves, their town, their state, their country, their continent and their world.  Each student has their circular book in their homework bag.  This book can stay at home but they can use them with you and explain their learning.  

NOTES:

*Please have your child here at 7:40.  Mr. Hubbard and I are sending out the same note.  This seems to be a big challenge this year.  A lot of "extra" work, help, and choice time goes on right off the bat.  Please help us out.

*Please label all of your winter gear. Including hats and gloves.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Tommy

December 3, 2021

 Good Afternoon,

  I hope everyone is doing well and you all had a great Thanksgiving.  It is hard to believe we only have two and a half weeks left before the December break and all that comes with it.  We will certainly be busy and have a lot of things to get through before the break.  

  This week we started a new science unit that focuses on computer coding.  In this unit "students investigate numerical relationships while learning about the sequence and structure required in computer programs. Starting with computer-free activities and moving to tablet-based challenges, students apply addition and subtraction strategies to make characters move on a grid. Angelina presents the design problem when she expresses her desire to design a game she can play on her tablet. Using skills and knowledge gained from these activities, students work together in groups to design and develop a game in which a player interacts with objects on a tablet screen."  Mr. Mongeon is leading this unit and we will use the last day before break to play the games that each student designed.

  This week's writing focus had the students writing about their favorite item from their collection.  We have talked about how to state your opinion and then support it with details.  The main idea is that the writer has to persuade the reader about his/her opinion.  We are just getting started with this unit and it will most likely extend through February break.

  This week's first grade math had us finishing up the concept of 1/2 and 1/4.  We also spent some time working on fluency with subtraction.  We will be getting into a study of 3 dimensional shapes and their characteristics.  Ms. Figdor reports that the 2nd graders continued their work with subtraction on the open number lines.  This is where kids could start at 37 and if they ahd to take away 16, They could jump 10 and then 6 more without having to count by 1's back.  

NOTES:

*Please have your child bring their winter gear for recess time.  They should also either bring or leave a pair of shoes at school.  I don't want the kids wearing their boots all day long.

*If you are looking for babysitter's, both of my daughters will be around during the December break. Abby is here after that as well. They both can drive. I can send you their contact information if you need it.

*I AM NOT SENDING HOME THE

HOMEWORK BAGS TONIGHT.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Mr. Young

November 19, 2021

Good Afternoon,

  I hope this all finds you well.  I truly enjoyed our parent conference times and appreciated all of the conversations.  If any other further questions pop up, please don't hesitate to reach out.  This week we continued our study of geography.  We learned about land forms, bodies of water and which of these features we had in our own town.  We also talked about how our town was built around some of these features.  The students then worked in groups to create their own town and they had to incorporate some land forms and some bodies of water.  

  In math, the 1st graders focused on math facts, and complements of 10, 20 and/ or 100.  The students played a card game, a basketball game, and used dice to practice these concepts.  The students also continued to work with telling time to the hours and half hours.  I am very pleased with the group's progress with these skills.  Ms Figdor had this to say about 2nd grade math. "This week the second graders wrapped up unit two with the end of unit assessment. The students did an amazing job on the assessment. I was especially impressed with their ability to use mathematical equations to show their thinking. During unit three, students will continue to develop efficient strategies for adding and subtracting numbers. Unit three will push students to work with larger numbers."

 Our small moment/narrative unit is officially finished.  I hope you enjoyed getting to look at your child's golden story during our conferences.  Our next writing unit will focus on opinion writing.  I will need each student to bring in a shoe box or Ziploc bag with some items they collect.  the collection should be 4-5 items of something they collect.  Please don't make it more than 5 items or the focus and intent will get lost in the magnitude of collections.  I would like these by Tuesday, November 23rd.  We will be using them on the following Monday.  

On Wednesday, the students were able to see the snowplow that our school named.  They were able to meet the driver and ask him questions about the plow.  We learned that our plow is the one that plows the mountains near us and that during a snow storm, it will use over 210 gallons of fuel.  As you are out and about this winter, look for the "Waitsfield" plow on the road.  

Notes:

*There will not be a blog next week.  Today's post will be the last one until after Thanksgiving.

*The homework bags will go home today but not Monday and Tuesday of next week.  That way I can get them all back and start fresh when we get back from break.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  

Peace,

Mr. Young

November 11,2021

 Good Afternoon,

  I am writing this post a day early because I will not be in school tomorrow or Monday.  I have two brothers who were both career Marines.  One of them has already retired and the other will be retiring from the Marines on Saturday.  My family and I are all going out to Pittsburgh, PA for the ceremony.  I am both proud and humbled by their service and am glad I can share this moment with him.  Mr. Cadwell will be the substitute, so class will cary on as usual.

Time, Time, everywhere there's time, open up your eyes and tell me the time . . . Well maybe that is not how the song goes but that was the theme in 1st grade math this week.  We have been working on telling the time to hours and half hours.  I will introduce quarter hours later in the year, when they have a better understanding of fractional parts.  I like to relate the two concepts.  This week I also assessed the addition strategies students were using to solve within 10 equations.  I hope that the full class is back this next week and I can get everyone caught up and continue forward.  Ms Figdor had this to say about 2nd grade math, "This week in second grade math we have been working on anchoring our additive

understanding in models. The second graders have been using number lines and then open number lines as a way to model their thinking. A number line representation of a number quantity has been shown in cognitive studies to be important for the development of numerical knowledge. If you want to learn more about the research on the importance of visual modeling to support students' mathematical understanding check out the following article. https://www.youcubed.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Visual-Math-Paper-vF.pdf.

During our social studies time, we continued to talk about geography, community, and maps.  We dove into characteristics of our community and used Google Earth and a Waitsfield map to find human characteristics and natural characteristics of the town.  We then compared that to bigger cities by traveling on Google Earth to each spot.  We even took a moment to look at Ben's hometown of Beverly.  

NOTES:

*Just a reminder that the kids should pack an extra snack/protein bar that they can leave in their backpack.  Today a few students were wanting something before lunch but didn't have anything in their bag.  Packing an item that can stay in their bag for a period of time is always encouraged.  I allow kids to go and grab something from their bag when they are feeling hungry.

*If your child wears boots to school, please make sure to pack a pair of sneakers or shoes too.

*Homework bags will go home today and tomorrow.  Rememebr, these are books that your child is choosing out of interest.  It may be a book he/she can read or it may be one they want read to them.  If you don't read it that night, no big deal.

Have a great weekend.

Peace,

Tommy

November 5, 2021

Good Evening,

  I hope this finds all of you well and keeping warm as the nights become cooler.  I have to say, overall, I was super psyched with how the kids handled post Halloween week and I was impressed with their focus.  This week we started a geography unit (for social studies).  The first two days had us looking at a map of the U.S., the state of Vermont, and a map of Waitsfield (Resort Map).  We talked about terms like direction, location, map, map key, and symbols.  The students worked on activities that had them finding items on a map and identifying symbols.  Today we heard a reading of the book Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney.  This story has a young girl showing readers herself on a map of her room, her room on the map of her house, her house on the map of her street--all the way to her country on a map of the world.  When I don;t have a hard copy of a book, it is nice to be able to use online read-a-louds.  It gives me access to so many more books!  

  On Wednesday, Mr. Cadwell conducted a design tech lesson that challenged kids to use marshmallows and toothpicks to build a structure that could hold books.  The kids worked in teams of two and Mr. Cadwell related it to an earlier lesson that I had done back in October.  There were some great attempts and most structures held 1 or 2 books.  One structure held 25 books!  

  First grade math continued to focus on using addition strategies for fluency and efficiency.  The students also compared quantities using the greater than, less than, and equal signs.  Some of the students have been spending extra time learning or becoming more fluent with their complements of 10.  This is a foundational skill that will be used for much of the work we do in 1st and 2nd grade, hence we spend a good amount of time working on it.  I can explain what this leads to at our parent conference (if you are interested).  

NOTES:

*Please don't forget to sign up for parent conferences.  There are still 4 families that have not signed up. If you are uncomfortable meeting in person (Covid) and rather meet via Zoom, please send me an email by 11/15/21.

*This week the PTA provided winter hats for all of the students.  They are a big hit and the kids love them.  However, they all look alike and that can cause confusion if your kid drops their hat or someone takes one thinking it was theirs.  Please, please put your child's name on the inside with a permanent marker.  

*Thank you for the paper towel and toilet paper tubes.  Please keep sending them in.  I am trying to replenish my supplies from last year.  

Sport Team Friday!

*Fridays are "sport team Friday" at our school.  This is something we started this year.  If your child has a sport team shirt, have them wear it on Fridays.

That is all for now.  I hope you have a great weekend.  My oldest came home from college, for a visit, and I am looking forward to some family time and enjoying what looks to be a nice weekend.  

Peace,

Tommy

November 1, 2021

  Good Monday Evening!  I am sorry that I am just getting to write this post now.  The weekend got away from me.  There is a bit to this post, so please take the time to read through all of it.  You may have heard your child talking about writing a "Golden Story."  Basically this is their final piece in our narrative writing unit.  They are writing it on gold paper.  I am using this term strictly to give the assignment importance and to get them excited about it.  This story is their chance to show all of the concepts that each student has learned during this unit.  This final piece will take two-three week to complete.  I will share them at our parent conference.  

 Last week's math class had the students working on more fact fluency with dominoes, comparing equations and totals using the greater or less than symbols, and working on story problems. These story problems are designed (and adapted for each kid) to challenge  kids to use the math skills they have learned by applying them into problem solving situations. We will continue this work this week too. Ms. Figdor reported that the 2nd graders have begun to explore measurement. They used unifix cubes as a benchmark for measuring the length and perimeter of rectangular shapes. They noticed that when measuring the length and perimeter of objects students were finding very different answers. This led us to develop a set of measurement guidelines so that they could be more accurate in our measurement. A few examples of the guidelines are: Make sure that your measurement tool is flat against the object you are measuring and always make sure you are starting at the end of the line. In addition to measurement the students have been working on telling time, expanded notation (326= 300 +20 +6), and skip counting by ten starting from a number other than ten (12, 22, 32, 42, 52….).

 We finished up our science unit (What is a Scientist? and Writing Like a Scientist) last week.  We finished the unit with an experiment.  The kids had 8 cups two of each of the following: hot water, vinegar, vegetable oil, and seltzer.  Then a candy corn was placed in one of each of the liquids and a ghost Peep was placed in one of each of the liquids.  The students continued to focus on the scientific process and recorded their results in their science notebooks.  During the month of November, we will be focusing on a geography unit.

  Last week all of the students had a chance to carve pumpkins that were then used on the Loop Rd. during Halloween.  We used our project time in Wednesday afternoon to go outside and pick and carve our pumpkins.  Most of the students seemed to really enjoy this.  A couple found it a little "gross."  

Parent Conferences:  Later this week, you will have a chance to sign up for your child's conference time.  There are slots on a Wednesday and a Thursday.  Please sign up early to get a slot you want.  These conferences will be done in person.  I ask that the students do attend the conference.  

Please understand that with twenty students and a very full schedule, I will only be offering slots during these two times.  There are 20 slots for 20 kids.  If one parent needs to join remotely and the other in person, we can make that work via Zoom.  I appreciate your help in making this work.

Notes:  

*All of the Scholastic books should have been delivered now.  If you didn't receive something, please let me know.

*Mr. Cadwell (our class' student teacher will be conducting a STEM lesson this Wednesday.  He will be recording this lesson for his class.  He sent out an email today with the information and he will need to know, by tomorrow night, if you don't want your child to be in the video.  If you are okay with it, nothing needs to be done.  The video will only be used for his classwork.  His email is cadwellp@gmail.com.

*We will not have school tomorrow.

*Tomorrow is the day to vote on the school bond.  No matter where you stand on this, please get out and vote.  

That is all for now.

Peace,

Mr. Young

October 22, 2021

 Good Afternoon to all of you!  It's hard to believe that we just finished our 9th week of school.  It was nice to have 5 full days of learning this week and there is a lot to talk about, so let's get to it.  

I have to start with science this week because it seemed like it was a big hit with the class.  We continued to work on writing as scientists and recording in our science notebooks.  This week they all created a table and recorded results (times) of our experiment on them.  The students also made predictions and drew conclusions from their results.  I have a 3 foot lava lamp, up on a shelf, in my classroom. and I asked the students if they knew how it worked?  No one could really explain why it did what it did.  We then made two different lava lamps as a class.  Each lamp had water, oil, and an Alka-seltzer was dropped in each bottle, each time we tested.  The only difference was one bottle had hot water and one had cold water.  Ask your child about the experiment and what he/she may have learned.  The detail, of their learning, in their science notebooks was amazing.

As you are aware, Wednesday was a day where we wore orange to represent unity against bullying.  We have had several discussions about teasing and bullying and what the difference was.  Hopefully each child can speak of the differences.  I read the story The Smallest Girl In the Smallest grade, by Justin Roberts. "Hardly anyone noticed young Sally McCabe. She was the smallest girl in the smallest grade. Sally notices everything—from the twenty-seven keys on the janitor’s ring to the bullying happening on the playground. One day, Sally has had enough and decides to make herself heard. And when she takes a chance and stands up to the bullies, she finds that one small girl can make a big difference."  After we were done reading the book, I had the students identify different scenes that inspired them, during the reading.  They then used comic book formatted paper to create illustrations and quotes, titles, and/or words about their scene.  I went with the comic book format because so many kids are into graphic novels.  This choice was welcomed by many.  

Math class found the 1st graders continuing to build upon their knowledge of complements of 10 and, for some, using that knowledge to build 20 or even complements of 100. We also used 6 dot and 9 dot dominoes to work on fact fluency by playing a few different games with them.  The second graders (per Ms. Figdor) have started a unit on place value, estimation, and measurement. During this unit they will explore base ten concepts and models within 1,000. This week we modeled numbers over 20 using unifix cubes, base ten blocks, and array dots. Then, students learned several new games to continue to develop efficiency with math facts.

Writing continues to be a huge hit and kids keep asking for more time.  Our writing blocks are 70 minutes long and most seem like they would go another 30 if time allowed.  I love the enthusiasm and the narrative stories continue to build in elaboration and detail.  This week the students were each given a student rubric to self assess their work (for editing) before meeting with me.  

NOTES:

*Thank you all who were able to help with the ski and skate sale.  A special shout-out to the organizers for all of the time and commitment that it takes to pull this off.  We are certainly a lucky community.  

*Some of the Scholastic books have come in and I will start distributing them on Monday.  They will be in your child's homework bag with a stick it note that indicates it is from their book order.  

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Tommy

October 14, 2021

 Good Evening,

  I am writing you on Thursday instead of Friday because I won't be in school tomorrow.  My wife and I are headed to my daughter's (Julianne) college for parent weekend.  I am really excited to get out and see her and to take part in something that wasn't an option last year.  

This week we read the book One by Kathryn Otoshi.  This book shows how bullying can hurt peoples' feelings and make people small. "One" shows how when people do not stand up to bullies that things can get out of hand. It raises awareness that sometimes when one person stands up to a bully then it gives everyone else the courage to stand up for themselves too.  After reading the story to the kids, I asked them to think about a bullying incident they have seen or think of one that could happen at school.  The students then filled out a brainstorm sheet on what the incident would look/sound like and how they would respond.  The students then drew a picture of the scene and wrote a little paragraph about how they would handle it, what they would say, and who else they would tell. Each child brought their work home today to share with you.

Today, for science, we learned about the Watts Towers out in Los Angeles California.  The Watts Towers are a folk art assemblage built by Simon Rodia, between the years 1921 and 1955 in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The students were then broken up into teams of two and given 50 toothpicks and a stick of clay.  Their STEM challenge was to build the tallest building they could with the materials.  The tower had to be free standing and they only had 40 minutes.  The winners had a tower that was just around 2 feet tall.  

VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE:

This year our Open House will once again be virtual.  You will be getting an email from Kaiya Korb that will tell you how to access everything.  If you would like to just access it from here, please continue reading,

I ask that you do three things with your children. Look at the photos at the top of my classroom web page. They can be found at www.waitsfield school.org (and then go to our classrooms and click on my name). Ask your child; "What is going on here?" Then watch the open house video that is linked here HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/OIXPBLOYOFU.

To finish off your open house experience, go to this LINK to hear the story your child made about themselves and if you wish to learn about some of their friends.

When you are done, email me 1 thing you enjoyed about the virtual open house. My email is tyoung@huusd.org

I hope you enjoyed seeing some your children's work and learning about their day.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,

Mr. Young