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

October 7, 2021

 Good Evening,

  Since the students don;t have school tomorrow, I figured I would get this week's blog post out tonight.  Although it was a short week, we seemed to pack a lot into this week.  Let's start with Morning meeting.  For several weeks now, the students can sign up to share during our meeting.  After a share, students have been taking two comments from other students.  This week, I introduced the idea of asking questions instead of making comments.  I focus on this skill because it teaches kids the difference between comments and questions, and it allows students to inquire into a share and learn more about it.  Shares happen everyday and kids sign up upon arrival to class.

  In writing, we focused on bringing the students written stories alive by having their characters move and/or talk.  I introduced the concept by writing about the 1st kid who arrived to school on Wednesday.  I wrote a quick three page story with one sentence on each page.  Immediately a student shouted out, that isn't enough writing.  They then gave me suggestions on how to make my characters move and talk.  The class really got into it and, as a whole, were pretty excited to get to work on their own writings.  It is always rewarding when your class is excited to get to work and are disappointed when writing time ends for the day.

  Today during science, we finished our last introductory observation in our science notebooks.  Today's focus was using "science vocabulary" in their observations.  I took the students outside to find three different colored leaves.  They then used pencils, colored pencils, hand lenses, and crayons to complete observations of each leaf they found.  The students used the specific words of stem, vein, and leaf in sentences and as labels for their diagrams.  

  Our 1st grade math focus this week continued to work with the concept of identifying groups of ten with in arrays of strings of beads.  So if a kid saw 5 red beads and 2 white ones on the top row and 5 red beads and 1 white one on the bottom row, they would see it as a group of 10 and 3 more. This is just one example and there are a variety of ways to adapt this to challenge kids or to help kids gain a more sound understanding of the concept.  Since I published this post early this week, Ms. Figdor didn't have a chance to send a blurb about 2nd grade math.

NOTES:

*I didn't send your child's homework bag home today.  Being that it is a four day weekend, I just wanted the kids to spend time with family and enjoy the beauties of fall in Vermont.

*Please remember that your child can always pack extra food to have an extra snack (if needed).  Water bottles are also a great idea.  Please make sure your child's name is on it.

*With colder weather on the horizon, I wanted to remind everyone of a few things.  Please label every hat, mitten, glove and scarf with your child's name.  You spend a lot of money to cloth your children and it's the easiest way to make sure each kid has all of their items.  Kids will also start wearing boots more.  Your child is more than welcome to leave a pair of shoes in their "cubbie" area for the season.  This way they don;t have to bring them back and forth each day.  Just send me a note to let me know so I can have your child leave them at school.   

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

DOES YOUR CHILD WANT TO PLAY BASKETBALL?  Check out the information on the left.  Registration closes October 15th.

October 3, 2021

 Good Evening,

 I hope you all had a great weekend.  Although a bit of a wet one, I found myself in the Northeast Kingdom a bit this weekend and the beauty all around is quite stunning.  Nothing better than fall in Vermont!

This week in math (1st grade) the students continued their work with the concept of 10 and some more as we looked at equations that equaled 11-20.  The students used a rekenrek to build two numbers and then see how a group of ten and some more were created.  We continued to focus on eliminating numeral reversals and focusing on teens numbers vs -ty numbers (13 compared to 30).  Ms Figdor had this to say about 2nd grade math. This week in second grade math we continued to develop efficient strategies for solving subtraction problems. The second graders are developing strategies with numbers that we are already comfortable with in order to use these strategies to solve problems with larger numbers. The goal is to teach students to be problem solvers and thinkers and not just give answers to questions. Next week we will wrap up our first unit on addition and subtraction. However, throughout the year we will continue to work on getting more efficient with our basic addition and subtraction facts.

In writing the students continued focusing on small moment narratives. 

This week, I was able to have each kid edit a story and set goals based on their current writing.  The students worked in partners to tell a story, have their partner ask them questions about their story and then retell the story adding details based on the questions asked.  The students seem to be really enthused about writing personal narratives and are excited on the days we have writing.  

This week in science, we continued to focus on writing like scientist.  Each student had a chance to observe a flower and record their observations.  As a class we talked about using specific vocabulary For example using terms like stem, leaf, and petal when describing the flower.  On Friday, we introduced the value in adding color to their drawings to help with specifically describing what they saw.

On Wednesday. I read the story I Wanna New Room, by Karen Kauffman Orloff.  "The book is about a little boy name Alex who has to now share a room with his younger brother, Ethan because his mom just had a new baby sister. Alex is very unhappy about having to share his room and his new sister so he begins to write letters to his parents trying to convince them to let him have his own room."  After reading the story, the kids were each given a chance to use grid paper to create their own dream room.  They will continue working on this projects this week as we tie in some math and writing with this project.

NOTES:

*As a reminder, the students will not have school on Friday of this week and Monday of the following week.  

*Our specials are art, PE, library,and guidance this week.  Please make sure your child has sneakers for PE class.

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

Peace,

Mr. Young