December 17, 2023

Good evening all.  I hope you all had a great weekend. This past week (and continuing this week) the kids will be doing a lot of assessments. They are all working on their final small moment stories. The kids all completed a sight word test, and this week we will have a spelling assessment, a math assessment and early literacy assessments.  The good news is they won't be assessed during lunch and recess.  We feel they have a good handle on this 😀. 

A reminder that Secret Pal starts this week. I sent home paper for kids to create their cards.  Each student (participating) also had an envelope with who their secret pal is and a schedule for the week. Please, please make sure to follow through with each day's item as well as sending it in on time. It puts a lot on me if you forget. 

This past Wednesday, I used our project time to talk about resolutions and the idea of New Year's resolutions. I tied this into our focus on kindness.  The class broke into three groups and each group read a book about kindness. They then each identified a kind resolution for school and home and created a mini poster about each one. These will be sent home this week as well as displayed in our room.

NOTES:

*I am out until 9:15 tomorrow morning for an appointment.

*We have enough donations of cider and cookies for Thursday.

This will be the last post before the New Year.  I hope you all have a wonderful end to 2023 and ring in the new year with a sense of happiness and joy that each and everyone of you deserves. 

Peace,

Mr. Young

PS: The girls' varsity basketball game has a home game on Thursday @7:00 pm. Make sure the kids come over and say hello if they come to the game.

December 11, 2023

 Rinse and repeat!  We seem to be in a weather pattern that dumps snow and knocks out the power every week. I know this was the third week in a row we went without power. However inconvenient it may be, the natural beauty of the snow on the trees and the silent calmness that comes with living on a dirt road is always a reward to the senses.  

Last week Libby presented to the class about Hanukkah. She read a book about the celebration and shared a couple of her family's menorahs. The students then made their own paper dreidels and learned to play the game with each other. The lesson ended with each kid receiving a few gold coin chocolates. As always, if anyone else would like to present about their family traditions and celebrations, please let me know.  We have two Wednesdays left before break (1:00-2:20). 

SECRET PAL: Secret Pal will start next week.  So far we have 11 of the students signed up. If you still wish to sign up, please do so by Wednesday.  Here is the link to sign up. A note will be sent home on Friday with who your child has and a schedule of events.

Child's Name	Participating	Not Participating
Ashton Lewis	X
Wiley McCoy	X
Landen Kraman	X
Patrick Treacy	X
Annabelle Parker	X
Edith Leopold	X
Miles Russell	X
Zip Babbott-Klein	X
Warren Peck	x
Olive Bennett	x
Nora Goodman	X

We will have a small Secret Pal Party on 12/21.  I am doing it on Thursday, just in case we have a snow day (we can do it Friday).  I am looking for someone to donate apple cider and for a couple of people to make cookies for the party.  Please email me if you are interested.  

NOTES:

*Please check your child's backpack to make sure they have an emergency snack. I have had several kids asking for a bit more food in the afternoon.

* Speaking of backpacks, the winter season requires a lot of stuff to be brought to and from school. Can you please go through your child's bag and clean out the unnecessary items.

That is all for now.  Have a great week.

Peace,

Mr. Young

December 2, 2023

Good Morning

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I always enjoy the opportunity to be with my immediate family and having my girls home. As my kids get older and older, I realize how much I enjoy any time I get with them. All I can say is, as crazy as times may seem now (with young kids) make sure you enjoy it. The time goes so fast and you only get one shot with them. I will say watching them as young adults has it own rewards too.

Instead of focusing on the academics in this week's blog, I thought I would take a different approach. This year, we as teachers, are focusing in on "gatherings and building relationships" with our classrooms, as a school, and within our district. Our staff meetings and professional development commonly have us reflecting on this.  With this in mind, I wanted to fill you in on .

We have 5 round tables that the kids sit at, in the room.  Each table group has become a team. Each team created a team name, identified a team mascot and then created a logo shield to hang over their table. Each table will keep track of the We Rock cards they earn during the month of December. I talked to them about working as a team and doing their best for their team and for the class. The kids are very excited about this and it's great to see them reminding each other about doing their best. I love when they are working together and helping each other be the best they can be.

This week the students finished the Financial Literacy assessment. Since we finished a day early, I used the time to have the kids make new connections. I had them partner up with someone they don;t usually play games with and asked them to choose a game to play. It was so great to see the interactions and new connections. I felt like it was such a good use of the 20-25 minutes we had available. 

Secret Pal: Another way we build community at school is the staff does a Secret Pal event and we gather to celebrate each other and to spend time together.  I want to do the same for the class. Here is how it will work. If you want your child to participate, they must be signed up here by 12/11. I will assign them a Secret Pal on Friday and send home a note with the information and schedule.

To Participate Your Child Will Need To Bring the Following on Each Day

*12/19 They will make a Happy New Year's Card for their Secret Pal. I will send home the paper they can use on 12/15

*12/20 They will need to bring a healthy snack for their Secret Pal. A simple item or two, no drinks are necessary. We have milk and water.

*12/21 They will bring in a gift for their Secret Pal with a value of less than $5 (This can be bought or handmade). If this is a difficulty for anyone, please let me know and I will gladly cover that expense.

NOTES:

*I decided to not do the December book order. I was worried about getting them in before the break.

*Please, please label all of your child's winter things.  I also ask that you check the zippers of your child's coats. I zip the coats for kids that need the help (after they put on their mittens) and some of them are quite tricky.

*Zip's mom is coming on on Wednesday to talk about Hanukkah on Wednesday.  If anyone else wants to come in and talk about what they celebrate in December, please let me know. We usually do this on Wednesday afternoons at 1:00.

That is all for now.  Have a great week.

Peace,

Tommy

November 20, 2023

 I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have the opportunity to reflect, be with family, and enjoy what you have. Each student should have brought home a large brown piece of paper with a chart and pictures on it.  After reading Our Table by Peter Reynolds, I asked the students to think of things they are grateful for.  We then broke them down by the three categories of school, community, and home. The students then drew pictures of the things they identified.

I am looking forward to the break and time with my family.  However, I am equally as excited to get back with the class and get back to work as we enter the whirlwind of December.

Have a great break!

Peace,

Tommy

November 10, 2023

It was so great to see all of you at our parent conferences this week. I hope you found them fulfilling and they gave all of you a deeper insight on exactly what your child is working on, goals they have, and a general sense of how their year is going so far. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out anytime.  Again, thank you for taking the time to meet with me.

As I discussed during our conferences, the students are excited about the culmination of our Financial Literacy unit. So far, no one has chosen to buy a toy or candy and they are all saving their money for the movie night. I had to laugh because on Thursday, two kids decided to buy a toy and they both said they could watch a movie at home. By the end of the day they both asked if they could change their minds. Luckily I have a liberal refund policy! The movie night will be Thursday. I will let you know (via email), by Wednesday, if your kid didn't save enough money to buy a ticket. If you don't hear from me, they are good to go.  Here are the details:

• Please arrive at 6:00 pm on Thursday, November 16th.
• Please pick up your child at 8:00 pm. (That same day 😏)
• Students can bring stuffies, a blanket, and wear their pajamas (their request).
• I will have popcorn and some candy.
• Have your child bring a water bottle.  This way drinks wont spill on carpet.
• Any sibling that is kindergarten or older is free to join.  I ma hoping to give all of you a few hours to have a date night.

*NOTE: If there are any food allergies for siblings attending, you must email me those prior to Wednesday.

This week in writing, we started class with the Hokie Pokie. The kids liked the fast movement and the chance to shake their body and even turn themselves around! The purpose of this was for them to describe how they were feeling right after it was done and they had to sit down. I then explained that good writers also do this in their writing. They describe how their characters are feeling.  The students used this strategy along with previous ones to continue to bring their stories to life. 

This week I read the Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig. This book is about Brian, a boy who feels invisible at school. He is ignored by the teacher and his classmates, never chosen to be on kickball teams, and is excluded at lunch. When a new student, Justin, comes to school, Justin gets made fun of and Brian reassures him. After this act of kindness, Justin and Brian become friends, and he no longer feels invisible.

This story is very touching because everyone has felt alone and invisible at some point in their lives. The text tells the story of Brian very well and allows the reader to sympathize greatly with him. However, it is the illustrations which draw the reader in completely. They use color to demonstrate how Brian is seen. At the beginning, everything is in color, except for Brian and the objects close to him. Having Brian be the only thing in the picture which is black and white shows how excluded he feels, and how he is treated as though he were invisible. The illustrator uses white space to demonstrate how small Brian feels in this world. However, when Justin is introduced, Brian smiles at him, and part of his face gets a little color in it! As their friendship strengthens, Brian becomes more colorful, demonstrating that he is finally being seen. This use of color to portray his connections with people is very encapsulating because not only is there a textual difference, but the reader can visually see Brian becoming more welcomed. We followed up the reading with a discussion about how we can each work on being inclusive and inviting friends to join us in activities, at recess and lunch.

We talked about Veteran's Day on Wednesday. Both of my brothers are retired Marines and I asked my youngest brother Jimmy to talk to the class about what it means to serve, what a veteran is, and to discuss why the flag is an important symbol to him. Jimmy spoke of being an ambassador (when you serve) and that the he always felt like he needed to represent Vermont and it's people when he served. The students each worked on a sheet about their learning.  There is one part that you can fill out with them.  This is the section about family members that have served. Take time to talk to your child about your family's history. The sheets went home with them yesterday. 

NOTES:

*Please make sure your child has the appropriate outside clothing for the weather.  We go outside for recess in most weather.

*Don't forget to pack your child an extra snack.  Some of them express that they are hungry at different times.

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend. Again, I want to thank all of you for the thoughtful conversations during conferences.

Peace,

Tommy

Kids playing Don't Make Me Laugh

November 5, 2023

Good Evening,

I hope this finds you are all well and coming off a fun weekend. My wife and I took in the HU soccer games this weekend and then spent some time with friends which I always find rejuvenating. Last week was such a fun week at school and here are the highlights. 

Wants and Needs! We continue to talk about these things with our focus on Financial Literacy. This week we continued to talk about the Bunny in Spend It. As I mentioned last week, the bunny gets paid in carrots. The kids worked in teams of two to solve addition and subtraction problems.  For each one they got right they were paid a carrot. Some kids earned them all, some kids rushed and didn't notice the subtraction sign and didn't earn as much money. The groups then used their carrots to buy items from the toy store. Kids realized they didn't have enough to buy a rocket and would have to earn more carrots. This week's discussion ended with what kids should do with their leftover carrots (their change).  We also read Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst. We will use this book for a project this week.

I used Halloween to focus on a fun writing project.  The students each got a head shot of Mrs. V. and I. They then had to draw a picture of what they thought we should each be for Halloween. Then they taped our heads to the costumes and some colored them in. The kids finished by writing a paragraph about their designs. The other writing days focused on using voice with characters and bringing stories alive.  It is great to see some of the self editing that is happening.

NOTES:

*I will be sending home book flyers for an order that will arrive before the December break. I want to talk with the company to assure the shipping delivery time. Look for those flyers in your child's bag.

*The biking unit (in PE class is over), please leave all mountain bike stuff at home.

*This is a great time of year to go through your child's backpack and clean it out.  You will soon be stuffing them with winter gear and the room will be needed. Please label all of your kids hats, gloves, mittens, and boots. Your wallet will thank you!

*The homework bags were not sent home over the weekend.

*CONFERENCES: The parent conferences are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (for my class). Please be on time for your conference. I will make sure mine end promptly to allow you to get to the next one (if needed). There will be no additional times offered for make up conferences. 

I hope you all have a great week.

Peace,

Mr. Young

October 27, 2023

 Happy Saturday Evening everyone!  I hope you all have had a great week. We started our first social studies unit this week.  I try and alternate science and social studies units during the school year.  This way the students get  both curriculum.  We kicked off our Financial Literacy unit with a group of Harwood seniors coming in to teach a lesson on financial literacy.  These students are in a Financial Literacy course with Tara Kelly and they used the book A Chair for My Mama as the anchor for the lesson.  Thursday afternoon, I taught our first lesson that focused on needs, choices, goods, services and wants.  The lesson focused on building an understanding of these vocabulary words.  I used the book, Spend It by Cinders McLeod. In this book, "Sonny (a bunny) gets three whole carrots a week for his allowance and wants to buy everything! But he quickly discovers his money won't go that far, and he has to make some choices. That doesn't sound like much fun to Sonny, especially when he learns that the bouncy castle he's been eyeing goes for ONE HUNDRED carrots. Ridiculous! But eventually, after a little math and a little more thinking, he has a blast discovering what's really important to him and worth spending his carrots on." We will finish up our work with this book next Thursday. You may have heard your child talking about getting paid for their job, on Friday afternoon. As part of this unit, I want the students to earn money and figure out if they want to save to buy a few little items or save all of their money to buy a larger item. Their job; It's to bring back their homework bag and book each day.  If they do, they are paid a dollar for completing their job. If they forget, they don't get paid that day. We talked about this and how jobs work so the kids should be good with the directions. Please let me know if this is causing any kind of worry for your child. I picked a simple task in hopes that the kids would all feel they could handle it. They all seem excited about the project. If you would like to listen to the book Spend It! please check it out below.

Everyday I do a read-a-loud between our last special of the day and the start of our Reading Group and Word Work time. Our school has a goal of reading a variety of Social Emotional Learning books. We have already read 35 books in this genre.  This week I took a break from that and started reading other books from our classroom library.  I focused on collections (Dr. Seuss, Clifford Books, and If I had series books) of books by authors. The goal is for students to truly explore our classroom library and to choose a variety of different books, as reading homework each night. 

National Pumpkin Day

Wednesday afternoon was used for a literature project. Libby (Zip's mom) read the book Perfect Square to the class. This is a story where a "Perfect Square is about a square that gets cut up, torn up, shredded and shattered. Each time something is done to the square, it figures out a way to turn the situation in a useful, positive outcome." The students then chose a perfect square of colored and designed paper and had their friends tear them up.  Each student then had to use the torn square pieces to create a new picture. These pictures are hung up in the hallway by the exit door (near our room). If I was a good teacher, I would have remembered to take a picture of them! 

First grade math focused on wrapping up a month long focus on story problems and creating equations with the given information in a problem. We also wrapped up Unit 1 and assessed the students on number sequencing, more story problems, and complements of 10. The 2nd graders have been working with pattern blocks and composing and decomposing shapes and designs.

This week's writing focus zoomed in on endings and staying focused in on the small moment when ending their stories. We worked on the ending being the exact next thing that happened in their story. For example, if a story was about swimming in the ocean. The ending wouldn't be, "we got out of the water and drove home."  Rather the student would end it with what they did as soon as they got out of the water (most likely dried off or laid on the beach).

NOTES:

*Your child does have their homework bag and a book this weekend.  Please make sure it is sent in on Monday. THEY NEED TO EARN THEIR DOLLAR!

*Reminder that no Halloween costumes should be sent on Tuesday. We will do some Halloween activities but they will be academic based.

*Please make sure your child has boots for wet, muddy, and snowy days.  They should also have a pair of sneakers/shoes.  We sit on the floor a lot and it's not fun when someone only has boots and gets the rug all wet.

That is all for now.  I hope you have a great Sunday. If you can find a moment or two to root for the Steelers, I would greatly appreciate it. I understand if the Pecks choose not to! 

Peace,

Tommy

Good Evening!  I hope this post finds you all well and rested.  It's hard to believe but we are already entering our 8th week of school. Here is a review of the week gone by.

We wrapped up our science unit on erosion this week.  We used Wednesday to review the different concepts and learning we covered during the unit. Then the students completed a unit vocabulary task and also created their own map with illustrations and writing of how to protect the river and houses and businesses on it. A copy of the maps will be hung in our room. The assessment results will be shared during conferences. I want to thank Lucas, of Friends of the Mad River, for all his work with our class during the last two months. It was so great to get the kids to the river for our first science unit.

A few weeks back, I wrote about a Kindness book that the class had written. They each identified a way that they are kind and then illustrated a picture of the specific kind "action." Their original book is now in our classroom library for kids to enjoy. Eric Mongeon, our world famous (or at least Waitsfield famous) librarian, helped us create a digital version of the book. Please click below and listen and see the amazing illustrations. A big thanks to Libby for designing the cover. 

Now that we have had a few weeks of writing instruction, I used a few days last week to look at each students work and then design two writing goals for each student to focus on. These goals will be reinforced and individual instruction will be given as students work with me and the parent volunteers. Again, I will share these goals during our parent conferences. 

Halloween:  Our school takes the approach that we don;t celebrate Halloween at school. This in terms of wearing costumes all day and having huge sugar filled parties. With this in mind, we will read a Halloween book during read a loud that day, students can share what they will dress up as (during morning meeting) and I will give them a Halloween and little treat during  the day.  However, our days focus will be academic and the day will be treated as a normal school day. The kids will also write about Halloween and their teacher that day. Thank you in advance for leaving all the costume stuff at home.

NOTES:

*I think the book orders will be delivered this week.  I will send them home when they arrive.

*School photos will be sent home tomorrow.  Please look for them in your child's homework bag.

*Please make sure your child has a coat and/or sweatshirt for recess time.  Putting a sweatshirt in your child's bag is a good idea.  With all of the sicknesses, I will be leaving the windows opened as much as I can. 

*I will be offering conferences on 11/7. 11/8/ and 11/9.  The times and days listed are the only times available. Please find a time and day that works for you.  The sign up link will be shared with you via Kaiya or Susan. If you don;t plan on scheduling a conference, please email me this week.

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

October 12, 2023

Good Thursday evening to all of you.  I am writing this blog post tonight because I will be out of school tomorrow.  I am headed to my daughter's parents' weekend in Rochester, NY. It was certainly nice to have a full class again this week. I have a feeling we will be battling a variety of illnesses throughout the winter.  Please do your best to limit time out of school (when kids are healthy) to minimize the total amount of school missed. I appreciate your support with this.

This week wrapped up the outdoor learning portion of our erosion unit. This week we looked at the types of root systems that help protect river banks during high river levels with faster currents. Lucas talked to the kids about root systems of a tree compared to that of knotweed.  The students spent today writing in their science notebooks and illustrating their learning and writing about their observations.

In writing, we focused a lot on how to spell words.  I introduced the word wall (most commonly used words in the English language), we talked about stretching (tapping) words out to write the sounds we hear, and  how to look for small words in bigger words. The students continue to work on small moment stories, editing those stories, and learning to add more detail to their them. 

I am curious if the blog is useful and does it provide good information?  Is there something more you would like added to the posts.  My concern is viewership has dwindled.  Last week only 5 people looked at it. That is down from an average of about 30 views a week.  Please let me know your thoughts.

NOTES:

*All of the book orders have been submitted.  I will send them home with your child when they arrive.

*Please make sure your child brings a water bottle to school each day.

That is all for now.  I hope you enjoy the weekend.  This weeks pictures include some recess shots. I had recess duty on Wednesday an it was fun to see how they were "playing." The video below cracked me up!

Peace,

Mr. Young