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

March 30, 2018

Good Evening,
  Yesterday's trip to the sugarhouse was quite a success.  I have to say it was one of the best field trips I have ever done with a class.  It was such a great hands-on experience and Stacey did a fabulous job of organizing it in a way that all of the academic goals I had were met.  I loved that the kids got to be outside experiencing learning through our "backyard."  Here is a video of the day.



There is no Weekly News Journal this weekend.  We used the time to write thank you notes to our field trip hosts.

I am trying to set up a visit to theHartshorn sugarhouse next week.  This will give us a chance to see how technology has changed the sugaring process as the students learn how reverse osmosis works.  This learning will allow us to meet some of the design tech components of our unit.  It will also allow for the students to make sure they have recorded enough information so that they can write their informational books about sugaring. 

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Peace,
Tommy

March 27, 2018

Good Afternoon,
  I hope you all had a good weekend.  Yesterday we spent some time working on writing strong introductions in our writing pieces.  We looked at several examples in mentor texts and each student then spent time revising one of their own to make it stronger.  Today the students partnered up and shared their introduction revisions and some even presented to the class as a whole.

  Monday's mindfulness moment had us taking a walk for 10 minutes in the sunshine.  The kids were focused on their breathing and actually did this with a silent voice.  They said they enjoyed getting outside and being able to move around.  It is certainly nice to have such great sidewalks in town to use for this (Thank you taxpayers)!.  As the weather becomes warmer, we will continue to bring our mindfulness activities to the outdoors.

  We will be going on our field trip this Thursday.  We will leave at 9:50 and be back by 12:30.  Feel free to join us if you like.  If your child has signed up for  a bagged lunch, it will be provided on Thursday.  If you would still like to make a donation to the farm, please feel free to send it in.

This week Lev and Caroline sat down with Donovan to get to know more about him.  Here is what they found out.
Donovan is seven years old. His birthday is September 28th.  His favorite thing to do in school is typing club because you get to learn on a computer.  His hobby is football because he likes tackling.  His favorite food is snails because they are salty.  His favorite thing about the Waitsfield School is that he gets to work with computers because they include games.  His  other favorite food is ice cream because it is sweet.

Peace,
Tommy

March 19, 2018

Good Evening,

  I hope you all had a great weekend and St. Patrick's Day. We have started our states of matter unit today.  We will be focusing on solids, liquids, and some design tech concepts throughout this unit.  I have decided to rewrite the Project Lead the Way unit and gear our focus toward the sugaring process.  Today we had a discussion about what matter was, and the states it can exist in. We also watched a quick Youtube video to gain a basic understanding (For reference, when I asked is anyone knew what the 3 states were, the only answers I got were Florida and Vermont). 

  We are scheduled to go to a sugarhouse next Monday to see a traditional wood fired operation.  We will be visiting the Living Tree Alliance farm where Stacey Oshkello and Tim Crowley will teach us about the process and students will see how sap can be transformed into a solid.  They will also learn how the process for making maple syrup.  We will be taking a bus but adults are welcomed to attend, just let me know if you would like to join.  We will leave at 9:50 and return by 1:30.  NOTE:  If the weather doesn't allow for a sap run, we will postpone until the end of next week.  

  The farm usually charges $6 a student.  They were kind enough to waive the fee this year.  However, if anyone would like to make a donation to the farm, checks can be made out to Living Tree Alliance.  Please send those into me before Friday of this week. 

IMPORTANT:  IN your child's homework bag is a form regarding lunch for Monday.  If your child would like school to provide a bagged lunch, you must fill out the form with their choice and send it back to me by this Thursday.  Please understand that Cheryl makes these off site and there will not be extras available. 

That is all for now.  Have a great week.
Peace,
Tommy

March 16, 2018

Good Afternoon,
  I hope you all have had a fantastic week.  The students have been busy writing and illustrating their new goals for the final stretch of the year.  You can find their work hanging ob the bulletin board outside our classroom.  We will also discuss these goals during our parent conferences next week. 

Two students, Lev and Caroline have set a goal of interviewing students for the blog.  The goal is that they will interview a student each week and take their notes and turn it into a paragraph about that child.  This week they took some time to sit with Kai Dreimiller. 

"We want to introduce Kai Dreimiller.  He is 7 years old.  His birthday is February 21st.  His favorite thing to do in school is write fiction books.  His hobby is to play soccer with his friends.  Kai's favorite food is read apples.  His favorite part of the Waitsfield School is the ski program and skiing with his friends.  He likes to play video games for fun."  by: Lev and Caroline  Note: Our technology policy does not allow me to publish a picture with an identifiable name.  Therefore, please shut your eyes and picture Kai at this moment. 

There is no weekly news this week.  This afternoon we headed to the Valley Players to see our 5th and 6th graders perform the play The Wiz.  We will pick up with Weekly News entries next week.

Notes:
*There is reading homework in your child's bag.  Please take 2o minutes to work on it this weekend. 

*Thank you all for signing up for conferences.  Please don't forget to bring your child too.

Peace,
Tommy