January 16, 2025

It has been a busy week full of learning and community moments. The students have had a full week and many have persevered through illnesses and feeling a bit tired. I think the long weekend is coming at the perfect time. 

Winter Sports & Important Dates

The students had a wonderful second week of the Winter Sports Program. This group is becoming incredibly efficient at getting ready, and it is heartwarming to see so many students helping others with their boots—such kindness!

Please keep in mind that there is no school this coming Monday and Tuesday. Our first day back will be a ski day, so please ensure your child arrives with appropriate warm clothing and all required gear. Additionally, if you haven’t yet sent a photo of your child with their collection or three favorite things, please email that to me at your earliest convenience.

Curriculum Highlights

• Reading: We enjoyed a week of "Bears! Bears! Bears!" Our read-alouds included favorites like Bear Snores On, Bear Says Thanks, and The Berenstain Bears' New Pup. It was a treat to have so many student bear stuffies joining us for stories each day.

• Writing: The class dove into persuasive writing. Using a collection of stuffed animals, students voted for the "best" one, formed teams, and wrote pieces explaining their choice to convince others.

• Science: We welcomed Luke for his final visit of the unit. Students experimented with animal pelts, water, and various seeds to see how they travel through the environment. While students are currently finishing their final unit assessments and posters, we are happy to share that Luke will return in the spring to work with us on erosion.

• Math: Our 1st graders practiced doubles and near-doubles facts, explored number lines, and created their own story problems. Meanwhile, our 2nd graders completed their end-of-unit assessment and practiced skip-counting by threes.

Community Moments

On Monday, we hosted a visitor from the Barre Vocational Center who is exploring a career in teaching. She spent the day observing our community and even joined us for read-aloud time.

We also want to celebrate our Student of the Week! He is a 7-year-old 2nd grader who loves the color orange, watermelon, and the Fly Guy series. He enjoys traveling to Florida to play in the sand and dreams of being a Formula 1 racer one day. We are so proud of him!

NOTE:

As part of our upcoming classroom activities, I am still looking for a few more photos of the students with their special collections or three favorite things.

If you haven’t had a chance to send one in yet, please email a digital photo to me at your earliest convenience. The kids really enjoy sharing these personal items with their peers, and we want to make sure everyone is included!

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I hope you all have a restful long weekend. Thank you for your ongoing partnership.

Peace,

Mr. Young

PS:  With a short week upcoming, there will be no blog post next week.

Welcome Back and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you had a wonderful December and were able to enjoy some restorative family time. It was lovely to spend the holidays with my own daughters and extended family. It has been a week of transitions in my household: my oldest daughter headed back to New York, and my youngest just left for a semester in Madrid this past Wednesday. I am already looking forward to visiting her during our April break!

Back in the classroom, we hit the ground running with a focus on fresh starts and community. Here is a look at what we’ve been up to during our first week of 2026:

Our read-a-louds this week all centered on the theme of New Year’s and the idea of a "refocus." I took this opportunity to remind the students of our overarching class goal from the start of the year: "Thinking of Others." To bring this goal to life, each student created their own personal New Year’s Resolution centered on how they can help us achieve that classroom mission. Their resolutions are now proudly displayed on our walls! Our literary inspiration came from:

Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution
Carter and the New Year’s Resolution
The New Year's Resolution Checklist
The Night Before New Year’s

Math Highlights
We dove right back into our numbers this week with some targeted skills practice:
1st Grade: Students focused on complements of 10 and 20. They also practiced their "detective skills" by finding missing addends and subtrahends in both addition and subtraction equations.

2nd Grade: The focus shifted to fractional parts. We also spent time playing a math game that challenged students to use doubles and "doubles +/- 10s and 1s" to solve problems quickly.
Science & Exploration
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Today, we had a fantastic science session with Luke. We explored the world of nocturnal animals, specifically investigating which creatures are active at night right here in our own schoolyard habitat. The students will start working on their assessment posters next week.

STUDENT of the WEEK:

This week's Student of the Week is pictured here. This 2nd grader joined our classroom in October. She is 8 years old. She has a brother and a sister who also go to Waitsfield. Her favorite colors are pink, purple and blue. She also loves celebrating holidays. Her favorite thing to do is to paint pictures.  She also just loves school. Her favorite foods are watermelon and celery. She wants to be an art teacher when she grows up.

ACTION ITEMS:

Please take note of the following two things as they are pertinent to work we will be doing next week. 

1. Next week's read-a-louds will all focus on books about bears. I thought it would be fun to allow the kids to snuggle with their own bear stuffy as I read the books next week. They are welcome to bring them in and leave them for the week (if they wish).  

2. As we dive into our persuasive writing unit, I will need the students to identify a collection of their own (toys, cards, hair bands, etc.) and to take a picture of the favorite three things from that collection. If you could take a picture of your kid with each item and dump them in this folder, the students will use these as prompts for their writing. 

NOTES:

*The students will always bring home their homework bags on Tuesdays (of a ski week). Please make sure they bring them back on Wednesdays. If your child uses a ski bag and not their backpack, please make sure to slide the bag into their ski bag. I will not send homework bags home on the Wednesdays we ski.

*I did have the students all bring home their sneakers over break. If your child wants to leave a pair at school, they can do so. A few kids forgot sneakers this week.

*The students had a very successful Winter Sports Program this week. The weather was great and there were lots of fun stories the next day. We are very fortunate to have the PTA fund this, the many volunteers who make the mountain visit possible and Kaiya and Susan who put in a ton of time and help it run so smoothly.  

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

Ski Phots by: Photos by Kintz

 We have had a busy and productive stretch in the classroom! It is wonderful to see the growth and independence the students are showing as we wrap up several projects before the holiday break.

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Writing & Language Arts

• Small Moment Masterpieces: The students have officially finished their final personal narrative stories! These were completed entirely independently. On Monday, students will perform one final edit before they are officially "published." The progress they’ve made since the start of this unit is truly impressive.

• Looking Ahead: Our next unit will focus on Persuasive Writing. Based on our classroom discussions, I have a feeling we have some very natural debaters in this group!

• Author Spotlight: Last week, our read-alouds focused on Doreen Cronin. We read favorites like Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, Diary of a Worm, and M.O.M. (Mom Of Marvels).

  Note for Moms: I highly recommend revisiting M.O.M. with your whole family—it was a big hit in class!

Science & Exploration

We are continuing our deep dive into Habitats with our guest, Luke.

• Field Notes: Students have chosen an animal local to our area and began taking notes on their

•  specific habitat needs.

• Notebooking: On Thursday, students spent time recording their observations and data in their science journals.

• What’s Next: We will wrap up this unit after the holiday break. For their final assessment, students will create posters showcasing the animals and habitats found right in our own schoolyard.

Assessment & Progress

Last week, students completed several formal Language Arts and Math assessments. Many of these are repeats of tests given in the fall, allowing us to measure growth.

• 1:1 Observations: Most of these are conducted one-on-one, which allows me to see the specific strategies and approaches each student uses.

• Report Cards: These results and insights will be reflected in the report cards sent home in January.

  
  STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  This week's Student of the Week is pictured here: This person is a 2nd grader and has an October 30th birthday. He has a younger sister and two cats. His favorite color red and his favorite food is chicken cutlets. When he is older, he would like to be a professional skier. His favorite place to visit is Block Island. He loves mountain biking too.  Congratulations to this week's Student of the Week. 

NOTES:

*We will have our Secret Pal celebration on Tuesday. If you would like to send something in, please sign up here. 

*I have a doctor's appointment at 8:00 on Tuesday morning. I tried to get it switched but to no avail. I should be at school by 9:00 that morning.

*Our winter Sports Program will start the week that the students arrive back from break. I would spend some time labeling all of your child's items over the break. 

That is all for now.  I do hope you all have time to connect and enjoy your family and friends during the holiday season. I wish you all a very Happy New Year too.

Peace,

Tommy

December 12, 2025

It's often said that December marks the beginning of winter's majesty. I feel the same way about your student's learning journey! The months from December through April truly represent the heart of their academic growth for the year, and we are so excited for the wonderful learning and progress they will demonstrate in this stretch.

This week's 1st grade math class focused on reviewing addition and subtractions concepts within 10. The students also focused on 10 and some more concepts as well has using doubles facts to solve doubles plus one & minus one facts. They also played cat and mouse game that had them using quick addition facts to graph their answers and then compare their total with their partners.  Next week they will take the end of Unit 3 assessment as well as the district required Stars Math Assessment.

This week's 2nd grade math students focused on the concept of equality and deciding if equations were balanced or not. Balancing equations, is a critical step in building strong mathematical thinking. The students are moving beyond simply finding an answer to the equal sign (3=3) and gaining an understanding that it means "is the same as" or "is equivalent to." . This focus on maintaining balance and solving for a missing number (e.g., 3+ 2 = ___+1) is their first, important step into algebraic thinking and is essential for success in future math concepts.

This week's science focus continued to ask the students to think about habitats with a specific focus on our school area.  Today Luke brought in the photos from our game cameras and the students were amazed by what they saw. Luke also shared some photos from around the valley. So yea, the camera did pick up a bear but it was not in the woods by our school. Please don't believe any bear wrestling stories that may come from this!

SECRET PALS: Over the years I have done several versions of Secret Pals in my classroom. This year, I am going to try a different approach. Eileen and I will be each kids secret pal (but it won't be a secret). Starting 12/19/25, the students will have three days of items from their Secret Pals. On the 1st day, each student will receive a card from Eileen and I. On 12/22, the students will receive a Secret Pal snack from us, and on 12/23 they will receive a little gift from us. I am very excited to do this and it will be a fun way to celebrate our "classroom team" and all they have done in the first 75 days of school. 

December 23rd also marks Sloane's last day until the spring. We will have a little celebration for our Secret Pal event as well as saying goodbye for now to Sloane. If you would like to contribute anything to that celebration, please sign up here (food, drinks, cups, plates).  

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  This week's Student of the Week is pictured here. This student is a 1st grader and has an older sister in 7th grade. He also lives with his mom and dad. His birthday is November 27, and his favorite color is blue. He LOVES cotton candy. He loves building with Legos and likes to share his creations during share time. He likes to visit the ocean and see fish. 

READ-A-LOUDS: I continue to focus on books from our classroom library. Our classroom library is both leveled and divided up by authors and or topics/subjects/categories. This week I focused on award winning books. These were all fabulous reads and the students really seemed to enjoy them. Here are the books from this week.

Monday: The Stray Dog

Tuesday: King Bidgood's in the Bathtub

Wednesday: Olivia

Thursday: What Do You Do With an Idea?

Friday: What Do With A Tail Like This?

NOTES:

*We are wrapping up a lot of academic work as we near report card time. This is a time to stop and measure growth from the start of the year. I am really excited to see the results of everything.  

*PE classes our Wednesdays and Thursdays.  Kai continues to ask that kids have sneakers for her classes. 

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great weekend.  My youngest daughter comes home tonight for the semester break and my Varsity team has their 1st game. Needless to say I am excited for the weekend too.

Peace,

Mr. Young

December 7, 2025

Good Evening! I hope you all had a great weekend. It was my first full week of the basketball season and made for a very fast week. I did get to spend all day Saturday in Island Pond (Brighton). Island Pond is a very special place and I have spent a lot of time there over the years. Saturday's visit reminded me of the beauty of the Northeast Kingdom.  I hope you also found a way to enjoy Vermont and its natural beauty.

This past week, Katie Martin, a para educator in Mr. Hubbard's room (and a fan favorite of our class) brought her new baby for a visit. The kids were excited to see both Katie and the new member of her family.

Last week's read a louds were focused on snow building snowmen/women. This past week's Read A Loud were:

The Biggest Snowman

Sneezy the Snowman

The Giving Snowman

How to Catch a Snowman

I explained to the students the power of snow books. The beginning of the week had us with a lack of snow.  Then we had a snow day on Tuesday (after reading the 1st book). On Wednesday we read a book about cold temperatures and wind and sure enough Thursday brought the weather it did. Some of the students may have even become believers!

In Math the 1st graders worked on seeing combinations of numbers through a tower and dice game. They also played a game that required them to subitize complements of 10 using a Rekenrek rack. The goal is to continue to build strategies so that the students become fluent with their complements of 10. 

The 2nd graders the students identified, described, and extended the counting by-2s pattern by using a class created chart. The activities provided the students with opportunities to consider odd and even numbers in context and also provided early exposure to the concepts of early multiplication and repeated addition.

Luke Foley came to our class on Wednesday as we kicked off the 1st day of our animal and plant unit. Luke and I talked about the word habitat and developed a "working meaning" of the term. We then spent our time out in the Woods and field to the north of our school identifying tracks, learning how animals move, and looking for evidence of winter homes (for the animals). We were so fortunate to have such a beautiful day to be outside. The students spend Thursday and Friday working in their science journals and learning more from Luke about how to identify different tracks. Some game camera have been set up to try and capture footage for the animals living near our school. Luke will be visiting every Wednesday and Friday through the 1st of the year. The schedule will change a little during the winter program dates.  

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: This week's Student of the week is pictured here. This young man is a bright and kind young first grader. His birthday is in September (the 18th) and his favorite color is blue.  His favorite place to visit is the ocean and his favorite food is dumplings. He has 5 people in his family, including two other siblings. He wants to be a magician when he grows up.  Congratulations to this week's Student of the Week.  

NOTES:

*Please remember that we will be going outside every Wednesday for science class. Please dress accordingly.

*The kids have been doing a FANTASTIC job remembering their homework bags.  Keep up the great work!

That is all for now.  Have a great week.

Peace,

Mr. Young

November 23, 2025

I can hardly believe that we have already reached the end of November! As this time of year encourages us to pause, reflect, and give thanks, I wanted to share my sincere gratitude. I am truly fortunate to come to school each day doing exactly what I love to do, and that is entirely thanks to this wonderful bunch of young learners. Our classroom is certainly a fun, engaging, and inspiring place to be, and I want to thank you for raising such amazing children. We got a quick class photo before we left for the day on Friday. We were missing one student and have yet to capture a photo with every student (in our current class).

This week, we focused on the important concepts of gratitude and thankfulness. After hearing a wonderful story that inspired reflection, the students took the time to self-reflect and write individual letters expressing what they are most grateful for. These special letters were sent home on Friday in a large envelope. Please encourage your child to read their heartfelt message aloud during your Thanksgiving celebration—it is a beautiful reminder of all the blessings we share!We had a very successful conclusion to our Financial Literacy unit this week, with students completing their final assessment and celebrating their learning with our fun classroom Movie Night! It was wonderful to see so many of you express your excitement for the event. Furthermore, I sincerely appreciate all the notes and feedback many of you shared about what your child was discussing at home regarding this unit—it is always rewarding to hear about that real-world connection!

Looking ahead, we are excited to dive into our next unit, which will focus on Life Science: The Needs of Plants and Animals. We are delighted that Luke Foley from Friends of the Mad River will be joining us to enrich our lessons! The final assessment for this unit will involve students creating a detailed habitat poster of the woods and river area right behind our school. Since we will be taking our learning outside for many of these engaging lessons, please ensure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather each day.

This past week, we finished our super-fun journey with books by Oge Mora, and we wrapped up the Global Read Aloud! Mr. Mongeon read us a great story called More or Less about a child whose house had too much stuff, and how giving things away made everyone feel happy! It sparked an idea: What could we give away? The students thought of an item they could donate to a big community swap. They used cool collage techniques, just like Oge Mora uses in her pictures, to create their own artwork! If you want to see all the great work we did over the last six weeks, please stop by our classroom library! Everything is on display for you to enjoy until the end of February.

This week, the 1st grade students significantly strengthened their mental math toolkit by working on the use of the "Near Doubles" strategy. This technique uses their existing knowledge of doubles facts (like 5 + 5 = 10) to quickly solve doubles plus one or doubles minus one facts (like 5 + 6 or 6 + 5). For example, to solve 6 + 7, they can use the doubles plus one strategy: double the smaller number (6 + 6 = 12) and add one, resulting in 13. They put their new skills to the test on Friday with an exciting speed game called "Boom Blocks," and it was fantastic to see how quickly their fact fluency is growing!

The 2nd graders played SKUNK. Mr. Hubbard has a day before vacation tradition of playing this game. This popular probability dice game is played over five rounds, and challenges students to practice quick addition and strategic risk assessment. Players roll two dice to add to their score, but must decide when to "sit" and lock in their points. A roll of a single 1 will cancel the score for that round, and rolling double ones means losing all points accumulated throughout the game—making it an exciting, high-stakes way to practice number sense! Congratulations to Emma as she won the whole thing on Friday! I hope she and her parents cherish the blue cereal bowl that Mr. Hubbard sent home as a trophy (winner's cup). 

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  This week's Student of the Week is this smiley young kid. She is a 1st grader and celebrates her birthday on the 11th of April. When she can, she loves eating her favorite food CANDY! She lives with her mom and dad and has a pet or two as well (I can't tell the exact amount from the picture, one might be a stuffy). She likes to travel on airplanes and her favorite color is purple. Congratulations to this week's Student of the Week.

NOTES:

*As a reminder, I do need every student to have a change of shoes each day (meaning they can;t wear their boots all day). Even with a lack of snow, the mud that comes in on their boots can create quite a mess not he carpets. Students are welcomed to leave a pair for shoes at school.

*Our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday. Kai would like to remind all of you that the students do need sneakers these days.

*We will have a very quick stretch in December and the 3 weeks will have a lot of finalities (with curriculum and assessments) as we get ready for report cards in January. I asked that you do your best to make sure your child is in school as much as possible during this stretch. I thank you in advance for your help with this.

That is all for now.  I do hope you all have a heartwarming Thanksgiving with those you gather with and those who you think of in celebration.  

Peace,

Tommy

November 16, 2025

I am sorry to just be getting to this now (10:00 pm on Sunday night) but it was a very busy week and weekend and I used today to get our house ready for winter, watching football, and relaxing. I am the chair of the Harwood Hall of Fame Committee and we had our annual induction ceremony, at the Round Barn, on Saturday evening. 

I want to start by thanking all of you who were able to volunteer (in some way) for the Ski & Skate Sale. The event was a huge success and was very efficient and well run. I would like to give a special shout out to these people: Aliison Wertgen, Becca Newhall, Eben Goodman, Susie Goodman, Eileen Turner, Elissa Meier, Lynn Noble, Kelly Schavone, Sophie Tretiak, Luke Foley, Stephanie Hartnett, & Sarah Lusso. They all went above and beyond and their hard work and generous donation of time, allowed for the event to run as smoothly as it did and be successful as it was. If you see any of them, please give them a "shout-out."  

Each morning we have our Morning Meeting. I find this time to be an amazing way to start the day and it allows everyone to connect, to greet each other, share and participate in an activity. It's a great way to build a classroom community, discuss things that come up, and build relationships. This week's greetings were: Color Greeting, High FIve, Knuckle Bump, and Handshake. Our activities were The Tuesday Song, Koseeki, 4 Corners, and Silent Dodgeball (a favorite and tradition). Ask your child to share their thoughts on our Morning Meetings.  

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: This week's Student of the Week is pictured here. This super start is in 1st grade and is 6 years old. Her favorite food is cotton candy and her favorite color is turquoise.  She loves to color and visit the ocean. She has 5 people in her family and two of them are her siblings (I have taught all of them).  Last week she was recognized at our all School assembly for beating acknowledges for being so respectful (part of our Waitsfield expectations). Congratulations to this week's Student of the Week.

This past week we finished our Financial Literacy Unit and the students took the assessment on Thursday and Friday. As a reminder, our "Movie Night" is on Wednesday of this week. It looks like everyone will earn the $17 needed for a ticket. I have a meeting at Harwood right after the event. Please pick your child up between 4:45-5:00 so that I can scoot over to Harwood and not be late.  On Friday, the students choose the movie for the event, unfortunately the title expired on Prime (over the weekend) so we will re-vote on Monday.  The students did a great job with this unit and I think they had a lot of fun with it too.  

NOTES: 

*As a reminder, your child does need boots, snow pants, coats, a hat, and gloves/mittens for recess time.

*The book order due date is 11/22/25. In order to order, use this information: Shop our class page: https://orders.scholastic.com/K3277 Class code: K3277. This will be the last order until May. 

That is all for now.  I hope you all have a great week and that we don't have a delay or snow day tomorrow!

Peace,

Mr. Young