June 14, 2026

Good morning to all of you. I hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the beautiful weather on Saturday. I attended my 3rd graduation of the season. This one was for my nephew in the St. Albans area. It was fun to go back to the place where I graduated from too. Speaking of nostalgia . . . Last week the Harwood Senior class came by for a visit. Last year the district started a tradition of the seniors visiting all of the elementary schools in the district. It was so nice to see so many familiar faces. I was able to get a quick shot with three of my senior players of which one of them attended the Waitsfield Elementary School.   

On Monday, we took our field trip to visit our pen-pals in Georgia, VT. It was such a  great day and the kids were fantastic both on the bus and at our friends' school. We took a walk on their nature trail, played on their playground, ate lunch together and then explored their classroom. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do something similar next year.

On Wednesday, Eric came to our class and continued working on the robotic unit with the class. This week the kids were tasked with having their robot accomplish going over a ramp. They will finish up their work with this on Wednesday.

This week has a ton of fun events going on. I wanted to give you all the schedule for the week. Please know if your child does miss a day, some of the activities will not be completed. 

Monday: Regular Schedule. The kids are working on letters to next year's students during writing time. These letters give the new 1st graders information about the room (from a kid's perspective). 

Tuesday:  Regular Schedule. The kids will finish their letters and start working on a memory book about their year. This will be the last math class.

Wednesday: The morning will be focused on the writing in their memory books. They will also have field days in the afternoon.  Please dress accordingly as kids will be around water, sunshine, and wet grounds.  

Thursday: The class will spend most of the day cleaning up the tools they used this year. They will also have robotics with Eric. 

Friday: We will start the day with our class breakfast. Thank you all for signing up for the donation items. Here is the list in case you forgot. At 9:30 we will have an all school assembly. The kids will eat lunch in our classroom at 11:00 and then head outside (by our fire exit classroom door) as we line up to celebrate the 6th grade graduates. Please feel free to come join us at 11:25 along the building. It's great to send out the 6th graders with a big cheer.  

That is all for now.

Have a great week.

Tommy

PS: HOW ABOUT THOSE KNICKS!

June 7, 2026

Good evening to all of you.  I hope you are having a good weekend. It's hard to believe we are down to ten days of school. Here is what happened last week and what's to come this week. Hopefully your child showed you the deck of Pokemon cards they brought home last week. Each student has an entire class set of the cards they created. 

I was able to finish all of the reading tests last week. I did this during our reading station time. The students were able to continue to do their regular rotations as I conducted the 1:1 assessments. We will continue regular reading groups this week (with the exception of our field trip day tomorrow). 

The students continued working on their end of untit science assessments too. The students finished their posters and most completed their writing about it too. Those who didn't will have time to finish this week. 

This week the 1st grade math students will spend three days being assessed on the concepts that I have covered this year. This assessment is different than the Stars assessment they took last week. I find the results of both really give me a clear picture of their math abilities and it helps me finalize where they fall on each standard. The 2nd graders will do similar assessments too. After the assessments, the first graders will finish the year doing a unit on data and graphing.  

In writing, the students finished one last practice writing piece focusing on informational writing. The students will start their final unit piece on Tuesday of this week. 

Eric Mongeon came to our class on Monday and kicked off a three day (the next 3 Wednesdays) robotic unit. Needless to say, the kids were immediately engaged. This week Eric will let them try and code their robot to move in different directions. 

NOTES:

*We have our field trip on Monday. We will be heading to Georgia Elementary School at 8:30 and will return before the end of the day. Emma's mom Sam will be joining us on the trip too.

*The Harwood seniors (who attended Waitsfield) will be visiting our school on Friday morning. This is something that the district started last year and it was a great way to wish them well. 

*Tuesday,  June 16 will be our last math class for the year.

*Wednesday, June 17th will be our field days. Please look at last week's post to see what is needed for that day.

*I am still looking for a few more items for our last day of school breakfast. If you can help out, please sign up here. 

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

June 1, 2026

 Good Morning,

I am sorry I am only getting to this post today. I traveled to Pittsburgh over the weekend and am here until Tuesday. I have my nephew's high school graduation today and was psyched to be able to attend. I will be back in school on Wednesday. Zack Smithwood is the substitute for the two days.

Eric working his magic.

Last week I started most of our end of the year assessments that the district requires. It is always great to see the progress that the students make on these and I was very pleased with the results so far. I will finish up the reading test this week. 

Upcoming Events:

June 5th: This will be the last day for parent volunteers in the classroom. I greatly appreciate your time and service this year. The students are better off because you have your time and for that I am truly grateful.  Volunteer times will be back next year.

June 8th: We will head to Georgia Elementary School to visit our pen pals.  We will be leaving school at 8:30 and returning before the end of the day. I will take a lunch count on Wednesday so that Cheryl can have bagged lunches ready for that morning. Kids cans till bring their own form home if desired. If you have had your background check done and would like to join us, please let me know this week.

June 17th: This will be our school's annual Field Day event. This is always an exciting time for the kids and involves them being out in the sun and having the potential of getting wet form the water activities. Please make sure your child dresses for the weather, the day itself, and has plenty of sun screen on. If they have water shoes or sandals, that would be a good choice too.

Enjoying our new game!

June 18th:  Report cards will be sent home. Look for them in your email.

June 19th: The Last Day of School. Every year I cook pancakes for the students on the last day. It is a fun way to celebrate our year together and a final celebration as a class. If you would like to donate something for this event, please sign up here.

We will also have an all school assembly on that day at 9:30. We will eat lunch at 11:00 in our classrooms and then have dismissal at 11:30. At 11:25 that day, we will line up around the perimeter of the school (outside our side emergency door) to give one final cheer for our graduating 6th graders. Feel free to join us out there at that time.

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

Peace,

Tommy

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May 22, 2026

Welcome to the late-May stretch! The countdown to summer is officially on, and you can absolutely feel it in the classroom. The children's energy right now is a bit of a pendulum—swinging between restless excitement and end-of-the-year fatigue.

With the warmer weather, we are experiencing a bit of the "airplane landing" effect. Focus is a little tougher to sustain, physical fidgeting is up, and our group conversations are definitely on the loud side! Because it’s so easy for the kids to get overstimulated right now, we are focusing on keeping our classroom routines tight and supportive.

Here is a look at what we've been working on this week despite all that amazing spring energy...

We had a productive week in writing as our students dove into the fascinating world of Big Cats! To practice our Speaking and Listening Standards—which ask students to recount and describe key details from different types of media—we kicked things off by watching an exciting short video about these incredible predators. From there, the students paired up into dynamic duos to transform their new knowledge into informative writing pieces. To guide their teamwork, we used a graphic organizer to map out the perfect essay structure: crafting a catchy hook, a clear topic sentence, 3–4 detailed facts, and a solid conclusion. I also led a mini-lesson on how to use transition words to smoothly connect their thoughts from sentence to sentence. The kids brought so much enthusiasm to their research, and they will be putting the finishing touches on their masterpieces this coming Monday!

This week, the first graders continued to focus on building a strong understanding of adding and subtracting 10s and 1s from a given number. We brought this concept to life through a variety of hands-on math games, including some crowd-favorites that involved using dimes and pennies! Developing this skill is a massive milestone for first graders. Mastering the ability to mentally add or subtract 10 and 1 is the foundational bedrock of number sense and place value. By linking these abstract numbers to real-world coins like dimes and pennies, students aren't just memorizing facts—they are building a concrete mental map of how our base-ten number system works. This crucial stepping stone gives them the confidence and mental math flexibility they will need as they move on to tackling much larger, multi-digit numbers in the 2nd grade.

This week, second graders focused on applying their knowledge of complements of 10 and 20 to solve problems reaching up to 100 and 1,000. For instance, students used their understanding of basic pairs like $8 + 2 = 10$ to recognize larger numerical patterns, such as $80 + 20 = 100$ and $800 + 200 = 1,000$. This shift is a critical step in second-grade mathematics. It requires students to move beyond basic memorization and instead use algebraic thinking to see how numbers scale. Developing this mental flexibility with larger place values is essential, as it establishes the foundation they will need for complex multi-digit computation and regrouping.

 

Luke Foley joined our science classes twice this week for an in-depth study of river dynamics, erosion, and flooding. On Wednesday, Luke led an introductory discussion before moving students to the gazebo, where they used sand tables to model a river system. This hands-on activity required students to strategically place miniature houses, businesses, bridges, and dams to see how water flow impacts a community. On Thursday, students spent time documenting and analyzing their findings in their science journals, and we wrapped up the week on Friday with a collaborative reflection where students shared their notebook entries. The lesson elevates their understanding of earth science and community systems. Students are expected to understand how natural processes shape the earth's landscape over time. By managing the "mini-community" on the sand tables, they engaged in critical problem-solving regarding human-environmental interaction.

Yesterday, the students were able to each do their own video chat with their pen-pal in Georgia, VT. We will be going to visit them on June 8th. If you are a volunteer who has done the background check with the district, and would like to come along, please let me know. I will take 1 or 2 more adults. You would need to ride the bus, and we would leave around 8:30 and arrive back around 2:00-2:10.

NOTES:

*The students all have their Weekly News Journals in their homework bags. Please read them and send them back on Monday. 

*June 5th will be the last day for all parent volunteers this year.  Thank you so much for all of your help and generosity this year. I am truly lucky to have so many volunteers.

*This past Wednesday was the final day of our school's Inspiration Hour. I know the kids really enjoyed all of the choices this year. I want to give a special shout out and thanks to all of those that led a group.

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

Peace,

Mr. Young

May 15, 2026

 Okay, it was 3:00 and it has finally stopped raining. I was sitting at my desk, looking out the window and trying to compose this blog. I decided to hold an emergency class meeting, and by a vote of 1-0, the motion of throwing some pictures on the blog and heading out for a walk passed! I love efficient meetings. 

Have a good weekend. 

Tommy

May 8, 2026

My mom is like a superhero, strong and bold,
She has a heart that is made of gold.

She packs my lunch and ties my shoe,
I love my mom, and she loves me too!

I want to start this week's blog post with a shout-out to all of the moms and all they do for their kids. We spent some time this week reading two books about mothers and their love for their children. The kids also have a special entry in their Weekly News about you all. Make sure to be on the lookout for a special gift too.  On anther note, one child shared a special story about their mom today. It dictated that I defend the mom "just a little" as I explained how sometimes things happen to women's bodies after they have kids. It was a first for me in my teaching career! Your child can fill you in.  

Our young authors officially crossed the finish line of our persuasive writing unit this week by completing their custom Pokémon cards! This wasn't just a fun art project—the written descriptions served as their final assessment, requiring them to use convincing arguments to prove why their character’s unique powers and traits are the best. The students are incredibly proud of their hard work, and rightfully so!

This week, our first graders took a big step toward algebraic thinking by using symbols to represent specific values (1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s). By assigning a unique shape or icon to these counts, students learned to "decode" a string of symbols into a mathematical equation. For example, rather than just counting by ones, a student might see three stars (worth 5 each) and two circles (worth 1 each) to build the equation:

5 + 5 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 17. 

• This activity is a cornerstone of early numeracy for several reasons:It teaches children to see a "group" (like a 5 or a 10) as a single unit, which is the foundation for our base-ten system.
• Students move beyond "counting all" by ones and begin skip-counting to find totals more quickly.
• Translating a visual symbol into a numerical value prepares them for future variables in higher-level math.

Watching them realize that one "10-symbol" is much faster to work with than ten "1-symbols" is always a wonderful "aha!" moment in the classroom! Have you noticed your student starting to group objects at home, or are they still mostly counting things one by one?

The second graders have been working hard on building fluency with complements of 100 and 20. This means they are learning to instantly recognize which pairs of numbers "snap together" to make a whole—like knowing that if you have 64, you need exactly 36 more to reach 100. Using tools like number lines and hundreds charts, students are moving beyond basic addition to see the relationships between numbers more clearly. Developing this "number sense" is a vital bridge to more complex math.

This week we launched our new science unit on water, erosion, and changing lands. We were thrilled to welcome Luke Foley from Friends of the Mad River, who helped kick off our investigation with a fascinating deep dive into our local environment. We started by pondering a deceptively simple question: Where do the rocks in our riverbed actually come from? This sparked a week of vocabulary building as students learned to distinguish between weathering (the breaking down of rock), erosion (the movement of material), and deposition (the dropping of sediment in a new location).

Today, we took our learning into the field! On Friday, the students headed down to the banks of the Mad River to act as "geology detectives." They scoured the shoreline for real-world evidence of deposits, observing how the flow of water shapes the land we live on. Seeing these concepts in action—rather than just in a textbook—brought the science to life and helped the students appreciate the dynamic, ever-changing nature of our local watershed.

NOTES:

*Your child does have their Weekly News Journal in their homework bag.  Please send it back on Monday.

*I wanted to give a sincere thank you to all of you that contributed to our teacher appreciation events this week. IT was above and beyond!

*A big shout out to the PTA is due! This past week they gave our classroom the funds to add some specific books to our classroom library. The kids will love the new additions.

*We will continue to go out as much as we can for science on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Mud boots are a great choice right now.  Please dress your kid for the weather and some river observations.

*We will have our 2nd inspiration Hour session this week. The kids seemed to really enjoy themselves this past week. The rain forced my golf session (led by Mr. Hubbard) to be indoors. I introduced the kids to my indoor bocce set.  We have some ringers within our group.  It was so much fun!

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

Peace,

Tommy

May 1, 2026

It's hard to believe we hit our last full month of the school year. May always proves to be a blur as we look to finish strong with our teaching and learning, assess year long progress, and fit everything in both in and out of school. My wife and I always feared May (as parents) because of how much gets jammed into one month. I wish you all the best with it!

It was nice to get back into the swing of things and we had quite an eventful week. It started with our science. Before we dive into our erosion unit (our final science unit), I used the week to design a STEM challenge that focused on boat building. The students spent Wednesday testing objects and their buoyancy. They then worked in teams of two to build their own boat that could float and hold some passengers (rocks). Needless to say there was quite a bit of energy and excitement with this project. I also tied in our read a loud titles to this theme. The week's books were all about male and female inventors and scientists.  Make sure to check in with your child about how their boat did. 

In writing we read the book I Want a Dog by Don Agee. This is a humorous picture book about a determined young girl named Daisy who visits the Happydale Animal Shelter to find a dog but is offered a series of absurd, non-dog animals by a tall shelter worker instead. The story highlights her persistence, with witty dialogue and illustrations, before she finally finds the perfect pet. The students then wrote an opinion piece about what pet they would want. This is the final practice piece of this writing unit.  Next week they will complete their final assessment in the opinion writing unit. You may have already heard your child talking about this task. They will each be creating their own Pokemon card and writing about why it is the ultimate Pokemon card. They started their illustrations this week.

In math the 1st graders focused on skip counting by 5s and 10s as well as adding groups of ten to off decade numbers. is crucial for first graders because it builds essential number sense, strengthens place value understanding, and acts as a foundation for mental math. It helps students see patterns, understand regrouping, and move beyond counting on fingers to efficient calculation. The 2nd graders focused on Learning two-step word problems and arrays. Focusing on this in 2nd grade builds critical thinking, logical reasoning, and conceptual understanding of math, moving students beyond rote memorization. These skills are essential for mastering complex problem-solving, improving fluency with larger numbers, and introducing foundational multiplication concepts.

NOTES:

*Our next science unit will have us working with Luke Foley again. As I mentioned our focus will be erosion. We will be outside every Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon.  Please make sure your child dresses for the weather. We will be near the river for parts of this. 

*There are no Weekly News Journals this week.  We used our morning to finish our STEM challenge.  The homework bags will come back home on Monday.

*Our school's Inspiration Hour starts this coming Wednesday. This is a great opportunity as it fosters intrinsic motivation, creativity, and autonomy by allowing the students to research topics they are passionate about. It transforms students from passive consumers of information into active creators, building 21st-century skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and perseverance. Your child knows what activity they are signed up for.

I hope you all have a great weekend. I hope to catch some games at opening day tomorrow.

Peace,

Mr. Young