We're Back!

Please note that we have Scholastic News response sheets for Reading Homework this week. We need more math 'fact power!' Please help your children practice by using flash cards, dice, recitation strategies or interactive websites so that all children will know multiplication facts to 10. THANK YOU!
Here is a Vermont County Map. How many of these counties have you been to?

Here's a link to the African Children's Choir. We'll see them at the Flynn on Friday. Students need to bring lunch as we'll miss its being served here.

Hello folks, We have had another busy week. Students have worked hard on their self selected writing pieces. About three weeks ago each one chose a piece from his/ her journal that he/she would like to do further work on. The work was to include significant revisions as we were working on a grade level expectaion called Writing Diminesions. Students have revised their work, had conferences, revised again and fine tuned their writings. Their work is impressive.

Another area of hard work has been Vermont Projects during Discovery Time. Students have designed their own projects and are executing them. Projects include a model of the Vermont State House, one of a sugar bush, a Vermont board game, a poster about Calvin Coolidge, a couple of slide shows. We will have another interactive slide show that we can use the 'clickers' for. This is exciting work.

On Wednesday I was at a literacy training in Hinesburg. Our school will be adopting a new assessment tool that aligns very well with the probes we are already using as well as best instructional practices in reading. This tool offers a lot to us in the way of moving children's reading skills forward, and I'm glad we've decided to use it.

Our current Read Aloud book is HOOT by Carl Haaisen. It has been riveting for students.

In math we've been struggling with decimals. The concept of decimals is very tricky for many kids. We are stressing that decimals are always 10 parts to the next greater piece: ten thousandths make a hundredth, ten hundredths make a a tenth, then tenths makes a one, or a whole...It is tricky and confusing.


I hope you all have a great vacation week. Things will be very hectic when we return-so many regular events and then the whole advent of moving. There is also FAP led volunteer opportunities for Teacher Appreciating Week(I hope you got the email I forwarded about this) and for moving.

If you are interested in helping pack up the classroom for the move to WCS, please let me know. I'll be trying to sort, organize and purge next week so that my room at least won't be too overwhelming.

As always, ,please check the Bell for special events. I'll put the ones for Discovery on the right where I used to have homework assignments. Please mark your calendars, and remember the Discovery homepage has a calendar link.

Not on the calendar yet are the Maturation Video for grade 4 students, Science NECAP for grade 4 students and transition events.

It's been a fine week, but it's finest today with the sun shining all around. Students were checking the temperature madly before recess to find out whether or not coats would be needed! The school rule is that the temperature has to be above fifty degrees for kids to go outside without coats.

I trust you have all read the note from the teacher who will be replacing me, Becky Martell. I look forward to work through this transition with her. I'm also excited about the third graders' new team. Their new team will be called Equinox. If you'd like to know more about Ms. Martell, check out her blog.

We've been reviewing all of our writing this week. Tomorrow students will choose one piece from their notebooks to revise and publish. Students have talked about how much fun it is to reread their work and to see their own improvement.

Students enjoyed their second round of Vermont workshops. The topics are geography, Vermont symbols, government and citizenship. The fourth workshop is about the economy. It looks at various VT products and the tourism industry. Ask about ways to support VT economy.

Today we switched desks for April. Our goal is to have each table be gender mixed and aged mixed.

Guest readers have been visiting Discovery to share books nominated for Red Clover Award. We heard Wangari’s Trees of Peace read by Mr. Terko, and How to Heal a Broken Wing read by Mr. Nardelli. You can view most receive list of nominees at http://www.mothergooseprograms.org/lit_red_clover_winners.php.

TO DO:

• Please send in the Flynn permission slips if you haven't already.
• Please make sure your child has mud proof outer wear for recess, and even better, an extra set of clothes!
• We have Four Winds again next Tuesday.
• Friday is a half day for parent/teacher conferences. I am enjoying these so far. Thank you for sharing your insights with me.

A Note about Math Facts

There are many things we want students to know about multiplication facts: we want them to be able to use a variety of strategies such as repeated addition, chunking numbers or visualizing arrays to understand a particular multiplication problem represents. We want them to understand regular, incremental increases in quantities. We want them to have this type of conceptual knowledge.
The task of memorizing math facts we are currently urging you to do every night does not address that thoughtful work. In fact practice, we are working on rote memorization. We just want multiplication facts to get stuck in students' heads so that when a s/he sees part of a fact family, say, 3 x 4, s/he automatically knows that 12 is the missing number. Also, when a student sees 12 and 3 in the context of multiplication/division they would know that 4 is the missing number. That is why these are called 'Multiplication/Division Fact Families.'
To this end I ask that when you practice flash cards with your child each day, you work on a subset of the whole pile for about five minutes each day. You are working to mastery, but that may take more than a day. Repeat the same facts the next day. If your child has mastered them, add some new ones. Technique: Cover the product. Sticking with the same one I used above (3 x 4 = 12) allow your child to say “3 x 4 = 12.” If s/he doesn’t, you say, “Three times four equals twelve” while showing all three numbers in the fact family. Then the child repeats this. Move on to the next card. Come back to this one in the regular order as you circle through your pile. In this way your child is getting repeated visual, auditorial and kinesthetic (verbalization) practice with each fact.
I hope these tips help. Memorization of these facts give a sense of competence to our young mathematicians that really helps them move forward with more complicated work.

I have adjusted the settings so that now it will be easier for you to leave comments if you should wish to. (I think.)

Thanks to those of you who came in for conferences on Friday. As always, your feedback and insights were very welcome. Your input helps meet the needs of your children better. Also, thanks for the congratulations, and support of my new position.

Last week was a good one. Connor was the assistant and so he led most Morning Meetings. We enjoyed celebrating Jordan's birthday on Thursday, as he was sick on the actual day.

In math we are looking at multiples, count bys and repeated addition as a way of better understanding multiplication facts and being able to manipulate them.

Please do see the School Bell for information about upcoming school events such as Jump Rope for Heart, the Big Basket Raffle and much more.

Four Winds Learning

I learned that animals in the cat family have retractable claws. Nate
I learned that when moose walk their back leg go where there front leg was. Jake
I learned that different animals walk different. Michael
I learnd that diffrent animals walk differnetly too. Silas
I learned that if hair is in skat than the animal ate something with fur. Jacob
I learned that moose tracks are bigger than deer tracks. Logan
I learned that animals walk in four ways: walk, gallop, waddle, and bound. Connor
I learned that a moose's hoove is counted as two toes. Colin
I learned that animals can walk, bound, waddle or prance. Chris
I learned that a squrrel gallops. Erica
I learned that an otter is very long and can jump very high. Jordan.
I learned that some animals drag their tail and it becomes part of their foot print. Morgan
I learned that some animals put their hind legs where their frunt legs were. Jared
I learned that mice have different pawprints for their front and back. Stephanie
I learned that a bird can create wing marks if the bird doesn't land correctly. Matthew
I learned that one of the ways animals walk is called bounding. Hannah
I learned that if a animals tracks end the animal might have gone underground or flown away. Lydia
I learned that some animals gallop, walk, walble, or bounder. Lauren
I learned that some animals stick their nails in. Margaret
I learned, while editting, that we'd better do a little work on their, there and they're!-Ms. Stewart

Thursday, March 4

Frindle was great. It was short (50 minutes), it was fun and funny, very engaging and interesting. There is a strong message about how language develops. Thank you for supporting this trip to the Flynn Theater.



Student behavior was also very good. It was fun having lunch together in the classroom. On the bus both ways I overheard plenty of positive conversations-even some guessing games about Africa. In the theater, our fine skills as an audience were evident.



On Wednesday we changed desks. All desks are still age mixed and gender mixed. Students chose seats at which they think they will be able to maximize their learning-both through independent work and collaborative work.

Thursday we began work on a radio play which I hope we'll be able to podcast next week. It is going to be our version of this poem:

Way down south where the bananas grow ,
A grasshopper stepped on an elephant's toe.
The elephant said, with tears in his eyes,
"Pick on someone your own size!"

Ask your child about this work. It is fun and challenging.

Please see the School Bell for information about Math Night, the Variety Show, Jumprope for Heart, the Big Basket Raffle and a lot of other wonderful things happening in our school community!