Wonderful Wednesday! Day 73 of learning together!

Another round of amazing country shares!  We learned about France, Nigeria and China!  We learned that in France there are more pets than children!  In Nigeria they speak 250 languages!  China has the largest population in the world!  We also had a taste of French croissants and Nigerian coconut macaroons and plantain chips!  Tomorrow we have our last two shares😩. Next month we will be researching and presenting about famous world sites:natural or man made!

In math class we have focused on our strategies for adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators!  We've been in Ratio Table Land for over a week and have learned that ratio tables are useful in helping us find common multiples as well as equivalent fractions!  Thanks to Chris, Haley, Kylee and Dylan we have some smart ways to use ratio tables to find common denominatorsWe took a quiz today and used all that we know to solve some tricky problems!!

Week in Review 12/11

We have had an exhilarating week of learning!  We are so proud of all that we accomplished!  We are thankful for our learning and hopeful and excited  about our learning for next week!  Wondering where all these positive feeling words came from?  Welł, for the past few weeks we have been working with Rachel and Peter to learn strategies to use when we have positive and negative feelings.  We've also spent time talking about the "Unthinkables" like Brain Eater and  Worry Wall.  Here are a few pictures of us acting out our Brain Eater moments.  We acted the scene out with an "unexpected reaction", which means you have a reaction to a friend or parent, or coach that is not very nice, and an "expected reaction", which is when you use a strategy to calm or focus.    Ask your child about it!

We've been traveling the globe through, reading, writing and sharing!  We have visited Antarctica, South America, North America, Astralia, and Oceania.  The top pictures show us on truflix traveling by reading and taking notes with partners and alone.  The second set of pictures shows some of people's beautiful shares.  They also did a great job making mouth watering food.  Kate with Denmark, Ian with Syria, Nora did Mongolia, Chloe with Tonga, and Faith with Germany.  Great job to the others too, that shared even though we do not have pictures of them.  Great job to everyone for making it an exhilarating week!

put it on the line and wrapping up the better buy! And The Hour of Code, once on our own and once with our buddies!

Better Buy and Four Door Share!

Ask your child how they figured out which deal was better 8 Bars for $10 or 20 Bars for $23.

Chorus Concert

Fourth and Fifth Grade Chorus Notice

November 10, 2015

Dear Parents,

    Your child has been working very hard in preparation for their winter concert.  We will perform on December 9^th at 7pm in the SCS school cafeteria.  I’m very pleased with the progress of this group and believe we will have a strong program for you.

     Please encourage your child to go over this song packet so that they will be prepared to sing from memory for our concert.   Students should be in concert dress for December 9th. We ask that there are no jeans and that students look appropriate for our performance.  Students will line up at 6:45 in the music wing.

    Thank you for encouraging your child to participate in choir.  Please note this date on your calendar.  I look forward to seeing you at our performance.

     Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any questions. 

Sincerely,

Amy Southworth   

Geography

Everyone passed their geography quiz!  Yah!

Reflecting on what we have learned in geography.

Beautiful cement planters and pies!

Hope to see you at the SCS PTO Craft Fair on Saturday from 930AM -130 PM!  Come out and support Endeavor as well as all members of your community!  Thanks to all of you in supporting us with your time, efforts and pies!

SCS Clothing orders Due by Friday, December 4th!

Please send in order form and a check made out to SCS PTO!  Order forms came home with your child or can be found here under Upcoming Events or on the SCS webpage!  

World Geography and this Month's Share

This week your 5 th grader has begun a study of Wold Geography!  The next two weeks will be focused on learning about physical geography-the land, water and climate of our amazing planet!  We will be learning about landforms that cover the Earth as well as thinking about how the land affects the culture and economics of the region, continent and world!  We have brand new National Geographic Atlases to use, google earth to explore and beautiful books about our 7 major continents!  We will also be studying for weekly quizzes that involve us memorizing continents, bodies of water, mountain ranges, countries, major cities and capitals!  This month your child is also researching a country of their choice and creating a small four door project to share with the class!  Some students are feeling motivated to do more than one!   After vacation we will be focusing more closely on cultural geography in preparation for a week long residency with Jeh Kulu African Drumming and  Dance and for the PTO International Potluck!

We collected so much for the Ronald McDonald House! Thank you Endeavor Families!

Which model would you use?

This morning we are trying to find out which model we should use, the clock model or the money model to solve these subtraction equations.

Morning Share

This morning we got together with Mrs. Tetreault's, and Mrs. Crowther's class to share our ecosystem projects.  Some people did slideshows, posters or art, puppet shows, and some people even rewrote nursery rymes.  They looked fantastic!     

       Post by: Logan 

         Pictures by: Vasanthi 

Miss Vermont encouraging us to believe in ourselves, set goals and ignore stereotypes!

Monday science and grateful tree shares

In science we did three different trials for making our water filters and talked about what filter and materials worked the best.

Kate and Dylan did our first grateful tree share for our class.  Kate used real leaves and Dylan did a great sketch.  

Designing our water filters!

Yesterday science,math and HW shares!

Some people for HW chose to create a symbol to show gratitude!  Here they are!

On Friday we talked about a new clock model for adding and subtracting fractions.  We spent time talking about when we should use the clock model or money model.  Also we started decomposing fractions one example is 33/60=1/2+1/20! Wow!

We. Just dived into a final Ecosystems Project!  We are working with partners!  We hope to be done with these by Friday!  Ask your child about it!

Our finished project!

Our Comments and Noticings:

I like the weaving a because of the different patterns and colors!  

I like all the choices of colors!

The color combinations are vibrant!  

No two are alike!

We persevered and focused!  

I love the way all the weavings together!

Everyone did their weave their own way!

You can see different designs when you look at the weaves from different angles!

Weaving with colors inspired by conserved land in VT!

 

Shelburne Museum First Activity!

Another successful Mix IT Up with Ms Elias's class!

Lily shared with us her interest in Geography!

Team Building and Forest Ecology!

Beautiful day to be at Shelburne Farms with our amazing 5th Graders!

Superflex!

Our Speech Language Pathologist, Peter, joined us today to share the story of Superflex, the unthinkables and the thinkables.  These characters depict the thinking that goes on in our brains during social interactions, basically all moments of our day.  These characters help us think about our reactions in certain situations and we can use the thinkables to help us find solutions to our problems. Peter will be joining us weekly for a few weeks to increase our use of these social strategies to help us in our classroom, our school, and our lives!  Ask your child about it!

Puppets in Education Bully Prevention Workshop!

We had an important and thoughtful experience with Puppets in Education today!  Together we talked about bullying and how we as a group can change our school and make it a bully free zone!  Through this worshop we discussed strategies we can use to stop bullying, the importance of being a bystander and even role played strategies for dealing with bullies!  We would like to thank Dan Bokan and Shearer Cheverolet for sponsoring  this visit from Puppets in Education!  Their generosity has made it possible for all K-5 students to attend a show on an important subject!  Thank you!

Snaps from last week!

What did we find in our leaf packs?  Last Thursday, Vasanthi and Mrs. Crowther headed to upper and lower McCabe's brook to fetch our leaf packs!  These leaf packs had been in the brook for almost a month!  Our hope was that the leaves we had placed inside the mesh bags would decompose and provide a rich food source for macro invertebrates.  These macroinvertebrates would in turn tell us about the health and water quality of McCabe's Brook!  We compared our data from our leaf packs to the data we collected in the field.  As a group of scientists we wrote an essay using the evidence from our field experiments!  Look for that essay here tomorrow!

Last Friday we mystery FaceTimed with a class in NJ.  We talked together about our read aloud called Fish in a a Tree.  We eCh had a role in the conversation.  In the end we learned that Vasanthi is very good friends with Mrs. Kalovrouziotis, the teacher in NJ.  They went to high school and college together!  They were even roommates!  

Week in Review

Dear Families,
      Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me this past week. I truly valued every conversation that I had. Your children are working so hard to be engaged and committed learners! It was incredible to hear them talk about science, their writing and their math strategies. It was important for me to hear where they are motivated to learn and what mini goals they want to achieve! I've enjoyed reading their week in review posts on our kidblog, please click here, read and leave them a comment. You can log in as Guest, PW: Shelburne, to hear about your child's week!  Thanks for  all your support!
Vasanthi

Math Night on 10/21

This evening is intended to help all Shelburne Community School parents (PreK-8) understand how and why we teach mathematics in the 21st century. It will include ways to support students with homework, research on how we learn, and critical skills students need to be successful in the world today. The session will begin at 5:30 with a free dinner of soup, salad and grilled cheese for everyone in the cafeteria - followed by John's presentation from 6-7 and followed by questions / answers until 7:30. Free childcare is also available for the entire time, provided for any toilet-trained child by our great IAS afterschool program staff.

Vasanthi's class multiplication strategies!

Use this at home when you are in a stuck point!!

Cyber bullying workshop with Rachel!

Deciding whether a message is hurtful, ok or not a big deal.  Crossing the line to show when the message is hurtful!

Physical, Chemical and Biological Assessment of McCabe's Brook

Grant, Ben and Ava from the watershed Alliance joined us this morning at our site along McCabe's Brook.  Together with them we collected data on the health of the Brook and will be using it to write some claims with evidence.  We will compare data with Mrs.Crowther's class, their site, still on the McCabe, but closer to the Ti Path, Dog Park and water treatment facility!  What will we learn about the brook and about our watershed!

Unified Arts Night

Please join the Art, Music, Physical Ed., and World Language teachers for our Unified Arts Night. It will be on Tuesday, October 20th, from 6:30-7:30 pm. Please meet in the cafeteria at 6:30 pm for a brief introduction. Students are encouraged to attend this event with you, and share some of the great things they are learning in their UA classes.

Everyday Expectations

5th Graders worked in partnerships to create digital presentations about our SCS Everyday Expectations.
Check them out!  Do you know what is expected at SCS?  What do you think of the tools they used to create these projects?

Book Talks by Harrison and Ian!

Open House Tuesday!

Come and visit the classroom and engage in meaningful conversation with your child about his or her learning during our 1st 20 days in 5th Grade!

Tuesday, September 22, 8-9 am!

SLC Speeches

Amazing speeches given on Friday!  I was so impressed by the effort that went into each candidate's speech!  The creativity was incredible, everyone had ideas on how to change our school for the better!  We had a fair vote, every candidate received votes and Robbie and Lily will represent us on the 5th Grade SLC!

Monica Taylor from Hunger Free VT visits Endeavor!

The Leaf Packs are in the water!

Scientists have launched their leaf packs into the upper end of the McCabe's Brook!  These leaf packs will sit in the water (hopefully) for 3 weeks or longer!  We hope that over time macroinvertebrates will colonize our leaf packs.  When we retrieve these packs from the water we will search through them carefully to find biotic (living things) organisms which will help us in determining the overall water quality of the McCabe's Brook!  Thank you to Susan, Chloe's mother, for supporting Mrs. Crowther and I through this scientific adventure!  Over the next week we will read more about river/stream ecosystems and about the macroinvertebrates who live there!  

Dot Day 2015

Walking field trip to McCabe's Brook...creating event maps, using field guides and catching crayfish!

Brainstorming ideas on how to grow our classroom library and live the life of an intense reader!

Another set of amazing book talks!  We are hooked!

Learning about our watershed and the point and non point causes of water pollution!

Book Buddies

Book talks!

We had two amazing book talks this morning from Dylan and Kate!  They both were well prepared and inspired their classmates to read Wonder and The 39 Story TreeHouse!

Chorus sign ups are coming home today!  I'm really hoping we can have 100% class participation!  Mrs. Southworth has chosen some great songs!

Abbie and I were twins today! Guidance lesson and more,

Rachel, our guidance counselor joined us this morning!  Together we discussed our Everyday Expectations and created flags of our Hopes and Dreams for SCS!  These flags will be added to the display in the cafeteria!  We hope that all students K-8 will be creating a flag!  The cafeteria is currently displaying flags done by all the adults in our building!  What a beautiful display, check it out!