From the Principal’s Desk
Rosemary FitzSimons
Autumn is a beautiful time of year in the northeast, although the fantastic colors come and go too quickly. We hope that you are able to take some time with your family to enjoy this season. At school, we are back into the rhythm of learning. Most of our students have completed their fall MAP (Measures of Academic Achievement) testing. Assessments are given in math, reading and language usage. Kindergarten students will take these in December. Because these are taken on laptops, students usually enjoy these assessments that are given a minimum of two times per year. This year we will receive training in how to better use the data to drive instruction.
Fall is also NECAP (New England Comprehensive Assessment Program) time. We recently received the results of the Science NECAP assessments given in May to fourth graders. 9% lacked proficiency, 64% of the students were partially proficient, and 27% were proficient. These results and those of 8th graders in L&G indicate that we need to continue to improve our science instruction. The teachers and myself have developed a plan to align science instruction over the PreK-6th grades to ensure students receive needed instruction in physical science, earth/space science and life science, areas assessed on the Science NECAP. An important piece of this includes developing inquiry skills. Collaboratively we will review our learning units, make adjustments as needed to instruction, vocabulary and plan strategies for increasing levels of inquiry. Parent letters were mailed yesterday to parents of 5th grade students who took this assessment last spring.
Beginning Monday students in grades 3-6 will be taking NECAPS using the following schedule. Please plan appointments and early release time around this schedule, if possible. Also, ensure students are well rested and have a healthy breakfast. Thank you for your support. Remember these assessments provide a snapshot of student learning. We want students to do their best but not be stressed by the process.
NECAP Schedule
Reading (3rd-6th) Mon/10/5 Tues/10/6 Wed/10/7
Math Thurs/10/8 (5/6 – part 1) Fri/10/9 (3/4 – part 1)
Math (Part2 & 3) Mon/10/12 Tues/10/13
5th Gr Writing Thurs/10/14 Fri/10/15
Makeup dates 10/6-10/19
INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING YOUR TIME BUT NOT SURE HOW YOU COULD HELP? If so, give a call, there are a variety of tasks we could use help with.
PreK & Kindergarten News
It’s hard to believe that a whole month of school has gone by. Happy October to all of you. We had another productive week in our classroom. During our literacy center time students worked to sort letters that are in their name and not in their name at the ABC center. At the writing center and in their journals students wrote about their favorite fall activity. This week we met Clever Cat from Letterland. We learned about her shape, sound and how she got her name. See if your child is able to share this with you. During our word work time students learned that words have parts, or syllables. They applied their learning by sorting pictures together that have the same number of parts. This proved to be a bit challenging but rewarding at the same time. We continue learning about things that are in the sky. We learned that the moon has no air, weather or noise.
During the afternoon, kindergartners wrapped up our chapter on Patterns. This week we built our own patterns, learned about what a pattern unit is, as well as figuring out which part of a pattern is missing. Next week we will begin our number sense unit, starting with a brief review of numbers 0 – 5.
On Thursday we had our first Four Winds class of the year. Students learned about the life cycle of an insect. I learned that some insects go through three different stages and other insects go through four different stages before they reach their adult stage. See what your child can share with you about our class. Thank you to Jill Dean and June Dibble for volunteering their time and making the class fun, enjoyable as well as informational.
Have a terrific weekend.
Mrs. Bates
First and Second Grade
Mrs. Parker-Jennings (PJ)
What a super week we had! The first and second graders began their MAPS testing. This is an assessment taken on the computer, which assesses students’ reading, writing, and math skills. Hopefully, I will be able to share these results at parent conferences.
Next week I will begin our guided reading groups. Small groups of children, who are working on similar reading skills, read books that are on an instructional level. Typically, these are books that are one level higher than their independent level. We will be working on skills such as building reading strategies, responding to text both orally and in writing, and fluency.
During our word work part of our Literacy block second graders continued to learn different word study activities. This week second graders began making connections between words. Students noticed that many words begin the same and end the same. The second graders ended the week identifying words with long vowel sounds. First grade word work focused on saying words slowly so they can hear the beginning, middle and ending sounds. This will help them with their spelling of words. However, there is no push to be spelling words with unusual spelling patterns. Just a focus on writing a symbol for every sound they hear. Therefore, if a first grader wants to write the word catch he might write it like cach. This is a good thing.
During Writer’s Workshop students began their own narrative stories applying what they know about the format we had practiced. We are working through the writing process beginning with prewriting where they brainstorm ideas for their stories. Students used a picture flow map to help guide their thinking of story structures. Then, the first and second graders began drafting their stories. Drafting is when we quickly get on story onto paper. There are some wonderful authors in our classroom!
During our Math Workshop first and second graders continued through the chapter on number patterns. Students explored a variety on ways to show their math thinking when solving problems that include a pattern. For example, if students were trying to find out how many wheels were on 5 tricycles there are different ways to figure it out. Some students used snap cubes, and made 5 groups of 3 snapped together. Other students made a diagram of 5 tricycles showing 3 wheels on each. While other students use a T-Chart or T-Table to show the pattern. In the end all students must explain their math thinking in writing.
Our Earth and Moon theme is going great! This week we explored the surface of the Moon more closely. I shared some pictures that were taken by astronauts that went to the Moon. These gave us a better understanding of what the Moon looks like up close. We noticed that the surface is not smooth, and not made of cheese. Next, we explored how craters came to be on the moon. We used pie pans, flour, and cocoa to represent the surface on the Moon. Next students dropped a marble from about 1ft. above the pan, and then carefully removed it as to not disturb the powder in the pan. Finally we discussed what we saw in the photo of the moon that was similar to what we saw in our pans. Students learned that there are rocks flying around in space. Every once in a while, one of these rocks will hit the Moon, just as the marble hit the powder. When this happens, the rock leaves a large pit, or crater, on the surface of the Moon. Thank goodness Earth has an atmosphere that keeps most space rocks from crashing into it.
I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe weekend!
Yours Truly,
Cris PJ
Dear third and fourth grade families,
Thank you to everyone last week that made sure that their children were able to complete their spelling homework on time. It was a more successful week for kids on their homework and their spelling quizzes. We will be having two bonus words per week on top of their regular spelling words. These words are words that they will encounter often and need to be able to spell, but they may not fit the pattern on the weeks spelling list. On their final spelling test they will be able to gain five bonus points for each bonus word, but they will not lose points if they get them wrong.
We are wrapping up our unit on place value this week, with work on comparing numbers. This has been leading us into addition and subtraction with regrouping, which we will be continuing to practice.
We have studied the first four presidents of the United States, and we are going to be working on reading and creating maps of the local area and the state.
Tuesday morning Mrs. Allbee was here filling in for me while I was doing some reading assessments. We have finished the individual assessments, and we will begin our guided reading groups very soon.
Next week we will be beginning the NECAP testing for 3rd through 6th graders. In my class while we have testing, we will not have homework, except 15 minutes of reading nightly.
Electricity continues to be our topic of study in science. The class has designed a way to test items to see if they are conductors or nonconductors, they have ran many trials and have come up with a statement about what types of materials are conductors and which are not. Ask your child to share what they have learned.
Enjoy your weekend! Make sure to get plenty of rest and eat healthy breakfasts before school to prepare for learning and testing.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Bills
5-6 Newsletter 9-29-09
This week we are finishing up MAPs testing for students who were absent the week before. We also had Ann Allbee as a guest teacher on Wednesday, so that individual Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments could be continued.
We are continuing the work on our World Atlas project. This week we completed Antarctica and hope to complete Australia as well!
Students worked on inquiry math projects on Thursday to test their ability to use the strategy of benchmark estimation. We learned about this strategy earlier in the week.
The Vermont Reads Project book, When the Emperor Was Divine, has provided our literature this week. We will continue to read and discuss the book during class, next week as well.
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Shakespeare
PS The talented players at the soccer games are awesome to watch!
CONNECTIONS NEWS
Charlie Cummings, Grant Director
Happy Autumn from the Connections after-school program! We are off and running with programs running and projects starting up! If you'd like to sign your child up, and he or she isn't already enrolled, contact Charlie Cummings at cummingsc@bvsu.org, or at 802.375.6409 ext 217. The Daily Connections program runs Monday and Wednesday for grades K - 2, and Tuesday and Thursday for grades 3 - 6. Program cost is $5 per day, and it runs from 3 - 5:30. During this time, students get snack, homework help, enrichment fun, and physical exercise. Also, keep in mind that we'll be sending out sign-ups for new Connections enrichment activities around the middle of October, so stay tuned!!