Meeting Shelburne's Poet Laureate!

In honor of National Poetry Month, we had the opportunity to meet and hear from Shelburne's own Poet Laureate, Rick Bessette! He shared some of his poems with us and also shared his journey to becoming a poet.  We learned that he loves to write about Shelburne Farms and nature!  He also said that if any child at SCS writes a poem, he or she can bring it to Rick (he works at the Hardware Store in town!) and he will hang that child's work in the library!  As we wrap up our fairy tale unit, we will be doing a bit of poetry to end the school year!

Welcome Back!

We've had a great start back to school after vacation! It's hard to believe we only have 29 days left of school!  The last day for students will be on June 10th.  Please check your child's Friday Folder this week as there are many different flyers from the school, as well as, a list of upcoming events for the Esprit Team. Also, Walking Wednesdays begin on Wednesday, May 4th.  Your child can meet us at the Town Green at 7:30am to walk to school with his or her friends and teachers and staff from school.  This will happen every Wednesday in May.

This week in math, much of our focus was on quadrilaterals.  We had the chance to sort quadrilaterals and identify their attributes.  We also played a mystery game in which the children had to figure out which quadrilateral was in a mystery envelope based on certain clues/attributes.  We also discussed the concept of perimeter and measured the perimeter of certain quadrilaterals using cm rulers.  Next week, we will finish our geometry unit and move on to the last unit of the year.

In writer's workshop, we continue to work on writing our original fairy tales.  We noticed that in many of the fairy tales we have read, the characters often have an object that is important to them and is meaningful in the story.  For example, Cinderella's glass slipper or Little Red Riding Hood's basket.  The children were encouraged to try and add an important object in their original fairy tale.  Be sure to ask your child how his or her fairy tale is coming along!  We are excited to share all of our fairy tale work with you during an Author's Share on May 26th at 2:15 in the classroom.

In science, we continue to study ecology and habitats.  This week we discussed animals and clues they provide in habitats.  We learned a lot about animal tracks and tried to solve a mystery about animals based on the tracks we saw.  We also used a program called Mystery Science to learn about how habitats change. Scientists know that habitats have not always been the same based on fossils they find.  Be sure to ask your child about these habitats and fossils!  We also continued reading My Side of the Mountain and making connections to our ecology study.  The main character Sam is certainly very resourceful and knows a lot about what's living in his habitat.  Ask your child to tell you about the food he is eating!

Lastly, we need egg cartons (dozen size) for our next math unit in May. If you have any, please send them in with your child.  Thanks!

Habitats and Acrobats!

We had another great week on Team Esprit!

This week we had Hands on Nature.  This month's theme was wind and clouds. Through a puppet show and hands on activities we learned about the atmosphere and how unequal heating by the sun creates differences in air temperature and air pressure.  This can cause winds to blow and weather systems to form. We also learned about the different type of clouds and what they mean. What can your child tell you about clouds and wind?


In science, we continued our study of ecosystems.  This week our focus was on habitats. We watched a short video about habitats and learned that water, shelter, food, and space are necessary for an animal or plant to survive in a habitat.  In groups of four, the children were given a challenge to make a list of four items they felt would be necessary to survive in the desert habitat and justify why they chose those items.  Interestingly, most groups picked food, water, a tent, and matches! We also played a game outside to simulate what happens to animals if there is not enough food, water, space, or shelter in their habitat.

During writer's workshop we finished our second adaptations of fairy tales.  As the children revised their work this week, they thought about adding describing words (adjectives) to their sentences and using comparisons (similes).  Both of these help the reader to better visualize the story.  We also talked about varying their sentence length so that their writing sounds smoother and fancier and less choppy.  After vacation, the children will be creating their own original fairy tales!

In math, we continued with geometry, building polygons and identifying their attributes. The children were given toothpicks and had to build certain quadrilaterals and then even made multi-sided polygons having as many as twelve sides.  Did you know a 12 sided polygon is called a dodecagon?  We also used the geoboards to create polygons to match a series of clues given in the form of geometric attributes.  We finished the week by sorting quadrilaterals and writing  quadrilateral riddles.  What can your child tell you about polygons?

Lastly, we had a fantastic trip to the Flynn Theater this morning to see the Peking Acrobats.  It was an amazing show! The balancing, the acrobats, the music...just fantastic!  Ask your child to tell you all about it!

We hope you all have a wonderful spring vacation!  Please note that there is no school next week. School resumes on April 25th.  It's hard to believe we are nearing the end of the year!!

Wiggly Worms!

We continued with our Ecology unit this week by learning more about and exploring decomposers.  The best decomposers we could find to study were worms!  We first read a non-fiction book called Yuck! Worms! that taught us about the importance of worms as decomposers in our ecosystem.  Then we watched a short Discovery Education video and then finally we had the opportunity to be "hands-on" with worms!!  The children had the chance to observe the worms with magnifying glasses. As they observed, they wrote down their noticings, descriptions, and any diagrams of the worm.  This was definitely one of the highlights of the week!  Be sure to ask your child to explain the role decomposers play in the ecosystem.  Also during Reader's Workshop, we began reading My Side of the Mountain looked for ways that this book connects to our ecology unit.  As we read the first two chapters, we looked for references of animals, plants, abiotic (non-living- rocks, sun, weather, clouds,etc.,) or decomposers.

In writer's workshop, we continued drafting our second adaptations of fairy tales.  This week we focused on revising throughout the drafting process and making sure to have a balance of action and dialogue in their stories.  Next week, we will start the last section of the Fairy Tale unit and each child will be creating and writing his or her own fairy tale!

In math we began our geometry unit by discussing the many vocabulary words that go along with this unit, such as vertex, parallel, symmetry, congruent, similar, quadrilateral, parallelogram, etc. We also focused on identifying the attributes of special quadrilaterals. The children worked in partnerships to create a poster for either a trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus, or square.  The posters had to include attributes, examples and non-examples of the shape, and a sentence that explained the shape's most important attribute.  We also had the opportunity to work with tangrams.  Tangrams are an ancient Chinese puzzle in which you try to put 7 shapes together to form a square. These were a challenge!  Was your child able to put the tangram puzzle together? Lastly, we learned a new Work Place which required us to build various polygons using 2, 3, or 4 of the tangram pieces.

Have a great weekend!

New Science Unit!

Today we began a new science unit that will take us through the end of April.  This month we will be focusing on ecology and ecosystems.  During the unit we will be exploring our local ecosystem, comparing habitats, discovering how environmental changes affect plants and animals, and measuring plants and trees in our school yard.  We are hoping to spend time outside during each of these lessons to get hands-on ecosystem learning. We will also be integrating science and literacy by reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. This is book about a boy who goes to live alone in the forest.  We are hoping to make many connections to our science learning while reading this book.  Our work today consisted of reading a picture book to introduce the idea of ecosystems, going outside to explore our school yard habitat, and sharing all we know about ecosystems.

In math, we finished Unit 5 this week.  Our continued focus was on the concept of area. We found that area is an attribute of plane figures such as rectangles and squares, and is measured in square units.  We first measured paper rectangles and surfaces around the classroom and non-standard units and then we moved into estimating and measuring area in customary units: square inches, square feet, square yards.  We also investigated the connection between area and multiplication, discovering that the area of a rectangle can be found efficiently by multiplying the length and the width.  Next week we begin geometry!

In Writer's Workshop, we continued to work on our fairy tale adaptations. It is amazing how excited and engaged everyone is with this writing unit!  This week we worked on story telling our fairy tale adaptations first in order to find the language that would help readers see and feel what is happening in the story.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her second fairy tale adaptation!

During Reader's Workshop, we continued reading Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel.  Dyamonde Daniel is a third grader who has just moved to a new school and is trying to make friends.  She is very similar to the character, Opal, from Because of Winn Dixie. This week we compared Opal and Dyamonde's reactions to problems and adversity, looking to see if they had similarities or differences.  We also made opinions about Opal and Dyamonde, such as who is the better friend and who is the better problem solver and had to find examples in the text to support our opinions.  Way to go readers!

Have a great weekend!