February Fun!

We had another very busy week in school!  We had a fantastic Valentine's Day celebration!  It was so fun to watch everyone deliver and exchange valentines and we certainly enjoyed our delicious snack. Thanks to all the families for contributing to our festive snack!  Also on Valentine's Day, we had our second Mix-It-Up Day.  During Mix-It-Up, our classes meet with another class of students and do an activity together.  This month's activity was a butterfly venn diagram.  Each third grader partnered up with a student from the other class and they talked about differences and commonalities between them.  They wrote this on a butterfly drawing and decorated their butterfly. These butterflies will eventually be used in a whole school art project that will decorate the front hallway!

We also had a special visit from the Vernon Tornadoes, an all-kid jump rope team from Southern Vermont. These children were amazing!! They did a 45- minute jump roping demonstration and then Miss Niles' class had the opportunity to do a workshop with the jump ropers during their P.E. class.  I think we might have some future jump ropers!!!!

We have been working very hard in our measurement unit in Math.  This week we spent a lot of time learning about fractions.  There was, and still is, a lot of disequilibrium about fractions.  We have been working hard to make connections with fractions using a variety of models.  This has included partitioning fractions and showing unit fractions on a number line.  It has also included comparing fractions and explaining why one fraction must be greater than, less than, or equal to another fraction.

A huge thank you to our Hands On Nature parents for teaching us about galls this week.  We enjoyed a terrific puppet show and then had opportunities to observe and dissect galls to see what was inside of them.  Ask your child what they found inside their gall!

We are currently finishing up our non-fiction unit in Reader's Workshop with a book project about biographies.  Students have been given a variety of book report projects to choose from to show their learning about a biography they have read.  These include, movie posters, cereal box reports, paper bag reports, and book jackets.  We plan to have these projects completed before our winter break.

On Tuesday, we will be celebrating Disability Awareness Day.  We will be attending a presentation by a community panel of people who have disabilities.  We will then spend some time experiencing disability simulations so we can better understand what it is like to have a disability.

Have a great weekend!
Deb and Jenn