Author Visit

This week SCS has been lucky to host Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, a Vermont children's book author. All of the third, fourth, and fifth grade teams had the opportunity to hear Natalie speak and explain how she gets the ideas for her stories.  She told us that most of her stories are based on real-life family stories...stories about her great-great grandparents and aunts and uncles.  She encouraged the children to ask about family stories from the past to get inspiration to write their own books.  We also had the chance to host Natalie on the Esprit Team. She visited us twice to do writing activities and work on adding detail and description to our writing.  She has even inspired some children to start writing their own books during Brain Break.

Speaking of books...we were so excited on Tuesday to visit our new SCS Exploration Center (also known as our library).  After a whole summer of renovation, the library is complete and it is beautiful!  The children were thrilled to check out new books and explore the cozy places to sit in the library.  Your child will be allowed to take out three books at a time from the library.  In third grade we do not have an official library day; therefore, your child can return his or her books any day during Brain Break.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her favorite part of the library!  My guess it was the Story Portal!!

In math, we have continued to work on addition and subtraction strategies when working with double-digit numbers.  The children have been encouraged to solve problems using different strategies (number line, diagram, words, equations, decomposing numbers) which reminds us that there are multiple pathways to solve problems.  They have been working on showing their thinking clearly and working on how to talk about their thinking so it makes sense to their peers.  We also learned a new game called Target 100 which required both the addition and subtraction of double-digit numbers.  Ask your child how to play!

During Reader's Workshop, we took a pause from the book Stone Fox and have been working on different reading strategies, such as retelling, predicting, persevering when the text gets difficult (grit), and using a variety of decoding strategies to figure out tricky words in the text.  The children have also been building their reading stamina and examining their school reading logs to look for patterns in their reading habits.

We also started our first Social Studies theme this week.  To start the year, we will be learning about the history of Shelburne and about the Abenaki Native Americans who lived in this area.  We began our study by sharing all we know about Shelburne and then we brainstormed a list of wonders or questions we have about Shelburne and its past.  We also began to learn more about the Abenaki Native Americans by reading several articles about their food, clothing, shelter, and artifacts.

Have a great weekend! We look forward to meeting with many of you next week to share your child's accomplishments thus far in the year!