Thinkmarks, Predators, Walking Tour...and more!

We have had another great week on Team Esprit!  Please check your child's Friday Folder this week.  There are several notes regarding the PTO Holiday Craft Fair,  Scholastic Book Orders, Nearby Nature, and information about the new positive behavior acknowledgement system that has begun at SCS.  We attended an assembly this morning to learn all about Cat Coins!  Please read the note we sent home and ask your child about these Cat Coins.

In math, we are finishing Unit 2: Multiplication and Graphing.  This week we worked on taking surveys and then graphing the data from the survey.  We surveyed our classrooms about favorite ice cream flavors and favorite genres of books.  Then the children took that data and created picture graphs and bar graphs.  We learned about the importance of labels, titles, and keys on a graph.  We learned how read data off of a line plot graph as well.

In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing along with our nonfiction unit.  This week we learned that nonfiction readers often "Stop and Jot" thoughts while they are reading.  As the children read their nonfiction books, they recorded their thoughts on a "Thinkmark".  A thinkmark is a place to record new learning, ask questions, jot down new vocabulary, or summarize the main idea of a section of a text.  Ask your child what nonfiction book he or she read this week.  We will continue reading nonfiction next week as we move into a biography study.

In writing, the children are working on their nonfiction books.  This week they learned how to use different types of graphic organizers (webs, flow charts, venn diagrams) to help brainstorm about their chapters.  Once the children completed their planning pages, they started drafting their books and adding nonfiction text features.  Have you asked your child the topic of his or her expert book?

This week both classes had Nearby Nature. This month's theme was predators and prey.  Through a puppet show and activities, we learned that predators and prey need to eat, but they face different challenges in getting their food. Predators must find their prey, chase, and catch it. Prey animals must look for food carefully... always on the lookout for predators. We enjoyed playing a predator/prey tag game.  The prey had a hard time staying away from those predators!  We also had fun acting out scenarios with prey and predators. 

We finished our Shelburne Story Social Studies unit this week with a walking tour of Shelburne Village.  On our walking tour the children learned about many of the buildings in Shelburne Village, when they were built, and for what they were used.  Did you know that the building that the Flying Pig is in is the oldest building in Shelburne?  It was built in 1796 by Captain Benjamin Harrington and was originally the Shelburne Inn!

Lastly, SCS will be making Stone Soup on Wednesday in the cafeteria.  This is organized by the SCS Food Smart Program Committee...formerly FEED.  They are asking kids to bring in garden or store bought vegetables for the soup on Monday.  The Esprit Team will be going to the cafeteria on

Monday to help prep the vegetables.  We are looking for two volunteers for each class to help us with this!  Miss Deb's class will be going from 10:00-10:30am on Monday and Miss Niles' class will be going from 9:30-10:00am on Monday. Please email Miss Deb or Miss Niles if you are available to volunteer.