Fantastic Ice Show!

We had great time on our field trip to Leddy Park Ice Arena today to see Le Patin Libre.  The ice skaters were amazing with their talent and creativity.  Be sure to ask your child about the show.  What was his or her favorite part?  Can your child tell you about the movements and the music?

This week in math the children continued to work with place value: hundreds, tens, and ones.  They used their place value knowledge as they learned how to do the standard algorithm for adding multi-digit numbers.  You might be wondering...what is the standard algorithm?  This is the traditional way many of us learned how to add numbers in elementary school.  We found that this way of adding numbers is much more efficient than calculating sums on a number line.  Can your child model for you how to add three-digit numbers using this new strategy?

In Reader's and Writer's Workshop we are involved in an informational text study. This week in writing the children took their expert topics and created a table of contents for their books.  Then they began to write the chapters of their books, teaching the audience about their topics.  In reading, we continued to read many nonfiction books and tried to find the main idea of a chapter and the details that support the main idea. We organized our thinking as we read using a graphic organizer called boxes and bullets.

We continued with cursive handwriting this week!  It has been fun to watch as the children become more comfortable writing cursive letters.  Has your child shown you how to form any letters yet?

Lastly, we have had a few issues with children not turning in their reading logs at the end of the month.  Your child's homework is to read and record his or her reading minutes during the month.  If he or she does not turn in the reading calendar, then he or she will not be invited to lunch bunch.  The actual calendar needs to be turned in within in three days of the first of the month. Thank you for supporting your child with this reading homework.

Have a great long weekend!  Remember there is no school on Monday!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back and Happy 2017!  We hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed the time with your family!  The children were very excited to see each other on Tuesday morning and were ready to jump into school routines!

We welcomed 2017 by making new year's resolutions or goals for this year.  We reflected upon the year 2016 and the children wrote down some of their highlights from last year.  Then they made a goal for this year.  Ask your child about his or her resolution!

We had a fantastic field trip to the Flynn Theatre on Tuesday!  Cirque Mother Africa was a circus, gymnastics, and musical performance.  The children were dancing in their seats to the rhythmic music and African drumming!  Be sure to ask your child about all the amazing performances!  You can always check out Cirque Mother Africa on YouTube as well.  They have several videos from other performances.  Please note, we are going on another field trip on Friday, January 13th.  It is a show sponsored by the Flynn Theatre called Le Patin Libre; however, this show will not be at the Flynn Theatre.  It is hip-hop, lyrical, and modern dance done on ice skates!!!  We will be watching this performance at the Leddy Park Ice Arena in Burlington.  Since we will be sitting in an ice rink for an hour, please make sure your child is dressed warmly that day!

The start of the new year also brought the start of a new writing unit and a new reading unit.  During both reader's workshop and writer's workshop, we will be focusing on non-fiction and informational writing.  This week in writer's workshop, we talked about how many informational text writers write about topics they care about or know a lot about.  We call these people experts in those topics.  The children all brainstormed a list of topics about which they know a lot and then divided those topics into subtopics which will eventually become the chapters of their non-fiction books.  Ask your child about his or her expert topics!  We also read many non-fiction books this week and began to notice the features of non-fiction books and worked on finding the main idea and details of informational text.  We look forward to a lot of new learning during our non-fiction units!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Holidays from Team Esprit!

We had another busy week in third grade!  We did take time for a bit of fun... with a Paint and Sip Holiday Party on Tuesday.  The children snacked on popcorn and juice boxes and painted a special holiday gift for you...their families! Very fun and festive!

Miss Niles' class finished up the week with Science Investigation with carts and wheels.  Teams of two and three created small carts and sent them down ramps, measuring how far they traveled.  Then the teams had to make adjustments to their carts to make them travel even farther.  Be sure to have your child tell you about his or her cart and how far it traveled.  We also had a Mancala Tournament!  All the children learned about to play the game Mancala and had fun challenging each other to a game today.  If you're looking for a

strategy game to have at home...Mancala is a good choice!

We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season with your families and friends.  Here's to a new year filled with health, happiness, and love!  Happy 2017!

Holiday Craft Fair!

The Holiday Craft Fair was a great success for Team Esprit!  Our finger knitted snakes and other knitted items were a huge hit, as well as our imaginary friends and thumb print cards!  Our team earned almost $200 to be used for field trips this year.  A huge thank you to everyone for making this event a success for our team. We still have a few items left which we are selling for 2 for $1.

In Math, we continued our learning about three digit subtraction and practiced a variety of strategies to help us become more efficient mathematicians.  We are learning about using a numberline for strategies such as constant difference, finding the difference and removal (take away). Next week we will do more work with rounding and using expanded notation to represent our thinking.

Miss Deb's class did two more investigations this week, during our Forces and Motion unit, that gave them the opportunity to become engineers.  Her class designed carts that can roll from a starting place to another place with only a small push or pull.  For their second investigation, they had to improve the design of their cart to make it travel a farther distance.  For each of their designs, they recorded data about distance traveled in centimeters, and used that data to determine which design was best.


Miss Niles's class conducted two investigations this week.  In one we worked with magnets to see how the size of the magnetic field affects how far away it can attract and object.  We also started investigating motion by creating wheel systems and noticing how they roll down ramp. Be sure to ask your child about his or her wheel system.  Did it roll straight down the ramp or curve to one side.  Can your child tell you why?

In writer's workshop, we have been reading and writing poetry.  We have noticed that poets use metaphors and similes in their writing and that poets also use a lot of repetition.  Ask your child about the poems he or she has written!

Next week, our team will spend some time reading African folktales and learning about Africa.  We will be doing this to prepare for our field trip to the Flynn Theater on January 3rd (the first day back from vacation), to see Cirque Mother Africa.  

Winter is Here!

Dear Esprit Families,

With the winter season upon us, we would like to address expectations for winter clothing required for recess.  The Esprit policy is that students wear to recess what they have been sent to school with. This is not negotiable with the children.  Please reinforce this expectation to your child, so as to minimize confusion or questioning about what is expected of them.

Playground rules require students to wear snow pants and boots if they want to be involved in activities on the fields and/or the playground.  Students who do not come to school with snow

pants and boots will only be allowed to participate in blacktop activities.  Even when there is not snow, winter grounds are wet and muddy. It is important that students not track mud back into the building, and that they have clean, dry clothes to wear for the remainder of the day for learning. We would appreciate your support in helping to make sure your child is prepared for recess this winter.

Thank you!

This week we had the opportunity to participate in the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code is a part of Computer Science Education Week each December and introduces children to computer science and computer programming. Both of our classes used the ipads for an hour this week to try out coding. You can go to code.org or hourofcode.com if your child wants to try it out at home as well!

Miss Niles' class had a Publishing Party to share their opinion writing and poetry. It was wonderful to see so many families attend. These hard workers were proud to share their work! After the Holiday Break, we will be starting a Non-fiction writing unit. We will also be teaching the students cursive handwriting! Miss Niles' class also finished reading the Red Clover Books this week and voted on a favorite. It ended up with a tie! Winnie and Glamourpuss received the most votes! Be sure to ask our child which book was his or her favorite!

Our new science unit continues to move along! Miss Niles' class completed two investigations with magnets, focusing on what happens when magnets interact with paperclips and discovering if magnetic force can work at a distance. These scientists did a great job following the scientific method, making predictions, collecting data, and drawing conclusions.

Miss Deb's class completed an investigation about patterns of motion. They built a variety of wheel-and-axel systems and observed what happened when they rolled them down a ramp. They discovered that they can change the motion of wheels rolling down ramps by changing the size and placement of the wheels they use.

Miss Deb's class also met with their book buddies again this week. Miss Elia's Kindergarten Class came to our classroom to read with their partner from our classroom. It has been a lot of fun for our class to get to know our Kindergarten friends and build relationships with them.

Have a terrific weekend,
Deb and Jenn

Spelling Bee Information

Our 2017 SCS Scripps School Spelling Bee will take place in  February  2017 and will be organized / sponsored by SCS 5th grade teacher Laura Grant Davenport.   The winner will be invited to participate in the state-wide spelling bee in March, with the winner from that Bee advancing to the national spelling bee in Washington, DC.     If you have any questions related to the Bee you can reach Laura by email at  lgrant@cssu.org

In order to qualify to participate in the school wide bee in February, students will have the opportunity to take a qualifying written test on Tuesday Dec. 6.   For grades 3-5 this will be in the cafeteria at 10 AM and for middle schoolers this will be in Ms. Davenport's classroom during the 5th Period / WIN period at 11:55.  The study materials listed below will help you prepare but Mrs. Davenport will choose similar words, not these exact words for the written test.    There will be a make-up written qualifying test for anyone absent on Dec. 6, this will take place on Wed. Dec 7 at 11:15 and will also be in Ms. Davenport's classroom.   

Interested students and families are encouraged to check out the following helpful resources:

Resources:

https://secure.spellingbee.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/010-2017_School_Spelling_Bee_List_2-pager.pdf

The link above has the list of words similar to the words on the qualifying test as well as ideas for study.

https://secure.spellingbee.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/2017_Spell_It-plain_text_1.pdf

http://cdn.spellingbee.com/bee/Spell_It_2017_full_color_PDF.pdf

For students who qualify to participate in the schoolwide spelling bee based on the written qualifying test, practice sessions with Mrs. Davenport will be held on Wednesdays until bee week, 3-4:10 p.m., starting January 11.  (late bus  available)

The Bee for SCS will be held in February during the school day and parents are invited to attend and watch although we don't have space for other spectators.

Looking forward to next Tuesday!

Getting Crafty!

This week we have spent quite a bit of time getting ready for the SCS Holiday Craft Fair!  We have been creating up a storm! The Esprit Team will be selling hand-knit items, Imaginary Friend dolls, Imaginary Friend doll kits, and hand-made cards.  The children are very excited and are very proud of their work!  The Craft Fair is on Saturday, December 10th from 9:30-1:30pm.  We hope to see you there!  Also, we are still looking for some volunteers to run our Esprit Table.  Please sign up at the link below.  Thanks!  Craft Fair Volunteer Sign Up

Miss Deb's class finished reading the Red Clover books this week.  They voted on their favorite.  It was a close vote, but in the end Winnie,-The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh was the winner with a total of 9 votes.  We Forgot Brock! took second place.

Miss Deb's class also had their Opinion Writing Publishing Party this week, and wow, what a turn out we had.  Every student had a family member attend to share their writing with.  Everyone worked very hard on this unit and published some terrific pieces of writing.  A big thank you to all of our families for coming to school to celebrate our writing with us!

Esprit is beginning a science unit about Forces and Motion.  This unit is our first science unit of the school year.  We will have the opportunity to do several investigations and use our science notebooks to record our work and learning.  This unit begins with an investigation using paperclips and magnets to explore magnetic fields, magnetic force and gravity.

Esprit began a new math unit this week that will focus on multi-digit addition and subtraction.  We began the unit learning how to round numbers to the nearest ten and hundred.  We will be exploring a variety of efficient strategies we can use to add and subtract three digit numbers throughout this unit.