Getting Ready to Publish!

Esprit Third Graders have spent the week finishing their nonfiction books, adding the final text features, cover, and illustrations!  They are very excited to share these books with you at our Publishing Party on Wednesday, December 20th at 2:30pm.  Please let your child's teacher know if you can attend the Publishing Party. If you cannot, we will be sure to invite other staff members from our school to attend and listen to your child's book.  See you Wednesday!

Last week, the students of SCS filled up the big C in SCS with cat coins!  That means there has been a lot of safe, responsible, and respectful behavior happening here at school!  To celebrate, we had a Mix-it-Up afternoon!  Both Miss Deb's class and Miss Niles' class met with their middle school buddies and created holiday cards for some senior citizens in our area. Everyone had a wonderful time creating their cards and mixing it up!

In math we focused on subtraction strategies this week, particularly the standard algorithm for subtraction. We used base ten pieces and sketches as a visual to see what happens when a mathematician has to trade or regroup with subtraction.  We continued to practice during much of the week as this tends to be a tricky strategy to master quickly.  Ask your child if he or she can show demonstrate the subtraction standard algorithm for you!

Miss Deb's class spent some more time this week doing "An Hour of Code" with Chromebooks.  They also played a fun game on Kahoot.com that Miss Deb created to practice their multiplication facts.  Both Miss Niles' and Miss Deb's classes have been working toward fluency with multiplication facts during the month of December.

During Reader's Workshop, Miss Niles' class has started doing a book study of Sideways Stories from Wayside School.  They are reading the story aloud as a class, discussing characters, and focusing on comprehension strategies.  Ask your child about the wild and wacky characters they have met in this book so far!  Miss Deb's class is reading books about people who have made a difference in the world.  These books are giving students a glimpse into life in other areas of the world and modeling for students how one person, adult or child, can make a big difference in the quality of others' lives.  Ask your child how some of the people in these stories have helped others have a better life!

Many third graders also chose to participate in the Scripps Spelling Bee written test to try and qualify to participate in the SCS Spelling Bee.  We will know the results soon!  Way to go spellers!

Have a great weekend!

Hour of Code

This week we participated in the Hour of Code, a week in December,  during which children are encouraged to try coding and beginning programming.  On Tuesday, we the children had the opportunity to try out different coding games.  They can access these coding games at home at Hour of Code Activities.  Be sure to ask your child about the coding games he or she tried!

In math, we continued working with triple-digit numbers and worked on rounding those numbers to the nearest ten and hundred.  We also learned the standard algorithm for adding numbers in math.  After using a variety of strategies to solve multi-digit addition problems, the children were taught how to add numbers in the way you were probably taught in elementary school.  We used base ten pieces (hundreds, tens, and ones) and quick sketches to help model the standard algorithm as well.  Can your child demonstrate this new strategy for you?

In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing with our nonfiction study.  Miss Deb's class is reading historical books and Miss Niles' class is reading biographies.  This week Jeff Badillo, our technology integrationist, visited Miss Niles' class to teach them how to use Puppet Edu.  This is an app on the ipad that allows students to make slide shows with voice recording.  The children then read and created slideshows about the subjects of their biographies.  Ask your child about his or her slideshow!

Our nonfiction books in Writer's Workshop are coming along quite nicely!  We hope to have some kind of author's share before the Holiday Break.  Many children are in the rewriting and publishing phases of the writing process.

We were very excited that one of our Esprit 3rd Graders was chosen as Principal of the Day for this month!  He spent the day with Ms. Celmer and had the opportunity to read to some of the students in the school and drink hot chocolate!!!

Lastly,  we hope to see many of you at the PTO Holiday Craft Fair this Saturday.  Team Esprit will have a table so be sure to stop by and see all of their creations.  Have a great weekend!

Spelling Bee

Mrs. Davenport visited our kiva this week to invite third graders to participate in this year's Spelling Bee.  Those students who are interested in participating have been given a list of words they may study to prepare for the written part of the Spelling Bee, which will take place before the Holiday Break.  Five third graders will be selected to participate in the SCS Spelling Bee based on how well they perform on the written test.  Ask your child if they are participating in the Spelling Bee.
Esprit spent our week getting ready for the SCS Holiday Craft Fair.  We typed our recipes, created covers, and assembled our cookbooks.  We also painted kindness rocks to sell on December 9th.  Thank you for sending in all the great recipes for us to include in our cookbook!
Esprit students have earned enough cat coins for positive behavior, both in school and at home, to have a celebration.  It has been wonderful to see all of the "above and beyond" things students have been doing at home and in their commnity.  Students chose to bring a stuffy to school on Monday as their celebration.
A huge thank you to those of you who have signed up to work the Esprit Holiday Craft Fair table!
Have a great weekend!
:)Deb and Jenn

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week flew by on Team Esprit! It's hard to believe it's already the Thanksgiving break.  Please remember that we do not have school next week. School will resume on November 27th.

We started the week with community building activity:  helping to make Stone Soup that would be served for lunch to the whole school on Wednesday!  We visited the cafeteria and spent time peeling and chopping vegetables for this school-wide soup.  We chopped onions, carrots, butternut squash, kale, garlic, sweet potatoes, and potatoes.  Be sure to ask your child how he or she helped in the soup-making process!

During Writer's Workshop, we continued to work on our nonfiction expert books. The children have been drafting and are beginning to move into the editing and revising steps of the writing process.  We also used mentor nonfiction texts to help us write interesting introductions and conclusions.  At what stage of the writing process is your child?

At Reader's Workshop, we are still focusing on nonfiction, but have moved toward narrative  nonfiction.  These are books with true facts and information told in the form of a story. We have been introduced to and have been reading many biographies.  As the children have been reading the biographies, they have been stopping and jotting down notes about the events of the person's life and why the person is important.  Ask your child about some of the biographies he or she has read this week!

In math, we spent the week focusing on rounding numbers, estimation, and multi-digit addition.  The children were introduced to the concept of rounding numbers to the nearest ten and nearest hundred.  We also played three games to practice these skills: Round Ball Tens, Round and Add Tens, and Round Ball Hundreds.  We solved story problems and worked on strategies for solving triple-digit addition problems.  We learned an efficient strategy called "give and take" to use when adding.  Can your child explain that to you?  After our break, we will turn our attention to three-digit subtraction problems and strategies!

Thank you to those of you who sent in recipes for our Esprit Cookbook for the craft fair and for the rocks to make Kindness Rocks.  We will be working on those two projects the week we get back from our Thanksgiving Break.  If you are interested in volunteering to run our Esprit table at the craft fair, please let Deb or Jenn know and we can send you the link for the sign up.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Enjoy your time with family and friends!

Message from The Flying Pig

Katherine Paterson on Saturday, Nov. 18

The Flying Pig is delighted to welcome  the legendary author Katherine Paterson to Shelburne Town Hall on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 1 pm. (Please note this is a time and venue change.)

Katherine Paterson's latest book, My Brigadista Year, follows a 13-year-old Cuban girl as she volunteers for Fidel Castro's national literacy campaign and travels into the impoverished countryside to teach rural families how to read.

Paterson is the award-winning author of many beloved books for young people, including Bridge to Terabithia and Lyddie. 

There will be a brief reading and Q & A with Paterson, followed by a signing. The Flying Pig will have the full slate of her books on hand for autographing.

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.

Shelburne History Timelines

Team Esprit has been working hard creating Shelburne History Timelines on Padlet.  Students have all chosen events in Shelburne's history that they think were important and have created their timelines around those events.  They have also created and included pictures of each event.  Students will soon be sharing their timelines virtually with their families.

This Wednesday, November 8th,  the Esprit Team has planned our walking historical field trip into Shelburne.  We are very excited to learn about the historical significance of many of the buildings right here in the Village of Shelburne.  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the walk on Wednesday.

We have been diving deeper into nonfiction this week during our Reader's and Writer's Workshops.  We have been practicing synthesizing information from two different texts about the same topic in Reader's Workshop and have begun writing chapters for our "Expert" informational texts in Writer's Workshop.  Ask you child what expert topic they are writing about.

In Math, we continue to explore a variety of strategies to solve multiplication problems.  Through problem strings, we have been looking for patterns and practicing using doubles and doubles of doubles to more efficiently solve the problems we are presented with.

The unexpected school closing on Monday moved our scheduled Mix-It Up day to Wednesday afternoon.  Several times a year elementary classes are paired with middle school classes to spend some time doing activities together and getting to know each other.  This year, Miss Deb's class is paired with Mr. Brunvand's class.  Miss Deb's class visited Mr. Brunvand's class and played board games during their Mix-It Up time.  Miss Niles' class is paired with Mrs. Bennett's class.  Mrs. Bennett's class visited the Esprit space and worked together with Miss Niles' class to create kindness rocks.

A huge thank you to all the Esprit parents who donated food for our "Harvest Celebrations" on Tuesday.  Both classrooms enjoyed some wonderful choices of healthy treats for our celebrations.
Have a terrific weekend and don't forget to set your clocks back Sunday!