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| Students decorated the Post Office boxes at the Elmore Store with handmade Valentines We had a very busy week leading up to February break! Monday we celebrated Valentine's Day and World Kindness week by decorating the post office boxes at the Elmore Store with over 160 handmade Valentine's. Students spent much of their free time over the past couple of weeks crafting and creating the cards for the community, a 40+ year old tradition for the school. We hope that we helped brighten the day of the patrons of the Elmore Store! Tuesday, journalist Chelsea Sheasley from The Christian Science Monitor, a national news outlet based in Boston, made her way north to Elmore to visit The Elmore School. Ms. Sheasley became interested in the Elmore School when she learned it was the last one room schoolhouse in Vermont and wanted to write a "feature story about the role that the school plays in the community and why some residents are so passionate about ensuring it stays operating." She spent about an hour and a half at the school where where she talked with Superintendent Heraty, several children, and me. Before she departed she took the time to answer student questions about being a journalist. We ended the week with a celebratory School Dance and ice cream party! Students have been prolific readers as of late, and have been summiting mountain after mountain with their reading minutes (each minute read = 1 vertical foot). They reached the summit of Mount Abraham and Mount Mansfield over the past month and were rewarded with a Dance Party and Ice cream. Students can log their reading minutes over vacation which will go toward our last Vermont mountain summit (Killington). For the last trimester we will shoot for the biggest summit of the year as students read to climb Mount Everest!  During Literacy this week students worked on writing informational text. Our focus this week was using text features to get the reader's attention and spelling strategies for independent writers. With Ms. Bourne's (MES literacy coach) help, I was able to complete reading assessments to determine students reading levels, and Mrs. Bellavance assessed all first and second graders on reading sight words. We also finished out read aloud book. The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare. This book is a Newbery Honor book about a twelve year boy who struggles to survive on his own during eighteenth century Maine, while his father goes back to Massachusetts to retrieve the rest of the family. During Math, level 3 students used multiplication strategies to find the perimeter of 3, 4, and 5 sided shapes. Level 2 students solved word problems using a tape diagram (linear model) to find the difference between a larger number and a smaller number to find how much fewer a number is, and level 1 students used ten frames and number bonds to solve subtraction equations by subtracting the ones to find the difference. During Science this week students explored with the materials to discover which materials had more or less friction than other materials. Students worked in small groups to test several materials to see which materials would make the best slides.  Students tested various materials to compare friction We will resume ECO the week we return from school. Students need to be prepared to be outdoors for the morning on Wednesday, March 2nd ( the first day back). I am still in need of one or two parents to join us for the morning (9-12). Fingers crossed that the weather will cooperate for us to go to Spruce Peak again on Thursday, March 10th. Wishing you all a wonderful week. See you on March 2nd! Here's a quick glimpse of our week!         |
