Nicholls' News - Elmore Edition: September 2023

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Week 5

At our Open House on Thursday, students and family members shared what they are grateful for on our Gratitude Pumpkin. We will continue to add to this through out the next few weeks as we enter the
season of gratitude.

We had another amazing week at The Elmore School! We began our week thinking about our goals for the school year. We talked about a goal being something you are working toward achieving and developing a plan for how you will achieve your goals. Each student came up with four goals to focus on. They wrote them on a soccer ball as a symbol for shooting for a goal.

We also formally began Writers Workshop this week. Our first writing unit will focus on writing personal narratives (stories). This week we discussed the features that make good stories. Then students brainstormed ideas for stories they could write. Next they used a graphic organizer to help plan their story. On Friday many students were ready to begin writing their first draft. Unlike writing in their journals, we will be working on writing stories for several weeks (using the plan, draft, edit, revise, publish process).

First graders did a Primary Numbers and Operations Assessment (PNOA) this week. This assessment looks at several areas of math development (counting, symbolic notation, placevalue, computation, magnitude, estimation, comparison, and equality). This is the first of three times they will take this assessment this year.

All grades are currently learning about categorizing data, and using and interpreting graphs. First graders used connecting cubes to represent a data, while second graders compared picture graphs and bar graphs and then compared various bar graphs about the same categories. Third graders are using bar graphs to solve problems and compare data within the categories on a graph.

We had a wonderful Open House on Thursday night! Thank you to all who attended. The children were so excited and proud to share the classroom with you and show you some of their work!

Next week we will begin ECO! Students should come prepared to be outdoors for much of the morning on Thursday. For our first week, we will be staying in the school yard as we practice and learn about some of the basic routines and expectations of the program. Students will each choose a Nature Name (Vermont Animal) which they will have for the year. Later in the school year, each child will research their animals to learn more about it and will create a project about their animal. If you are interested in joining us for this morning (9am-12pm), please let me know.

The following week, we will be hiking to the Beaver Pond along the Ridge Line Trail on Elmore Mountain. Please let me know if you would like to volunteer to hike with us.

Paige Bowen will provide Hot Lunch on Friday October 6th. Chicken Noodle Soup and Salad is planned.

Please email me your school lunch orders by 7:00 pm Sunday.

Other Announcements

Library is Monday - remember you books!
Students need sneakers for PE on Wednesday. (This week we will have PE in the morning - pack extra socks as the grass will be wet)
ECO begins on Thursday September 5th (we will be staying in the school yard this one time)
No School - Monday, October 9th (Indigenous People's Day)
Field Trip to the Elmore Fire Station - Wednesday, October 11th

Students have been "rocking out" at recess this week!

We made applesauce together on Friday!

Fun Friday!

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Week 4

Students who returned summer work were treated to an ice cream party this week
(one friend opted out of the photo)

We have completed our fourth week of school! We are starting to get into a regular routine within our day. This week all students took the STAR Reading (Early literacy for grade 1) and STAR Math assessments. As many of you know, these are administered on iPad. They self adjust as students answer questions, therefore they may have questions that are beyond what they have learned. Likewise, if students are not answering questions successfully, the questions will get easier until the student has success. This feature allows the test to determine the students ceiling and floor. These tests are just one of the measures we use to determine what students need and to show growth over the year.

On Thursday, we celebrated International Peace Day. We read Todd Parr's book titled Peace and shared what peace means to us. Students wrote about peace in their journals then they decorated a "Pinwheel for Peace" with words and images of peace. Later in the day we sang songs about peace and planted our pinwheels in the school yard. International Peace Day is celebrated around the world every year on September 21st as a way to show unity and peace around the world, and children all over the world created Pinwheels for Peace, too!

On Friday we had our first Chinese lesson! Dan Peterson has graciously volunteered to come every other week to teach the children Chinese lessons to include language, traditions, and culture! This week students learned the characters used to write mountain (shan) and water (shui) and how to say these words in Chinese.

We also enjoyed homemade chicken and rice soup, focaccia bread, and grapes for our family Hot Lunch! Thank you to Shawn Smejkal and Uma for our delicious Lunch! Later we were treated to Birthday Cupcakes to celebrate Champ's Birthday.

Please email your lunch orders for next week.

We have nobody signed up for Family Hot Lunch next Friday, so we will offer sandwiches and salads.

Shout Out to Colin Reynolds who came last week to sand off the paint that was carelessly painted on the gaga ball pit and basketball hoop pole last spring. Thank you Colin!!! We appreciate your effort!

Thank you for your flexibility for rescheduling school photos this week. Photos were taken first thing on Friday morning and should be back in a couple of weeks.

Thank you to those who donated extra clothes. We are in pretty good shape now! This will allow us to have extra clothes for students who may need them. If your child borrows clothes, we just ask that you wash and return them to the school so we have them available in the future.

Announcements

Please send a pair of indoor shoes or slippers students can keep at school
Students need sneakers for PE on Wednesday.
School Photos - Tuesday, September 19th @ 8:00 am - Please return all orders by Monday
No School- Monday September 25th (Yom Kippur)
Open House - Thursday September 28th @ 6:00 - 7:00 pm
ECO begins on Thursday September 5th (we will be staying in the school yard this one time)
No School - Monday, October 9th (Indigenous People's Day)

Below are some photos from the previous week that did not get posted....Enjoy!

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Week 3

The Butterflies emerged from their chrysalises early this week.

We completed our first full week of school on Friday and we are all still smiling! We are off to a great start! This week we reviewed Good Choices /Poor Choices and used these to develop our school rules. We used the good choices and sorted them into four categories which became our rules.. They are:

Be Safe,
Be Kind,
Be respectful,
Be responsible ...to yourself, to others, and the school.

On Wednesday, the children worked in small groups to make posters for each of the rules. These will hang in our classroom throughout the year. Our rules will help guide our behavior through the year and we can reference them when unwanted behaviors arise.

Students also made "All About Me" owl posters this week. This is a way for us to celebrate our individuality.

We continue to build our daily routines. This week we added spelling practice and phonemic awareness drills. Each week students will have a new list of spelling words. These words will be directly linked to phonics lessons (spelling rules) they are learning about at school. Students will have time during the week to practice spelling their words while at school. They are not required to practice them at home, however in the past many students found that extra practice at home was helpful, so students will have the option to take their lists home to practice them at home.

We are building on our math routines as well. We begin math each day with a whole class warm-up (or launch). This involves time for students to have individual think time to respond to a question, image, or concept. then they will share their ideas with a partner. Finally some students will share with the whole group. This routine invites students into the math each day. After the warm up, I meet with grade levels while other children are working on their math menus. Math Menus provide opportunities for students to work independently and with partners or small groups and include "must do's" and "Can do"(choices) . Currently first graders are working on adding and subtracting within 10. Second graders are adding and subtracting within 20, and third graders are interpreting at and creating scaled picture and bar graphs based on a data.

On Friday we had a mini lesson about apples. Students learned why/how there are so many varieties of apples. Then they participated in an engineering task where they had to design an apple trapper/grabber. In this task they had to use only paper and tape to create a devise that could allow them to reach "apples" , trap/grab them, and then pass them to their partner. Students developed some very creative apple trappers!

We had our first family hot lunch on Friday! Students enjoyed dino chicken nuggets, spring rolls, fresh berries with whipped cream, cucumbers and tomatoes, maple lemonade, and Italian cookies for dessert! Thank you so much to Dan Peterson for providing our first Hot Lunch!

Next week hot lunch (TBD) will be brought to us by the Tartaglia / Smejkal family!

You can still sign up to bring a hot lunch by going to the mealtrian (click the link). There are still several openings.

Please email your school lunch orders for the week.

Next week students will begin having reading homework each night (Monday - Thursday). They will have a reading log they are responsible for filling out (parents may help first graders with this). Reading logs should be returned each day in their folder. Please see the letter that will be in students' homework folders, which will explain more about reading homework.

We are in need of spare clothes for students to borrow when the need arises. Please consider donating outgrown clothes/shoes you may have. We could use: pants, underwear, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and sneakers. Thank you!

Please let me know if you are interested in helping to organize a fund raiser to purchase some additional equipment/options for recess.

Announcements

Library is Monday - remember your books!
Please send a pair of indoor shoes or slippers students can keep at school
Students need sneakers for PE on Wednesday AND Thursday this week.
School Photos - Tuesday, September 19th @ 8:00 am - Please return all orders by Monday
No School- Monday September 25th (Yom Kippur)
Open House - Thursday September 28th @ 6:00 - 7:00 pm
No School - Monday, October 9th (Indigenous People's Day)

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Week 2

Students enjoyed enjoyed the water table as we tried to beat the heat this week!

Our second week of school is in the books! This week we had a focus on building a respectful and responsible community of learners. We began the week by talking about Good Choices and Poor Choices for behavior. Next week we will continue this work as we develop our classroom / school rules. On Wednesday we read I Show Respect and had a class discussion about what respect means. Then students wrote a poem about respect. On Tuesday we read I'm A Good Friend, and talked about what friends do together. Then students created a page for a class book about friends. On Thursday we learned about being a responsible digital citizen and students signed their digital citizenship pledge. On Friday we read I can be Fair. We had a class discussion about the difference between equal and fair. We learned that fair does not mean everyone gets the same thing. Fair means everyone gets what they need.

This week we also unrolled our PBIS (Positive Behavior Incentive Supports). Students will ear tickets throughout the week as they make good choices and behave responsibly and respectfully. They start each day by earning up to 3 tickets just for showing up at school on time, and turning in their folders! Then as we go through the day they will be awarded tickets for positive behavior. At the end of the week they will use 5 tickets to participate in "Fun Friday" and will be able to shop at the "school store". Tickets will also be collected to go toward a All School Reward.

We also launched our new math program , IM (Illustrative Math) this week! We are slowly beginning grade level lessons while continue to build our math menu practices. During math students will have targeted grade level instruction and time to work on their math menus which will offer a choice of differentiated activities that provide review and continued practice for mathematical concepts. IM is a problem-based curriculum where students will be collaborating and reasoning with others as they make sense of mathematical concepts. This year students have workbooks for each unit, therefore you will not see a high volume of student work coming home each week. Instead, workbooks will go home at the end of the unit.

In art this week students created self portraits. Students learned how to portion the face in order to draw their facial features. They used mirrors to study their own features. Then they colored using colored pencils. Finally, students added details to the background to show things they love to represent what on the inside. Finally, they added a watercolor wash to the background.

Next Friday will be our first Family Hot Lunch which will brought to us by Dan Peterson! Dumplings, Chicken nuggets, and fruit salad is what's on the menu!

Please go to the mealtrain to sign up to bring a lunch!

School lunch this week is: email orders

There has been some interest for fundraising to add to our recess options. A couple of years ago we had a successful yard sale at the school which families donated to and volunteered their time. I'm looking for a couple of parents who would be interested in helping to organize such and event (or other fundraising ideas are welcomed).

Announcements

Library is Monday - remember your books!
Please send a pair of indoor shoes or slippers students can keep at school
Students need sneakers for PE on Wednesday.
School Photos - Tuesday, September 19th @ 8:00 am - see Friday Folders for order form
No School- Monday September 25th (Yom Kippur)
Open House - Thursday September 28th @ 6:00 - 7:00 pm
No School - Monday, October 9th (Indigenous People's Day)

harvested from our school garden this week!

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Week 1

Students performed at the Elmore Labor Day Talent Show on Saturday afternoon.

We had a fast and fabulous first week at the Elmore School! As students filed into the classroom on Monday morning, smiles stretched across their faces. In the first week we had a focus on cooperation and team work, we began laying the foundation for math menu, and students did some writing. Together we read several books.

On Monday we read the Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn which features a young racoon who is worried about his first night of school. Following the story, students made worry stones using polymer clay. The idea is that if students feel worried they can use their worry stone by rubbing it with their thumb as a way to help them feel more grounded and relaxed. Students wrote in their writing journals about something they did over the summer. In the afternoon we practiced for the talent show and had our first day of library.

On Tuesday, we learned about the Monarch Butterfly. Students made observations of the monarch caterpillar we had in the classroom and then each child mad a drawing of what they observed. Then students students listened to me read I Can Listen. Then they wrote their own mini I can listen books. In the afternoon we began learning about some of our math routines. Our math launch was "Which one Doesn't Belong. in this activity students look at four images and are asked to identify which one (or more) doesn't belong in the group. Each of the pictures in the set has something that doesn't belong so this helps students to think critically. Then we learned a card game know as "Golf". After math we practice our songs for the talent show again

On Wednesday, We began the day with Guidance. Ms. Waldman (School Counselor at MES/Elmore), introduced the "Peace Place". The idea is when students are having a disagreement or a conflict they can go to the peace place to discuss the problem and potentially find a solution both can agree with. Students then worked with a partner to role play the peace place process. Later, I read I Can Cooperate. Then students completed a I can cooperate sentence started on a paper caterpillar segment. They cut out their caterpillar piece and then assembled it into one long caterpillar. Then we had a coopertive team challenge where students worked with the table group to build the tallest cup tower they could using only 20 cups and 10 index cards. We were lucky to catch one of the caterpillars make it's chrysalis! This was a truly amazing this for us to witness. You can check it out by viewing this video. In the afternoon students leaned how to complete one of the math puzzles they will see in their math menus. Last we practice our songs for the talent show. We ended the day with a Clear the Classroom Drill.

Thursday we had more cooperative team building activities. The first one was the lower the hula hoop team challenge and the next was a relay where students had to cross the rug by using spots to stand on. The tricky part of the challenge was someone had to have contact at all times with each spot. I shared a book all about the Elmore School that was writer by students three years ago and published into a hard cover book. Then students wrote about what their bet day of school would be. We had our first fire Drill, and in math students completed window panes (these will be part of math menu each week as a was to review past content), and played a new card game with a partner. In the afternoon we practice our songs for the talent show and then had our first day of PE.