Week 6

Students sit along the banks of Lake Elmore as they paint the landscape of Elmore Mountain, a fall tradition at the Elmore School.

Wow! What a fabulous week we had for our notorious sixth week of school! The weather was amazing (if you like warm, sunny, dry days) , the fall foliage was at peak, and we began E.C.O..

The weather this week, along with the beautiful foliage, provided the perfect day for us to do our annual fall landscape painting of the Elmore Mountain. This tradition began long before I started teaching at The Elmore School, and is something the students anticipate and look forward to every year. The children use acrylic paint sets that we consider a special privilege because it is such a special project, and third graders are given stretched canvas for their painting, something they look forward to. Every year I am amazed by the care and attention students give to this art project and their work is always lovely and unique.

We also had a wonderful day for our introductory ECO session! After introductions, students played a fun tag game featuring crows and ravens, before gathering for snack and a story about fire making. Then the children chose their nature names (animal) for the year. Later in the year they will do research on their animal and create a project as they become animal experts. Students made nature name necklaces which we will use this year during ECO. After name necklaces students had "forest choice" when they made kindness rocks, friendship bracelets, and leaf rubbings. In preparation for next weeks hike to the beaver ponds, we ended the day by noticing and wondering about beavers by looking at a taxidermy beaver.

During our literacy block students have been participating in phonemic awareness drill (hearing and manipulating sounds in words), and they are learning phonics (spelling rules that make the sounds we hear in words). During Writer's workshop, students are completing their first drafts of their personal narratives. This week they work on crafting introductions that hook the reader. We also began guided reading groups this week!

During math students are continuing to interpret data in charts, tables, and graphs to represent, interpret, and compare responses to surveys. Third graders are beginning to represent data in scaled graphs as equal groups which will lay the foundation for the beginning of multiplication.

Next week, on Wednesday October 11th we have our first field trip of the year. We will be walking to the Elmore Fire Station where students will learn about fire safety. If you indicated you would like to chaperone for this field trip, please plan to be at the Elmore School by 8:30 am. We should return to the school around 10:30.

On Thursday, we have our second E.C.O. session of the year. We will be hiking to the beaver ponds on the Ridge Line trail on Elmore Mountain. Students should bring hiking shoes or sneakers (extra socks), a packable snack, and a water bottle. The extended forecast looks like showers and cool temperatures, so please send a rain coat and rain pants if you have them. We do have a supply of rain pants for students who would like to borrow them.

Thank you Paige Bowen for providing us with a delicious chicken soup, bread, salad, melon, and maple blondie "brownies" for hot lunch on Friday. Next Week (Oct 13th) will be Mac and Cheese provided by The Van Anda Family.

Please email me your school lunch orders no later than 7:00 pm on Monday evening.