Jeffrey/Mead Team Blog
March 28 - April 8
Math
Each day students participate in a Number Talk which are designed to help students become flexible, accurate and efficient when making calculations. The strategies we are teaching help students solve problems across all four operations. Right now Ms. Jeffrey's class is working on multiplication with partial products as well as halving and doubling. Mrs. Mead's class is working on multiplying up and the big seven. We are also doing some fraction number talks.
We began March Calendar Grid which focuses on multiplying whole numbers and decimals. Students are seeing the relationship between expressions such as 101 x 224 and 10.1 x 224. Miss Soprano is doing Calendar Collector which includes measuring to the nearest 1/8" and creating line plots.
Ms. Jeffrey''s class and Mrs. Mead's class are working in Unit 5 which has a focus on multiplying fractions by whole numbers and fractions by fractions as well as dividing fractions and whole numbers. Students have learned a variety of strategies including models and algorithms. Ms. Jeffrey's class will wrap up next week with dividing fractions by whole numbers and whole numbers by fractions. After break we will move onto Unit 4. Mrs. Mead's class will continue working on dividing with fractions after break before moving onto Unit 4.
Math Stars
Students can work on their math stars worksheets independently at school and home. Worksheets should be handed in Thursday morning for double stars. They will have the opportunity to ask questions and get help on Thursday and resubmit their math stars for single stars. We hope kids have fun with this extra math opportunity!
Read Aloud
Mrs. Mead's class is reading When You Trap a Tiger which is a book from this year's Golden Dome list. Lily has started working with the tiger to try to cure Halmoni but from what Lily can tell, Halmoni has only gotten worse. Lily has been returning the stories that Halmoni stole but in order to return them she has to listen to them. They seem to mirror Halmoni's own story which has made us wonder if perhaps Halmoni is the tiger or even her sister Sam. Lily has also become friends with Ricky, the boy she met at the library. She opened up about how Halmoni is sick but then felt betrayed when Ricky shared that information with his friends. To get back at him, Lily put mud in his pudding. When she want to apologize, she learned that Ricky's mom left their family not too long ago and that Ricky blames himself for that. The two bonded over a feeling of loss and the desire for things not to change even though they can not control that.
Writing
Ms. Jeffrey's students are drafting an informational piece about why people would want to move to Australia. They gathered evidence from two articles and are now writing a multi-paragraph response.
Mrs. Mead's class is continuing to work on informational writing. Students are doing a choice writing piece by posing a Would You Rather question that interests them. They are then researching the topics and giving the reader information they would need to make an informed decision to the Would You Rather Question.
Reading
Ms. Jeffrey's class continued the nonfiction unit with a focus on expository nonfiction and main idea. They are reading ReadWorks articles, Epic books as well as books from the Learning Center. We have focused our thinking on noticing what repeats, looking for main idea statements at the beginning and end of texts, paraphrasing and more. We have begun summarizing nonfiction with one main idea and will work with two main ideas next week.
Mrs. Mead's students have continued working on nonfiction. We are focusing on generating main ideas. We started with text with one main idea and are moving onto text with more than one. We have talked about using text structure to help guide our thinking. We are also working on summarizing and how our main idea can guide our summary.
Social Studies/Science
Students are wrapping up their Dash and Dot postcards.
Ms. Jeffrey's class continues to learn about Earth Science through Mystery Science explorations. They learned about constellations and why we see them only certain times of the year. Next week they will begin a life science unit with Miss Soprano.
Mrs. Mead's class is focusing on water and how to make sure we are taking care of the water available to us. We have graphed the amount of salt water, fresh water and frozen fresh water there is on earth. We are anchoring our discussions around the causes of the Dust Bowl.
SBAC
School Wide SEL
UVM Student Teacher
Student Technology Tools
The following is a list of online programs students may use this year. Others could be added as the year progresses. Individual student password documents will be shared with students. We will be send home a permission form regarding student technology programs in the first weeks of school.
Safari Montage
Scholastic News
eSpark
BrainPop
Spelling City
Book Creator
Typing Club
IXL
Khan Academy
Prodigy
Masks
Masks are now optional at school. We will still have masks available in classrooms if students decide they want them during the day. In our classrooms we have talked about what it looks like and sounds like to be respectful of other decisions around masking.
FMS Newsletter
Celebrations
Early Dismissal Procedure
IMPORTANT! Procedure for Early Dismissal
In the event that your child needs to be dismissed early, the following protocol must be followed:
On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday - you must pick up by 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday- you must pick up by 1:00pm.
Send your child’s teacher and Kim Kedzierski (kkedzierski@ewsd.org) an email first thing in the morning letting them know what time your child needs to be dismissed, the reason why and the name of the person picking them up. Or, you can also call the attendance line at 879-6326 and leave a message stating your child’s name, time leaving, the name of the teacher, the reason why, and the name of the person picking them up.
When you arrive to pick up your child, please pull up to the front of the building and call Kim at 879-6326 to let her know you’re here
Important Dates
April 15 Comfy Cozy Day
April 18 - 22 April break
Contact Us
Karen Jeffrey: kjeffrey@ewsd.org
Kelsey Mead: kmead@ewsd.org
Website: https://www.ewsd.org/Domain/379
Location: Founders Memorial School, Founders Road, Essex Junction, VT, USA
Phone: 802-879-6326