Jeffrey/Mead Team Blog
March 14th-25th
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.
Mrs. Mead's class is wrapping up Unit 3 with a little review of our decimal work and then will be spacing out the post assessment while students are taking SBAC with the goal of not overwhelming anyone. Ms. Jeffrey's class has wrapped up Unit 3 and is moving onto Unit 5. Students are learning strategies for multiplying fractions and whole numbers.
Math Stars
Math Stars is paused during SBAC.
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's mom has been interviewing for jobs and Lily has been trying to find more information on the tiger that is hunting her family. She goes to the library where she meets Jensen and Ricky. While we don't know for sure we think both of these characters will play a role in the overall plot of the story. Lily also learns that Halmoni is sick. She has brain cancer and that is why they suddenly moved to Seattle to be with her. Halmoni has also told Lily about the tiger and offered her ways to protect herself. One night Lily woke up in the middle of the night to find the the tiger there and spoke with her. She was told that is she helps the tiger get back what Halmoni stole than she can save Halmoni. Lily is conflicted because her halmoni says to never trust a tiger.
Writing
Ms. Jeffrey's students are wrapping up an informational piece on stink bugs. Next week they will begin another piece in response to two articles about living in Australia. After break we will move onto narrative writing.
Mrs. Mead's class is continuing to work on informational writing. We are pausing writing instruction while we are doing SBAC but will do one more informational piece after before moving onto narrative writing after April break.
Reading
Ms. Jeffrey's class continued the nonfiction unit with a focus on biographies and main idea. They are reading biographies from the Who Is? series. We have been working on slowing down our reading, paraphrasing what we read and synthesizing it into a main idea. Next up expository nonfiction.
Mrs. Mead's students have started focusing on nonfiction text. Over the past week or so we have read different article and practiced identify expository texts, text features, and answering questions about the text. We will also be discussing and identifying different text structures. Identifying the text structure is one way we will practice finding the main idea and summarizing.
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 sun dials and looking at shadows to determine time of day.
Mrs. Mead's class is going to be learning about Space through our nonfiction text and will be moving on a Science unit on the hydrosphere and how to protect against erosion.
SBAC
If at all possible please schedule student appointments around those SBAC testing sessions. Thank you!
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
March 22 - April 1 SBAC
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