Multiage Team Blog
January 27 - 31
Highlight of the Week
Responsive Classroom
Morning Meetings continued this week. During Morning Meeting everyone has the right to fun, feel like they belong, and feel that they are in important. Students use and reflect upon guidelines for behavior daily to make sure those rights are protected for everyone. This week some of the things we did included Chase the Caboose, Group Memory and Dice Greetings.
Math
Students completed a calendar grid focusing on either quadrilaterals or triangles. They are talking about what characteristics certain quadrilaterals have as well as parallel lines, congruent lines, and congruent angles. Students are also learning about the movement of shapes over a coordinate plane, using the terms translation, rotation and reflection.
Fifth graders are working in unit 3, and fourth graders, are in Unit 2. Fourth graders are learning more about multiplication and division with remainders, while fifth graders are learning division and measurement, including work with decimals. Unit overviews for each grade level are shown below. This week fourth graders continued to work on multiplying by 10, 100 and 1,000 as well as multiplication strategies such as halving and doubling. Fifth graders continued their focus on decimals by working on various strategies for adding and subtracting.
Math Stars
Students are working diligently to earn Math Stars. A reminder that students may not get help from others on Math Stars. We recognize that the problems can be challenging but it is important students learn perseverance skills.
Writing/ Word Study
Mrs. S. Mead's class is continuing their work with opinion writing. In addition to our group piece about lunch, students are also working on individual pieces about whether they should have access to chromebooks during school. Currently, we have taken a hiatus from chromebooks until this piece is done.
Mrs. K. Mead's class is working on opinion writing. We have brainstormed topics we feel strongly about. We have also read multiple model opinion pieces and started discussing the techniques those pieces used in their writing that we found persuasive and may want to try in our own writing.
Reading
We continued book groups. Students are reading books by Andrew Clements and Carl Hiaasen. They will have assignments due every Wednesday and Friday, which will include reading as well as 2 entries from their choice boards in their reader's notebooks. Students will complete those books next week and then we will move onto a nonfiction unit.
Read Aloud
Mrs. S. Mead's Class continued reading: Space Case. Now that Kira is aware of Dash's plan to figure out what really happened to Dr. Holtz, she wants to help! Kira has shared that she has some special skills, some of which include being able to hack into things. Her first task is to see if she can hack into the computers that would have filmed Dr. Holtz's conversation in the bathroom just hours before he died. Dash is hoping this will show who he was talking to, and perhaps who was the last person to see him alive.
Ms. Jeffrey's class is reading Watchers Island, which is a short fantasy book. Rachel and Colin jumped off the yacht and went swimming in the bay. Rachel was sucked into an undertow and ended up on an island called Onieron. She is not familiar with this place and the students think it is in a different world. The people are dressed oddly as if they are from the past. The students are very interested to see what happens next!
Mrs. K Mead's started reading Loser by Jerry Spinelli. This is the story of Donald Zinkoff. Zinkoff has continued to grow in our story. He is now in fourth grade and kids have made the shift from "little kid eyes" to "big kid eyes". Little kid eyes take in all the information they see and accept it for what it is. Big kid eyes take in all the information and make judgments about it. When Zinkoff struggled in the Field Day relay race, costing the championship for his team, we saw how mean those big kid eyes could be. Luckily Zinkoff has supportive parents who showed him that winning isn't everything and they will always be there for him. Zinkoff is now in fifth grade and he may be starting to get his big kid eyes too.
Social Studies
Winter Assessments
Report Card Envelopes
Ski Vermont - Fifth Grade Passport
Davis Center Youth Business Fair
Check out this link for more information.
Lunch Bunches
Book Fair!
The FMS Book Fair Jungle is Coming Your Way! We are in need of many more volunteers! Please see the link below if you're able to come in and help.
Why We Do It
The annual FMS Book Fair will take place from February 5-10, 2020. The book fair is an essential fundraiser for our school library program. Each year, the book fair provides our library with hundreds of exciting new books. In addition, funds raised are used to purchase new library materials, including audiobooks, digital subscriptions, fresh reads and curriculum materials. It is also a chance for students to add new books to their home libraries, and for classroom teachers to enrich their classroom libraries. It brings excitement about new books into our school, and that is palpable!
A Few Changes
This year, you will notice some changes to the book fair. This year's fair is a books only fair, with just a few exceptions. The school supplies and toy-like items sold in the past will NOT be available at this year's fair. We will have a huge selection of paperback and hardcover books, which is the primary focus of the fair. For those who are interested, there will be a small collection of non-book items such as journals, posters and bookmarks.
Book Coupons
This year, we will again provide a $2 book coupon for every single FMS student to be used to purchase a book at the fair. We will have many current titles available at a great discount - many popular titles cost just $1 or $2! The PTO is helping support the book coupon program this year through an enrichment grant - so thank you!
Volunteers Needed
We need your help to make this terrific event happen. Volunteers are needed to help set-up, run the cash register, and to help break down the fair as well. Please visit the Volunteer Signup Form to sign up for a slot (or two)! The form will require you to login with or create a Scholastic ID. This takes very little time, but keeps our volunteer signup form private, and has many great benefits like being completely ad-free and offering a chance to sign up for text message reminders for your slot. Volunteers are needed on the following dates: 2/4, 2/6, 2/7, 2/8, 2/10 (before and during the Family Dance) and 2/11.
Contact
Please contact Sara Jablonski with any questions sjablonski@ewsd.org or 857-6306.
Allergy Free and Safe Settings
Allergy Free and Safe Settings
We have some students on our team with severe, life-threatening allergies to tree nuts, peanuts, and sesame seed and oil. That means foods containing those or foods processed in a facility with those ingredients will not be allowed in the classroom. Please read food labels, including the entire ingredient list, carefully. A safe snack list is posted on the team website for your convenience.
Please plan to pack your child's snack in a separate bag or container to keep the snack away from any lunch items containing tree nuts. Lunches do not have to be allergen-free, and may contain any foods. Everyday students will leave their lunch boxes in crates. Please let us know if you have any questions.
A note from the Odyssey of the Mind Coordinator:
Essex Town Odyssey of the Mind: Registration Open
This is our 9th year of Essex Town Odyssey. Odyssey of the Mind is an international STEAM based program that focuses on creative problem solving for students in kindergarten through college. Teams of 5-7 students work together to creatively solve a long term problem and to practice spontaneous problem solving. The team members must solve the problem--coaches facilitate and guide the group, but can not provide any answers or solutions. They present their solution in an 8 minute skit at the State Tournament in March. If you or your student is interested, please fill out the registration form.
Please follow the link to complete the registration form:
https://forms.gle/oM7dRCQtrdbCqhvn7
For more information about Odyssey, you can check out:
http://vt.odysseyofthemind.org/wp/ and https://www.odysseyofthemind.com
or contact Rachel Preston at preston6vt@gmail.com
Music Blog for Mrs. Ferris
Practice Superstars
Jeffrey: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22
K. Mead: 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
S. Mead: everyone!
Important Dates
February 6-10 FMS Book Fair
February 24 - March 3 Winter Break
March 20 Parent Conferences
March 25 Family Reading Night
Contact Us
Karen Jeffrey: kjeffrey@ewsd.org
Kelsey Mead: kmead@ewsd.org
Stacey Mead: smead@ewsd.org
Kristi Goyette: kgoyette@ewsd.org
Website: https://www.ewsd.org/Domain/379
Location: Founders Memorial School, Founders Road, Essex Junction, VT, USA
Phone: 802-879-6326