Spirit Team

Thank you! Thank You!

2010-06-04T11:52:00.001-07:00

Thank you for a wonderful week especially on the day of Field Day and our Family Picnic!

It was very heartwarming to visit with all of you last night. The relationships we have formed with you and your children will not be forgotten. Last nights laughter, smiles and joy is truly the way this whole year has been as each child has grown tremendously in their emotional, social and academic well being! We are so proud of them and all of the learning and teaching we have accomplished as a team, student, family and teachers! We both could not think of a year where the picnic was as enjoyable as last night, it was the perfect way for Spirit to end its short legacy as a team.

Thank you for all of your kind words about the strength of our team. We are very proud of Spirit and are looking forward to the changes ahead. We both hope to share our strengths (and weaknesses) with our new teammates as we continue to support children in their school experience. Deb will be joining the Adventurers Team and teaching a class of 1st graders who will loop with her to 2nd Grade (so two years together). She will be joining Pam Wise who will be teaching 2nd grade on the team next year and then 1st grade the following year. Joplin James will be joining Vasanthi in Kindergarten. We will be coming up with a new team name! Please share any ideas with us!

Enjoy your weekend and check out the Field Day Pictures! Thank you volunteers!

Have a wonderful Weekend!

2010-05-28T11:47:00.001-07:00

The Jog-a-Thon was an absolute blast. Your children were jogging and laughing and having so much fun. The afternoon was spent dancing, playing on the "big" playground and enjoying our picnic lunch! Yeah Kindergarteners!

Jog-a-Thon

2010-05-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Jog-a-Thon is tomorrow!
Please remember to send your child with sunscreen, cool clothes, sneakers, a water bottle and a hat! We are going to have a blast! Thanks for all of your donations!

Happy Monday

2010-05-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Jog-a-Thon is fast approaching. Please have your child send in their donations this week. Please make sure that your child brings sunscreen and a water bottle for Thursday's festivities. We will be outside for a long period of time and it will be HOT! If you have any questions just email us!

Don't forget Wednesday is another Walking Wednesday. Meet at the Town Green at 7:30AM for a beautiful walk to school and the start of the day!

Please send in all your overdue Library Books. Next week we will visit the library for a story but we will not check out books! All books are due by June 7th! Let see if Spirit can be the first team with no overdue books!

Miss Claire the Amazing!

2010-05-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

Today Miss Claire braved the quick wings of a hummingbird! A hummingbird buzzed into our classroom this afternoon and carefully and gently Miss Claire helped the bird escape through the window! Yeah!

Today we also visited our math stations - we are busy measuring our frog jumps, beating one another to zero by counting backwards and estimating frog handfuls.

We would like to say Thank You to our Hands On Nature volunteers for a wonderful year of science exploration. The Spirit Team learned so much about Habitats! We hope you continue to volunteer through this program and reach even more kids next year!

Only 17 days of school left and we just can't believe how far all of these children have come. Our afternoons have been filled with story writing and reading. We are spelling so many words and reading and writing our sight words! Next week we will be interviewing other teachers in the building to find out how they stay happy and healthy. Looking forward to next week's sharing! Thank you for preparing your children so well!

Fantastic Monday!

2010-05-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day to start the week!
We heard incredible happy and healthy shares from Finn, Jack, Olivia and John! Can't wait for tomorrow!

This afternoon we talked about emotions and how our emotions change throughout the day. We will be collecting data on our emotions (energy) for the next two days. We want to track our emotions and see what affects them (food, activity, weather, etc.).

Our Parent Group has planned an active, wet and fun Field Day for June 3rd at 1:00PM. For this Field Day we will need volunteers and some gear! We are looking to collect empty 2 liter soda bottles for a Rocket Station! If you have any, please send them in! We also need hula hoops, water toys that you use at the beach, 4 large paint buckets, water balloons and watermelon for the snack! Please call or email if you would like to help in any way-volunteer or supplies!

Book Buddy Wednesday!

2010-05-12T11:23:00.001-07:00

Today we met with our 3rd Grade Buddies. We shared our writing with one another and the Kindergartners READ to their 3rd Grade Buddy! Can you believe it!

Please remember to send your child with rubber boots or old sneakers for Hands On Nature tomorrow in Mrs. M's Class!

Terrific Tuesday!

2010-05-11T11:41:00.001-07:00

Today we learned about Mrs. KillKelley's happy and healthy needs! We learned that she likes to run and exercise, spend time with friends and family, teach, listen to music, read, eat chocolate and solve crossword puzzles. We will be learning about other friends through the week!

During the afternoon we have been spending our time reading and writing. Almost First Graders are reading in book groups, with partners and writing fiction and nonfiction stories!

Sunny Monday

2010-05-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful and busy Monday! We hope that everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

Today we reviewed basic human needs and wants as we begin to dive into our last science unit for the year. The rest of the week will be spent discussing the individual needs we have that keep us Happy and Healthy!

Emergent Reading has come to an end this week. Please send your child's folder back to school with any books that you may have at home. We are so grateful to all of our parent volunteers who made this program fun and successful for the Spirit Team Readers! Thank you!

Don't forget, Parent Group Meeting , Thursday at 6PM! Here in the Spirit Space!

A tearful goodbye!

2010-05-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

We spent the afternoon saying goodbye to Miss Fisher and Miss S! Thanks to them, your children made homemade ice cream with ice and rock salt! They enjoyed tossing the bags back and forth with their partner as the milk, sugar and vanilla turned to ice cream. They then enjoyed the tasty treat with brownies, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles!

Miss S and Miss Fisher opened their presents with the team. They are so thankful for the bag full of books to start with in their classrooms! Thank you all so much!

Please enjoy the slideshow at the top of the page!

The Flower Shop and Castle

2010-05-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Miss Claire your children were busy exploring two new areas this morning. She set up a Flower Shop where children can garden, buy and sell plants, create flowers and explore with seeds. In the Castle area your children can build a castle and use knights and horses to play in medieval times!

This week in Math we will be solving Froggy Word Problems! Your children used white boards to practice addition and subtraction number sentences and diagrams to solve these problems. The most powerful part of these lessons is the sharing of strategies. The math thinking that goes on in Kindergarten is so rich in language and builds their math understanding for 1st grade! We will be curious to see what new strategies your children try - completely new or the strategy that a friend may have used! Way to go Math Stars!

Next week your children will be diving into our Narrative Unit as we learn story elements, story mapping skills and how to plan and write our own narratives!

We will be saying bye to Miss S and Miss Fisher on Friday afternoon! Don't forget to send in your surprise for them. Thanks!

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

SPIRIT TEAM CELEBRATED EARTH DAY!!

We participated in a world wide Earth Day Grocery Project

http://www.earthdaybags.org/

Student's from Romania participated in this project!

The children decorated bags from Shelburne Supermarket with Earth Day messages

We walked...

and walked...

to deliver our bags!

Shelburne Supermarket was extremely excited to participate in our project.

Welcome Back Mrs M. and Mrs KillKelley!

2010-04-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

We are so excited about returning to the classroom this week! Jessica and Erica had an amazing two weeks of solo teaching. The learning that has happened on the Spirit Team has been so worthwhile! Your children know all about taking care of the Earth and all the important jobs they can do as an EarthKeeper.

In returning to the classroom this week, we have been busy playing some new math games-Count and Compare Unifix Cubes and Beat You to $0.30! As we head into the end of the year we are focusing on recognizing coins by name and value, counting and comparing quantities from 1 to 30, trading coins for other coins, counting by 2's, 5's, 10's and 3's and exploring number patterns on 100's charts! Your children have gained so many math skills!

We have been working hard during Reader's Workshop! Students have been meeting in their book groups, using their reading strategies, practicing sight words, "framing" their words and having meaningful discussions about the stories they are reading.

During Writer's Workshop this week students have been exploring their ability to write poetry!
We have been reading a lot of poetry, too! Share your favorite poet with your child!

Thursday is Earth Day! Please have your child dress in GREEN. We want to see which team can wear the most green!

What a Week!

2010-04-17T12:31:00.001-07:00

This week I implemented my Complex Instruction group work and the student's worked together to deepen their knowledge about Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle! They became "Recycle Super Hero Teams" to get their recycling message out to the school, created healthy worlds showing their knowledge about reducing & being Earthkeepers AND created toys out of junk and presented commercials to the class.

The outcome of their projects were more amazing than I possibly could have hoped for! It wouldn't have worked out so wonderfully without the support of Mia, Zynnia, Denise, and Amelia...THANK YOU!

Grace, Finny, and Owen presented their commercial about their toy Robot.

Maggie, Logan, Lindsay and Holden had such a creative idea. They split their world into two sides and showed the contrast of a world that doesn't reduce and a world that does.

We also had Hands-On Nature! Two scientists came in with a "time machine" and discussed more about Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Composting. The kids were very excited.

The whole Spirit Team watched Wall-E and thought about how Wall-E is an Earthkeeper.

The student's have worked hard for about 5 days on their new jobs. After saving up and keeping track of their balance, we went to the computer lab and graphed their balance. On Friday, they went shopping at the "3 R Bargain Store" and spent their hard earned money! The student's have been thinking about what invention they could create to change the world in any way and bought supplies from the store to execute their plans.

They used reusable bags to do their shopping.

The price of the items ranged from a penny to 15 cents. The student's had to budget their earnings and made decisions about which items they really needed for their invention. Riley was extremely thoughtful and while shopping said, "I am going to put the money that I am spending in my pocket each time I pick an item that I want to buy. That way I will know I have enough!"

They shopped...

They built...

and the result of their inventions were UNBELIEVABLE!!!!

The student's were so proud of their inventions that change the world. The innovative ideas ranged from Ollie's littering eating garbage truck to Lindsay's robot that feeds homeless people. Please check your child's backpacks this week for an invitation to a showcase of all their projects on WEDNESDAY APRIL 21st AT 2:00. (Feel free to take your child and his/her projects home with you. The inventions are large and won't be able to go on the bus!)

My solo weeks were absolutely amazing and all of the hard work paid off. I couldn't be more grateful to spending this student teaching experience with your children. I am not looking forward to my last day on May 7th :(

If you have any questions don't hesitate to email me! eschlank@uvm.edu

A Very Busy Three Days

2010-04-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

We have had a fun filled past few days! The children had their first day of their new jobs- many dressed for the occasion.

The student's reused the bottles we collected and made beautiful flower vases!

They made spring observations using their 5 senses to prepare for our spring poetry next week.

The Waste Reduction Coordinator from Chittenden Waste visited our classroom and did a hands-on presentation about recycling. We learned lots of new facts! Did you know that any cardboard made for the fridge or freezer CAN'T be recycled? Such as orange juice cartons, frozen pizza boxes etc.

Owen independently decided to start his own "Recycling Contest" called, "Owen's Recycling Project"

We have been taking a lot about change. Today I read them a children's book I wrote and then we discussed ways they have blossomed from the beginning of kindergarten! They spent a long time doing their best "first grade writing". Take a look at the ramp- they are all hung up. They game out WONDERFUL.

Miss Fisher and I tied up the week with Spirit Team Reduce,Reuse,Recycle Jeopardy!

As you can see we had a great week! We will continue the unit through next week... if you have any questions feel free to email me anytime eschlank@uvm.edu .

First 2 days of Earthkeepers!

2010-04-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

My first two days of solo teaching have been wonderful! We began our unit about change and "Earthkeepers". For the next couple weeks the children will be focusing on the 3 R's- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle and other ways they can have a positive impact on the environment. We went to the computer lab yesterday and watched 2 videos on the SmartBoard. The students requested for me to put the link on the blog! Practice the song at home... it is quite catchy (sorry!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKdZYYmTT9A

They started bringing in mystery objects and we discussed what category the object should go in.

Riley brought in easter eggs to REUSE for easter next year and Lily brought in a RECYCABLE cup.

We have been reading and writing about character change through the Rainbow Fish books. We did a hands-on science experiment today regarding the negative affect littering has on animals. Poor Rainbow Fish!!

We also had a job ceremony and the students were presented with their new jobs that will help change our classroom. Each child has an individual bank and they will be keeping track of their balance on the back of the bank. I have many more hands-on lessons for the next 2 weeks- I can't wait!

You should be incredibly proud of your children. They are working hard and are well on the road to first grade. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Our Trip to Disney World...

2010-04-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

Our trip took lots of planning...
Sharing Our Work

Picking restaurants and resorts

We also picked rides from Animal & Magic Kingdom maps, went to Sea World & had to budget money to figure out which shows to go to, and planned the Disney Water Park rides! Each task required multiple abilities and each child had the opportunity to show their strengths.

THE TRIP!

The children have worked SO hard on all of their group work and have made tons of progress with the various skills needed to work as a team. Today was the very special day that we "traveled" to Disney World.

They had their plane tickets and had to work together to find their assigned seats on the plane. Their boarding passes had to be stamped before entering the plane. The children decided they wanted to fly Jet Blue...

Flight attendant Tinker Bell and Mickey Mouse made sure all luggage was under the seat and passengers were ready for take off.

Jet Blue provided complimentary pretzels and cups of water along with showing a movie.

The students drew highlights from their trip and reflected on the group work they have been doing for the past 3 weeks. I am confident that are prepared for the group work during my solo weeks!

Disney Trips with Miss S

2010-03-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

The children in Mrs.Killkelley's class have been working in small groups to plan pretend trips to Disney World. The objective of this team work is to teach the students how to work cooperatively in groups. Miss Fisher has also been doing skillbuilders with her students and we have both been so impressed with the insightful strategies the children have come up with.

So far they have packed for their trips, chosen their resort, chosen where to eat dinner & what to order, picked their rides for Magic & Animal Kingdom along with picking a water park! For each activity it requires a group consensus and different abilities must be utilized (math, art, imagination, writing, reading, story telling and more!) The children have been working hard to notice each others strengths and work collaboratively in these groups. Tomorrow we will be planning our final day at Sea World and Friday is our "trip" to Disney! The children will have plane tickets to board the "airplane" and will finalize their trip itinerary as the day they have been working towards is just around the corner. Stay tuned for pictures of our hypothetical trip!

News from Miss S...

2010-03-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Marvin is a new member to Mrs.Killkelley's class! He has been spending time with the kids as he travels back and forth to my mom's kindergarten's class in Connecticut. The children have been doing wonderful work sharing their adventures with Marvin with their pen pals in my mom's class through photographs, drawings, and writing. Currently the student's are working on a "free write" to their pen pals as they have had many questions for their new friends.

Last Week in Spirit

2010-03-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

Last week one of our team members Michelle brought in her firefighter uniform to share with us. She is a volunteer firefighter in Addison County and must be able to FULLY dress in a minute or less. Could there be a more perfect place for her to practice than with the Spirit Kindergarteners? The children asked her questions, tried on parts of her uniform, and timed her.

Michelle was able to get fully dressed in her uniform in just under a minute!

The weight of the uniform added about 50 pounds to Grace- she was unable to walk!

Aunty Makes a Visit!

2010-03-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, Owen and Liam's Aunt Cathy made a special visit to the Spirit Team. Aunt Cathy shared with us some traditional Irish Folklore and music! She captivated us with her storytelling and intrigued us with the world of fairies, leprechauns and magic! Thanks for sharing us with her! Listen to us sing!

Thanks to all of you for sharing your children with us! It was wonderful to see all of you last week and share all the wonderful learning that your children are doing! They have come so far in only a short amount of time! First Grade is on the horizon!

We Rock!

2010-03-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today the Spirit Team used their scientific skills to begin discovering the world of rocks! Miss Claire read us a beautiful story about rocks titled, If You Find A Rock. Then, we worked in partnerships to describe a rock using our senses of sight and touch. Lastly, every cross class partnership brought their rock back to the rug and added it to one of four categories. Together we realized that we sorted the rocks by smooth, bumpy, small pink speckled, and round! Tomorrow we will try this again and see if we can sort the rocks another way!

Group work is in full swing here on the Spirit Team! Ask your child about their trip to Disney or to the moon!

Our plants are slowly growing! Check out their process!

A trip to the theater!

2010-03-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful field trip to the theater today! We were amazed by the puppetry! The theater was full of mesmerized children, reciting the story, laughing and clapping! Great job Spirit!

This afternoon we conducted our very own science experiment. In small groups of three we discovered which of 6 items floated or sunk in tubs of water! We made predictions and then recorded our observations and conclusions! Ask your child about it!

Busy Scientist!

2010-03-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

We were busy scientists all week! We conducted another experiment using a balloon, soda bottle, vinegar and baking soda. Check out the recording sheet in your child's Friday Folder! Today we did a quick lesson on density and learned that corn syrup is heavier than water and water is heavier than oil! Your children have been focusing on making predictions, observations and drawing conclusions about their learning! Next week they will conduct their own sink or float experiments! Way to go scientists!

SCS is now raising money for the victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake. For Monday all students are urged to bring in $1 towards this effort! Thanks!

Again, Miss Fisher and Miss S have been planning and implementing many amazing lessons here on Spirit. Ask your child about the In and Out Machine, Marvin, Pen Pals, Group Work and Eric Carle!

Scientist Honolulu and Scientist Macadamia!

2010-03-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

Two scientists from Hawaii flew in this morning to teach us how to create our very first science report and conduct a volcano experiment! We learned how to make and record predictions, observations and conclusions! We would still love guest scientists to visit our team, so please contact us if you are available to share your expertise!

Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

2010-03-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

Today SCS celebrated Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss's Birthday! We read many of Dr. Seuss's books and even had Ms. Miller as a guest reader! We voted for our favorite Dr. Seuss book and participated in 10 minutes of silent reading with he whole school at 2:00! We visited the library and checked out books and watched a fun video to get us excited about reading. Watch it here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6D9jiEYxzs&feature=related

We were scientists this afternoon! We planted bean seeds and will be keeping a Plant Journal for the next two weeks! We learned what plants need to survive and realized they are a living thing just like us!

Our friend Donna has moved to Colchester! We are sending her some letters! Good luck Donna!

The Five Senses!

2010-02-19T10:53:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy this week learning about the 5 Senses! On Monday we used our sense of smell to identify three mystery odors. We used learned that our memories on life are connected to our sense of smell. Certain smells trigger certain memories about places, people or events! The mystery smells that we uncovered were vanilla, coconut and peppermint! On Tuesday we discovered our sense of touch and used just our hands to make guesses about a mystery object that was hidden in a sock! Yesterday we played Auditory Bingo and listened to many common noises and identified them! And today we discovered our sense of taste! Miss S and Miss Fisher taught us about our tongues and the four tastes that our taste buds taste! Sweet, Salty, Sour and Bitter! We learned the areas on the tongue that have the most taste buds and we learned how our sense of smell is connected to our sense of taste! We taste tested a variety of foods: gummy worms, skittles, cocoa powder, pomegranate juice, lemon, chips, popcorn, etc. We labeled a diagram of the tongue with the foods we tasted! Ask your child about it! Great job Miss S and Miss Fisher!

Sea Creature Math Problems!

2010-02-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

The past couple of weeks we have been working on a math project. Students have enacted, solved, and finally created their own story (or word) problems. These story problems revolve around a sea creature theme that has been introduced in our math program, through our bucket of sea creatures at a Work Place and through our January calendar pieces. During our first day of this problems & investigations unit, the children were asked to choose which of the five different sea creatures (seal pup, mother seal, mother whale, whale calf, or hungry shark) they wanted to play the part of in our story problem dramatization. After the children chose their characters, we created a graph and made "I notice" statements about the graph. Then the next day we created and acted out story problems, such as "There were two seal pups and a mother seal on the rock. Two seal pups left to eat. How many seals were left on the rock?". For each story problem, the children acted the problem out and then solved the problem aloud. We did many of these problems and had a great time!

After acting the problems out, we worked on individual whiteboards to solve some story problems presented in picture form about these sea creatures. An example of a problem was "Three whales were swimming under water. Each whale had two large fins. How many fins are under water?". The children solved these problems using pictures and numbers and then shared their strategies with the group. Finally we began creating our own story problems. The children first chose which sea creature they wanted to pose a problem about: shark, whale, or seal. Then drew pictures of their sea creatures and talked about the question they wanted the classmates to solve. The problems they created are excellent! They created these problems themselves and we only helped with the wording. Some children created problems such as, "There is one mother seal underwater and one seal pup on top of the water. How many seals altogether?" and " There are 6 sharks altogether. 2 sharks came up out of the water. How many sharks are still underwater?. We have been using our addition and subtraction strategies to solve one anothers problems! Way to go Kindergarteners!

Grandfather Comeau Came to visit!

2010-02-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

We had a very informative and exciting visit today by Mr. Comeau (Paige's Grandfather) a chemist at IBM! He taught us about elements, the periodic table, Dmitri Mendelee, lab equipment and safety gear! He conducted a few experiments, watch them here!

Thank you so much for your visit, Mr. Comeau! We look forward to more family members taking this opportunity to share science with our students. Call us to set up a date!

Our Kindergarten Concert Rehearsal was excellent. We hope you all can attend tomorrow's show at 9 AM. Be here at 8:45 for a good seat! We will post pictures and video tomorrow!

We shop at the Book Fair tomorrow! Don't forget Valentine's on Friday!

100th Day!

2010-02-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful 100th day of school! We made crowns, had a visit from Zero the Hero, visited the book fair, created arrays for 100, ate our 100th day snack mix, played Race you to a $1.00 and read the story bit 100 Hungry Ants! Ask your child about all of the celebrations!

Your child is also bringing home a list of books that interested them at the Book Fair. This is a wish list and you can decide as a family what you would like them to purchase, if anything, on Wednesday. The book fair is also open Tuesday and Thursday evening for you to come to as a family. We will be shopping on Wednesday at 1PM. Thanks so much!

The 100th Day is approaching!

2010-02-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

Your children have been busy preparing for the 100th day of school! We are reading the story 100 Hungry Ants and learning many of the ways that 100 ants can be arranged (1 by 100, 2 by 50, 4 by 25, 5 by 20 and 10 by 10). We also read 100th Day Worries and have been talking about what items we will be bringing to school on the 100th Day (MONDAY)!

We continue to kick off our Thinking and Acting Like a Scientist Unit! We had a visit from a Mad Scientist today! She just zoomed into our classroom and captured our attention for about 10 minutes. We recorded our observations from her visit! We realized that scientists use all of their "5 Senses" to take in the world around them! We drew pictures of the mad scientist, look for them in Friday Folders! Here is a short video of her visit!

Our student teachers, Miss S and Miss Fisher continue to teach many parts of our day! They are becoming more confident in their teaching and have really taken the time to get to know their students! Their lessons are so engaging, developmentally appropriate and active! We are so impressed with their professionalism and the way in which they are strengthening our teaching and of course increasing the learning that your children are doing!

Wonderful Wednesday!

2010-01-27T12:21:00.000-08:00

Wow! Both classes have been very busy developing their addition and subtraction skills using cuisinaire rods, number lines and number models or equations! Their strong sense of the numbers (concrete, symbolic and linguistic) 1-10 have helped them in combining numbers to create larger numbers verbally and visually!
Way to go Kindergarteners!

We have also been busy at the computer lab! We created books of our sea creature wow facts using HyperStudio. Be watching your child's backpack for this! They will be bringing the book home to share with you and then bringing it back to school so that someone else can bring it home the next night!

During our Fundations time we have begun sounding out, tapping out and writing CVC words. We have been using magnetic letters, white boards, letter cards and paper and pencil to record our work. These activities are helping us practice our letter sounds, letter ID, spelling and rhyming skills, and handwriting!

Laslty, Miss Claire has transformed our vet hospital into a Bistro! We have chef hats, menus, tables with tablecloths and candles, and plenty of cooking tools! The Bistro has been buzzing with business! Ask your child about it!

What a wonderful week!

2010-01-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

We continued to learn so much about sea creatures this week. Some of our favorite facts are that Starfish have feet and arms but no legs! Daddy sea horses eat some of their young! Sea Turtles have been around for a long time, even before the time of the dinosaurs! Ask your child about this! On Tuesday we will be visiting the computer lab to create our HyperStudio slides about sea creatures.

This week during math we used cuisinaire rods to come up with equations for different numbers between 1 and ten! You would be so impressed with their math thinking! Each cuisinaire rod is a different color and has a value of one through ten. Your children have been finding different combinations of rods that are equal to one rod, this translates into 2 + 3 = 5 and 4 + 1 = 5 and so on. We will continue with this next week and students will begin to record their own equations and learn about fact families! Wow!

Please make sure that you scan the upcoming dates section of the blog! February is going to be very busy!!!

We hope to see some of you tonight at the International Potluck @6PM in the school cafeteria!

Wow Facts!

2010-01-19T13:12:00.001-08:00

This week we are cruising through a mini unit on sea creatures! We read a nonfiction book about turtles today! These are the facts that made us say WOW! Tomorrow we will record WOW Facts about the octopus! Sea Creatures have been part of our Math time as we are using them to count and visualize numbers through 20, for sorting activities and for solving word problems! We will also be creating slideshow of wow facts using HyperStudio, PowerPoint for Kindergarteners!

Today we also began talking about Text To Self Connections. We read the story The Relatives Came By Cynthia Rylant and discussed how our life experiences can help us understand the feelings and actions in a story, the events in a story and even the setting of a story. Some of us illustrated our own Text To Self Connections and some of us looked for Text To Self Connections in our own reading. This is a Reading Comprehension Strategy that your children will use throughout life as they read text! Way to go Kindergarteners!

The snowmen that your children have disguised look wonderful hanging around the classrooms. Thanks for taking the time to prepare the for their share day! They have become such confident speakers and such polite and thoughtful audience members though our sharing time.

Mrs. M's Parent's Visit!

2010-01-14T12:28:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday afternoon our team had a visit from Mrs. M.'s parents. Everyone had a chance to roll out a roti and Mrs. M.'s Mom cooked them for us on the skillet. They also brought tea to brew with cinnamon, cardamon and ginger. We all enjoyed a treat of rotis and tea. We wanted your children to experience these common foods between Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in connection with "Pennies For Peace". A big thank you to Mrs. M.'s parents for providing this wonderful experience for our team.

January PTO Minutes -Thanks Zynnia

2010-01-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a highlight from the January PTO meeting:

Candidates needed for School Board - 2 positions are opening up (one 2 yr term and one 3 yr term)

- January 25^th is the deadline
- Contact Jodi Breckenridge –Hilker 985-3409 or jbreckenridge@music-contact.com for more information on the position and time commitments involved. There isn’t as much time commitment as you would think. The board meets on the first Wednesday of the month from 7pm-9:30pm with a bit more frequency during budget planning (Dec/Jan/Feb). The board needs parents of SCS.

Fundraising Update:
- Angel Fund is now at $7250
- Red Barn is in progress now through January 22^nd each family should have received one catalog

Mark Your Calendars
- Jan 16^th - CVU Family Formal 4:30pm – 7:30pm. Tickets $10/adult and $5/child or $30/family of four or more. Funds from this will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to sponsor a wish for a child from Chittenden County. Tickets are still available. For information/tickets contact Tammie Jo Dickinson, 482-7130.
- Jan 22^nd - International Pot Luck 6pm – Flyers will go home on Friday. International week celebrations include greetings in a different language each morning, special foods at lunch, and posters by SCS students in the cafeteria. Volunteers are needed please contact Alice Brown, 985-4918 if interested.
- Feb 9^th-12^th- Scholastic Book Sale (Proceeds benefit SCS library)
- Feb 11^th – Red Barn pick up 2-6pm. Volunteers are needed, please contact Alice Brown, 985-4918 if interested.
- Walk to School Wednesdays will take place the last 6 weeks of school, May 12th-June 16th. Parent support is needed along the walk route. Please contact Alice Brown, 985-9882, if interested.

Next Meeting February 9^th @ 6pm in the Alpha space

For the full minutes report and Principals’ report visit the PTO website http://www2.cssu.org/20092071132042497/site/default.asp?2009Nav=|&NodeID=68

Pennies for Peace Day!

2010-01-11T07:07:00.001-08:00

What an amazing experience we have had today! Our morning started with a school wide assembly! All 8oo of us were in the gym together to kick off our Pennies for Peace campaign! We heard Spirit Kindergartener's open up the assembly with the song The Magic Penny! Some 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders sand the song titled Three Cups of Tea written and sang by Dr. Greg's daughter! Next, the entire school combined all of the pennies that have been collected thus far! The collection was overflowing from the container-that was just one week's worth! We will continue to collect pennies until February 20th!

Here is a clip from last week's lesson!

Later in the morning Zia and Mudjib, exchange students from Afghanistan, joined our class and taught us an Afghan game showed us clothing from their country and we taught them Tony Chestnut! Your children were mesmerized by all of the culture that surrounded them today! They are very motivated to help the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan! On top of it all, Holdon's grandfather, who is teaching in Afghanistan, sent him a care package which he shared with us. We saw photos of children learning outside, the Afgan flag, a book mark and Afgani (Afghan money)! Way to go Spirit!

It was also a big day today, our student teachers Miss Fisher and Miss S joined us! They are seniors at UVM who are studying elementary education. They will be learning, teaching and having fun with us until early May! Stay tuned to hear more about them!

Getting Back In the Groove

2010-01-06T09:50:00.001-08:00

Hope your holiday break went well. We are busy getting back into the groove of school here on Spirit Kindergarten.

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow will be our second H1N1 Clinic. If your child is getting an immunization, please remember to send him/her to school in a short sleeve shirt.

The next two weeks will be busy with Pennies For Peace activities. Yesterday we read Listen To the Wind, the story of Dr. Greg Mortensen and his quest to build schools for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today we created a recipe for a school with the help Ms. Wight, our Differentiated Instruction/Enrichment Coach. Next week some students from Afghanistan will be sharing their stories with us in a school wide assembly. There will be a letter in this week's Friday Folder with more information about this project. You can also go to www.penniesforpeace.org if you are interested in learning more about this terrific project.

We welcomed Zoe to our team this week. She has been a wonderful addition to our team community. We are very excited to have Zoe as part of team Spirit!

John shared a Wordless Story about Tigger, his cat!

2009-12-22T06:16:00.000-08:00

The Tea Party was a BLAST!

2009-12-17T11:58:00.000-08:00

A special thank you to Amelia, Finny, Nigel and their Grandparents for teaching us all about England and its culture! We learned about castles, famous English authors and texts, famous English toys like Thomas the Tank Engine, and of course about Tea Time! We drank tea, talked with friends and enjoyed Flapjacks! Enjoy the video above and pictures below!

Fun with Book Buddies!

2009-12-16T12:20:00.001-08:00

Tea Party Reminder!

2009-12-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Please remember to send a mug with your child tomorrow! We willbe using them at our Tea Party and out Hot Cocoa Party next week!

The Red Clover winners are in! Mrs. KillKelley's class top chocie was The Chicken of The Family and Mrs. M's class top choice was Owney The Mail Pouch Pooch! Check out your child's Red Clover Journal in this week's Friday Folder!

Terrific Half Day!

2009-12-15T12:17:00.001-08:00

This morning we were busy reading our last Red Clover Books, check them out at the bottom of our page on our Book Shelf! We will be voting for our favorite this week! We will find out Vermont's top choice in April!

Today during math we played "There is a shape in my pocket?" This game reviewed different ways in which we can sort shapes by their attributes-curved sides, straight sides, color, shape, and size!

Check out this website to do more activities with shapes!
http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activities.aspx?grade=1

Don't forget to send in a mug with your child, we will be using them for two events-a tea party and a hot cocoa party! Thanks!

Spirit K Learns About Spain

2009-12-10T07:19:00.000-08:00

We had a visit from Isabella's Mom, Dunia, on Tuesday afternoon. She shared lots of things about Spain, her native country. She showed us pictures of cities, the countryside, buildings and the beautiful sea coast. We learned about their schools, food and traditions. We also learned that there are several languages spoken in different regions of Spain. Isabella passed out clementines from Spain for everyone to enjoy. A big thank you to Dunia for teaching us so many interesting things about Spain!
We look forward to our tea party next week with Finny's Mom, Amelia. She will be teaching us about England and English traditions.

Wintery Wednesday!

2009-12-09T11:46:00.000-08:00

Your children had so much fun with the snow today! Thanks so much for sending them with all of their gear. Please remember to label their jackets, hats, boots and mittens.

At math time today we built a growing pattern with our Gingerbread People! We made many discoveries as we organized the people and counted their buttons by 2's with confidence! We figured out that some numbers are even and some are odd, there were 42 buttons in all and 21 gingerbread people in all, the gingerbread people look like their going up stairs, and the numbers are in order 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6!

We've been learning so much about the world through your family traditions. Today we learned about the seven continents and talked about how our cultures are from all of the people that live all around the world! Ask your child which continents they remember!

We continue to read Red Clover Books. Many of the books are about famous people or animals! Ask your child about Owney , Wangari, or Abe! Children have been suing words and art to record about each of these books in their Red Clover Journals.

Another day in Reader's Workshop: Mrs. KillKelley and Mrs. Meyette shared all of the "reading" they do at home! We learned about magazines, picture books, chapter books, cook books, newspapers, bills, furniture assembly directions, and even calendars! We wanted to show all the genres that one can read from! We will be encouraging our young readers to have a mix of reading materials in their book boxes from now on! Way to go Readers! We ended the day reading with tour 3rd Grade Book Buddies!

Successful Photo Booth!

2009-12-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

Our Spirit Team Photo Booth was a great success at the Craft Fair! Thanks to all of you who volunteered your time at the Craft Fair, before it, and for all of the donations! We made over $200 and this money will help pay for our two field trips to see shows at the Flynn this spring!

Today students on the Spirit Team began Reader's Workshop! We had a wonderful discussion about reading and how it looks, sounds and feels! We also named different genres that we like to read and most importantly, practiced partner reading! Tomorrow Mrs. KillKelley and Mrs. Meyette will share all of the books, magazines, maps, etc. that they like to read and are reading at home!

We had a Riley, Grace, John and Olivia share their family traditions with us! We learned about the dreidl game, the Polar Express, and Christmas traditions. Great job kiddos! Thanks for preparing your children for their share day!

Craft Fair Volunteer Sign Up

2009-12-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

Here is the volunteer schedule for the Holiday Craft Fair this Sat., Dec. 5th. If you would like to volunteer it's not to late:)

All day support: Donna Canty, John Madden

8:30-10:30
Wendy Lewis
Deirdre Coulter
Anne Marcoe
Barb Comeau
Amelia Gerlin
Deborah Rampulla
Kristi Batchelder
Sage Bagnato

9:30
Kristen Bingel
Elaine Brand

10:15-12:15
Caitlin Waddick
Jill Couture
Kathie Pudvar
Tim Pudvar
Mia Beer
Amelia Gerlin

12:00-2:00
Jane Madden
Nedzida Kadic

Traditions Around the World

2009-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Ali's Mom visited our classroom to share about Bosnia and some of the traditions of Bosnia. We learned about their language, holidays, schools, homes, weather and many other interesting things. Everyone got a treat of Bosnian candy to bring home and eat. Many thanks to her for sharing about her native culture and their traditions.
Today we began reading Red Clover books. Every year librarians in Vermont choose 10 books to be nominated for the Red Clover award. Our team will be reading these books during the month of December and will then vote on our favorite. In April we will find out which of the 10 books our school has chosen as our favorite. Today we read The Chicken of the Family.

Back to School!

2009-11-30T12:21:00.001-08:00

Today we had a wonderful discussion about Traditions. Kindergarteners defined traditions as what you do to celebrate people and holidays. They talked about the fact that traditions can involve birthdays, religion, food, travel, and most importantly that different people have different traditions. After reading the story The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant we heard all about the special traditions that happen when family comes to visit or when we travel to visit family! This is our next unit of study and all of you will be helping us with it! Your child will be sharing a family tradition with the class during the next two weeks. The share schedule will be coming home in Friday Folder's.

We jumped into Writer's Workshop! Students have begun telling the stories in their hearts both orally and by recording them in booklets with pictures and words! Stay tuned to see your young writer's in action.

Thanks for sending in items for the craft fair-photo paper, dress up, etc. We seem to be in good shape. We are still working on our silly putty craft-if you have old empty easter eggs please send them in! We will send home a schedule reminder for those of you who have are volunteering.

The ABC Party was a blast!

2009-11-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

Our quick week was started off with an ABC Celebration! Henry read us a story (all by himself) about Monster Trucks! Olivia brought cookie cutters for us to make ABC cookies and we danced the afternoon away with Letter People music! Children made letters with pretzel sticks, playdough, sand and rice, and wiki-sticks! Mrs. KillKelley taught some friends a new ABC Bingo and children had fun playing with the Letter People. Our camera batteries failed, so I didn't get any pictures to document the event! Benjamin P. brought an ABC movie that we just couldn't get to work! We'll try again tomorrow! I was not so tech savvy this afternoon!

Tomorrow we will see our Book Buddies and talk about all the things we are thankful for this Thanksgiving!

Your children were so brave this morning! We cruised through the H1N1 clinic with smiles! Thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you!

2009-11-20T05:21:00.000-08:00

It has been wonderful meeting with all of you this week! We are so proud of all of our Kindergarteners and the growth they have made. We appreciate all of the support and feedback you shared with us! We find it very helpful and use to better our program to meet the needs of our students.

We have made it through the alphabet! To celebrate this we will be filling Monday afternoon with an Alphabet Party! Students will be listening to the Letter People Songs, making shaving cream letters, using Wiki Sticks to make letters, playing ABC Bingo, making pretzel stick letters and more! We can't wait! This will also comfort those of us who will attending the H1N1 Flu clinic Monday morning! Please remember to dress your child in a short sleeve shirt so the nurses have easy access to his or her arm. We will do our best to make this as painless as possible!

Thanks for all of the supplies/donations that you have been sending in for the Craft Fair!
Enjoy the weekend!

Craft Fair News

2009-11-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

Thank you to all of the parents who came to our Parent Group Meeting on Thursday night! The Spirit Team has decided that our Craft Fair Table will be a Photo Booth! Craft Fair visitors can come and dress up in a funky outfit, have their picture taken in a photo booth and create a keepsake frame to put their picture in! We are very excited about this plan and we need YOUR help!

We will be asking you to sign up to work a 2-hour shift on December 5th. We will need your camera, printer, frame and dress-up expertise!

We seem to have our supplies covered! However, if you have some unique dress-up items, please send them in labeled with your name! If you have some photo paper you are willing to donate, please send that in, too. For the frames we will need some magnetic tape and some scrapbooking glue dots or double sided tape squares (both available at craft stores). If you would like to purchase any of these items and donate them, please let us know!

Lastly, we hope to make Homemade Silly Putty with the students and sell it at the Craft Fair. We need empty plastic eggs to put it in, if you have any of these lying around the house, we could use them!

We are also planning on having a Winter Fest on December 23rd from 1-2:30 PM. If you would like to volunteer to make a snack or work a station, please let us know.

Today we met Mr. Z, he was covered in zippers!

Our First Fire Drill!

2009-11-12T12:12:00.000-08:00

The Spirit team had their first practice fire drill today with the whole school! We were quiet, and quick! We impressed the Shelburne Fire Department with our evacuation! Way to go SCS!

Ms. W and her Wonderful Words came for a visit yesterday! She brought with her a walrus, whale, watch, witch, wallet and water bottle! We practiced writing W's and V's and colored and read our W books with our Third Grade Reading Buddies!

Tomorrow we will have Kindergarten Round Up! Mrs. M's class will be visiting Mrs. Kendrick's classroom and Mrs. KillKelley will be hosting Mrs. Niles' class!

Mrs. Meyette's class had a surprise visit today from Mr. Rotts-a-Lotta. He brought with him his time machine and he and his crew of Hands on Nature Parents taught us about decomposition and how a tree log is a home to many many critters! Thanks for a great lesson!

PTO Minutes , thanks to Zynnia!

2009-11-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

PTO Meeting November 10, 2009

Mark Your Calendars

Please get your “Hannafords Helps Schools” receipts turned in. The program ends in early December.
SCS Holiday Fair is December 5 9:30am – 1:30pm
SCS will be holding a food drive and collecting “Coats for Kids” in December. Watch for more information.

Help Wanted

PTO Chairs needed - The PTO is looking for individuals willing to serve as PTO Officers in the next school year. The positions of Co-Chair and Treasurer will be open. Also, we need someone willing to Chair the Fall Gift Wrap Fundraiser. These are a great way to really be involved at school and you get to work with a great group of parents. Please contact Alice Brown ataliceandy@myfairpoint.net, if you are interested.

Non- Profit Law expert needed - Update on the PTO 501(c)3 application process. The PTO is about to file Articles of Incorporation with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office. Once the articles are filed and approved, we can apply to the Federal Government for non-profit status. We still need a volunteer who is familiar with this process and willing to help with forms. Please contact Alice Brown ataliceandy@myfairpoint.net, if you are interested or if you know of someone who would be willing to help.

For more detailed information, the PTO minutes are posted on the SCS website under PTO and as usual a PTO update will be included in the next school newsletter.

The next PTO meeting is Tuesday, December 8, 6:00-7:00 PM in the Alpha Classroom. Pizza and childcare will be provided. All parents are welcome to attend.

Terrific Tuesday!

2009-11-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, we pretended to be Corduroy and wrote Thank You notes to Lisa! This activity asked us to take on the perspective of a character and use our our letter sounds and writing knowledge to craft a piece of work! We also talked about the vocabulary words: exclaimed, admired and gasped!

We also read The Lorax today and had a very mature discussion about wants and needs! We then looked at a community map and decided which places in the community meet our needs or our wants. Look for this map in your child's Friday Folder!

Your young mathematicians have become math problem solvers this week. They are using different strategies to solve word problems having to do with addition and patterning. We are very proud of them and the skills that they are showing especially with perseverance and not giving up!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

SCS Food Drive November 9th through the 20th! Send in a non-perishable for the Shelburne Food Shelf!

2009-11-09T06:57:00.001-08:00

What a beautiful day! We enjoyed our snack time outside and recess was a blast! Today your child is bringing home a story bit for the story Corduroy by Don Freeman! We've read the story many times and even enjoyed the movie!

Thanks for emptying out your child's Friday Folder~ hope you all found the November Share schedule. Today we heard from John, Anika, Finny and Riley! We learned about houses, sports teams and community events! Can't wait to see what else we learn about!

Check out our Map Work!

We met the letter V! V-v-vroom! V-v-v-vroom! Mr. V introduced his first letter person today! He was amazing! Mr V. brought with him velcro, vegetables, valentines, a van and a video! Only 4 more letters to go!

First Week in November!

2009-11-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

What a busy week it has been and it is only Wednesday! This week, as part of our Community Unit, the Spirit Team has been exploring with many different kinds of maps! We have read two wonderful books that explain and show what a map is and when and how they are used. We read As The Crow Flies and Me on the Map! Partnerships explored road maps, school maps, bike path maps, maps of the mall and state maps! The found compasses, keys, and legends! Their explorations led them into short skits that they performed to show the team a situation in which two people are using a map! We saw skits with friends walking to the store, on a boat to Hawaii, in a plane, on a road trip, and driving to a field trip! They were so creative! Your children have also been drawing maps during Explore Time. We've seen treasure maps, bedroom maps and house maps. Today we worked together to create places in the community for a community map! Way to go kindergarteners!

During Math Time this week we learned another new card game called Rook. In this game students are working to order numbers from 1 through 14! Ask your child about it! We also introduced a new Pattern Block activity. Students are using shape cut outs to recreate designs that they have made with the pattern blocks! This activity reinforces the naming and recognition of hexagons, trapezoids, triangles, squares and rhombuses. Watch for these in your child's Friday Folder.

Our conference schedules are posted on our website and we will be sending a paper reminder in Friday Folders.

Today our classrooms emptied our UNICEF boxes and sorted the dollars and coins to discover that as a team we raised almost $200! We counted by 1's, 10's 5's, and even 2's and 3's as we figured out the totals! We also learned that 100 pennies, 4 quarters, 10 dimes and 20 nickels are all ways to make $1! Thank you for supporting your child and Trick or Treat For UNICEF!

Kaboom Kaboom!

2009-10-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Ms. K came kicking into the classroom today for an exciting visit! She brought her soccer ball and knitting needles, kleenex, keys, a king, a kangaroo and a kaleidoscope! We colored in our K books and practiced some of our sight words like a, the, and, is, it, see, can ,have and a! Tomorrow we will learn how to write the letter K!

This morning we learned a new math game! We played Beat You To Ten! Ask your child about it! We have also been playing a new card game called Top It!
During math we have been focusing on these skills:
*counting to 10
*comparing numbers
*reading numbers to 10
*adding two or more quantities together
*instant recognition of quantities to 5 (our visual models)
writing and reading numerals displayed by tally marks
*counting forwards and backwards by 1's

The team learned how to write the letter H today! We only have 9 more letters to meet! The ABC cans you have been filling with your child are reinforcing all the letters we have learned and are exposing us to the letters that are coming up! Thank you for taking the time to do this activity with you children!

Please no costumes at school tomorrow! We will be celebrating the Harvest in the afternoon! We also will be watching a short, but important video about the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Trick or Treat for UNICEF campaign. Parts of the video do show children in countries at war, with disease and living in poverty. If you think your child will have a problem with this please let us know.
Here is the link to the website if you would like more information!
http://youth.unicefusa.org/trickortreat/
Our school has participated in Trick or Treat for UNICEF for the past 8 years and have raised over $22, 000 to help children in crisis around the world! We hope that you will take the time to Trick or Treat for UNICEF with your child. We will be counting the money our team collects on Wednesday next week! Thank you!

Don't forget to pick up your gift wrap orders tonight in the gym from 3 to 6 PM!

Field Trips To The Police Station and the Shelburne Supermarket

2009-10-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went on a field trip to the Shelburne Police Station. We met Officers Josh and Aaron and Dispatcher Stephanie. We toured the jail, learned about police uniforms and got to listen to a 911 call. The Officers also talked to us about Halloween safety.

Today we visited the Shelburne Supermarket. We had a fun tour that included petting a lobster, watching meat being ground into hamburger and an apple snack. We also visited the dairy cooler and the back room where all the groceries are delivered to the market. It was another fun field trip.

We will continue to learn about our community over the next several weeks. We will be learning how to read simple maps and creating our own maps of our Shelburne Community.

We are back!

2009-10-26T06:22:00.001-07:00

Deb and I are finally a little better and have returned to school! We hope all of you are feeling better!
Today we read our story bit story, The Biggest Pumpkin Ever! Your child is bringing home a small pumpkin sticker and their recording sheet. Please return the the baggie and the retelling sheet tomorrow! We can't wait to read them!
We had a beautiful walk to the Post Office today! We took a tour of the facility and met some of the postal workers! Ask your child about it!

Technology Thursday!

2009-10-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Today both classes visited the computer lab. We met our Technology Integration Specialist Mrs. Matthews and visited an amazing website! The website we visited was www.starfall.com! At this website your child can explore the alphabet and learn the sound for each letter and many vocabulary words that begin with that letter! Some of the letters even have little games connected to them! Some of us even learned how to sign the letters! If you can, check the website out with your child!

During our Social Studies time we made a list of all the things we KNOW about community! The next thing we did was made a list of questions we have about community! Hopefully, we will find the answers to these questions! Next week we are headed to the Pierson Library and the following week we will be walking to the Fire Station and Supermarket. Let us know if you would like to come!

Again, please send in your H1N1 consent forms!

Wacky Wednesday!

2009-10-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Ms. S and her Super Socks came flying in for a visit today! In her sack she brought a seltzer, sailboat, starfish, seahorse, and stapler! We danced in our super socks to her song and colored in our Ss books!

This afternoon we enjoyed another visit with our book buddies. It is so fun to hear stories together.

Thanks to all of you for returning your Story Bit papers and baggies! We are truly amazed by the retellings you recorded! The language your children used was so rich. This activity will help them get ready for our oral storytelling unit that will lead into our first writing unit later this fall!

We almost have everyone's consent form for the H1N1 vaccine. So, please send it in as soon as possible.

We have kicked off our Community Unit and spent some time comparing suburbs and cities today. Ask your child about it!

Yesterday Mrs. M's class had another incredible HON lesson. We learned about the Forest Floor by listening and watching a puppet show, investigating worms, digging through the layers of the forest floor, and guessing the names of forest items by using our sense of touch. Don't forget to send in Box Tops!

Thanks to John, Wendy and Kim!

Your First Story Bit!

2009-10-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

Your child is bringing home their first Story Bit tonight! Please take the time to find a special place to store your child's story bit box and take the time to listen to him or her retell the story of Harry The Dirty Dog! The directions for this activity are on the baggie he or she is bringing home and a letter explaining the program also came home on Friday in Friday Folders.

Please also return the H1N1 Vaccination form! Our school nurse would like to have a form returned for every child whether or not they are having the vaccine!

We met Mr D. today! He came to dazzle us with his dancing feet! We read a story called Dinosaur Dance and discovered a dinosaur, desk, deer, dragonfly and donut in his duffel bag! We colored our D books and learned and reviewed the sight words look, this the, and, is and a!

During Math this week we will be busy sorting bugs, creating patterns with unifix cubes, visiting our work stations, practicing our numeral formation and counting by 2's and 5's!

Important Information!

2009-10-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

Please read two important letters in your child's Friday Folder. One is about our Story Bit Program and H1N1 Vaccinations. Have a great weekend!

Shelburne Farms

2009-10-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful time at the farm! Both classes enjoyed meeting all of the animals, helping with farm chores and exploring the pumpkin patch! We brought back two pumpkins for each class and harvested some popcorn corn! We were impressed by the knowledge children had of the farm and its daily operations! They loved holding the chickens!

Tomorrow we will finish our pumpkin cycle books and carve our pumpkins and discover how many seeds are hiding in each pumpkin! We will also visit with our friends on the Journey Team!

Another letterlight!

2009-10-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Mr. O came to visit with all of his opposites! He also brought an octopus, orange, orangutan, oval, onion and orange marker! We sang the letter light song and read a few books about the letter O! We have learned 10 of our letters so far this year! We also learned the sight words look and at! Tomorrow we will practice making the letter Oo.

During math we have been busy creating a Shoo Fly Quilt. We glued purple and red triangles together to create quilt squares. We assembled our quilt and talked about the patterns and shapes we discovered! Did you know two triangles make a square?

Our calendars are growing with the Ladybug, Ladybug, Spider, Spider pattern!

We have been painting apples for a beautiful hallway
display that Miss Claire has created. Swing by the school and check it out!
Remember we have a field trip to Shelburne Farms on Thursday. Please dress your child appropriately. We will be outside and in the farm yard!

Apple Orchard Friday!

2009-10-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks for having your children dressed warmly for our trip! It was cool and crisp at the orchard! We had an amazing time learning about apples, apple trees, bees, and cider. We enjoyed apple cider and donuts this afternoon and wrote a thank you messsage to our friends at Chapin Orchard! On Monday we will be making applesauce! Stay tuned for our recipe!

Have a great weekend!

Letter Cans!

2009-10-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

Your children have started bringing home ABC cans! We ask that you and your child find one thing that begins with the letter on the outside of the can and put it inside. Your child will share the can the next day at school and we will see what they found that begins with that letter!

We met Miss Fisher today! She is a senior at the University of Vermont. She is studying Elementary Education and English. She will be visiting our classroom this fall and she will be here full time in the Spring as one of our Student Teachers.

Remember warm clothes and shoes for our field trip to Chapin Orchard!

Picture Day and Mr. R!

2009-09-30T10:09:00.001-07:00

We had bright, beautiful smiles for picture day! Pictures will be sent home in a few weeks! We will also have class picture day in the next few weeks!

During Math time today we taste tested 5 different kinds of apples ~ Granny Smith, Pink Lady, McIntosh, Golden Delicious and Red Delicious. We listed words to describe the appearance and taste of each variety. We are wondering which varieties we will encounter at the orchard on Friday. After taste testing we shared our favorite variety by building a graph together! In Mrs. KillKelley's class the favorite was the Pink Lady and the Golden Delicious was the favorite in Mrs. Meyette's class! Check out our graphs!

This afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. R who was covered in Rainbows! He has a remarkable rose garden! He brought with him a rainbow, rubber band, rooster, ribbon and remote! We also learned another sight word, is!

We ended the day by making ladybugs and spiders for our October calendar!

Our First Half Day!

2009-09-29T07:09:00.001-07:00

We had a busy start to the week! Yesterday Mr. I and his impossible inches came to visit. He is another letter light (vowel) and helps other letters to form words. We learned the "I" words itch, igloo, island, ink, iguana, inch, inchworm and ice cream! We also learned two new sight words, see and I! We are filling our book boxes with books we can read on our own! Look for these coming home soon in their Friday Folders!

Our Wiki Wall is now covered in letters! It is amazing how quickly we are learning the names and SOUNDS of our alphabet!

Mrs. KillKelley's class enjoyed their first Hands on Nature lesson today. They learned about fields and their importance as a habitat!

We are looking forward to our field trip on Friday. Please remember to dress your child appropriately. Please send them in rubber boots or sneakers and a jacket! Hopefully it will not rain!

TOMORROW IS PICTURE DAY! Please remember your order envelope and SMILE!

Apple Blossoms!

2009-09-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

In anticipation of our upcoming field trip to Chapin Orchard we have been reading books about the apple tree's yearly cycle. We have learned that apple trees lie dormant in the winter, full of blossoms in the spring, full of green apples in the summer and full of red juicy apples ready for picking in the fall! We created our own apple cycle books! They are beautiful! W drew our own trees and added details with tissue paper! Check these out in your child's Friday Folder tomorrow!

We have also started reading Nursery Rhymes. Today we read Humpty Dumpty! We searched for the word "the" and rhyming words. Tomorrow we will have our first Kindergarten Roundup! We will meet our friends on the Journey team!

Whimsical Wednesday!

2009-09-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful Wednesday! This morning we learned how to write the letter C. Letter C is a Skyline and Plane line letter! For uppercase we start at the Skyline, fly back and around to the grass line! Ask your child about it!

This afternoon we met Ms A. She had a terrible time with her allergies and couldn't stop sneezing! Achoo! Achoo! She is a Letter Light Letter (vowel) She makes two sounds! She brought with her an astronaut, alligator, ant and apple! She also brought us our own Aa books. We learned to read and spell our sight word the! Way to go Kindergarteners!

We also refreshed our Fire Safety learning through a video, read with our book buddies, sorted shapes by size, practiced writing our numerals, and played penny drop!

Check out our WIKKI WALL! Wikki sticks are a great art supply for creating pictures, letters and numbers. You can reuse them over and over again! They stick to things without making a mess!

Fire Safety Day!

2009-09-22T06:53:00.001-07:00

This morning we had an informative presentation from our local friendly firefighters. We spent the morning learning about the tools, fire engine, smoke alarms, firefighter gear, making a fire plan for at home and practicing our Stop, Drop and Roll skills. We even crawled through a smoke house, listening to the firefighters voice and staying low to the ground as we crawled out! The Spirit Team was a respectful audience and asked such thoughtful questions. We read Dot the Fire Dog and A Day in the Life of a Firefighter and Clifford The Firehouse Dog.

We have been busy int roducing and exploring math work stations. Your children have been busy sorting, counting, estimating and comparing at the Bucket of Bugs work station. They have been making rectangles, squares, stars, triangles and hexagons with the geobands and geoboards. Through this workstation they also get practice using positional language, ordinal numbers (as they name the pegs) and naming shapes and discussing their attributes. We have been playing Which Bug will Win?. This game explores the concept of probability, and requires children to create and interpret a graph. Check out some of this work in their Friday Folders!

A Quick Note!`

2009-09-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

Your child met Vicky, our Guidance Counselor, this week! She has sent home a note to all of you explaining the social curriculum that she uses. She was a familiar face to all of them and they mostly enjoyed meeting her friends, Impulsive Puppy, Slow Down Snail, and Shy Kitty. Ask your child about feelings! We were amazed at all of the feeling words they knew and how they could read body language to identify a feeling.

Your child is also bringing home information about Picture Day which is September 30th!

Have a great weekend!

Tired Thursday!

2009-09-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

We met Mr. M today! He came from the mall where he spent his money on meatballs, macaroni and cheese, marshmallows and muffins!

Our full week is slowly coming to an end and these Kindergarteners have worked hard. They are tired! It was an amazing week. We started visiting math works stations. Students have been exploring with unifix cubes, pattern blocks and polydrons. We have seen students building patterns, designs, pyramids and cubes! Tomorrow we will be adding geoboards. Through these explorations students are gaining counting, measuring, patterning, comparing and designing skills. Ask your child about their discoveries!

We made Spirit Salsa!

2009-09-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful time making Spirit Salsa today! This morning we checked out all of our fresh ingredients and read the big book Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert. The book was such a nice connection to this process. We learned about planting a garden and how to use the fresh produce to make something yummy! We also learned about labels and how writers use labels to teach you words!

This afternoon we mixed together the chopped produce, squeezed in lime juice and added a dash of salt to make Spirit Salsa! Thank you so much for sending in such fantastic ingredients. We learned about garlic and cilantro and jalapeno peppers! Did you know the spice comes from the oils on the seeds? Everybody tried the salsa and many of us had seconds and thirds! We even ate cherry tomatoes from Ryan's garden!

************************************************************************************
Here is the recipe for Spirit Salsa:

Ingredients:

Tomatoes
garlic
peppers
onions
lime juice
salt
cilantro

Steps:

Cut up the tomatoes, peppers, onions, cilantro, and garlic.
Mix it up!
Eat it!

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Mrs Killkelley's class met their 3rd Grade Book Buddies this afternoon! Ask your child about it.

Mrs. M's class had a visit from John, Benjamin's Dad, for his 6th Birthday!

A Busy Day!

2009-09-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

The most exciting part of our day was at the very end! Mrs. KillKelley and Mrs. Meyette switched classes so that we could learn about one another's centers for Explore Time. We can't wait to see kids mix, mingle and play tomorrow morning in both rooms! So many choices to build our social skills!

Yesterday, we met Mr. N and his Noisy Noise Maker (his nose). He brought a bag full of "NOTHING!" We came up with a list of things that begin with N. We also realized that many of our names end with the letter N! Tomorrow we will meet Mr. M!

Thanks for all of your donations for Salsa! We will be making salsa tomorrow around 1:00PM! It's going to be delicious! We will post our recipe this week!

We have continued to learn about so many of our friends! We hope you are enjoying the book that your child brings home. We are a group of amazing and thoughtful artists!

Thank you!

2009-09-11T06:59:00.001-07:00

Thanks to all of you who attended Curriculum Night last night. It was wonderful to see you and to share our plans for this year! Thank you also for baring with us and our technical difficulties. We just found out that the projector will be replaced in that lab. It has been acting funny for a few days. Those of you who were unable to attend can enjoy the packet of information tucked in your child's backpack.

Today our classes learned about Siersha, Ali, Kelsie, Ryan, and Eliza. What amazing children they are!

Today we met Ms. F and her Fancy Feet! We practiced writing the letter F, colored our F books and created a fun list of F words!

Don't forget, Library Books are due Monday!

After 7 days, our cafeteria routines are beginning to fall in to place. Please understand this transition will take awhile to become second nature. Their independence will grow as they have more practice buying lunches and milk, finding our tables and getting comfortable eating in the lunch room. Some of us are eating our entire lunches and more while some of us are trying to figure out how to eat as much as we can during this short period of time. You can support your child by talking about lunch time with them, packing lots of choices and letting them know that you are confident that lunch time will soon become one of their favorite times of the day.

Rest Towels came home today. Please wash them and return them on Monday!
Have a great weekend!

Terrific Thursday!

2009-09-10T09:57:00.001-07:00

On this beautiful sunny day Mrs. M's class had their first Hands On Nature lesson. We Met Mrs. Stevens and Mr. Marcoe (and next time Mrs. Naylor) and learned all about Fields as a habitat. We watched a puppet show with many animals teaching us about "why" they live in a field. We then headed out and had a scavenger hunt to search for signs of animals and insects who make their home in a field. We used magnifying glasses to take a closer look. We spotted snail shells, grasshoppers, frogs, deer tracks and butterflies! Some of us created a story about our lesson and adventure! Thanks for a wonderful lesson!

Mrs. Killkelley's class has been busy learning about our friends Logan, Isabella, Maggie and AJ. Tomorrow we will be learning about Kelsie and Ali and next week we will be learning more about the rest of our classmates.

Both classes created "Classroom Promises" yesterday and "Hopes and Dreams" today. These are two important components of our Responsive Classroom philosophy that help to create a stronger, more respectful classroom community.

This afternoon the Spirit team met Mr. B and all of his buttons. He brought a bag full of items that begin with the letter B! We also practiced writing upper and lowercase B's. We are working hard to pinch our pencils and perfect our pencil grips!

We hope to see many of you at our Curriculum Night tonight! 6 PM in the C-Wing Lab!

Our First Tuesday!

2009-09-09T05:26:00.000-07:00

We had an incredible Tuesday! This morning we learned about our friends Jack, Grace, Paige and Innogen. These four shared their four square papers and then the classes practiced writing their friend's name and drew him or her a picture. We hope you enjoyed reading these books at home! This activity is an easy way for us to learn about one another and find out what we have in common with one another! We seem to like learning about ice creams the most!

This afternoon we met Ms. T and Echo! Echo will visit us everyday to hear us naming our letters and making the sound each letter makes. Ms. T came zooming over in her taxi to introduce one of our letters, T. She had a tote bag full of items that begin with the letter T. We made a team list of words that begin with T and then colored a Letter T book for our book box! We will learn about the letters B and F this week, too. We will learn the name and sound of each letter as well as how to write it! Ask your child about it!

We also heard an important story about a student named Josie. Josie's story helped us build community in our classroom by seeing the potential in each of us! Her story left us each with a heart that says "I am Lovable and Capable!" (I.A.L.A.C). We hope these hearts stay intact all year. Josie's heart slowly broke as her community did not support her as a learner and as a person. Here on Spirit we support one another daily as we learn, play and work together!

2009-09-08T10:32:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Our First Friday In Kindergarten

2009-09-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

Today was another busy day for Spirit Kindergarten! We read The Colors of Us and drew self portraits. We also made puzzle pieces of ourselves and created one big classroom puzzle to hang on our bulletin boards. These puzzle pieces show how each child is special and unique with different strengths to offer and that all these pieces put together symbolize the power of the Spirit Team.

Lunch went much smoother today. Many students enjoyed their hot lunch and routines are starting to be learned.

Most exciting today was ending the day with explore time. Both groups had opportunities to play in a variety of centers within their classrooms. Children will have opportunities to continue with this exploration next week. The following week students will be introduced to centers in both classrooms.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Labor Day weekend and look forward to seeing your children next week.

Day 2 was a blast!

2009-09-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

We settled it for another busy day here on the Spirit Team. Your children practiced the routines that they learned about yesterday and felt more at ease here at SCS. We had less tears and more smiles all day long!

One of the highlights of the day was listening to Mrs. KillKelley tell the story of Warm Fuzzies! According to our bright Kindergarteners, "Warm Fuzzies are actions and words that you use when you are being nice!" Some examples that your children shared were: hugging a friend, something that makes you feel better, being nice to the world, giving a kiss to a pet or family member, sharing a book, and giving presents. Your thoughtful children also talked about the feeling they get in their hearts when they help make someone else feel happy. Here is a snapshot of a warm fuzzy!

This afternoon we read the story Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. We then created a name graph to learn the names in our classroom and the amount of letters in one anothers name!

By the end of the day tomorrow your child will have met three out of the four of their Unified Arts Teachers. They have met Ms. C (Art), Mrs. Olsen (P.E.) and Mrs. Burritt(Music). They will meet Mrs. Nelson (P.E.) next week.

The Spirit Teams First Day!

2009-09-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

We had a very busy first day of school today! Your child spent time using Pattern Blocks, learning about classroom routines for arrival, Morning Meeting, following directions, using the bathroom and recess and lunch and dismissal. They spent time socializing and getting to know one another, but also learning the boundaries of our physical space and our behavioral expectations. This is all part of the Responsive Classroom philosophy that SCS has adopted.

"Constructing and placing these building blocks are the focus of our instruction for the early weeks of school. It is exhilarating and exhausting work. It is an investment that pays off all year long."

And it will! The growth your child will make socially, emotionally and academically will be remarkable. We value all three!

This first day was as exciting for us as for your children as we used markers and crayons to tell about our summer vacation and our preparation for Kindergarten. We had a chance to meet Mrs. Olsen (P.E. teacher) and Ms. C (Art teacher) as they visited our classrooms and gave us a glimpse of what class will be like. We toured the school and met some of our office staff and Miss Jocelyn, our school nurse. We also caught glimpses of some of our siblings in the hallways. This brought smiles to everyone!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

2009-09-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

The First Day of School has arrived! Thanks for all you've done to prepare your little ones. We have an exciting day planned and we will be posting this afternoon to tell you all about it!

Joining us everyday on our team is Mr. V and Miss Claire. We are so lucky to have both of them!

Welcome to Shelburne Community School!

2009-08-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Spirit Team Families!

We are busy getting ready for school to begin! We are working on updating our website, setting up our classrooms and enjoying the last days of summer! We can't wait to meet many of you at Conferences and at our Open House!

Happy Summer

2009-06-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

Have a terrific summer everyone!

Last Week of School

2009-06-09T15:58:00.001-07:00

We have been working hard on our Memory Books this final week of school in hopes of finishing them by Friday so we can have all our Spirit friends sign them. We also said good-bye to Sebastian today as this was his last day of school this year.

We had planned a little walk to Shelburne Bay today, but due to the weather were unable to go. We decided to have movie day instead and will plan to do our mini-hike on Thursday instead. Hopefully the weather will be better.

Tomorrow we will have some students from the Voyager team coming to our classroom to read stories they personally authored and we will continue to work on our Memory Books.

It is hard to believe the school year is almost over and our friends are almost officially first graders! We will miss everyone next year, but wish them all the best as first graders!

Field Trip/Field Day

2009-06-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day we had yesterday! We began our day with a field trip to Shelburne Farms to learn about life cycles of wild and tame animals. We caught frogs and other small creatures in the pond, then visited the barnyard to see all the new baby animals on the farm. We saw piglets, chicks, bunnies and many other animals. We even got to participate in the chicken parade!

In the afternoon we had our Spirit Field Day! We danced, did an obstacle course, had a 3-legged race, picked up marbles with our toes, raced with eggs on spoons and got our faces painted. Afterward we all enjoyed a snack of cider, watermelon and popsicles.

Finally, it was wonderful to enjoy the beautiful weather at the beach with all our families for our team picnic. Many thanks to everyone who attended and made it such a terrific evening!

Lake Champlain Day

2009-06-03T18:14:00.001-07:00

Lake Champlain Day was lots of fun and filled with learning about the history of Lake Champlain. We listened to local storytellers, sang songs and learned some new dances. Mr. Bossange put on quite a show dancing with a broom! Ask your child what his/her favorite part of Lake Champlain Day was.

Field Day volunteers

2009-06-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

Volunteers can come to the classroom around 12:45. We will start around 1pm near the trailers.
Thank you for your support!

Field Trip To The Pierson Library

2009-05-29T11:37:00.001-07:00

The Spirit Team had a walking field trip to the Pierson Library today. The librarian read us a book and talked to us about all the wonderful programs that are happening at the Pierson Library this summer. We all painted quilt squares that will be assembled into one big quilt to hang in the entrance of the library. I hope your family can visit the library this summer to see our quilt and enjoy some of the terrific programs that are offered there.

Hands On Nature

2009-05-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

Today was an exciting day of learning about honeybees with our Hands On Nature parent volunteers in Mrs. KillKelley's class. We learned about drones, worker bees and queen bees. We pretended to be bees and smelled different scents then did bee dances to show the other worker bees where the scents were. Many thanks to our Hands On Nature Parents for another great science adventure!

Vicky Wideman is also visiting our classes to teach us about personal safety. On Tuesday she came in and talked to us about the difference between medicine and candy. She will be back tomorrow to show us a personal safety video and will return again next week to do a final lesson about personal safety. Ask your child what they have learned about their personal safety.

Miss Claire's class is working on word families. They have been working on a new word family every day and creating books about them. They are keeping the books they created in their book boxes and have added them to their morning meeting routine.

The Bridges math program is coming to a close. We will be playing a variety of math games to reinforce early numeracy skills throughout the remainder of the school year.

Fun Filled Day!

2009-05-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Today was the annual jog-a-thon day. Thank you all for sending your kids in with sneakers, water and donations. We had a great time! After the jog-a-thon, we went outside for lunch and then played on the big playground for the first time. There was music, dancing, soccer, tag and every student had a great time. Luckily, the weather was great for us and the sun was shining bright!

Pictures are coming soon!

School is coming to an end but we are still busy working hard in reading groups and in our unit, "A Happy Healthy You!"

Spirit Gardening

2009-05-14T09:35:00.001-07:00

Mrs. KillKelley's class spent part of their afternoon gardening with Heidi and Nigel's Moms. Our friends turned the soil in the vegetable bed outside the school and planted carrots and beans. It was a fun afternoon and a great experience for everyone. Many thanks to Elizabeth and Amelia for giving our class this opportunity. We will be doing this every Wednesday afternoon.

A Healthy Happy Me

2009-05-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

We have been talking about our individual needs in Spirit Kindergarten and have discovered what we all need to be healthy and happy. Today we began interviewing some teachers to find out what they need in their lives to be happy and healthy. We interviewed our librarian, Mrs. Ahern and Mrs. Nelson, our PE teacher. Tomorrow we will be interviewing Mrs. Burritt and hope to interview Ms. Caraher by the week's end.

Roshan has arrived!

2009-05-06T05:26:00.000-07:00

Roshan Keddy Meyette arrived yesterday (Monday, May 5th) at 9:07 am! He was 7 pounds and 21 inches long. He has beautiful black curly hair just like his Mommy! Vasanthi and Roshan are doing well! We hope to get some pictures posted later today!

Thank You!!!

2009-05-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Thank you all so much for welcoming me into your classroom! I've really enjoyed my time here, so much that I've decided to finish out the year! Thanks for all of the great books in the Flash Bag. I had the opportunity to read two books to the class on Friday and I told them I would continue reading them next week. I couldn't wait so I read them all this weekend! Thanks so much for thinking of me and my future classroom. You all have raised such great kids and I love spending the day with them.

See you soon!

Miss Maynard

Skits

2009-04-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

This week we finished up our unit on earthkeepers. Our last activity in our cooperative groups were to create a skit. The students were encouraged to use any materials in the room in order to show how to be an earthkeeper. This was a fun event because the students came up with a variety of different ideas. Ask your students about the skit that they preformed and the other skits that they watched their classmates put on. We have some real talent in the spirit team!

I am happy to say that I will be staying in the classroom the rest of the year. Claire will be taking over for Mrs. M and I will be taking over for Claire! I'm so excited to stay.

Plan and Build

2009-04-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

(This is a list of materials that the students wrote to show what materials they would need in order to build the next day. It says; tinfoil, straws, glue, scissors, toilet roll. That was their best spelling by sounding the words out.)

This week we have been busy with our "earthkeepers" unit. We continued studying how to reduce, reuse, and recycle by working in cooperative groups! Each group was responsible to sort through their groups garbage bag and pick out all of the recyclable materials. They then had to work together as a group to design an animal that they all agreed on. Some groups created their favorite animal, others created zoo animals and some earthkeepers created their own made up animal. It was great to see students cooperating and to see their creativity. After each group drew their design, they had to create a list of the materials they would need for the next day (Wednesday). Today, each group continued their work and they actually built their animals. Every student was actively involved and the students seemed to really enjoy the activity.