Phew . . . that was a tongue twister!! We had a great time walking over to Mazza’s for an afternoon of fall fun. Many of us were reunited with old friends as we spent time with Mrs. Bonfigli and Ms. Rayner’s classes. Enjoy our slide show.
Each morning on our morning message we have a survey question. Survey questions at this time of the year are designed to help us get to know each other. For example, last week I asked everyone to vote on their favorite season. Interestingly, winter and summer were the top vote earners. In today’s survey we learned about each others favorite school subjects. Clearly we are a class of readers and writers!
Our Workshops are up and running! Each day we have a Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop. The first few weeks we’ve focused on developing routines and stamina.
Reader’s Workshop:
Reading is Thinking! This is an important concept that we will work on throughout the year. At this time of the year we are practicing reading “just right” books independently. Earlier this week we created a chart to help us remember how to pick a “just right” book. Here’s what we decided:
We use the 5 finger test to help us determine if our book is “just right”. If we have to work at solving or can’t solve 5 words on one full page of text, it’s probably too hard and not just right. At this point, we are reading for 20-25 minutes independently and will continue to increase our stamina with a goal of reading 40 minutes independently. Once we are able to read independently, we will begin guided reading groups.
Writer’s Workshop:
We had a blast this week personalizing our writer’s notebooks. We covered our notebooks with scrapbook paper and wallpaper samples. Then we added our family photos, stickers, and magazine cutouts. This weekend I will add contact paper to preserve these important notebooks. We’ve also been practicing our independent writing skills. We write in our notebooks most days. Some days I give a journal topic and some days students choose their own topics.
How was our first week of school?
It’s official . . . Techkids are stupendous!!!!! The first week of school was relaxing and gave us a chance to get to know each other. We started a time capsule project, completed an interest survey, developed class rules, worked on math assessments and practiced typing. We were the first class to go to the computer lab!!!!! We had a few glitches, but with Mrs. Benay, Mrs. Sebo and Mrs. Colgrove’s help we all got logged on and practiced typing with Type to Learn 4. 
I want to CONGRATULATE this amazing class for 100% homework completion this week 
Students will have spelling and math homework nightly (Monday-Thursday) this week. All homework is written in our Student Planners, so please be sure to monitor this to ensure your child is developing a successful homework habit. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Some rights reserved by Timothy Valentine
We have been working on our Vermont unit for the past month. Our culminating project was to create an ABC book about Vermont. Please read our book and leave a comment!!!!!
It’s that time again . . . unit 11 math test. Today we completed a review in class of the material on tomorrow’s test. Unit 11 focused on 3-D shapes, volume, weight and capacity. To prepare for a math test we need to PRACTICE. Students have the OPPORTUNITY to practice for their test and earn bonus points (5 points!). They have two options to practice:
1. Make a practice test with 20 problems (Must contain a variety of problems). The mathboxes and journal pages are a great place to find math problems for a practice test. Students must complete the practice test and return it tomorrow to receive the bonus points.
2. Play Unit 11 Jeopardy and keep track of your work on a 4×5 grid. See directions below.
Jeopardy Game Directions:
It’s that time again . . . unit 10 math test. Today we completed a review in class of the material on tomorrow’s test. Unit 10 focused on reflections, rotations, and translations, lines of symmetry and adding negative numbers. To prepare for a math test we need to PRACTICE. Students have the OPPORTUNITY to practice for their test and earn bonus points (5 points!). They have two options to practice:
1. Make a practice test with 20 problems (Must contain a variety of problems). The mathboxes and journal pages are a great place to find math problems for a practice test. Students must complete the practice test and return it tomorrow to receive the bonus points.
2. Play Unit 10 Jeopardy and keep track of your work on a 4×5 grid. See directions below.
Jeopardy Game Directions:
In this week’s Blogging Challenge Miss W. suggested we create a ZOOM post. We liked the idea and pulled out one of our favorite wordless books by Istvan Banyai called Zoom. In this book the reader is zoomed from a farm to a city to a desert and more as it ZOOMS out farther and farther! How far will it go? We created our own ZOOM video based on the book. We hope you enjoy it!
We had our kick-off assembly Monday and the kids were thrilled! What a wonderful opportunity for our Osprey’s to work with these “green” artists. Everyone loved working with Troy and Don during art and P.E..
We have a dress rehearsal during the day at CHS next Friday, April 8th, before our evening performance at 5:30 . . . I hope to see you all there!
It’s that time again . . . unit 9 math test. Today we completed a review in class of the material on tomorrow’s test. Unit 9 focused on fractions, decimals and percents. To prepare for a math test we need to PRACTICE. Students have the OPPORTUNITY to practice for their test and earn bonus points (5 points!). They have two options to practice:
1. Make a practice test with 20 problems (Must contain a variety of problems). The mathboxes and journal pages are a great place to find math problems for a practice test. Students must complete the practice test and return it tomorrow to receive the bonus points.
2. Play Unit 9 Jeopardy and keep track of your work on a 4×5 grid. See directions below.
Jeopardy Game Directions:
