May is always a very busy month. We have many end of the year assessments to complete. It is helpful if students are able to stay healthy and in school during this busy time. We will be doing end of the year reading assessments, math assessment, and Gates MacGinitie standardized testing during May. We also have portfolio pieces that need to be done and scored.
Our science unit for May is Plants. This is a fun unit and students love learning about plant needs, how plants grow, and how we use plants everyday in our lives.
I will update the calendar for May and June as events come up. I thought it would be helpful for you to know the planned date for our annual Field Day at Airport Park so it is on the calendar section.
Have a great vacation week!

PLease join us on Thursday evening, April 19th, at 6:30 for Red Clover Night. During Library each week students have been listening to the Red Clover books and they get to vote for their favorite along with students from all over Vermont. In May a Red Clover book winner is chosen. We are celebrating these wonderful books with activities related to the theme of the books. We will have a Red Clover afternoon at school and students will get to do 2 activities. In the evening we are welcoming families to come and enjoy some sample activites. It is a fun and relaxing time. Please come!

On Friday, April 13th, we delivered our donations of food to our neighbors, the Colchester Food Shelf. The children got to see how the food shelf organizes the donated food and each child proudly carried a bag of donated food with them. Thanks so much for your donations. What a wonderful life experience for the children to share with others!

We will finish our measurement unit at the end of this week and take the unit assessment at the beginning of next week. Our next unit will focus on place value into the thousands and ten-thousands. We will also be working with dollars and cents notation with money.

Please practice basic subtraction number facts at home. At the end of the year they need to know all addition and subtraction facts up to 20 on a timed test. There were a lot of students who did not pass the timed test last trimester. We practice here but it really isn’t enough. If you need a worksheet of these basic facts just jot me an email or a note.

During Reading and Writing workshops we are exploring nonfiction right now. Students are choosing a nonfiction topic to write about and most of this week will be spent reading about their topics. Next week we will begin some nonfiction writing about the topic of their choice. This is a practice writing piece and they will get to bring it home after finishing it.

We are starting our science unit on rocks and minerals. We will be exploring where rocks come from, types of rocks, the rock cycle, and how we use rocks in our lives. Next week I will invite students to bring in one or two small rocks(they have to fit in your fist). We will share these and use them to do some rock experiments. Children always love this unit and come away with new understandings of how rocks are formed and the role they play in our lives.

Hi! We are working as a school to support our neighbors, the Colchester Food Bank. During April and May a classroom has been assigned each week to bring in foods for the food shelf. Our week is the week of April 9th. Here is the list of items that would be useful: canned fruit; salad dressing; crackers; small bags of flour and sugar; cooking oil; jello/pudding mixes; cake/brownies; personal care items-toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant; any non-perishable item. You are not required to participate. Any items you can contribute will be appreciated!!

During January we spent time learning about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We talked about how he became the important person that he was in our country and how we still remember him today for the many things he did and what he stood for. We shared this learning at school-wide meeting in early February. Hope you enjoy the slides of our practice in the classroom!