We Matter!

In this animation, our class is holding their self-designed crayons!  They each chose 4-5 crayon colors to use in our states of matter experiment.  We peeled, melted and recreated a multi-color crayon in a new shape!  Our focus is reversible and irreversible changes. 

We completed our read-aloud of Stuart Little by E.B. White and started our new book, The Elevator Family by Douglas Evans. 

We added new beginnings to our narrative pieces this week as well as completed our drafts. We read Rain Stomper by Addie Boswell to help us learn about precise words, use of size in text and detail.  Our lessons about, "green means growth" allowed us to use a green pen on our writing to edit and add new ideas. 

Our math work this week focused on adding 10 to any number.  We used models like the hundred chart (with and without numbers), digi-blocks and place value pieces. 

We experienced our first full week of small group word study.  Ask your child about it!

Our sharing for the month of October has focused on conversation starters.  Here's a photo of the ones we've shared so far. 

Typing Quest is a tool we are using to teach our students how to type.  Watching my own children and older students with typing expectations, it's so helpful for our students to have this skill.  I have also taught students that we now use a program called Go Guardian.  This allows me, within my Google Classroom, to have access to what is happening on each student's computer at all times. 

Mindfulness this week included a 5 minute guided meditation.  Responses from our students were positive.  Our mindfulness schedule typically includes, coloring a mandala, active & interactive go noodle activity, meditation, breathing exercise, and a sensory activity. 

A note from our school counselor:
Our school counselors, Carol Wheeler and Meaghan Rice are hosting a number of parent coffees this year. They will be here at school on Tuesday mornings, 8:05-8:45, and we hope you will join us for the first one, scheduled for November 6th . As parents, you play the primary role in promoting healthy relationships and preventing child abuse, and it serves our children well when the adults use similar vocabulary and approaches. There will be a short presentation by Lori Howe from Prevent Child Abuse Vermont about the contents of the Healthy Relationships Project we teach at RMCS. We’ll also have time for conversation to help us plan the contents of future get togethers. Young children are welcome, as this is very informal and relaxed time to learn together. Special take home bonus: there will be a free mindfulness tool for your family to add to your home peace corner.

We are looking forward to an exciting upcoming week! 
Thank you to Kelly Knoth and Brittany Almassalkhi for leading Hands on Nature tomorrow.
Thank you for your support in our festivities on Wednesday.


Jen Belisle

A FUN week!

We began our week in a pajama celebration.  Thank you to Mrs. Rice for coming in on Tuesday to create FUN RUN posters to support our schoolmates during our run on Friday.  We ended our week with a fabulous whole school Fun Run event!

Here we are making our posters!

Our mornings are filled with creativity and smiles.

This week we learned about honey bees with Miss Meg & Miss Maddie with Farm to School.  We experienced mindful eating with apples and fresh honey.  Ask your child about some interesting honey bee facts. 

Our classroom community is learning a lot about each other with our daily lightning shares with conversations starters.  They are creating opportunities for continued connections and topics to discuss further.  We are able to group juggle!  We made it to three bean bag frogs so far!

We completed one more week of routine word study.  We will start more focused word study starting on October 22nd.  This upcoming three day week we will review our activities.  

During number corner this month we are looking at both pinnate and palmate leaf patterns, counting minutes in groups of 5, building rectangles with tiles to represent arrays with links to both addition and groups of numbers.  We will continue to build our decade and century counting number lines.  

Mrs. Courcelle, our information technology educator, joined our class twice this week to get us started using Typing Quest and a read/write function on google drive.  

This week we took a math assessment on our first unit.  Students had an opportunity to correct the assessment as well, learning from their mistakes and making thoughtful corrections.

We began our states of matter unit.  We created a chart with ideas we think we know about states of matter and some wonderings we have. We read a non-fiction book to give us some guiding information.  This upcoming week we will have an opportunity to explore at stations and experience for ourselves.  

We are writing our small moment narrative stories with the guidance of sequencing words: First, Next, Then & Last.  We then add details to our stories as we write.  

We read every afternoon.  Each student reads from books in their book box.  We love to read in our classroom.  

I hope you've enjoyed the beauty of this weekend.  

I'm grateful for our classroom communtiy.

Jen Belisle