Winter Carnival and February Break!

We made it to February break!  I'm always amazed at how quickly time passes between one break and the next.  We have been very busy they last few weeks assessing students and gather evidence of learning.  The 2nd trimester will be ending on March 11th, the Monday after we return from break.  In your Friday folders you should find a letter about student led conferences which will take place on March 20th.  Please call the MES office to schedule a time to come with your child on March 20th so your child can show you all the great learning they have been doing!

This week in literacy we learned how to write the upper case letters M and N.  We read a sight word book titled They Look.  New sight words are: they and for.  In writers workshop we began your next unit which features informational writing.  Students will be working on writing how to books and then we will be researching Vermont animals and writing about our animals.  During readers workshop we learned about how readers not only look at the beginning of words to read a word, but they also look at the end of the word to help them figure out words.  We also did an interactive Read Aloud with the book The Little House.  During an interactive read aloud students are engaged with the story as we stop often to think about the story and have discussions about the main idea, the important events, and the characters.  Students made story maps about the story to retell the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

In Math our lessons focused comparing numbers to tell which set has more than or less than and creating sets to show 1 more than or 1 less than.  During our math menu time students have been Making at our Maker Space.  They have planned projects and have been working on creating them.  Examples of projects include:  Building a tower taller than you, create a board game to play with a friend, and making a deck of cards.  The process includes planning, creating, reflecting, and revising.  Students are using many of our scholarly habits in the process such as goal setting, reflecting, perseverance, collaboration (in some cases), and creativity.

We had a fun afternoon on Friday during Winter Carnival!  We participated in 8 different games along with our 2nd grade buddies.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we were lucky them to have the temperatures warm up from a freezing -14 degrees in the morning to a balmy 20 something degrees in the afternoon! (see some photos below of fun with the giant ball!)

Lastly, there will be an Annual Meeting and School Budget information meeting on Monday, March 2 at 6:00 pm at the PA gym.  Voting on the School Budget will take place your local town Halls on Tuesday, March 3.  If you are unable to vote on March 3, Early voting as already begun.  Please try to vote as your voice is important!

School resumes on Wednesday, March 4th!