Sharing Our Homework

This week we finished up our poetry unit with a "Poetry Slam" on Thursday.  Everyone chose a favorite piece of poetry they have created and shared it with our class.  Everyone had a fun time.
Next week we will begin units about  reading tricky words, and opinion writing in literacy.  We will continue with those units through the end of the month of April.  We will continue our Fundations unit learning about suffixes into next week.  We will finish up our geometry unit in math and will begin our final unit of the school year about farms.  We will also continue our unit about Cultural Geography through the end of April.
Have a great long weekend!

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March PTO Minutes

PTO NOTES & NEWS - MARCH 2013

Congrats to Thomas Daley our SCS SPELLING BEE CHAMPION.  He will compete in the state bee at St. Michaels College on March 13.

We discussed HOW PRINCIPALS CAN BEST COMMUNICATE WITH FAMILIES.  Most people felt that email is good but have a direct link to newsletter rather than a PDF.

Tickets for the popular DYNAMIC DATES fundraiser will go home soon.  Drawing for dates on April 1.

The FLOWER POWER fundraiser will run from April 5 - April 15.  Consider buying your spring bulbs through this local company!

On March 26 all middle school students will go to Williston to view the documentary "WRETCHES & JABBERERS", the story of 2 men with autism.  Back at SCS they will participate in an afternoon of activities around this subject.  THEY NEED PARENT VOLUNTEERS to help with this day.  If you're interested please contact Randy Sweeney (sweeneyrs@gmail.com) or Alice Brown (aliceandy@myfairpoint.net).

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT for teachers has recently included a workshop on education responses to children who have experienced trauma, intruder drill training (including a drill during the school day), training in the new Connected Math program, integration of arts in the curriculum and tech integration.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

• Fri. March 15 and Sat. March 16 @ 7p - Middle School Play - "Once on This Island" - at Town Hall.
• Wed. March 20, 6:30 - 8:30 - Middle School Dialogue Night.  Subject is stress & anxiety and will be lead by students in Project LEAD.
• April 8 - 11 - Artist in Residence Jon Gailmor works with primarily 5th graders and also some K-4th grade classes.  5th grade performance on evening of April 11.
• May 10 - Comedy Night fundraiser at the Old Lantern in Charlotte.  This is being put together by Josie Leavitt and will benefit the Shelburne and Charlotte PTO's.  Tickets on sale soon.

HELP WANTED:

• PTO Co-Chair to work with Randy Sweeney.  Contact her (sweeneyrs@gmail.com) for details.

THANK YOU:

• To everyone who helped make "Get Out The Vote" calls/emails and to everyone who voted!

More Poetry and Geometry

It was a pleasure to meet with families this week for conferences to celebrate your children's learning.  Thanks so much to everyone for coming in for these, even on the snow day!

We began a new Fundations unit this week and are learning how to divide syllables.  We have continued with poetry during Reader's and Writer's Workshops.  These units will finish up next week and we will move on to an opinion writing unit in Writer's Workshop and a unit about reading tricky words in Reader's Workshop. We will continue with our unit about geometry in math.  This week we spent some time creating 9-patch quilts and were introduced to rotational symmetry.
Mark your calendars for April 16th @ 6:30 pm for the 1/2 Music Concert!

Spring Conferences

Spring conferences will be held this Monday, March 18th and Tuesday, March 19th after school.  Please remember to sign up if you haven't already done so.
We have spent the week exploring shapes and learning about 3 dimensional shapes in math.  Some of our new math words are polygon, polyhedron, rectangular prism, triangular prism, cube, cylinder, sphere, pyramid, vertex, face and edge.  We will continue with our geometry unit next week.
We have spent the week reading and writing poetry.  We have learned about Acrostic, Cinquain and Haiku poetry.  We have been learning about words with five sounds in Fundations.  Please encourage your child to continue to practice his/her trick words at home.
We completed the CSSU Science Inquiry Task this week.  Our task required us to sort rocks in a variety of ways to help ECHO create a Geology Museum Display.  When we were finished we had to write a letter to ECHO describing our recommendations for their display.  Everyone worked hard and enjoyed this task.
We also enjoyed a terrific Hands On Nature lesson about Owls today.  We learned about all the ways Owls have adapted to their environment and had an opportunity to dissect owl pellets.  Thank you to all our Hands On Nature parents for this great lesson!
We look forward to our visit from author/illustrator Loren Long on Tuesday.  I look forward to meeting with everyone during conferences to celebrate your child's learning!

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Dr. Seuss Day!

Tuesday was a big day at SCS with our Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Celebration  We enjoyed a school assembly in the morning to kick off our fun day!  Tom Messner, a Channel 5 meteorologist, joined us during our assembly and read one of his favorite Dr. Seuss books.  We spent the day doing a read-a-thon in our pajamas and enjoyed many different books from guest readers.  Mr. Madden, Ms. Beaumont, Vasanthi Meyette, Heather and Miss Niles all read to our class.
We have been learning about geometry and working with shapes in math this week.  We have also been reading and writing poetry.  We continue to learn about closed syllables in Fundations.  We began a unit about cultural geography in Social Studies.
On Tuesday, March 19th, we will have a visit from author Loren Long.  Please check this week's Friday Folder for an order form for books written by Loren Long.  If you would like your child to receive an autographed copy please complete the form and return it to school before March 19th.
We have had some problems with missing snow pants in our classroom.  Please check around your house to make sure your child has not brought home the wrong snow pants.  There are many friends with black snow pants and it is very easy to accidentally grab the wrong pair!
Please be sure to sign up up for a spring conference if you haven't already done so.  They are scheduled for March 18 and 19 after school.

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February PTO Minutes

Convened about 6PM

reviewed and approved January minutes

Treasurer's Report

Directory sales are closed

Red Barn Fundraiser complete @ $2200

Donations are up to $3800.

Fall Grant purchases are starting to come in and are being expensed

Principal's Report:

Discussed the winners of the Geo Bee, our Thai Scholoar visiting, and the Green Ribbon School nomination

8th Grade transitions are starting:

-band students visiting

-counselors visiting

-Chinese teacher visited SCS last week even.

Kids are excited.

Many kids took part in the District Music Festival, instrumentalists as well as vocalists.  Event was held at Essex.

TeenOps : a program that is really taking off where CVU students are tutoring SCS students in many different areas of instruction from math to clarinet.  Hope is to make this part of the homework club eventually

Received grants for Gretchen Garvey and her Mindfulness Training, as well as a large grant for the Flynn Theater Arts Collaborative that is coming in the spring

School musical in mid March

Professional development abounds this month: Common Core, local science curriculum development, Algebra alignment, School Safety training in response to the Newtown events, bullying/harassment training, social studies curriculum mapping, and math best practices.

Pati asked a question of the crowd: what was the topic of the newsletter.  This was an attempt to see if there was any way that communication of events at school could be transmitted better.

Fundraising:

Dynamic Dates will run mid March to April 1

Flower POwer: Apr 5-15

Comedy Night for adults only on 10 May.  At the Lantern in Charlotte, all proceeds split between Charlotte and SCS PTO.  Was some talk of using the proceeds of this to pay for the needed mulch on the playground.

Fundspending:

John Gailmor, Spring Grants, and a small portion of the Flynn Arts are coming up

Calendars:

Get out the Vote calls and GO VOTE for town meeting on 5 March.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey Diaglog night on 20 March

Need two volunteers:

1. Alice will be leaving the PTO this year.  We are looking for a new co-chair to move in and take over a portion of the duties of the co-chair.  Contact Randy or Alice with questions

2. Someone to help with the Genevieve gift wrap fundraiser

So many thank yous:

Margo Austen for a great presentation

Alice and Lynda Maitland for the international potluck

Kim Schmitt, Dawn Fragola and Valerie Richardson for freezing I mean helping for Red Barn Distribution.

And in closing...

GET OUT TO VOTE on 5 MARCH!!!

Buley Address Change

> Drew and Caitlin Buley - new address/phone update:
>
> 520 Sycamore Street
>
> 802-497-0045 home
> 603-937-1080 cell (Deb/David)
>