Good Luck Hisham!

We enjoyed several Mindfulness lessons from Ms. Garvey this week.  She helped us become mindful listeners, and practice mindful breathing.  We also learned how to zip up and sit tall.
We spent the week working with partners to create our final projects for our Cultural Geography unit.  Everyone had a chance to present their projects to the Firefly Team.  The projects compared and contrasted a tradition/celebration of ours with a tradition/celebration from another culture.
We have continued with our Farm unit in math and have been busy buying animals and putting up fencing for our farms.  We will continue with this unit after Spring Break.  We have also been exploring a variety of subtraction strategies.
We all finished writing speeches focused on something we would like to change our classmates' opinions about this week.  We worked hard to polish these speeches up and get them ready to present.  On Thursday  we presented them to our classmates.  Everyone did a terrific job!  This will mark the end of our Opinion Writing unit.  When we return from Spring Break we will spend the remainder of the school year on narrative writing.  This will connect to Reader's Workshop where we will be discussing story elements and strategies good readers use to get to know characters and stories better.
There will be no homework packet over Spring Break. If you would like your child to do homework during this time,  please have your child use the break to continue to practice their trick words and math facts.
We said good-bye to our friend Hisham this week.  His family is moving to Tanzania for five years.  We will miss Hisham and feel very lucky to have had him be a part of our classroom community for this short period of time.  After Spring Break we will welcome a new classmate.  Her name is Solie.  We all look forward to getting to know Solie and welcoming her into our classroom.
 On Tuesday, April 30th we will be visiting the Flynn Theater to see a performance called "Zuma, Zuma.  This performance blends acrobatics, dance and music to celebrate the richness of Africa cultures.  We look forward to seeing these Kenya and Tanzania trained performers!
Have a terrific Spring Break!

Free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

April PTO Minutes

PTO NOTES & NEWS FOR APRIL 2013

There was much discussion about the TRAFFIC ISSUE IN THE CIRCLE.   One issue being that nobody is allowed to stop in the fire lane the other is how to effectively and safely manage traffic in the circle during drop-off and pick-up.  Lots of ideas were discussed and the principals will be considering them and looking for a viable solution.

The DYNAMIC DATES fundraiser made $1494!  Thanks to everyone who participated and congratulations to the winners of the fabulous dates!

The HANNAFORD HELPS SCHOOLS program brought in $666. 

The FLOWER POWER FUNDRAISER is happening now.  You should have received a brochure from your youngest child.  If not and would like one please contact Randy Sweeney (sweeneyrs@gmail.com).  Orders are due by April 15.

The PTO GRANT COMMITTEE gave out over $5400 in grants to teachers and staff.  Grants included instruments for 6-8 music program, middle school history texts, ipads/ebooks and itunes vouchers for the library, headphones for the computer lab, new books for 3-5 grade classrooms and recess equipment.

A NIGHT OF COMEDY - Josie Leavitt, comedian and owner of the Flying Pig Bookstore has organized a night of comedy at the Old Lantern in Charlotte on Friday, May 10 at 7:30p.  The event will benefit the Shelburne and Charlotte PTO's and will feature local comedians including Josie Leavitt and our own 1st/2nd grade teacher Sally Stevens!  Come out to be entertained and support the PTO.  This event is ADULT ONLY.

HIKE IT!  BIKE IT!  - Walk to School Wednesdays will be happening during the month of May.  Meet at the town green at 7:30a to walk to school.  A new biking effort is encouraging students to bike to school from home on Thursdays and Fridays with friends or family.

PTO sponsored, visiting Artist JON GAILMOR is here this week working with many K-4 classes and all 5th grade classes songwriting and learning about music and performing.  The 5th graders will be performing their original songs on Thursday, April 11 at 6p.

This month the school conducted another SCHOOL WIDE INTRUDER DRILL that confirmed that staff and students have a clear picture of how to respond appropriately to such an emergency.

Hands On Nature

Today we enjoyed a Hands On Nature lesson about animal and plant defenses.  We talked about different animals like lizards who can lose their tail.  We also talked about some different plants that have built in defenses.  Ask your child what they learned in Hands On Nature today.  A big thank you to our Hands On Nature parents.
Earlier this week we had a visit from John Gailmore.  He sang several songs to us and had us join in for one or two.  His final song was a lullaby he had written for his daughter when she was little to help her get to sleep. Yesterday we attended an SCS concert where 5th graders shared songs they wrote with Mr. Gailmore.
This week the class all wrote persuasive letters to me to convince me to give them another short recess every day.  Wow, everyone had terrific reasons for why they should have another recess!  Interestingly enough, there were quite a few students who don't want an extra recess.  Since the majority of the class would like another one and gave such strong reasons why, I have decided to start giving the class an additional short recess when possible for the remainder of the school year.
Next week Ms. Garvey will be visiting our classroom Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to teach our class about mindfulness.  She will be doing several short lessons about this topic and teaching us breathing techniques we can use to calm our bodies.
A reminder from Mrs. Burritt about the 1/2 Conert:
Our concert is finally here! (Tuesday, April 16^th) Please have your son/daughter arrive in the cafeteria at 6:00PM. (Please, no earlier) Please have your child dressed appropriately. (No shorts or loose fitting shoes please) Thanks!

This free picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Farms!

This week we finished up our geometry unit in Math.  Today we had Math Studio and pushed our math thinking to explore equality and relational thinking.  Your children worked very hard and were truly engaged as mathematicians!  They provided a wealth of learning for our K-2 faculty!  Next week we will begin our Farm Unit.  This is another integrated unit that combines learning about money, place value and mapping with learning about farming.
In social studies, we have been continuing our cultural geography unit.  Last week, the classes read about celebrations in other cultures around the world and used a Venn diagram to compare the traditions of those cultures to their own.  This week, the students used Hyperstudio in the computer labs to create a slide of a tradition that is followed in the culture of their families. 
We continue to work on strategies to figure out tricky words in Reader's Workshop and are writing persuasive pieces in our Opinion Writing unit for Writer's Workshop.  We will continue with these unit next week.
Our friend Ted, who was with us in the beginning of the year, visited us this week to read a book and teach us about social skills.  He brought along his puppet friend and read fun books to us.  It was great to see Ted again.
We also had a chance to do a winter taste test this week with project FEED.  We cut pears, grated and tasted some spices on Monday.  These were used to create pear compote which we had the opportunity to try today.
We look forward to the 1/2 Music Concert this week!

Music Concert Information

April 5, 2013

Dear Parents:

Just a reminder: The 1st and 2nd grade students will perform their program on Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Please join us in the SCS large gymnasium at 6:30PM as we perform a variety of songs. Students should arrive in the cafeteria at 6PM. (Only 5th grade assistants should arrive earlier)

Our program will shown live, on channel 16, as well as over the Internet, through a password-protected site! Special thanks to RETN for their media support. Since this program will also be available for viewing afterwards, you may wish to come and enjoy the program, and let our amazing camera crew take care of the videotaping!

Please share the following link with those who cannot be at our program!

The live stream channel on UStream.com is called "SCS Concerts."

There will be three steps to joining the concert stream:

1. Because it is a private stream, people will need to enter the following URL directly into their browsers:

http://ustre.am/HigO

2. From there you will be asked to enter the password on the "Password Protected Show" screen:

the password is "burritt" (all lower case)

Then click on the "Let me in" button

3. Then on the SCS Concerts channel player screen click on the gray field and enter the password again under "Password Protected Channel"

same password - "burritt"

Then click on the "Send" button

From there you will see the stream.

Hope that's not too complicated, but that's how we can protect the stream with a password.

Thank you.

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                        Diana Burritt