Hands On Nature

This week we learned about worms and soil during our Hands On Nature lesson.  We had an opportunity to observe and touch worms and spent some time outside digging them up from our garden beds.  We also listen to a puppet show about worms and created pictures using crayons and dirt.  Those picture are hanging on the bulletin board outside our classroom.  Many thanks to Anna and Ben's parents for such a great experience! 
Yesterday we met Miss Niles' class in the computer lab to begin our buddy blogging.  Miss Niles' Second Graders partnered up with us and showed us how to create a post.  We posted about our learning in Hands On Nature.  I sent an email home yesterday with information and directions about how to get on your child's blog to read it and comment.  Next week we will be spending more time in the computer lab with Miss Niles' class learning how to make comments.
Today was a busy day for us.  We had a Harvest Party in the morning which mixed all three classes for some fun activities in each of the Firefly classrooms.  We also enjoyed a delicious snack.  A big thank you to those parents who contributed to our Harvest Party.  Our afternoon was spent in "Mix It Up" activities.  During this time our class was paired with a Middle School class and we spent some time outside doing a fun scavenger hunt.  It was a great way to end our busy and fun day.
We finished reading Red Clover books this week and voted on our favorite.  It was a landslide!  The Day the Crayons Quit was the winner with 14 votes.  Four other books got 1 vote each.
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween and weekend!
:)Deb

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Picture Retakes Monday, October 27th!

Please check Friday Folders for pictures today.  Picture retakes will be this Monday, the 27th of October.  If you would like your child to have a retake, please return the pictures with him/her on Monday.
We have been working hard to finish up our Small Moments unit in Writer's Workshop.  We have been learning about ways to bring our stories to life through unfreezing characters, telling our stories in small steps and including what our characters feel and think.  In Reader's Workshop we continue to focus on comprehension strategies and setting goals for ourselves as readers.  We will be mixing into new reading groups next week.  We have also been reading this year's Red Clover books.  Red Clover books are books are nominated and voted on by Vermont teachers and librarians.
We are finishing up our second math unit next week.  This unit has focused primarily on the development of addition strategies through the use of dice and dominoes.  It has been amazing to see the growth in number sense in our classroom over the past month.  We will begin a new unit that will continue with addition and will also focus on subtraction.
Please make sure your child comes to school Wednesday prepared for the outdoors.  We will be having our Hands On Nature lesson and will probably be going outside.
Have a great weekend!
:)Deb

SCS Grand Rounds for Parents

Option 1 - Shelburne Community School  EEE and Literacy / Math Programs

Invites families to celebrate an evening of exploration

Who: Shelburne Families with children from newborn to age five (children invited and encouraged to attend)

What: An evening of activities to celebrate early literacy and math skills

Date: Wed October 22nd, 2014   5:30pm – 7:00pm

Agenda:

• 5:30 – 6:00 – Free family dinner (no childcare available) :  pizza, soup, salad, fruit and a drink in the SCS cafeteria
• 6:00 – 6:15 – Introduction and overview
• 6:15 – 7:00 – Explore and play with your children at learning stations in library and cafeteria
• 6:00 - 7:30 - Part2 Childcare available for all school-age students

Option 2 - Shelburne Community School Counseling Department

Invites families to join us for an educational evening learning about Cybersafety for Parents

Who: any and all Shelburne Community School Families (info will be relevant for all parents K-12)

What: Presentation about Cybersafety - what every parent needs to know about keeping your family electronically safe - presented by Corporal Tom Nash from the Burlington Police Dept and CUSI

Free Childcare provided for all students in grades K and above

(pre-K parents and children are encouraged to attend the Early Education sessions described above)

Date: Wed October 22nd, 2014   5:30pm – 7:00pm

Agenda:

• 5:30 – 6:00 – Free family dinner (no childcare available):  pizza, soup, salad, fruit and a drink in the SCS cafeteria

• 6:00 – 7:00 – Presentation by Corporal Nash
• 7:00 - 7:30 – Questions and Answers
• 6:00 - 7:30 - Part2 Childcare available fro all school-age students

We would also encourage everyone to set aside 5:15 - 7:30 on Wed. Nov 19 when our monthly Grand Rounds for Parents will feature a screening of the documentary film Hungry Heart, looking at the issue of opiate addiction in Vermont.   The movie will be followed by a discussion facilitated by Bob Bick from the Howard Center.   

October PTO Meeting Minutes

October PTO notes & news (full minutes are posted on the PTO page of the SCS website)

Mark your calendars

•   Monday 10/20:  FALL FUNDRAISER ORDERS DUE!

•   Tuesday 10/21:  Unified Arts Curriculum night  from 6:30-7:30pm

•   Friday 10/24:  Flying Pig Bookstore kick-off event--spread the word about our first Shelburne Community Days!!  Digital copy of flyer will be sent to teachers.

•   Friday 10/24-Sunday 11/2:  Shelburne Community Days--Flying Pig Book Sale

•   Walking Wednesdays--every Wednesday in October

•   Tuesday 11/11:  SCS Budget Forum after PTO meeting

•   Saturday 11/15:  Shelburne Community Days--Open Arms Cafe

•   Wednesday 11/19:  Fall Fundraiser product pick-up 2:45-6:30pm in the small gym

Help Wanted

•   Fall Fundraiser product distribution.  Wednesday 11/19 from 2:45-6:30pm.  Contact Jen Cairns jencairns0408@gmail.com

Principal's report highlights

•   Endeavor team--worked to stock the the bare shelves at the Shelburne Food Shelf, and participated in the Hike for Hunger--raising $922! to food shelf.

•   Thanks to FEED chairperson Erica Frey-Delaportas for her commitment to a great program! 

•   Everybody Wins!  Currently serving 8 students in this mentoring program, but would love to add another 8 if we can find more mentors!  If you are interested in reading and talking with a 1-5 grader every Tuesday throughout the school year at lunchtime, please contact Jen Marx jmarx88@yahoo.com

•   Grand Rounds for parents--39 parents attended the September presentation on effective discipline by Maris Rose.  Upcoming presentations include Cyber Safety (10/22), Hungry Heart viewing and discussion (11/19), and a 4-part parenting series by Maris Rose (dates to come). Free babysitting by Part2.

Treasurer's report

Voted and approved the 2014-2015 PTO budget--a fairly conservative budget set by Courtney, Lisa, and Randy based on trends over last 3 years. 

Fundraising update

•   Soccer concessions--$1800

•   Fall fundraiser update--ORDERS/MONEY DUE BACK TO TEACHERS ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 20!! 

•   Direct donations--over $2,000!

•   Bowl-a-thon date changed to February 6. 

•   Price Chopper--register your advantage card, and earn money for our library with every purchase!

•   Hannafords Helps Schools--Now through 12/6.  Earn $3 reward certificate for every 4 participating items purchased.  Bring certificates to main office.

•   We encourage you to shop locally, but if you also shop at Amazon, please enter the site using the link on the PTO page of the SCS website.  We earn a portion of each purchase!!

•   Box Tops for Education-- Please cut out the 'Box Tops for Education' symbol from various General Mills products and drop them in your child's team collection box.

Fund Spending Update

•   The 2014-2015 Directory is here!!  Printing was 1/2 the price of last year!

•   Fall grants committee meeting--November 19 at 3:15 in computer lab/c-wing (PTO meeting space.  All parents are welcome to come review teacher requests and decide how to give our PTO money away!  Usually 1 1/2 hours.

Other Business

•   Concept for playground is on display in lobby

•   Winter Gear drive had begun!  Please donate all sizes, all winter gear!

•   Like us on Facebook!  We have over 250 likes. 

•   Sign up for the List Serve (now with 230 parents and teachers on the list!)  This list serve is meant for everyone to be able to post to and here are the instructions:

            1) Go to the list serve at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/scspto

            2) Log in

            3) Once you are logged in, you should see everything that has been posted then at the               very top there is red button that says "New Topic"

            4) Once you click on that, it lets you type out the subject area and your message and                   then you just hit "Post"

•   Facilities Improvement Update--The school board will be reviewing and voting on the proposed facilities improvement plan on Tuesday, October 21.  If they approve the proposal, we will see it on the ballot as a bond vote--separate from the school budget.  The 11.2 million dollar plan (the lowest cost of the 6 options) includes: 

•   new roof

•   new windows

•   new HVAC system installed on the roof

•   central hallways in "D & E wing" (the open classrooms to right and left of the library) to allow for larger classrooms with more natural light as well as closing and locking doors in every classroom. 

•   The central hallways will mean that students no longer have to use the breezeway to walk from one end of the building to the other!!  If approved by school board and then voters, construction would begin in October 2015 and take 18 months to complete.

Please share your support of these much needed improvements with our school board and community members!

           

Thank you, thank you:

•   Cate Cross and Catherine Collette for your efforts with the soccer concessions

•   Amy Knight and Dawn Fragola for your efforts with the Newberry Cup

•   Sherry Senior for organizing and running the craft corner at the Newberry Cup

•   Jen Cairns, Meagan Downey, and Ginger Williamson for visiting each team in the school to kick off the Fall Fundraiser

•   Corrine Levinthal for your hard work on the directory, and Colleen Wemple for data entry

•   Sherry Senior and Shannon Baird for the beautiful bulletin boards

Champlain College Students Read Aloud at SCS

Dear families,

Christine Hertz and Joey Adams (teachers at SCS) teach a “Children’s Literature and Expressive Arts” class at Champlain College. We have invited our Champlain students to visit Shelburne Community School on October 29, 2014. The purpose of this visit is to immerse our students into our bountiful resources of literature, and provide them with an opportunity to read aloud literature tochildren.

We would like to invite your child to join us on October 29th, 6:00-7:00 p.m. at the SCS library.  Our Champlain College students will read aloud picture books to the children, and we will enjoy cookies, apples, and lemonade. 

Please email one of us  by Sunday, October 26 if your child will be able to join us (jadams@cssu.org or chertz@cssu.org). We really appreciate your child's participation in this important event for our students.

Thanks, 

Christine & Joey

Unified Arts Night

Please join the K-8 Unified Arts' Teachers for their Curriculum Night on Tuesday, October 21st, from 6:30-7:30PM.
Please meet in the cafeteria prior to going to the classrooms.
The evening will include hand's on activities, demonstrations and performances.  Looking forward to seeing both parents and students!

Another Busy Week

This week we used dominoes to explore different fact families and work on our fact fluency.  We learned several different domino games and will be playing those during our work stations time.  We have also been learning more about tens and ones during Number Corner, and finding different ways to represent numbers.
Our Writer's Workshop focused on storytelling this week.  We talked about planning, writing and revising our stories.  We are working hard to write "Small Moment" stories and include lots of descriptive words and details about our small moments that help the readers of our writing really visualize our stories.
Our Reader's Workshop is busy with many different activities.  We are spending time in Guided Reading Groups, writing in our Response Journals, and practicing reading alone and with partners.  During this time some of us practice our fluency with adult volunteers, some of us go to the library to do activities with Mrs. Matthews and some of us read to a couple of 5th graders who join us every Thursday and Friday to help us grow as readers.  Eventually this will also become a time when our 5th grade helpers will work with everyone on a rotating basis to create blog posts on our individual blogs.  This week our mini-lessons focused on comprehension skills.  We learned about visualizing, main ideas and details.  We practice the skills we learn about in mini-lessons when we read and write in our response journals during our quiet reading time.
We continue to learn about digraphs (sh, ck ch, th, wh)  in Fundations.  We have been practicing writing words with digraphs and have also been practicing writing sentences that begin with a capital letter and end with punctuation.
This week's homework will not be due for two weeks due to the short week students will be having next week.  I am asking students to choose six things from the homework that went home today rather than the usual three that they are usually asked to do to make up for the two week time frame.  `I have been enjoying seeing the creative things that are coming in for homework.  Those projects create a real window for me to get to know your children better.   
I hope everyone has a terrific weekend and I look forward to meeting with all of you on Monday and Tuesday!
:)Deb

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Shelburne Farms Field Trip

This week we had a special presentation from Ashley McAvey in Miss Blair's room about elephants and their dwindling numbers on our planet.  We learned that they are a "keystone species" and play a critical role in the operation of ecosystems across Africa and Asia.  We watched a movie about elephants and drew pictures to send to Governor Shumlin.  Vermont is working to be the third state to ban the sale and trade of ivory.
We also visited Shelburne Farms this week to do some team building activities.  We broke into small groups and explored the farm looking for items that were on our scavenger hunt list.  We spent the last half hour of our field trip at the farm barn exploring.  It was a terrific morning of fun.
Please check this week's Friday Folder for a packet of information about the PTO's Gift Wrap Sale.  80% of sales from this event goes directly back to our team. 
Here's a few pictures from our field trip and our share this week.  For more pictures, go to Mrs. Nakhleh and Miss Blair's blogs.  It was difficult to get pictures of everyone as we were all split up in different groups.
Have a great weekend!
:)Deb

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