Class Newsletter

November 8, 2010

Hi Families,

Here is the class newsletter – please get in touch with any questions or comments!

~ We are working on a Book Buddy Sing-a-long with our first grade buddies, organized by Mrs. Scudder-Chase. Stay tuned for the date of this little show.

~ We are signed up to communicate with a class in Vacaville, CA through epals. I posted a profile this summer and just got hooked up with a class. We will be emailing once a month in Tech class. Please be sure to sign the permission slip that went home.

~ We still have our pen-paper pen pals in Orlando, FL as well. We have practiced “friendly letter” format and look forward to our next package from them.

~ Yet another pen pal opportunity presented itself to me recently. The daughter of Darryl Bloom, our previous school counselor, is in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria. We have started a pen pal relationship with students that she works with there, and we hope to Skype with them as well.

~ Our Inventions essays are fantastic! They are due this Friday, November 12. Some kids will hopefully share their essays at an all-school assembly!

~ I attended a Readers Workshop conference last week and will be making changes to our Literacy block in the coming weeks. Check out readersworkshop.org to see what it’s all about!

~ We have an ELMO overhead projector in our classroom now and we will be able to use it starting this week!

~ Jennifer Bean (Antonia’s mom) and I have started work on a Service Learning Project for this class. See kidsconsortium.org to learn about SLPs in general. I have had many training sessions over the years with this organization, and have worked closely with Brendan and Matt McLane, the district SLP leaders. Each school year I have implemented a project based on sustainability, a personal interest of mine. Jen and I are tossing around the idea of having kids look at our school trash and the number of disposable food containers that are used. We are thinking that kids could sell Lunchskins (lunchskins.com), which are cute little reusable fabric bags to students to reduce the trash that we generate as a school. We’d like to incorporate field trips to the Williston Recycling Center and the ReStore in Barre. There are unlimited academic opportunities that could be aligned to this. Stay tuned for more info on this exciting project!

~ We are being given just ONE day for parent-teacher-student conferences this fall - November 23. It will be a challenge to fit all of the conferences in. Some grade levels are having 15 minute conferences, and with 22 students I’m not sure how else to handle the schedule. I am willing to have some conferences in the weeks after Thanksgiving break (in the mornings), but I need to know families’ schedules before I set the times up. Please email me (or send in a note, or call me) with times that you can meet on the 23rd. I will take it from there and let you know what I have set up. Please also note if you don’t plan on attending or would prefer a phone conference or if you cannot meet on the 23rd.

Upcoming Events –

November 9 – Supreme Court tour
November 12 – State House tour
November 16 – Vermont History Museum
November 18 - Kellogg Hubbard Library - Worry Stone presentation / reading discussion for Native American month
November 19 – 4 Winds
November 22 – Teacher Inservice
November 23 – parent/teacher/student conferences
November 24 to 28 – Thanksgiving break


As always, thank you!

Melissa