Upcoming dates

Deliver poems to Bear Pond Books March 22

Conferences March 23

Procedure Essays due March 30

Geo Bee March 30

All school Assembly about the Power of Three April 6

Project Outreach 5th Grade Orchestra April 10

Geo Bee April 13

Lettuce Planting Trip May 8

4Winds May 11

GeoBee May 18

Transition Meeting at MSMS May 24th

All School Environmental Assembly May 25

No school May 28

MPS District Choral concert May 29

MPS District Band Concert May 31

Boston Trip June 1

MPS District Orchestra June 5

4Winds June 8

5th grade graduation celebration June 13

5th Grade Activities/Pool Party June 14

Last day of school - June 15

Cut the Waste!

Ms. Pierce's class is involved in a two-year Service Learning project to improve our sustainability. We've done a bunch of stuff, including identifying ways to reduce our waste. We did a waste audit and it showed that a lot of our trash was paper towels and napkins. We asked Mr. Keller, our custodian, and Gwen Lyons-Baker of Central VT Solid Waste Management District - she’s our community partner - if there were some way to recycle paper towels. Guess what!? They said “Yes”! Our school is the first school in a state capital to do this program to recycle paper towels

. It’s called the Power of 3 Program.

Here’s how it works. Mr. Keller will set up special blue bags so when we use paper towels, they will be recycled instead of going into the trash. Casella picks up the School’s recycling and brings it to the recycling plant. Then the reusable stuff is shipped to SCA Tissue which turns it into cleaning products made from 100% recycled materials. They ship the products to Foley Distributing, who sells new paper towels to places like our school. We get our paper now from all around the country but when we switch over, we will reduce our carbon footprint a lot because all the paper will come just from Glens Falls, NY.

We are also switching brands to paper towels and to toilet paper made from 100% recycled paper towels.

Another thing. We are getting new paper towel dispensers. One reason is that the ones we have now are automatic and that takes a lot of batteries. Mr. Keller has a huge bucket of dead batteries. We are going to go to the older style with no electricity.

OK. Field trip time! Mr. Keller needed to get training on how to set up the paper towel recycling. This trip was really for him to learn about the recyclable paper towels but he offered to take us because he knew that our class (Mrs. Pierce’s class) has done a lot of work reducing waste in the school. Mrs. Pierce held an essay contest to decide who could go and we (Chloe and Gabe) won!

First we went to Foley to see the new paper towel dispenser. We were the only ones on the tour and we got to see their warehouse where they store all their different types of cleaning supplies. Oh also, they fed us a pizza lunch and treated us very well!

Then we went to Casella’s new Zero-Sort recycling facility in Rutland. It can recycle 15 tons in one hour and only takes 14 people to run. Casella’s Zero-Sort program helps to get more people recycling. There used to be 12 different bins for different types of materials and people didn’t want to take the time so now the Zero-Sort program means people just dump it all in the same bin. We don’t send our stuff to the new facility in Rutland but if we did we could recycle milk cartons and juice boxes.

The field trip was the day of the opening of the new Casella plant in Rutland. Governor Shumlin showed up to cut the ribbon but he was really late. It was cool meeting the Governor, it was the best part of the day! Next to pizza, maybe.

Update: Mr. Keller has installed all the new towel dispensers. We are getting pretty close to starting the whole recycling project. We want to get closer to being a zero-waste place. Our teacher is CVSWD’s Zero Hero!

-Gabe and Chloe

We will keep an eye on this!

Vermont moves toward MANDATORY RECYCLING!

Reading to end Racism

Here is our reader, Paul Erlbaum, talking about Frederick Douglass.

pH testing with Renee in Science today

We conducted antacid tests today in Science. Kids had cups of vinegar as models for stomach acid and tried items like Tums, baking soda and milk of magnesia to see how they changed the pH.

Upcoming Events! Edited 1/24

1/23 New schedule starts (Content 11:45-12:30, FIT 1:35-2:05)

1/26 Lesson with Gwen

1/27 Geo-Bee

1/30 Yoga with Frank (an Occupational Therapy intern), every Monday 10:30-10:45

2/6 Half of Boston $ due

2/6 Field trip to the Flynn

2/7 Young Writers Day

2/8 Reading to End Racism

2/10 Opinion Essays due

2/10 Geo-Bee

2/13 - 2/17 5th Grade Puberty Week

2/17 4Winds

2/27 - 3/7 Vacation

3/16 4Winds

3/20 Mrs Pierce scoring writing in the morning

3/30 Geo-Bee

4/13 Geo-Bee

5/11 4Winds

5/18 Geo-Bee

6/1 Boston

6/8 4Winds

Upcoming Events

1/16 Inservice
1/17 Mrs Pierce at afternoon writing conference
1/19 Lesson with Gwen
1/26 Lesson with Gwen

Making Holiday Crafts with Gwen!

Our newly upholstered chair!

Practicing "stunt jumps" at recess!

Thanks Carolyn!

Many thanks to Colin's mom (who owns a business called Carolyn's Custom Slipcovers) for helping us keep our beloved pink chair out of the landfill. We bought it last year at the ReStore so it's already had a few lives but is in desperate need of repair. The kids took it apart and will be fixing it with Carolyn's guidance.

Relaxing during Literacy

Gabe, Colin, Luke and Will help each other with their Vocab lesson

Counting Crackers!

Here's Riley counting crackers with Mrs. Fraser as we learned all about packaging/cost/waste in our lesson today with Gwen and Sarah from the CVSWMD.

Extended Math

For folks who are interested in their kids having more/different/enriching/challenging Math at home - here is a website that has been used at our school for years.

http://nzmaths.co.nz

We hiked in Harrison Woods between our two NECAP tests today!

Read Aloud

We are reading A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle as a read-aloud book. AMAZING discussions are taking place in Room 219!

Our First Lesson with Gwen and Sarah!

We did an activity around what items can be reused, composted or recycled!

Upcoming Events

9/23 School Photos

9/26 CVSWMD lesson

9/26 First Chorus class

9/28 Trash Dump

9/30 Geo-Bee

10/3-10/6 NECAP

10/7 Mrs Pierce at Science training with Renee Affolter (and my 40th birthday...)

10/10 FIT begins

10/13 CVSWMD lesson

10/14 Geo-Bee

10/19 Open House

10/20 Teacher Inservice

10/21 Parent Teacher Conferences

10/25 CVSWMD lesson

10/28 4 WINDS

11/1 CVSWMD lesson

11/4 Geo-Bee

11/18 Geo Bee, 4 WINDS

11/23-11/25 No School

12/9 Geo-Bee

12/16 Geo-Bee, 4 WINDS

Service Learning Project

Here are the lessons we'll be doing with Gwen and Sarah from the Central Vt Solid Waste Management District. Our class is so excited!

CVSWMD School Zero Waste Program - MRS. PIERCE'S 5TH GRADE

Union Elementary Zero Waste Lesson Schedule

Monday September 26 - 10:45-11:45

• Intro to Soild Waste • Voyage of the Mobro – read and discuss • Recycling Review/ 3R’s activity

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 - TRASH DUMP!!!!

Tuesday October 4 – 10:45-11:45

• It’s a Wrap – into to packaging and activity

Thursday October 13 – 10:45-11:45

• Diggin’ it up! – Imaginary Archeological Dig

Tuesday October 25 – 10:45-11:45

• I want it! I need it! A lesson in overconsumption

What a wonderful start!

Here are Gabe, Luke and Willem discussing a Time for Kids article. Students - in the comments section, tell what you've loved about fifth grade so far!