Welcome back!

We were happy to see smiling faces on Monday after what is generally called our "Spring Break"!  If you were lucky enough to be at home last week, we're sure you would agree it was more like a winter break.  Thankfully, this week we've seen a bit of sun and warmer temperatures.  We got right back to work and made some great progress this week.  We have just a few important updates to share in regard to SBAC testing and Green-Up Day!

SBAC
As you know, EMES will be administering the required SBAC tests during the first two weeks of May.  For our third graders, this involves five test sessions.  Two for math, and three for English/Language Arts.  Each session generally runs between 45-60 minutes, but it also varies on the student so we allow ample time within our day.  Our testing dates and starting times are as follows:

• Wednesday, May 2-9:00 a.m.Math Assessment #1
• Thursday, May 3-10:30 a.m. Math Assessment #2
• Tuesday, May 8-10:30 a.m. English/Language Arts Assessment #1
• Wednesday, May 9-9:30 a.m. English/Language Arts Assessment #2
• Thursday, May 10-1:00 p.m. English/Language Arts Assessment #3

It would be a HUGE help if you can avoid any student appointments on these days, as well as late and early arrivals.  We have completed the necessary practice tests with students, and feel they are well prepared for their first online assessments.  We have talked about the tests being just one measure of student progress and that students are just expected to do their best.  We do not anticipate a lot of angst or stress around the tests, but please let us know if your child has any concerns.  We're happy to help put them at ease.

Green-Up EMES Friday, May 4th

We'll be working with our 1/2 grade buddies cleaning up trash on the rec field and around the school in the afternoon.  Please help your child remember proper shoes and gloves for this work.  Did you know that Green-Up first began in Vermont in 1970?  Each year approximately 40,000 bags of trash are collected during the Vermont Green-Up day! EMES day will be the warm-up for the state day on Saturday, May 5th.  

Other reminders:

• The wet weather on the playground continues-a second pair of shoes is a must, and having a spare pair of clothes is not a bad idea!
• We're gearing up for our study of East Montpelier!  This study will include learning about our town and it's "Past, Present, and ".  The unit will kick-off the week of May 14th.  We're excited to be working with the Vermont Folklife Center out of Middlebury this year on a collaborative video project.  Students will be learning about how to conduct and carry out interviews with local residents and business owners about our beautiful town.  If you have a suggestion about a person or business we should interview, please don't hesitate to let us know.  We'll share more information about the unit as we get going!
• April's sharing continues through next week.  The May sharing calendar and assignments will be shared with students and updated here on our blog next week. 
• We've launched two new literacy units this week.  Character Studies in reader's workshop, and Adapting and Writing Fairy Tales in writer's workshop.  Please ask your child about these units, and what he/she is working on.  More specifically, you can ask them about the book Because of Winn-Dixie and the characters, Opal, Winn-Dixie and The Preacher.  You can also ask what kind of tale your child is writing and how their story is going, there are some pretty interesting tales being written!

Have a great weekend!  

Updates before break!

Thank you so much for your attendance at last week's Student Led Conferences.  We had 100% attendance! Our students were so proud to share their learning with you!  What a celebration of this amazing group of third graders!  Please remember, we are more than happy to meet with you if you have any further questions.  We feel we touched base with every family, but we also know new things come up in the Spring!

Here's our academic update!

Literacy
First, we'll conclude our mystery unit on Friday by teaching our first and second-grade buddies key ideas about being mystery readers.  Students are planning a lesson to teach buddies that will include many of the ideas we've learned.  For example:
Readers of Mysteries...

• Ask what is the mystery here?
• Ask who are the crime solvers?
• Ask who are the suspects?
• Question whether suspects have motive and/or opportunity.
• Pay attention to clues.
• Pause to retell the story.
• Reread parts that are tricky.
• Read on "High Alert!"
• Think about how mystery books tend to go.
• Look out for "red herrings"!

Second, we've finished up our opinion writing unit.  Although some students still have opinion pieces to share after break, the bulk of our classroom unit in this genre is complete.  Our next writing unit will be focused on team work in writing and illustrating traditional tales. We'll be working with Ms. Arlyn in both library and technology classes to create a variety of narrative tales.  These could be:  fairy tales, folks tales, tall tales, fractured fairy tales, trickster tales, etc.  The unit promises to be exciting and fun!  We'll also study these tales in reader's workshop. 

Math
We are continuing our work with multiplication by focusing on multiplying two-digit by one-digit numbers.  We are working with decade numbers, and beginning to incorporate other two-digit numbers in our equations.  Currently, students build, draw, and solve these problems using a strategy called Partial Product Recording.  This strategy allows students use their knowledge of their basic multiplication facts and place value to find the product. 

Partial Product                                    30                                                        14
                                                           x   6                                                     x   3
                                                                0   (ones)                                           12  (ones)
                                                           180    (18 tens)                                       30  ( 3 tens)
                                                           180                                                         42

Students have been working hard to learn and gain fluency of their multiplication facts, which supports their work with more complex multiplication problems such as these.  They have done a great job with NX0, NX1, NX2, NX5, and NX10.  Students have made super progress with their NX9 and NX4 facts.  It would be great to help your son or daughter practice these 9's and 4's families at home.  Ask your son or daughter to tell you about the "Think Ten" and "Double Double" strategies. 

In addition to our regular math lessons, we have begun to incorporate elapsed time problems in our morning meetings.  Ask your son or daughter to show you how they use a number line to solve these problems.  If you are wondering how to incorporate math at home, talking about and connecting real-life situations to our work with elapsed time is a great idea.

Example: 
I wanted to try a new recipe for dinner.  It said it would take me 12 minutes to prepare the food, and 25 minutes to cook it.  If I started at 5:00 pm, will dinner be ready by 5:45 pm? Explain your thinking.

Science

This week we began Discovery (aka science) work on the properties of magnetism.  The students had a blast checking out objects to see if they were magnetic.  They made some good predictions and discovered some surprises.  They also began to investigate the big ideas of this unit including the ideas of push and pull, and repel and attract with magnet cars.  Students will enjoy the many investigations and data collection that will go along with this unit. 

In other news, this week we were reminded by our superintendent about our responsibilities in regard to confidentiality and email correspondence.  We totally understand email is frequently the best way for all of us to communicate in our busy lives.  We just need to be more mindful going forward and refrain from addressing specific student names, or needs within email.  Rest assured, that communicating with you about your child is one of our greatest priorities, we just need to be cognizant of the fact that detailed conversations need to happen face to face or by phone.  We hope you understand that we can't email about your child's specific academic, emotional or social needs in an electronic form.  This is so that we can honor confidentiality.  We're always more than happy to chat or set up a conference. Our classroom phone # is 223-7936, ext 350.  Mrs. Christiano's reteach classroom is ext. 323, and Mrs. Christy's office ext. is 309.  Please don't hesitate to send us an email or voicemail that you'd like a phone call back.

• Book Orders went out this week, we hope they'll be here when students return from break.
• Please remember that indoor and outdoor shoes will still probably be a necessity when we return on April, 23rd! 

Thank you!  Have a great Spring Break with your kids!

Christine and Kathy

Conferences, Food Shelf, and Placement Information

Just a reminder, tomorrow after school will begin our Student Led Conference schedule. We look forward to seeing you with your third grader during your scheduled time. There are many exciting things for students to share and celebrate!  Also, if you'd like to bring any non-perishable food items for the Student Leadership Food Drive that would be really appreciated!

Due to the fact many of you may have questions about placement for your 3rd grader moving on to 4th next year, we thought it might be helpful to explain the process a bit. In regard to classroom placement for next year, a team of educators at EMES will make placement decisions.  We will both be part of that team. The team generally includes sending and receiving teachers, U-Arts teachers, special education staff, as well as Alicia Lyford and often others such as Mike Sherwin and Mary Beth Langevin.

Later this Spring, you will have an opportunity to fill out our EMES parent input form in regard to your child’s placement for fourth grade.  The placement team will pay careful attention to and consider your input as a factor in the placement process. When placing students into next year’s 4~5 classes, we have to consider balance in the groups by grade, gender, academic skills, interests, social needs, etc.  It’s a pretty complicated, carefully orchestrated process with the ultimate goal being classroom configurations that have the best chance of meeting the needs of all of our students. Placement is always challenging, no matter the circumstances, but we also know with our long history at EMES, we have always done a pretty good job meeting students needs and creating balanced classrooms.

We hope this helps you understand the process, of how we reach these important decisions for all of our students in regard to placement. Thanks for your support in this important process.

Christine and Kathy