Living History and other updates

Living History:

Wizard writers have been working on creating their very own primary source by participating in the Waterbury Historical Society collection of Covid stories written by local youth.  You may have seen the community note in the Waterbury Roundabout.  Please check out the link to find more about this local project.  Students will be asked if they wish to submit their writing to the historical society and students who want to participate in this collection will email their writing to the historical society by this Friday.  Parents or guardians should email us by the end of the day Thursday, April 8 to let us know if they DO NOT want their student to submit their writing.  You do not need to contact us if you are okay with your student submitting their work.  We encourage you to have your student share this piece with you.

Math update:

We are in the process of finishing and assessing student learning during their study of place value and decimals.  Most recently, students worked on using efficient strategies to add and subtract decimals.  Students learned the algorithm among other strategies.  We also explored division using the area model and are now wrapping up practice with a partial quotients algorithm.  I find this algorithm to be much easier than the US algorithm for long division that many of us learned.  Ask your student to show you how they can efficiently divide multi-digit numbers!

Language Arts:

During Black History month, students completed research projects about famous Black Americans.  They are displayed in our hallway. Unfortunately, you aren't able to be in the building to see them so here are a few examples. 

Through our current novel,  The Only Road, we are tackling the concept of immigration and what causes people to leave their home countries.  I selected this novel because of its complexity and its relevance to current events. It's an excellent instructional novel in so many ways!  The story chronicles the journey of two unaccompanied minors who are escaping Guatemala due to gang violence and trying to get to "El Norte." The novel is inspired by true incidents. We've also been reading, listening to & viewing current news stories related to the topic to help them in their comprehension of this complex issue. It has been rather eye-opening for students to grapple with the experience of Central Americans and what motivates them to go on this treacherous journey in the first place. In keeping with my overarching goals, the novel and the topic are helping students develop empathy, AND students are highly engaged with the content as well.  They will be working on their final projects over the course of the next week. 

Science & Social Studies:

You may have heard that we switched groups.  Students who were working with Mrs. Michael on Social Studies are now working with Ms. Anderman on science and vice versa.  Along with that switch, students have also switched teachers for arrival activities and morning meeting.  This allowed us to balance the time with students better.  Student groups did not change with this move.  As you can see below, we are taking advantage of the fresh air and warm temperatures.  

Students discovering the 4 spheres that make up our Earth system

Students used maps and a sampling strategy that allowed them to create a graph displaying the relative amounts of fresh and saltwater as part of our study of the hydrosphere.  

SOCIAL STUDIES:  

My new group has been introduced to Agent Mishka and is working on completing geography missions each day. This week the played a Jeopardy game put together by our para-educator "Agent Hunter." Their mission was to locate all the places in Vermont that Mishka visited.  Enthusiasm and engagement are high with this gamified unit. Here was Miska's message to them just before this week's mission. 

Escape Room