Harvest Party

Thanks to Sarah Forbes for offering to be our room parent. Lets make her job easy and sign up early for a contribution to the Harvest Party! Harvest Party wiki

Erosion

Here are some quotes from the children after todays very exciting Four Winds workshop on erosion and weathering. The children took part in 4 experiments highlighting the powerful agents of erosion that constantly alter our landscape.

Beckett - Erosion moves stuff around. Where one thing is it can move it to a different place.

Sam - Water causes the rocks to move.

Camille - Water goes over sand and the sand moves.

Eric - A form of erosion is when rocks and riverbanks get washed away by the stream.

Zach - Wind can cause erosion.

Adele - We covered dirt with leaves and stuff from nature so the water wouldn't move the dirt.

Trevor - Rocks are moved down mountains and hills by gravity. Then they crumble up and turn into little rocks.

Lily - We shook rocks in a jar with water and little bits of rock came off and when we were done it looked foggy.

Democracy

Monday started out with a bang! I raised a situation in the classroom that has been somewhat problematic and asked the children what we should do. The situation is that we seem to have difficulty lining up to go anywhere. Line up is code word for social hour and if I didn't intervene several minutes would pass before anyone noticed that we hadn't moved an inch. You would have thought I asked them to solve world peace. We spent at least an hour over the course of the day discussing the issue and brainstorming a solution. The day ended with a landslide vote and we now have a "caboose" who is in charge of the line, there are many complicated stipulations to the new job. Chase was our first caboose and he did his job so well that we didn't have a single problem! Later this afternoon we voted either YES or NO to a variety of issues ranging from I like broccoli to All whale killing should be stopped. The children then discussed which vote gave them power and why. Without hesitation they all said that the issues that were important gave them power. I can't wait for tomorrows activity based on the book Would You Rather by John Burningham. The activity that follows the book ends with a discussion on whether or not it's okay to disagree, the changes voters can bring about, and our right to vote vs others without that right. Make sure to ask your child about each days lesson.

I have posted a sign up for fall conferences. Hopefully you received an email notification. The link above is a shortcut. Those of you with multiple children in Vista may prefer to have us assign you a day and time so that the conferences are back to back. If neither of the dates set aside by the school calendar work for you please give me a call and we'll work something out. Thanks!

Thanks for celebrating the children of Vista!

What a wonderfully delicious way to celebrate the children of Vista. They were so proud to show off their work with family and friends. Thank you to everyone for bringing in food to share and for taking the time out of your busy schedules to come in and see the children's work. I hope it was as great a way to start your day as it was for all of us.

We'll be taking a few days to enjoy some "place based" nature studies before we embark on our civics unit that will end with the Vermont Kids Vote at ABS. If you are available to help check off names of students, hand out ballots, and count votes on November 4th please let me know. It should only take an hour or two.

Open House Breakfast

Hello Everyone,

We are calling this week "project week" as everyone is feverishly working on completing the many projects we have going on presently. The children are excited to share all of their hard work with you on Thursday morning as well as have breakfast at school with all their friends. They have been talking about this endlessly! Coffee, tea, and juice will be provided. Please bring something to share and remember Chef Shaw is an option.

I have added a couple of new links to math websites. The Virtual Library of Mathematics is loaded with activities that mirror much of what we do at school and hits grades preK - 12. Math Magician is one we are currently using to help us gain fact power. The children like it because they are timed and can choose the set of facts they want to practice.

Hope to see you on Thursday morning between 7:30 and 8:30.

Who has more fun than us?

What a wonderfully exciting week we have had! Mrs. Eaton helped the children celebrate the completion of our first unit of study in readers workshop by reading The Lorax and started a new tradition, Tasty Tuesday. The children pretended they had truffula branches (fancy toothpicks) and speared truffula fruit (pineapple, kiwi, and mango) which was then dipped in yogurt. Mmmmm good!

We saved the best for last . . . today Charlie Wilson, our district technology teacher, brought 4 computers into the classroom and let the children take them apart and investigate the inner workings first hand. You would have thought we piled each table high with candy and said eat all you want. They were first showed various components and told what they were and how they were important to the computer. While checking out the inside they then had to find all these parts and unplug wires and replug them. Do you know where the I/O Bus, RAM memory, CPU fan, or motherboard are and why they are there? Ask your child!

SEE YOU TOMORROW AT THE FUN RUN AT 1:30. It's going to be a beautiful day.

Mapping our Houses

The children are having a great time mapping their houses on a huge Williston map that one of our tech guru's, Jessica Wilson, made for us. We'll have to do an activity that teaches them what a scale on a map means as they think that someone 3 inches away is an immediate neighbor!

Monday we will be sharing our best written work to date with Nancy Leonard's class in Esprit. Make sure to ask your child what piece he/she shared and who they shared it with. We will then embark on a new unit of study in writers workshop entitled "Small Moments". Our current readers workshop unit of study will also be coming to a close and of course we will be celebrating the children's work and then begin a new unit of study based on the characters within the books that we read.

Wednesday, October 1st we will be having a quick bus safety orientation with Donald the bus driver. Thursday, October 2nd all of ABS will gather together in the gym for our annual Red Clover Kick off ceremony at 8:15. We will have a parade of books presented by the staff members that will be reading them throughout the year to each classroom. It's always a thrill to watch the entire student population get excited about books! Check out the Red Clover book list at http://www.mothergooseprograms.org/lit_red_clover_nominees.php

I've made it easier for our blogging audience to leave a comment. All you have to do now is click on the comment button, leave a comment in the comment box, click on the name/URL button and leave your name, and then enter the letters as seen in the funky image.

Video created by several students! They're getting better every day.