Holidays

Boy did we have a great day today!!!  Students did a FANTASTIC job with their Cultural Holiday stations!!  We started in Vasanthi's room this morning and learned about 6 holidays and then continued in our classroom this afternoon.  Students enjoyed books, crafts, songs, and treats!  All students worked together to make this a success and boy was it ever!!  The stations were engaging and interesting.  The students loved it!!!

We ended our day in music class sharing our musical talents!  This group of students is truly talented in so many ways!!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!

December!

Dear Families

  Hello and Happy Friday!!  I hope I will see many of you tomorrow at the Craft Fair!! Endeavor is ready with over 20 pies coming in and over 40 cement "Peaceful Creations"!!  This will also be your last chance (for 2015) to get SCS clothing!!!

The week has flown by!  We've been doing a lot of World Geography, focusing on 2 main things (so far): the 5 Themes of Geography (Location, Place, Human/Environment Interaction, Movement, and Regions) and Landforms.  I bet you heard about our awesome new National Geographic Atlases!!  

Students also continued their work with fractions.  One focus this week was on how to use equivalent ratios to help figure out the "Better Buy".  Students could use ratio tables to find a unit price for a pricing scenario, or two compare prices for equal amounts of items (like granola bars).  It was pretty cool to see students using this strategy to compare prices.  Take them grocery shopping with you this weekend!!! :)

And of course, we worked hard in writing again this week.  Students continue to make their first drafts better by improving evidence and finding places in their writing to include quotes.  We are making our arguments stronger!!

And i'm sure you heard about the great trip to the Flynn!!! Students were really excited about the performance of Percy Jackson!!! I hope to see many of them reading this series now!! (if they haven't already...)

Don't forget to check out See Saw!  

Thank you for all of your support with the Craft Fair!!  What a fun way to support our school!

:)

-- 

Cara Crowther
5th Grade Teacher
Endeavor Team
Shelburne Community School

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Grateful and giving Friday

Dear Families

The week flew by and ended with lots of smiles! Today students celebrated all of the supplies that were donated for the Ronald McDonald House!

These will be delivered next Monday, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Students also celebrated each other by sharing compliments with each other.  This was a mindfulness activity. 

Everyone left in good spirits today! They also posted some of their hard work on SeeSaw today, be sure to check it out!

Have a safe and enjoyable break!

Cara

P.S: students will be going to the Flynn on Tuesday, December 1.  Students will need a lunch because we'll be gone during our scheduled lunch time.

Also, the next work period for the craft fair will be during the day so that all students can help!

Shelburne Museum- Eyes on the Land

Students had a fantastic time being critical observers at the Shelburne Museum last week. They also hot to create!!

Shelburne Farms Field Trip- teamwork and Ecology!!

Leaf Pack Data

We had an awesome time exploring the contents of our leaf packs today!

Yesterday, we studied, discussed and compared our biological, physical, and chemical data with the data Vasanthi's class collected during our field trip last week.  

Today, the leaf packs were collected and we got to spend over an hour just examining the biological data collected.  Our two leaf packs were packed with Macroinvertebrates! Here are a few photos:

We could have spent all evening examining and discussing our findings! Instead, we had to go to PE and then home, so we'll share noticings and numbers tomorrow.  We'll also get together with Vasanthi's class to compare our leaf pack data.  What a way to study ecosystems!

We've also been working on reviewing the relationship between multiplication and division.  

Have you heard about the incredible shrinking carrots?!

We've been reading from Storyworks this week and worked together to create a reading response focused on theme. It was HARD work, but we all contributed good ideas. Students have a copy of it in their reponse journals.

Good to see many of you at conferences this week, I'll see the rest of you next Tuesday!

Cara

Conference Schedule and other announcements

From our Unified Arts teachers:
Please join the Art, Music, Physical Ed., and World Language teachers for our Unified Arts Night. It will be on Tuesday October 200th, from 6:30 - 7:30 pmmm.  Please meet in the cafeteria at 6:30 pm for a brief introduction. Students are encouraged to attend this event with you, and share some of the great things they are learning in their UA classes.

From the PTO

Come out and support a local business and the Shelburne Community School PTO at the Flying Pig Bookstore onOctober 23-25.  The Flying Pig will give 20% of all book proceeds to the SCS PTO over those dates when you mention SCS.

We look forward to seeing many of you there on October 23-25 to stock up on all your upcoming holiday book needs!

From our Wellness Committee

October is the Month of Walking Wednesdays!!  Bus riders will have the option of joining this year too!!

Conference Schedule

October 12th Conferences

Time	Name
12:20 - 12:40	McClellan/Brumstead
12:40-1:00	Williams
1:00-1:20	Levinthal
1:20-1:40	Oppenheimer
1:40 – 2:00
2:00-2:20	Cleveleand
2:20- 2:40
2:40-3:00	BREAK
3:00-3:20	Epstein
3:20-3:40	Machanic
3:40-4:00	Miller
4:00-4:20	Marx/Smith
4:20-4:40	Trapeni
4:40-5:00	Pickard

Tuesday 10/13		Tuesday 10/20
3:10- 3:30	Morris	3:10- 3:30	Dahir
3:30 – 3:50	Halliburton	3:30 -3:50	Gove
3:50 – 4:10	Normand	3:50 – 4:10	Erickson
4:10- 4:30	Allen	4:10- 4:30	MacFaden
		4:30 – 5:00	Connery

Fieldtrip and collecting data like scientists!

Hi Families

We had a fantastic time today collecting physical

Chemical 

And Biological Data

Students got wet and muddy but enjoyed being scientists out in the field!  

We will compile our data, compare it to data from further up McCabes Brook and the Laplatte, and think about what it means about how we impact our local watershed.

Might do a tick check tonight.....

Ps, no school Friday, see you at Conferences next week!!

:)

Our week in review

Watershed educators for UVM came to talk to us about what experiments we will be doing at McCabes Brook on Monday.

Also this week some students wrote the morning message 

We read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today

We dropped of food at the food shelf

Open House Week

     This week has been a little busy.

Writing: We are currently writing to Shelburne residents about why we should keep the watershed healthy. We are using our science notebooks to help us. We are expected to write four paragraphs and include why we should keep it healthy and how we can keep it healthy. We started with an outline and now are on our first draft.

     Reading: At the moment Mrs.crowther is teaching us how to write 5th grade reading responses. It is difficult. Yesterday she had us work with a partner and first give ourselves scores of either 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th grade levels. Then we scored our partners by reading their response and justifying why we gave them that certain score. Students did a great job working on this and giving themselves and their partners honest feedback!:)

     Math: Right now in math we are doing a baseline assessment and working on doubling and halving.   The assessment served as a great reminder for why we need to continue to practice our facts! Very few students could solve 20 multiplication facts in 1 minute!  

     Science: Right now we are studying ecosystems and the watershed. We are also learning about the food web and the food chain.

Other fun stuff: We also enjoyed a lovely Open House with our Families, walked our food drive donations to the food shelf, and created precepts with Sam Drazin!

Don't forget Hike for Hunger on Saturday!

Field Trip Monday 10/5! Students will need a bagged lunch and boots! We'll be doing sampling in the McCabe's Brook!

Homework: This week, the goal sheet came home with choices! Students have already chosen which activity they will do for each content area.  Please go over this with them this weekend.  They've also created a work plan for themselves on the back of the Goal Sheet.  

Stay in Touch!

PTO Genevieve Fundraiser comes home today!!

Fundraiser time! Due back by Oct 5th!

Endeavor raised the most money last year and hope to be the team to beat again!!

1st Full Week!

Dear Families, 

Hello and Happy September!!  

We had a great first full week this week.  As I keep reminding the students, it is so awesome to see how much 4th graders grow over the summer! They start the school year as 5th graders that are applying what they've learned, raising their own standards, and eager to work hard!!  It truly is exciting!!

This week we enjoyed doing the "Week of Inspirational Math" provided by Jo Boaler and the youcubed.com program out of Stanford University.  Each lesson provided a great puzzle/challenge which allowed us to practice/review expectations for our math classroom, review and practice Math Habits of Mind and Interaction, and of course, remind us about the importance of having a Growth Mindset!!  

This was also listed on the goal sheet this week!  Students are to pick just one activity to share with you.  They should ask you questions as they were asked, they hopefully will also ask you to justify your thinking.  They might even be a "skeptic" which we also practiced in our math talks this week!! :)  

Additionally, we continued to talk about the school wide expectations of Be Safe, Be Responsible, and Be Respectful and are practicing Mindfulness daily!!

We're continuing in our Ecology unit by studying Food Chains and Webs, and learning more about similarities in Plant and Animal life cycles.  This week we'll learn more about what a watershed is, the watershed we live in, and how it ties into our Ecology studies!!

Finally, we're trying to post things daily via our Twitter feed, and students will also be posting to See Saw at least once weekly.  Don't forget to check them out ( We only have 6 followers on Twitter I think,,,:().  

Reminders:

• Walking FT Thursday, students should come prepared with boots and a lunch!!
• Band Lessons have started!  Help your child remember their instrument please!!
• Chorus will begin this week for all interested students!
• Open House!  Tuesday, 9/22 8-9 am.
• No School Wednesday 9/23

Hello Families and Happy Back to School!!

It's been so nice to welcome the students back to Endeavor as 5th graders this week!  It's great to see them all again and have time to check in about their summer adventures.  How lucky we are to get to be together for a 2nd year!  We also get to welcome 2 new classmates this year: Lexi and Kat (Kassidy)!!

One of the focuses of the entire school this year is to strengthen our community through a clear set of schoolwide expectations.  The 3 main expectations of SCS are: Be Safe, Be Respectful, and Be Responsible.  These expectations are posted throughout the school and are to be followed in all school related settings.  It's been great to see the entire school work together on these!  We've been taking time to review what this means throughout the various places we visit each school day.  

Additionally, we've been focusing on Mindfulness as a class! This work will nicely tie into our discussions/work with Habits of Mind and Growth Mindset.  We're learning poses and breathing techniques that can help us calm down and focus, and also ones that energize us!  I plan to integrate at least 3-5 mindful minutes into our schedule daily this year.  I hope you hear about this at home, and I am quite confident students will learn from this.  What a great way to help students manage impulsivity, practice self control, be reflective, practice positive self talk, and learn how to persevere through tough moments! 

We've already started our first Science unit which is an Ecology unit focused on our local Watershed.  So far, we're just reflecting on and practicing what we know make good scientific observations and illustrations.  We're taking advantage of the great gardens here at SCS to do this! :)

I'm trying to use technology more frequently this year as a way to keep parents informed of our daily and weekly learning. I got an Ipad for students to use throughout the day to document our lessons, activities, and learning! I hope this means our blog page gets updated more regularly, but I also created a twitter account that I hope to have students post to throughout the day.  You can follow me (us really) at Mrs. Crowther (@crowther_mrs).  I also hope to have students do a weekly reflection on their See Saw account each week.  Stay tuned for more info on these digital tools or just check them out and see how we're doing. :)

Blog page:  http://shelburneendeavor4.blogspot.com/

Twitter Link:  https://twitter.com/crowther_mrs

See Saw:  https://app.seesaw.me/#/class/class.ba8434fd-85da-472f-8389-547a9cbbdb62

And a few final calls for help before I finish...

1.  Please remember to send (or have your child do it) photos with summer highlights to your child's school email account (firstnamelastname@cssu.org).  They'll need them by Monday at the latest. 

2.  If you have any old magazines laying around at home that students could cut out, please send them in on Monday also.  We'll need them for an art project we're doing next week. 

3.  We will also need some mesh fruit bags to make "Leaf Packs" for our ecology unit.  (like the kind a "bag" of oranges comes in - I know Trader Joes sells some produce in them...)  If you have any at home, please collect them and send them in. We'll need them the week after Labor Day. 

4.  We'll need a few chaperones for our October field trips.  We have a walking field trip the week of the 5th that we'll need  2 adults for, and another to Shelburne Farms on the 21st that we will need 4 adults for.  Let me know if you'd like to join us for either of these!

OK.  That's enough for now!  Don't want to overwhelm you.  I'll be in touch next week, and please don't hesitate to ask questions if you have them.

Thank you for sharing your kids with me!!

Cara :)

Summer letter to families

 

Dear Endeavor Families,

 

      We are excited for the new school year and look forward to learning and growing with you!   This year we have many exciting things planned for the team, including field trips, projects, and activities.  Some of our special studies this year will be World Geography, US History, Space Systems and Ecology.  Here is some other information to help you prepare for the beginning of the school year.

 

Conferences: Conferences will be held in October and March.  As always, we are willing to meet at any time.

Back to School Family Play Date - We would love to get together before the school year begins to say hello and hear about your summer!  Join us at the School Street playground at 3:30 on Thursday, August 20th for snacks and socializing!!

Open House: The 5th grade will be having an Open House in place of a Curriculum Night this year.  We invite you to an Open House on Tuesday, September 22 at 8 am.  Join us to celebrate a great start to 5th grade!

 

Birthdays: We love to celebrate student birthdays, and we invite your child to share stories of his/her life with the class.  Your child may choose to bring in photos, books, or momentos to share with the class, this will be their 15 Minutes of Fame!  We want to celebrate the child and not make the focus on treats so please do not bring cakes, candy, or other sugary sweets.

 

How to reach us:  Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you have:  vmeyette@cssu.org, 383-1155 or ccrowther@cssu.org 383-1154(w) or 310-1686(c).

 

                   

  See you soon!

-Vasanthi & Cara

IMPORTANT DATES FOR YOUR CALENDAR

-Back to School Family Play Date– Thursday, August 20th 3:30-4:30pm

-  Open House  - Tuesday, September 22nd, 8:00-9:00am

-Shelburne Farms Field Trip – Thursday, October 22nd

Summer Bookclub!!

You’re Invited!!

WHO: all Endeavor students

WHAT:   Endeavor Summer Book Club!!

WHERE: Pierson Library

WHEN: Wednesdays this summer (4:30 p.m).  Tentative dates: 7/8 ,7/29, 8/19

WHY:  to catch up with each other over the summer AND talk about GREAT BOOKS!

The first book we will read is: Capture the Flag - by Kate Messner   

Three kids get caught up in an adventure of historic proportions!

Anna, Jose, and Henry are complete strangers with more in common than they realize. Snowed in together at a chaotic Washington D.C. airport, they encounter a mysterious tattooed man, a flamboyant politician, and a rambunctious poodle named for an ancient king. Even stranger, news stations everywhere have announced that the famous flag that inspired The Star-Spangled Banner has been stolen! Anna, certain that the culprits must be snowed in too, recruits Henry and Jose to help catch the thieves and bring them to justice.

But when accusations start flying, they soon realize there's more than justice at stake. As the snow starts clearing, Anna, Jose, and Henry find themselves in a race against time (and the weather!) to prevent the loss of an American treasure.

Meeting dates will be:7/8 ,7/29, 8/19.  We’ll meet at 4:30 pm and be done by 5:15 - 5:30.  I’ll bring snacks and drinks.

At our meetings we will talk about the book, what we enjoyed, what we wondered.  We’ll also vote on the next book we’ll read!!

Please know, You DO NOT have to be able to be present at each book club in order to join us sometimes.  However, you do have to attempt to read the book. :)  Stay updated on email and through Mrs. Crowther’s Kidblog page: http://kidblog.org/MrsCrowthersClass/

I will email students with reminders before hand.  This will also be your way to RSVP so I know who to expect.  I look forward to it!!