Animals in Us

We are working together with other classes to perfect our new Kindergarten Song!

Yoga

Thank you to everybody who was willing to donate to make YOGA happen in our classroom.   Becky has now completed her second session with our kiddos - and they LOVE it!  Becky always brings in a children's book to read to the class and then has them act out the story using different yoga positions. Check out the pictures and videos with your child - have them explain to you what they do during this time.  Is there a favorite pose they have learned? How do they begin and and each session?  

and more...

Yoga Video

News From Mr. Hennessey

PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCES and a REPORT CARD UPDATE Remember to schedule your Parent/Teacher conferences as soon as you can! If you haven't heard from your child's teacher yet, you will soon! The conferences are officially scheduled for the day of Friday, March 20. There will be no school that day.

On a related note, I mentioned in an earlier Wise Owl that we are in the process of revamping our UES report card and were aiming to unveil the new version in time for next week's parent/teacher conferences. Despite months of hard work and discussion, it is clear that the new report card will not be ready to go this month. As a result, we have decided to put out an end of the year report card the last week of school. This much needed time will allow us to get it right the first time and give families (and us) an authentic and meaningful way to assess their child's progress. We're almost there! In the meantime, the conferences next week will provide a window into how your child is progressing, and you can check in with any of your child's teachers at anytime between now and the end of the year if you have questions or concerns. If you have any questions about the report card, please contact me at any time.

Procedural Writing

Our Kindergarten students have been immersed in reading and writing procedural (often called how-to) pieces of writing over the last few weeks. This unit of study introduces students to informational text writing and is preparing them for a unit on writing animal reports. We have been reading a variety of informational texts on how to complete a certain task. Last week, we completed a shared writing as a class on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We've read about how to feed fish, how to brush our teeth, how to get ready for the day, how to ride a bike, etc. We've explored a variety of topics that would be good to write about - those that we know a lot about and can actually teach a friend to do by reading them specific instructions. Through this writing, students are learning how to use transition words (First, Second, Next, After, Finally, etc) to help make our writing more smooth. INQUIRE with your child what their how-to published piece was about.  

Artist Study

Over the last two weeks, students began learning about two new artists. In Art, Mrs. Kane is teaching the children about Pablo Picasso and they are completing unique masks in his style. In our classroom, we are learning about Faith Ringgold as an artist and an author. Focusing on her life and the artistic techniques she uses, we have been quite keen observers while looking closely at her work. Faith Ringgold is best known for her painted story quilts - art that combines painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling. We are learning to look closely and replicate intricate artistic details through a study of her work, Tar Beach. This artist and her rendition of Tar Beach is reminding us of the setting used in Ezra Jack Keats' stories. We've been looking closely at what life is like for his characters (Archie, Louie, Jennie, Peter, etc) living in a city and noticed similarities when looking at the buildings and life in NYC, where Tar Beach takes place. You may get a sneak peak of the art we are creating below, but we will be saving them for your viewing pleasure at the Art Show. The tentative scheduled date for this evening show is Thursday, April 16th. More details and confirmation to come!

Here are some questions to inquire about with your child!
What is a tar beach?
Why is the George Washington Bridge important to Cassie?
Why does Cassie fly in the story?
What do her parents do for a living?
What time of day and what time of year does the picture/story take place?
What is the purpose of the quilt patterns and the quilt border around the art?

After break, we will be doing some response and opinion writing directly connected to Cassie's dreams in Tar Beach.

Marionette Puppets

Today, students had the opportunity to watch "Nick Of Time" a puppet show put on by the organization, No Strings Marionette Company. This company is here at our school for three weeks to work with all the third grade classes who will create their own show complete with their own puppets. We will have a chance to watch their shows in a few weeks. Today, however the directors of the program entertained us with their own show and answered many questions we had about the puppets and special effects shown. While waiting for the show to begin, students sang along with the directors to various well known songs and also learned a few jokes. INQUIRE with your children who their favorite character was and what they learned about the marionette puppets! UES students are so fortunate to have the opportunity to see such fine performances each month!

Guest Reader

Uncle Marty, from Wyoming came to visit before vacation.  There are still opportunities to join us for Friday guest reader.  Uncles, Aunts, Grandmas, Friends, etc are all invited!  Students truly love hearing all the great stories our broader community shares with us!

Math Workplace fun!

Conference Sign Up

Next Friday, students will have no school.  Throughout this day (or if another day works better), I will be meeting with you and your child. Your child will share with you some of the things they are working on, and share their ideas for end of the year goals.  These conferences will be student led, unless you prefer to meet without your child.  If this is the case, please email me.  To sign up for a time to meet, please click on the link below to sign up for your conference. When you get to the wiki, please use the table to sign up for a time that works best for you. Click the EDIT tab and then type your name into the box next to the time you would like for your conference. Once you have entered your name, click on the SAVE button. Please let me know if none of these times will work for you, and we can try to find an alternate time! I look forward to seeing you all again!


Conference Sign Up Link

If you have trouble with the link, just let me know what time you'd like to reserve.


Helpful Day of HINTS FOR PARENTS
Our parents have been extremely supportive of Student-Led Conferences. Based on feedback from conferences in previous years, we have developed a few hints to help you along the way:

• Express positive interest and anticipation about the upcoming conference.

• Be on time.

• Listen and respond to the student (not the teacher)

• Express pride in growth and progress.

• Ask questions (see below for samples)

• Be positive, offering to help in areas where improvement is needed.

• Recognize that students need to develop independence in communicating progress – the teacher will be there to facilitate and answer specific questions but will not take charge of the conference.


POSSIBLE QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING THE CONFERENCE
• Can you explain this to me?

• How have you grown in this area?

• How can you improve in this area?

• How can we help you at home?

• What was important to you about this?

• If you could do this work over again, how would you change it?

Happy Birthday, UES!

This past week has been filled with lots of excitement for UES' 75th anniversary.  Students have been engaged in learning about school life in 1939 this week as they prepared for the lantern parade.  We have seen vintage clothing and artifacts from the 30's and 40's, watched a slideshow showing some history of UES, and tomorrow, all classes will put something in the time capsule to be opened by future students.  Thanks to all the parents for help making lanterns with Kristina and Gowri and also for coming up for the parade last night.  There were about 1000 students, staff, and parents, led by the pulsing Brazilian samba drums of Sambatucada that paraded in a beautiful line up to the college last night.  It was a magical night complete with fireworks to celebrate our school's 75th anniversary. 

Link to 75th Birthday Slideshow

Animals in Us

We've been working diligently on our new song of the month about animals.  It's quite complex (written by all the Kinders), so if you'd like to help your child become more familiar with the words, feel free to help them master it at home.  There is a link to both the words and the music.  Have FUN!


Link for SONG "Animals in Us"

Link for LYRICS "Animals in Us"



Also, please mark your calendars for our Kindergarten Performance on April 16th in the early evening.  This is an amazing night where students will share their music as a grade and take you through some of their learning about famous artists.

February Math

Although they're not smiling (I haven't been great about getting good pictures), we really have been loving working with number bonds these last few weeks. "Number Bonds" if your child hasn't already shared with you help kids see that numbers can be broken into parts to make computation easier.  Students are learning to see the relationship between numbers through this model.  Ask your child about our stories we've incorporated into this, especially that of squirrels hiding their nuts!  Above, students were working with different groups of pattern blocks to show the amounts of each and then how many total there were.  As students begin to see this relationship, they are starting to put these parts into a "number sentence" and learning about the meaning of an = sign.  Everybody is starting to become familiar and flexible in how to use this equal sign in a variety of positions.  

We have been playing many math games during our "math work places" time.  Many games are building students fluency with subatizing 20 frames and building their understanding of teen numbers.  INQUIRE with your child a faster way to count cards like these without counting by 1's.  

Students have also been practicing naming and writing numbers before and after in a variety of partner games and group white board work, comparing groups of numbers, and counting on from a variety of numbers.  

Friendship Day

Friday was filled with friendly smiles, warm laughs, and cheery attitudes toward each other. What a great day to appreciate great friends, teacher and all who make our learning community a success!

Thank you to all parents who shared a healthy snack for our afternoon celebration!

Potential Yoga in the Classroom

I am looking into the possibility of incorporating Yoga into our day and am interested in getting your feedback.  Becky Crandell, is a trained child yoga teacher who is interested in working with classrooms and teachers.  The cost of the 8 sessions would be $150 and I am wondering if there would be enough parents interested in donating money towards this program.  If you would be willing to support this integration of yoga into the classroom, please complete the survey on the side of the blog.  If you want more information, visit this site  Yoga Info

Information about Becky, taken from the website, http://www.gratefulyogavt.com/

Becky started doing yoga as a child, and yoga has been a part of her life ever since.  She made her career in education, teaching preschool and kindergarten for over 20 years, incorporating yoga, brain-gym, sensory motor activities and mindfulness into her daily practice with children.  Becky approaches her work with children with humor and a light-hearted touch.  As a certified classroom teacher and special educator, she also holds certification in ChildLight Yoga, Radiant Child Yoga and is a Yoga4Classrooms trainer as well.

UES Lantern Parade

 Wednesday February 18th @ 6:00pm


Union Elementary School invites the entire Montpelier community to celebrate the 75th anniversary of our school building! Please join us for an evening lantern procession on Wednesday, February 18th.


Our lantern procession will begin at 6:00 pm at Union Elementary School. Led by the samba band Sambatucada, we will parade from the school to the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where we will celebrate on the VCFA Green with rainbow ice sculptures, live music by Sambatucada, and hot cider and cocoa. This is the main event of our first-ever UES Winter Carnival, which will take place the week of Monday, February 16 through Friday, February 20.




Sambatucada leading the Waterbury River of Light Parade. Photo courtesy of Gowri Savoor


Local artist Gowri Savoor is guiding UES students in making their lanterns during a ten day art residency, thanks to the “Artists in Schools” grant awarded by the Vermont Arts Council as well as the support of the UES Parents’ Group and The River of Light in Waterbury. All K-5 students will create a hand-made lantern from sustainable materials including willow and tissue paper. Lanterns will be suspended from bamboo poles and lit with battery operated LED lights.


Our parade is made possible with the support of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and Coldwell-Banker Classic Properties. The event is funded in part by a “Community Arts Grant” awarded by Montpelier Alive and funded by the Downtown Improvement District Assessment. We thank Diamond & Robinson P.C. Attorneys at Law for their support. We also thank Lake Champlain Chocolates and Champlain Orchards for their donations.

Deep Snow

We hoped for the sun at morning meeting, and out it came!  This afternoon was a perfect day to be outside enjoying the fresh air, fresh snow, and sunshine.  We hiked up the back ridgeline to the forest, and enjoyed learning and teaching about our VT animal to our buddy from Mrs. Koch's class.  Students paired up for an afternoon of discussion, exploration, building, and of course, sliding! 

Animal Song of the Month

Mr. Boffa stopped by this morning to teach us a brief music lesson and to see how we were doing learning our song, Animals In Us.

100!

We did it! We made it to Day 100!

After reading our morning message during morning meeting, a note magically appeared. After reading the letter, we took a magical and exciting adventure through our school tracking the numbered steps Herman 100, a dragon very fond of the number 100, took around UES to get to Mr. Hennessey's office. It was thrilling - and again we counted and read numbers all the way to 100! Herman 100 is a very special dragon who happens to be very fond of the number 100 and loves to get involved in celebrating Kindergartners special 100th day of school. Herman Hundred graciously left us a prize for tracking him down - a goodie bag with a 100 day pencil and $100 for each of our friends who counted all the way to 100!

Upon returning to the classroom, students returned to the classroom for a fully integrated "100 day" learning across the curriculum. During literacy we read 100 day stories and say a 100 day song. We read 100 books collectively and even read a story about groups of animals at a zoo that totaled 100!

During math we wrote and counted forwards and backwards to 100 and made a cereal necklace - completed with 100 pieces of cereal!  We had fun counting our 100 day collection!