Stop the Summer Slide!

The “summer slide” is what often happens to disadvantaged children during the summer months. They tread water at best or even fall behind, while higher-income children build their skills steadily over the summer months.
(www.summerlearning.org/at-a-glance/)

Don’t worry though, there are ways to prevent this summer slide. Please consider ways you can help or encourage your students to stay sharp over the summer so they can start next year on top!

• Read in a wide variety of places and participate in the summer reading challenge from DBS.
• Visit a public library! We have four in Hartford, all offering summer hours and programming for kids and adults.
• Read together as a family. Take turns reading to each other.
• Try online learning tools such as ABCya, PBS Kids, Funbrain, Starfall, and more!
• Check out Khan Academy’s new (coming soon!) courses for younger kids.
• Stay sharp with tech skills with Scratch and Code.org.
• Don’t forget your typing skills! Students can access TypingClub from home by going to the Hartford URL and logging in with their school accounts.
• Go on field trips to parks, forests, museums, cities, anywhere you can learn new things!
• Bake together as a family. Practice doubling the recipe or halving it. Talk about units of measure.
• Play board games and card games with friends and family.
• Count! Count everything you can. Count Cheerios and pennies and stop signs and apples and fingers and tadpoles and everything you can find. Then add and subtract things. Get creative!
• Write daily. Keep a journal. Send postcards or letters to friends and family. Make lists. Take notes. Write in the sand. Write on the sidewalk with chalk. Write with finger paints and pudding. Have fun!

These are just a few ideas. There are countless resources online and I’m sure you as teachers have many more in your heads. The point is to encourage summer learning in every way we can. Feel free to copy and paste however you want to send information home with kids.

Fish update

Thanks to a generous parent we now have an awesome light on the fish tank!  It totally changes the whole look.  I love it! 

My #FISH kind of glows too.

We also have a batch (litter? clusters?) of fish babies who are thriving!  These fish reproduce regularly, but generally the babies don't survive very long.  For some reason one group of them is surviving and thriving!  It's pretty cool.  They are still small, but so much bigger than when they first hatched from their fishy eggs. 

Can you see any babies?

There's one, right by the thermometer.

Thanks Mr. Griswold!  We all appreciate the light!  Teacher, students, fish, and plants. :)

Author event in Burlington

I know Burlington is kind of far away, but this sounds like a really cool event for anyone interested in meeting a favorite author.  I'd encourage you to make the trip if you can.

“Authors in the Afternoon,” a feature of nErDcampVT is coming to Burlington High School on Sunday, May 20! This new event with over 25 regional authors and illustrators is FREE and open to the public from 4 PM to 6 PM. Families are welcome to stop by and visit with their favorite children’s and young adult authors and illustrators. Books will be available for purchase and autographing! For more information, visit https://sites.google.com/view/nerdvt/author-event. nErDcampVT is a literacy event organized by a group of Vermont educators with assistance from the Vermont School Library Association (VSLA), the Vermont Council on Reading (VCR) and the Vermont Department of Libraries.

Red Clover winner

The Red Clover Award is a Vermont state book award for the best new picture book of the year. The committee chooses ten books and children in grades K-4 read them and vote.

My method of voting worked well last year, so we did the same thing again this year. After I read all ten books to the kids (over the span of several weeks), each kid gets a sticker dot to place on their book page of choice.

This year Whoosh, by Chris Barton, was the clear winner. It is a good book, but I'm a little skeptical of how many kids truly loved it and how many were voting for the book with the most stickers. :) I may try something a little more confidential next year!

Whoosh tells the true story of Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the Super Soaker.  Mr. Johnson grew up in the 1950/60s, competed in science fairs at colleges that had just barely desegregated, worked at NASA on the Galileo mission, and went on to invent many things, including the Super Soaker.  The book is the story of diversity and overcoming adversity. A story of grit and perseverance.

I'll send the votes to the state to be compiled with votes from all of the other elementary schools.  We'll see if the rest of the state agrees with DBS's choice.

(My husband, reading over my shoulder while I wrote this, just went on a long tangent about thermal coupling, thermal piles, and the importance of the work Lonnie Johnson did for NASA and our space program.  So, I guess this guy is well known in the engineering field!)  

Mini golf video

I was playing with a new program this evening and decided to use it to put together a video of the PTO mini golf event from last month.  :)  I'm VP of the PTO, so I thought it would be a good job for me.  Check it out!

Dorothy Canfield Fisher winners

Fourth and fifth graders voted last week and The Land of Forgotten Girls, by Erin Entrada Kelly, was the winner at DBS!  There were 21 kids who read at least five of the nominated books and got to vote.  One motivated kiddo read all 29 books from the list! The Land of Forgotten Girls won by a small margin.  It seems there wasn't a landslide winner like there was last year.  It was also our Battle of the Books winner in 4th grade this year.

The Vermont Department of Libraries tallied the votes from all of the voters throughout the state and the official winner is Projekt 1065, by Alan Gratz!  I loved this book! It was so exciting!  It was also a semi-finalist in our Battle of the Books in 5th grade this year.

Alan Gratz has two books on next year's Dorothy Canfield Fisher book award list: Ban This Book, and Refugee.  Check out the whole list and get a jump start on your reading!

Kindergarten Narratives

Kindergartners in my WIN group finished their narratives this week and were thrilled to see that I bound them into books.  They took turns reading their books to the rest of the group.  They felt very special sitting in the reading chair.  :)  Next writing topic - opinion pieces!  I think they'll do very well with that! :)