Happy Vacation!

Happy Vacation Aurorians!

We hope you all have had quite the start to a much needed (and earned) vacation! Students have finished so much this Trimester. From their first writing unit, Global read-aloud, multiplication and division strategies, and two lengthy social studies and science units. You all have done such an amazing job; Ms. Lamb and Ms. Roberge are so proud!

When we return from break, students will head back into social studies, continue (and quickly complete) their Volume unit in math, as well as their Reading unit in LA. This is not before we follow through with our EPIC/Aurora Fall Festival on Monday! 

Report cards will be mailed home on December 3rd, 2018. Which means we are moving forward into Trimester 2! If you have any questions about this, please let us know. 

Have a great week!

November 3, 2018

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

Hello Extended Aurora Team.

It's hard to believe it is November already. It seems we were just meeting you at the Watermelon Welcome in August!

We had a FABULOUS showing at student led conferences. Every conference was wonderfully led by your students. It was a great experience for us (and I hope for parents as well.)

We had several exciting events on Friday. First, we all practiced bus evacuation.  Then we had a lovely video performance from Mountainfilm on Tour.  At the ed of the day, we were entertained by this year's fall drama performance starring Abe, Verity, Emma, Abby, Anya, and some other kids from around the school😉

We plan to get our next VLOG created this week, so look forward to that.

As for work, we continue with our water unit in science, multiplying and dividing in math, reading Amal Unbound and communicating with our Global Read Aloud partners in Pennsylvania, and reading our book club books. Our first quarter ended last week, so everyone started a new EXP. Our trimester ends at Thanksgiving break (I know...so many different divisions.) Report cards will come home in the mail the week after vacation. More on that later as well.

We intend to celebrate our fantastic work on November 16th with an Epic Aurora Day of Fun.  Always remember to dress for the weather. We go outside every day (unless it's raining hard or below zero.) Enjoy your extra hour on Sunday. Thanks to everyone for your continued support.

First week of October... CRUSHED IT!

This week was fabulous! We are still in awe of how amazing the students did for their social studies projects. Their presentations were full of valuable information, they spoke with strong voices and was a very respectful audience. We hope to celebrate their hard work soon. ❤
With the closing of social studies today, comes the beginning of science on Monday! We will be learning about Earth's Systems. With this unit comes exploring water percentages on Earth, several different spheres that we inhabit and our human impact on our environment. Ms. Roberge is VERY excited to explore the world of science with these inquisitive Aurorians.

A reminder: please sign up for a student-led conference. If none of the times work for you and your student, please contact Ms. Lamb or Ms. Roberge to set up a separate time. We are pretty flexible!

Another reminder: as the temperatures begin to drop, please make sure your student has a jacket to be able to throw on for recess or our morning movement break. It's better to be safe than cold!

A few images of our presentation preparations:

New Learning!

Wow! These past few weeks of learning have been amazing. In math students have revisited the idea of arrays and using arrays to show their thinking of factors. We've explored the difference of multiples and factors and the students really took to their creative skills to create the wonderful works of art that many of you noticed in the classroom during Open House.

Today students got to try something new and draw with dry erase markers on their tables to show their efficient strategies to solving 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication problems. Throughout this week we will build our strategy toolbox by adding multiple ways to solve equations. This way students can use these other strategies to check that their work is correct. I marveled at the hard work and focus these kids had today as they completed this activity. It will be great when the sun comes out and we try it with chalk!

In L.A. students continue to work hard publishing their stories on Seesaw. I learned a lot about technology from these well rounded individuals. We have some technology all stars on our team! Check in with your student about what comes next. I'm sure it will be great!

This is the week we wrap up Social Studies. Students are learning a lot about geography and the many aspects that come with it. They have chosen a "tribe" name and are working in small groups to create the best possible living situation for their people. They seem to be loving the involvement and use of slideshow. We will be presenting these to each other this week.

Next week we begin our first Science unit! YAHOO!!! (Ms. Roberge is VERY excited). This unit will focus on Earth Systems, mainly the water on planet Earth and the different spheres that the Earth has. This is a unit full of projects, inquiry and even a field trip to Mills River Park to collect water samples. These kids are going to rock it!

Our Aurorians continue to amaze us with the amount of kindness, empathy, helpfulness and hard work they continue to exhibit. Please check in with your student about their day! They are doing so much each day and should be celebrated.

Until next time, continue to check our Twitter and Instagram page for daily updates on our day!

Parent Conferences

Howdy Aurorian Parents/Guardians! 

It is coming close to the time of year when your student shows you their amazing work thus far in the school year. A couple of emails were sent out today to share some of the available time slots to have you and your student come in for your student-led conference. Please check with your child to make sure they are able to attend, as they are the star of the conference!

If you do not see a time slot that works for your family, please let us know so that we can accomodate you!

Many thanks! 

Scholastic Book Club

Team Aurora has a new blog post

Hi all,
Kids can order books of their very own from Scholastic Book Clubs. Ms. Lamb will handle the orders.  For the September order, she will expect orders in by next Wednesday, however, if they come in after that, they can still go in. They just may come in a later box.

 If you want to order online with a credit card, our code number is DVG7Z

Our second Vlog is ready! 9-21-18

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

Vlog #2 Our second edition 9-21-18

It feels like the week just began and now it is over. On this very rainy Friday, Ms. Roberge is home nursing a cold. Have no fear, Ms. Lintereur has stepped in to sub (she works in Epic most days.)

This weeks highlights include:
All Team Meeting today
Creating our continents
Finishing first two week menus for seminar math and ela
Setting up our evidence binders
Dot Day
Creating arrays in math
Finishing our flash drafts in writing (personal narrative story drafts)
Starting band lessons

Have great weekend and first day of autumn!

Our first full AWESOME week together!

This past week was our first full week together and what a week it was! 
Students were able to see what Spanish class looked like on our first Monday together. They all seemed to like it and Doña Erin had incredible energy welcoming all 37 students into her classroom. 
Throughout the week, we were able to continue practicing our routines, had three birthday celebrations, learned about Rosh Hashanah and ended our week with an all grade town meeting in the library. Pictures were posted on our Twitter and Instagram pages quite frequently this week, so go take a peek for a visual way of seeing our week together! 

Congrats to our cross country students on a race well done this past Wednesday!

Congrats to our students who have joined drama on both their acting or stage crew positions. ALL are important!

Awesome job to our students who have decided to join band or chorus! 

Hooray for students who have found a club to join after school! 

For those who do not do anything affiliated with school, we applaud you too! 

We love to support everyone and will check in with them this week to see how things are going.
For the week ahead, keep an eye out for some reminder emails towards the end of the week. There are a couple of important dates coming up.... 

September 25th @ 7pm --> Open House! The first 30 minutes you'll meet your students' specials teachers. At 7:30, you'll come check out the classroom and catch up with your students' teachers. 

September 26th --> PICTURE DAY! Such an exciting day! 

These dates can be found in our shared Google Calendar on the side of the blog. 

**You should've received a picture order form from your student this week. If you did not, please check in with them. We will get one to you for sure!**

Happy week!
💜Ms. Roberge & Ms. Lamb

Our first VLOG is ready!

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

See our first VLOG!


We had an excellent second week of school. We are looking forward to our first Monday next week.

Highlights from this week include:
band and chorus
our first all school assembly
making our first vlog
writing workshop
math class
mobymax
star reading
library
classroom maps
coloring landforms

Happy weekend

A great way to start off the week!

Wow today flew by! Everyone has been very welcoming of one another and we are finally getting more individuals to share "shout outs" of kind, loving things that they see around our classroom community and school. These kids are absolutely outstanding!

Today we handed out schedules. Students signed up on the board if they needed more than 1 copy, which Ms. Roberge printed and labeled for students to grab tomorrow during school. They will be great teachers to you all on how the schedule works, as it is confusing for some who may be experiencing a middle school schedule for the first time. So hang tight! You'll be able to glimpse at these soon. We are hopeful that we can share an image copy digitally on this blog, to help people find it in immediate need. We are still working on the process a bit. In other news, we are going to begin doing our vlog this week! This will give the students an opportunity to reflect in front of a camera about everything they are doing. Stay tuned for more information on this as well!! 😃

I (Ms. Roberge) have to gush a bit. I had a half day today due to an appointment this morning. I missed the kids immensely. Upon returning I had the most lovely note on my desk from my guest teacher about how he was impressed with everyone and how we have such a great group of students. I couldn't agree more with his words! From being anxious about leaving them with a guest teacher on the fourth day of school, to the feeling of relief and a proud teacher moment. It made today great!

We are still updating the calendar these days. We are also LOVING the communication. Whether it is about an after school change, a lovely positive message, or simply a few questions, we appreciate the continued connection and are hopeful that it will continue throughout the rest of the year. 💕

Happy Tuesday everyone!

What a wonderful first week!

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

We had planned to post our first video blog today, but alas, we ran out of week. We shall attempt it on Tuesday.

Here were some highlights of the week:

Writing our first stories
Classroom scavenger hunt
Creating classroom maps
Attending our first 5th Grade Town Meeting
Learning about clubs
Singing a new birthday song for our August birthdays
First day of chorus today
EXPs
recess
lunch buddies
CPR
Creating leaves for our community tree (see it in the hall outside Team Epic)
Classroom reading (classroom library exploring - we love those graphic novels)
Reading logs
Reflection journals
Using our growth mindset
Using C.A.R.E.S. (cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy and self-control)
Practicing CARES shout outs
Classroom jobs
Procedures for everything....hallway, end of day, lunch, recess, bus
Smelling our math books
Read aloud
flexible seating
Cross county running (for many of us!)
...
and that was only 3 days!
Rest well this weekend. We have more to do next week. It is so fun to be around the excitement of fifth graders.

First Day Greatness and Homework

We had a pretty terrific, though very warm first day. Some highlights include decorating cubbies and name tags, lunch buddies, listening to Ms. Lamb read A Bad Case of Stripes while exploring using our flexible seating options, trying to "Flip the Boat," writing in our reflection journal, learning about our classroom jobs and getting onto the correct bus. That was a lot of learning for the first day.

Everyone on Team Aurora chose a book to read today. Students are expected to read every night. Students may start slow, like 10 minutes or whatever you can do, and work up to 30 minutes per night. For the month of September, students may read anything they choose, fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, comic books, magazines.

Keep communicating with us if something comes up at home. We appreciate all the notes from today!

Also, the Lamb homeroom has PE tomorrow. Wear or bring sneakers. It will be much cooler tomorrow.

Monday! Monday! Monday! (8/27/18)

Hello! 

Don't forget our wonderful Watermelon Welcome this Monday 8/27 from 6-6:30! We are very excited to meet you and have you see our classroom!! Make sure it is on your calendars!

Let summer last a little while longer...

Hello families and friends!

We hope you have been enjoying your vacation and getting every ounce of relaxation time in before the school year begins. We wanted to link the latest newsletter that was sent home via email, so that you can look it over if you have not already, and get back to us with any questions or concerns. Lots of new changes in the classroom are happening each day and we can't wait until the students make it feel like their own space!

Link to Newsletter is here!↓

Newsletter #1

Many thanks.
Have a wonderful few weeks!😎
Ms. Lamb & Ms. Roberge

Happy Summer!!

Hello Team Aurora families (and friends)!

We are so ecstatic to begin our journey together in the coming weeks!