Monday April 29, 2019

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

We are so happy to see everyone today. We hope that you all have had a restful, but exciting vacation. We have lots to do in the final weeks before Summer and want to give you a timeline on what this will look like. 

Starting with science fair!! 

Our wing wide science fair will be taking place on Friday May 3rd (that's this friday). Students of EPIC and Aurora will be showcasing their hard work and findings to each other then. This will be a great preparation for the school wide science fair. 

On Wednesday May 8th, BRMS will be hosting the school wide science fair. Yahoo!

Next is SBAC's...

1. Science SBAC's will be this week on Wednesday 5/1 and Thursday 5/2. I will be providing donut holes and strawberries for the students. I also have gum and mints. If your child would like to bring in an extra working snack (something they can eat while continuing to work), that is totally fine. 

2. Math and LA SBAC's will be held the week of 5/13. Monday (5/13), Tuesday(5/14), Thursday(5/16), Friday(5/17). Please let us know if your child will be absent any of these days so we can make sure they can use the make-up days to complete the test. 

Because I'm unable to afford to continually bring in snacks for the entire week, I would greatly appreciate it if we had a few volunteers to bring in fruit/ pretzels/ or popcorn for students to snack on during these testing times. I will still have gum and mints. 

• In LA, students started their fantasy book clubs. Please check in with your child regarding their book club group. This is a great way to talk more about books. Yay!

• For Social Studies, students will be finishing up their arguments for Christopher Columbus. They are doing a fabulous job and are excellent at arguing! 

• We are beginning a new math unit! This upcoming unit will be on Multiplying and Dividing fractions, with strong focus on using models to be able to explain why it works. Attached you will find the parent letter that students will also be bringing home tomorrow.  

• We are also beginning a new science unit! This upcoming unit is on Energy Flow. I am ecstatic to be doing this unit, especially as Spring is coming into bloom and students will be able to do many inquiries outside. We will reveal this unit next Monday, once we have the science fair and science SBAC's under control. 

• FIELD TRIP!! FIELD TRIP!! We are going on a field trip.... next WEDNESDAY (5/15). Attached you will find information regarding this trip. In short, this will be a great trip that will enhance our new science unit. Better yet, it's FREE! Please send your child with a bagged lunch. It will be at the Ethan Allen Homestead in Colchester. 

                           Conservation Field Day permission form and itinerary

Lots of dates and excitement coming from Team Aurora!! As always we encourage you to ask questions if you have them. Thank you for your support! 

Here's to the final 7 weeks of school. Have a great day!

Our best,

Kate and Cate 

Friday April 12

Team Aurora has a new blog post!

Hello Aurora friends!

Here is the news for this week.

Aurora is going to the movies! Next Friday, we voted as part of our team celebration, to attend the film Penguins from Disney Nature (see trailer.) This fits in with our last weeks Jane Goodall foray and our upcoming environmental science unit. Plus, it's always fun to go to the movies.

Speaking of science, Mr. Warren came to our fifth grade community meeting this morning to psych us up for the BRMS SCIENCE FAIR on May 8.  To prepare, all Aurorians will participate in the wing science fair on May 3rd. To do this, students need to develop a testable question. We will then test the question and write up a science "report" on a presentation board with hypothesis, date and conclusions.  Any group who wants to take it to the next step, will be ready to make improvements for the May 8 school contest.

The week we return from April break will be SCIENCE WEEK on team Aurora. We will work on science fair projects and take our science SBACS on May 1 and 2 (what fun!).

This week and next, we are finishing our EXPLORERS unit in social studies. This will mean completing our bio books by Wednesday, April 17. This is a summative project for social studies.

We are also starting our fantasy reading unit next week by picking our book club groups. This will give people a chance to start reading over vacation.

Congratulations again to our NHD participants. Ms. Thompson made this cool video. Kai, Audrey, Fisher, Abe and Hailey were awesome. More kids should join next year.

Friday, April 5, 2019

Team Aurora has a new blog post!
Greetings families and Aurorians!
We had a busy week.
Students worked very hard to complete their Hot Topics argument project and post on seesaw.com. Some students are still working on final details, so these will be assessed over April break. Students can make changes and upload new version onto seesaw before April 19.

Our next arguments will be over Columbus Day. Should he be celebrated as a hero? This will include an brief study of European explorers during the Age of Exploration. We will create bio cards for 9 different explorers, examine many articles about explorers and Columbus in particular.

Next week we are invited to share in an opportunity to skype with Jane Goodall. To prepare we are watching some of the documentary Jane and looking at some of the many many resources online. We will be visiting with Jane live on skype on Tuesday, April 9th at 9 am in the library with Team Epic. See the parent letter provided by the event here.

Coming up next week:
Word study due Tuesday
Bio card due Thursday
2-4-2 math packet due Friday

Have a great weekend!!

Kate's entry from Monday April 1

Hello families!

Happy Spring! The sunshine is really helping to make these days feel more like Spring. 

We wanted to reach out to you all to give you an update on due dates and new units we have started. 

Math menus and 2-4-2's were DUE this past Friday!! Students had some math class to complete this assignment, as well as our normally scheduled seminar. With this new menu, students are required to complete 20 minutes of Moby Max, not to be done during math class or seminar. Students have the option of: staying after school, using their personal time throughout the day (recess), or completing this at home. The school code is VT42 and students know the rest of their login. We start a new 2-4-2 this week and will be focusing a lot on time management. 

We began a new spelling week! This is due Tuesday, 4/2/19. Some students struggled with completing this weekly assignment. Please check in with your student about helpful tips to get it done!

Our new Social Studies unit, HOT TOPICS, is going great! Students will need to have a completed essay for this by Thursday. We have been having ample amount of time in social studies and LA. They do the option of doing work at home. We are still in the researching phase, but the writing will begin Today (Monday). 

Last week, we started a new unit in math. We are working on understanding decimals. Attached you will find a copy of the family letter. Students brought this home to share with you this past week! Please check in about this and their learning thus far. 

As always, if you have any questions please reach out!

Happy Monday!!

Kate and Cate