Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Researching Issues within the Lake Champlain Watershed

Third graders have been learning about the Lake Champlain Watershed and its ecosystems during this bend, Organisms and their Environment, in our Interdependence Science Unit.

As our concluding work in this unit, we worked in small collaborative groups to research specific issues in the Lake Champlain Watershed.  The issues we researched include:
  • Storm water runoff in developed and urban areas (pavement, storm drains, roofs)
  • Storm water runoff in areas with agriculture and farms
  • Invasive species spread by boats and fishermen
  • Invasive species introduced by the canals
  • Invasive species from gardens or pets
Our goal was for groups of students to design a project to communicate ecological issues of Lake Champlain's watershed, the causes of these problems and possible solutions with the community.

Here's a website with all of our projects: Lake Champlain Watershed Issues.

We hope you learn many ways that YOU can help protect Lake Champlain and its Watershed!

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Reading Without Walls Celebration!

On Thursday, we invited all students who participated to enjoy lunch in the classroom to celebrate!



Friday, November 18, 2016

Happy Turkey Day! #thanksgiving2016

Third graders want to wish you luck in finding a turkey for your Thanksgiving table...they've been sneaking around the halls of RES for the last few weeks...

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

See you on November 28th!

Monday, November 14, 2016

Games to Practice Telling Time

Telling time to the minute on an analogue clock and determining elapsed time are key math skills for 3rd graders.  Here are a collection of online games students can play at home to help learn and practice this skill!

Friday, November 11, 2016

Our Place in this World!

(This post originally appeared on Mrs. Rankin's Enrichment at RES blog.)

Third graders have spent the beginning of the school year in enrichment thinking about their place in this world. Geography and understanding sense of place is an important part of the third grade curriculum.  This study also supports our enrichment goals of continuing to learn about ourselves while giving us a context for our passions and interests.  I love beginning the year with this project because it gives students a chance to be creative and work in groups as we learn. 

Students selected a place, and then worked in groups to show this place.  Next the class used an iPad to film and create an iMovie.  Below are the finished results!  Students celebrate our place in his world and we hope you will enjoy their creations.



  

Coming Soon: Cougar Cub Inventor's Workshop

Richmond Elementary School , in conjunction with
Vermont State Science Fair and the Society of Women Engineers is proud to present the third annual:
COUGAR CUB INVENTOR’S WORKSHOP
Thursday November 17th, 2016
5:30 – 7:30pm
RES Gym, Library and Makerspace
Cost: 2$ per Student (to cover cost of disposable resources, scholarships available)
What is an Inventor’s Workshop?
This workshop is a family-friendly event to MAKE, create, learn, invent, craft, recycle, think, play and be inspired by celebrating arts, crafts, engineering, science and technology.  Students will work with their families to create!  Activities will be facilitated by engineers and teachers, but tasks will be open ended and creative.  Families will have an opportunity to learn together as they experience the fun of making / building / constructing / designing and more! A variety of activities will be available to challenge students from Grades K – 8.
Activities planned for our workshop include:
Cardboard Challenge:  Create with cardboard! The possibilities are endless!
Building a fort with Bloxes!  Bloxes are life-sized cardboard building blocks. They're used as furniture, walls, and forts by Google, Twitter, Mozilla, and many more.  Now you can try building with this elusive construction material.
Making a keyboard with bananas!  MaKey MaKey Boards are electronic devices that convert many regular objects into keys on your computer to control programs like Scratch or videos games.  Objects that are conductive, even slightly, like fruit or people, can be used with the MaKey.  

Creating lighted artwork with throwies!  LED Throwies are LEDs connected to coin batteries to create artwork with light.  They can be added to greeting cards or origami, or used to create nightlights or glowing badges. We will have a station to create LED candles.
Squishy Circuits:  Make three dimensional artwork with lights and moving parts out of play dough!  
Creating interactive circuits with littleBits!  littleBits are electronic modules that snap together with magnets to make circuits.  Each bit has a specific function (light, sound, sensors, buttons, motors, etc), and modules snap together to make larger circuits. Just as LEGOs allows you to create complex structures with little blocks, littleBits are small, simple, blocks that make creating sophisticated electronic circuits a matter of snapping pieces together.
Checking out a 3D printer in action!  CHMS students have been using a 3D printer during technology classes, and you can see some of this work.
Make it Fly!: Create objects to fly in the wind tunnel, check out some drones courtesy of JES and learn and fly gliders with BRMS middle schoolers.
Creating abstract art with a digital microscope!  DinoXcope Art is artwork created using a digital microscope to photograph intentional arrangements of materials.  
Programming interactive games with Scratch!  Scratch is a visual programming language.  Use colorful interlocking building blocks of code like legos to build interactive games and programs.
JitterBots:  Back due to popularity, you can create your very own jittery robot!
                                                                                                                                                                                            …and more!!!!
Please contact Darcie Rankin, RES Enrichment Teacher at darcie.rankin@cesuvt.org with questions.
We hope to see you there!

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Rules about Words!

In word study, students are studying groups of words and learning about the "rules" that help us to know how to decode and spell words.  As we all know, the English language is filled with rules, and most of these rules have many exceptions!

The students in Miss Darby's class are working with Mrs. King to dig into these rules...and have created this video to help teach YOU about just a few of these rules...

May we present to you...Word Study Rules, Episode 1!


RES School Store!

Welcome to the Richmond Elementary School Storefront. We are excited to offer this feature to our Richmond families this year. Your support through purchasing items on-line will benefit the PBIS Committee to help support school wide celebrations and a positive school culture at RES.


Monday, November 7, 2016

Don't Forget: RES Lantern Parade

Please join us for the...

Richmond Elementary School

Lantern Parade

Thursday, November 10th 



What:  Parade on the RES/CHMS grounds followed by a sing-along and hot cocoa

When:  Thursday, November 10th

Where:  Students will pick up their lanterns inside RES between 6:00 and 6:15 pm

Parade:  Students and families will meet behind the CHMS basketball courts and parade as a group around the back fields.

Family Sing-along:  Bring your singing voices and afterwards, we will enjoy some hot cocoa!

To Bring: Dress warmly with shoes for walking on the outside fields.  Chairs and blankets for the sing-along are encouraged!
We hope to see you there!


Dough Needed for Squishy Circuits!


Image From: http://www.bethellibrary.org/event/squishy-circuits/

Recently, third graders have begun an exploration of electricity as one of our science units during Enrichment classes with Mrs. Rankin.  "Squishy Circuits" are one activity that Mrs. Rankin hopes to explore with students.  In order for this to happen, we need YOUR help to make conductive and insulating dough from an easy-to-follow recipe.  If you are willing to help us by making conductive playdoh, either leave us a comment OR email your child's classroom teacher and we'll be sure to get the easy-to-follow recipe to you quickly!

Thanks for your support of our science curriculum AND enrichment!

Friday, November 4, 2016

Subtraction on a Number Line

Over the next week in math students will be learning about how to use the number line to model the distance between two numbers when solving subtraction problems.  This video on LearnZillion actually gives you a nice overview, so can learn more about the subtraction strategy your student will be using in math class.



Thursday, November 3, 2016

Lantern Parade is Postponed!!

Image From: http://cliparting.com/free-umbrella-clip-art-12274/


The RES Lantern Parade & Sing-Along has been postponed due to the rain!

We look forward to seeing everyone on 

Thursday, November 10th, 

to help celebrate the changing of the seasons!



Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Makerspace Materials

We've been enjoying the makerspace at RES for the first few months of the school year.  Just a reminder, we need YOUR help to keep our makerspace filled with materials ready for us to use when we are making!

Image From: https://www.theartofed.com/2016/03/16/extending-art-room-making-makerspace/


Recyclable/Free Items You Can Collect:

  • Cereal Boxes
  • Paper towel & toilet paper rolls
  • Yogurt containers
  • plastic lids
  • Old electronic toys (for the take-apart station)
  • Large cardboard boxes
Valuable Making Items You Can Donate:
  • Straws
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Masking or Duct Tape
  • Ribbon
  • String
  • Wooden Dowels
  • LEDs
  • Coin Batteries
  • Material (scraps are fine!)
  • Hot Glue Gun Sticks
  • Legos (small)
  • Tinkertoys
  • Keva Blocks
  • Kinex
  • $$ (Check in with Mrs Rankin for more ways to support!)