Looking forward to 4th Grade!

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It's that time of year again when we start looking toward the 2023-2024 school year! As our school teams look to make placement decisions for 4th grade, the following factors are considered when placing students in classes:

• Balanced Academic Ability:  An equal distribution of academic abilities in various areas.

• Student Learning Styles: Matching teaching styles with individual student personalities.

• Established-Friendships and Opportunities for Relationship Building: Attempt to pair at least one or two friends from the current year to carry over into next year, while also considering opportunities to build new, positive friendships. 

• Family Input:  Although your child's current teacher has had the opportunity to get to know the strengths and needs of your child throughout the year, your family input is also an important part of this process as well. Please consider completing [THIS] optional My Child As A Learner form to share additional thoughts and information helpful for determining future classroom placement (Please complete one form for each student). If you do choose to complete an input form, it must be completed by Tuesday, April 18th, 2023.             

 

Your child’s class placement will be sent home on the last day of school. Please feel free to reach out to Jeremy Rector if you have any unanswered questions about this process or if you need assistance in completing the My Child As A Learner family form. 

Coming Soon: Parents Night Out

 

Upcoming Author Visit!

 Hello RES Community!

I’m excited to announce that we will be hosting Christina Soontornvat for a virtual author visit on December 8!  Students will meet in grade clusters to hear from Christina on what it is like to be a real author and learn about her very amazing books.  I have read almost all of her books and have loved every single one of them!  She is an amazing storyteller.  

Christina Soontornvat is the award-winning author of over a dozen books for children of all ages. Her picture books include The Ramble Shamble Children, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo, and To Change a Planet, illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell. She is the author of the beloved Diary of an Ice Princess chapter book series. Her recent works include the middle grade fantasy, A Wish in the Dark, which was named a 2021 Newbery Honor Book, All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team, which was also named a 2021 Newbery Honor Book. Her latest novel, The Last Mapmaker, published April 2022 from Candlewick Press.

Christina Soontornvat grew up behind the counter of her parents’ Thai restaurant in a small Texas town with her nose stuck in a book. She is very proud of both her Thai and her Texan roots, and makes regular trips to both Weatherford and Bangkok to see her beloved family members (and eat lots and lots of Thai food!). In addition to being an author, Christina holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Science Education. She spent a decade working in the science museum field, where she designed programs and exhibits to get kids excited about science. She is passionate about STEM (science, technology engineering, and math), and loves learning new things. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, two young children, and one old cat.

Christina’s books will be for sale from November 28- Dec 16th at RES.  Please use the order form that will be sent home with kids to pick out your next great read with your kiddos! This is a fundraiser, so money raised goes to help the school provide amazing opportunities such as this author visit. We THANK YOU for your support!

Sincerely,

Emily Wood

RES School Librarian

Options for Reading at Home

 

There are a couple of resources available for students to read and/or listen to e-books at home -- a great option for students to continue to build their reading lives to make reading a habit, not a chore!  Our goal is for students to be reading 20+ minutes a night, this means reading their own books, listening to an adult read, reading to a sibling, or listening to audiobooks.

1. RAZ Kids -- All third graders have been given an account (connected to their teacher) to read via RAZ Kids.  Students could read online at the website by logging on (www.kidsa-z.com) OR via apps on a phone or tablet.  Students have had practice doing this from school and will have login cards in their Book Bags to help with the login process.  As teachers, we work to make sure students are reading books at their "just right" level.  The books can be read to them, they can read them independently, and there is also an option for a quiz at the end.

2.  SORA -- (https://soraapp.com/welcome/login/202587) A virtual library of books (audio and ebooks) available for students to "check out."  Also available as an app for tablets & phones making it even easier!  Select "Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District" and sign in using Google login & password. 

3. Learning Ally -- An audiobook resource that uses real human voices to read current books.  Browse the collection and use an app to listen!!  Students use their Google email and passwords from school to login to the app.

Bus Routes: 2022-2023

 

School Bus Routes 2022-2023

We are soooo excited to meet our new students in just a few days!  As a reminder, it is helpful for ALL of us to know your student's dismissal plans in advance to avoid miscommunication or confusion at the end of the school day.

Here is a letter from our MMUUSD Transportation director and the bus routes (& times) for both arrival & dismissal buses.

A couple of reminders:

• Provide your student's teacher a regular dismissal plan for each day of the week.  IF this plan is different for the first few days or school, please indicate that and provide the changes.  (It gets really confusing the 2nd week of school for students!)
• Please send in an to email resoffice@mmuusd.org AND your student's teacher with any changes from this routine plan.  If your student is riding a different bus home, please include the student they are riding home with the home address where they will be getting off of the bus.
• Please update this plan as necessary throughout the year.

Welcome to the 2022-2023 School Year!

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August 2022

Dear Students and Families,

We hope you have been having a great summer and spending lots of quality time with each other!  We are excited to meet everyone as we begin our year together.  In the meantime, soak up these last days of summer vacation -- we are!

With our new school year just a few weeks away, we have been planning and getting really excited about this year! We’re really looking forward to getting to know each of you and working as partners in education with our students and  families. 

We will spend the first few weeks of school getting to know one another and building our classroom communities before we dig into our third grade curriculum.  Below is a brief outline of what we will study in 3rd grade this year. 

Science & Social Studies

Organisms (Plants & Animals), Independence,  Weather, and Force & Motion

World Geography & Cultures

Reading & Writing

We will read a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, often using what we read to help us become stronger writers.   We’ll read a variety of genres including fairy tales, mysteries, historical fiction, realistic fiction, and many types of nonfiction.  We’ll write personal narratives (stories),  nonfiction books, opinion pieces, research articles, and fairy tales.

Math

We will continue working with computation and number sense, getting into larger addition and subtraction problems (3- and 4-digit numbers), multiplication, and division. We will also continue and expand work on money, time, fractions, and geometry. 

Technology

Technology is embedded throughout our third-grade curriculum, and we use it in many ways both to learn new things and to showcase and communicate what we’ve learned to others.  Each third grader will be assigned a Google Chromebook to use in school.

Supply List:

• 1  composition notebook with lined paper inside (hardcover, sewn-in pages, 100 sheets) -- We’ll be decorating the cover, so a plain & simple notebook is best.

• 1 two-pocket folder, preferably heavier quality for durability (for Home-School Communication)

• 1 box of #2 pencils for the classroom (we’ll collect & share throughout the year!)

• Headphones to keep at school for use with Chromebooks (earbuds tend to break and/or bother students)

Please do not send in any “special” pens or pencils.    Keep these at home to use for schoolwork!  

 

Classroom Wish List Items (optional—only if families would like to donate)

• soft Kleenex/tissues for classroom use

• Funky sticky notes (hearts, stars, animals, etc.)

• Skinny dry erase markers

• Black & Colored Sharpies  (various sizes)

• Large Expo Dry Erase markers

• Eraser Caps

First Day Of School

• For the first day of school, please bring in a healthy snack, a lunch (or you can order one from the cafeteria), and a note saying how you will get home after school for the first week.***

• Sunscreen, bug spray and clothing layers to be outside for longer periods of time

We are very excited about starting our year together! If you have any questions before school starts you can reach us by email, and once school starts you can also reach us by phone at 434-2461.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Marie Ayer               Mr. Carl Ellerkamp Mrs. Tonya Girouard

marie.ayer@mmuusd.org                 carl.ellerkamp@mmuusd.org               tonya.girouard@mmuusd.org