Introducing "Empathy".....

Here it is!  The world premiere of our video!  We hope you enjoy it!  Thanks again, to Mr. L and Mrs. D for their caring and support with putting it together! And kids.....you rock!
Your Forever Fan,
:)Mrs. B.

We're at the finish line!

Our class is completing our Social Issues Book Club work this week.  Students are constructing Literary Essays based on their reading, this time digging a bit deeper.....and exploring bigger themes and messages in their books.  How are characters handling the struggles and conditions of their situations?  What are the underlying social issues that are being described in their books?  Are there lessons to be learned?

We're also wrapping up our special video project this week, and hope to share it with you all before the break!  We're excited to show you our hard work and creativity! Stay tuned....

Recently our class was mentioned in a literacy blog called "Two Writing Teachers" where our district literacy coach, Beth Moore, and others post literacy work from teachers, celebrations and instructional strategies.  Our recent work with Empathy caught Beth's attention, as did our writing and posting outside our classroom.

Here's a link to her blog, and the picture/caption she posted.

Two Writing Teachers

Momix Field Trip Update!

A note from Mrs. Rankin about TOMORROW! (February 14th)

Hello 4th Grade Families!

As you all know we were scheduled to go to the Flynn theater on Monday to see an awesome show--MOMIX. Due to the snow the show has been rescheduled to Tuesday.  Due to the switch we have a few spare chaperone seats available. Please email Darcie Rankin at darcierankin@cesuvt.org if you would like to attend (8:30school departure and noon return time--12 dollar fee).

Thanks Everyone!

MUSIC TO OUR EARS..... :)

Thanks, Ben, for your hard work and for so thoughtfully creating the soundtrack for our class project! Fantastic! We're looking forward to putting all the pieces together over the next week and bringing everyone's talents and heart together into one wonderful product!  Thanks so much to Mrs. D and to Mr. Langevin for their time, energy, and expertise in teaming with us, too!  

Stay tuned for more news and updates in the week ahead!

RES Jumpers

There's lots of 3rd and 4th graders who are jumping every Wednesday after school and they are looking forward to showing their talents at an assembly on February 22nd!   These kids are also fundraising to support the efforts of the American Heart Association to help people keep their hearts healthy and strong! Thank you to the community for their support and for encouraging kids to develop positive and healthy habits early in their lives!  Great job jumpers!

Kinderbuddy Time !!!!

What a wonderful afternoon we had with our Kinderbuddies on Wednesday!  The 4th graders prepared materials to lead a Valentine's activity where the kids made rainbow heart cards for their families!  Inside the cards they even added some special thoughts about "Things they Love....." Big buddies wrote words for their Kinderbuddies, who then illustrated their ideas! Here's the song we sang that inspired the project.  Enjoy!

I Like Hearts
(to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)

Red hearts, white hearts,

Pink hearts, too.

I like purple hearts.

How about you?

Green hearts, yellow hearts,

Blue hearts, too.

I like rainbow hearts.

How about you?

To celebrate our friendship and a project well done, the Sweet Tooth Bakery staff frosted up some sweet treats for everyone!  Delicious!  It was a great afternoon!

Our Book Club Reading is going GREAT....

I'm so proud of the intensity in our Reader's Workshop!  Kids are really getting into their books and discovering all kinds of truths, themes, and authors' messages.  Their conversations and "stop-and-jots" are getting more sophisticated and thoughtful - full of interpretation and personal reflection.  Super job, kids....

Best Recess Ever.....

Friday at Cochran's Ski Area........what fun!!!!

The Sweet Tooth Bakery

We have some budding, young bakers and business folks in our class!  Recently some students in our class began to use their creativity and imaginations to create a bakery.  They've named it the "Sweet Tooth Bakery".  We'll be using their bakery to learn more about money, making change, discounts, and the endless other things that can be learned from working and creating together in a cooperative team.  It's pretty exciting!  Here are some pics of the Grand Opening.....

Our Special Swedish Ivy

On Friday, I shared a small little Swedish Ivy plant with the class.  This little plant was given to our 4th grade team, and comes from The White House, Oval Office, in Washington, D.C.  The plant has been there since 1961, and is situated such that when the President looks straight ahead, it will look directly back at them!  It was last shared with President Barack Obama.   A Richmond parent brought it to us and it will be divided into 3 separate plants when it's ready!  How lucky we are to have a piece of our nation's history right here at RES...

Book Trailers and Media Literacy in Enrichment Library Classes

This is a guest post from our enrichment teacher, Darcie Rankin and our library media specialist, Beth Redford.

Fourth graders at RES are wrapping up a unit on media literacy. They learned about several strategies that advertisers use to get people's attention and convince them to buy products. Then they practiced finding those strategies in different kinds of advertisements. Finally, the scholars created video advertisements for books, also known as book trailers, to try to convince other scholars to read their favorite stories.

We hope you enjoy the book trailers! Can you identify some of the strategies used by our scholars? They may include Association, Bandwagon, Beautiful People, Bribery, Celebrity Endorsements, Experts, Explicit Claims, Fear, Humor, Intensity, Maybe/Weasel Words, Plain Folks, Testimonials, Repetition, and Warm and Fuzzy.

We share all our scholars' book trailers on YouTube and Twitter. Sometimes we hear back from authors that they liked the trailers! We have added those mentions below the videos.












The author of Roller Girl, Victoria Jamieson, liked this book trailer on Twitter!

New Featured Book Review! Roller Girl By @JamiesonV reviewed by an #resvt scholar https://t.co/he7X2uhnaH #dorothyslist

— RES Library (@RESVTlibrary) January 19, 2017

The author of Awkward, Svetlana Chmakova, liked this book trailer on Twitter!

New Featured Book Review! Awkward by @svetlania reviewed by #RESVT scholars https://t.co/MCT8KB8s5g #dorothyslist #vsla

— RES Library (@RESVTlibrary) January 19, 2017

The author of this book, Lauren Tarshis, complimented this book trailer on Twitter!

@RESVTlibrary @YouTube so exciting! I love this❤️

— Lauren Tarshis (@laurenTarshis) January 31, 2017

The author of this book, Dana Simpson, complimented this book trailer on Twitter!

Yay! Love this! ✨🦄✨❤️ https://t.co/e0MI6n3pM5

— Dana Simpson (@MizDanaClaire) February 1, 2017

@RESVTlibrary They did a wonderful job! ✨🦄✨

— Dana Simpson (@MizDanaClaire) February 1, 2017

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