Food Drive

    RES Food Drive

Richmond Elementary School, in collaboration

with the Williston Area Lions Club, is collecting

items for the Richmond Community Food Shelf.  

Please bring in canned or boxed non-perishable

food items from Monday, October 25th through

Friday, October 29th.  There will be boxes to collect donations in the

front lobby.  Thank you.

Animal Habitats & New Units!

 

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Greetings!

Last week was a fabulous week together.  We have been immersing ourselves in letters, sounds, and beginning our study on trick words.  We also began our Handwriting program and started a new unit on geometry.  We kicked off with a shape hunt and learned very quickly that shapes are everywhere!!! 

We had the pleasure of having Mr. Rector join us for our woodsy Wednesday time outdoors.  we had a blast learning about animal habitats.  As our VT habitats are adjusting to the weather change so are the animals that live here. After the amusing puppet show, students showed beautiful teamwork towards creating mini habitat models. Ask your child what makes a great habitat? (Food, water, protection, & a place to raise their young.)  We completed our morning by planting milkweed seeds for future Monarch caterpillars and their habitat around RES.

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Enjoy this video recap!

Week of 9/13 Exploring and Discovering!

 First graders continued to do their best learning this week!  It was a little challenging with some viruses going around but we made it through.  Students are continuing their work with SoCo skills - this week we focused on zones of regulations and how we can move through these zones and end up in the green zone!

We also started our writing unit- small moments!   During this unit, your child will think of little moments that have happened to them and begin writing them down.  I shared my moment of finding a Yellow Jacket nest last weekend and how 6 stings later I live to tell the tale! 

In reading, we continue to build stamina with our reading-to-self time.  These students love to read!  Next week we will begin to learn strategies that will help us decode words!  

In Math, we practiced adding 1 and 2 more to a number.  We are learning through fun games.  We also started working on story problems.  

Lastly, towards the end of the week, we had the pleasure of releasing two butterflies out into the wild! One female and one male.  We learned that males have two spots on their wings. 

We also spent some time in the Nest classroom, one of my favorite spots.  Here we sectioned off a plot of land using a string.  We then used magnifying glasses to look closely at organisms and to notice the littlest details that we could find on the forest floor.  They documented their findings by drawing and labeling them on notecards.  Taking this time helps us learn about what is in our forest and helps us build respect towards nature.

Outdoor Gear

"There is no such thing as bad weather but there is bad clothing! "  Below is a guide to being prepared!

Dress for Success:

Outdoor Learning at RES

Dear Families,

Outdoor learning is amping up at RES both as a practical response to health and safety regulations for Covid 19 and because we feel it is an important way to connect the concepts we are teaching in real and purposeful ways.

To enrich your child’s learning experience, your child will be going outside for learning activities on school grounds, in our incredible outdoor classroom spaces and nearby off campus for activities such as PE. We will be exploring in the sun, rain and snow.

You can help by: 

• Dressing your children for outdoor learning every day. In fall, winter and spring. The grass is really wet in the mornings and the air very chilly. Being over prepared is better than not having enough.

• Providing a change of clothing, socks and shoes (boots can be a change of shoes) in case they are needed. If your child gets dirty, they have been active and engaged in their learning. 

• A bag (plastic grocery one works) to put dirty or wet clothes in. 

• Providing boots for outdoor explorations when the ground and grass is wet, snowy or cold. It has been cold and wet in the mornings this week.

• Providing a reusable water bottle and a nutritious snack (which can be provided by the school).  

See the back for recommended clothing.

Recommended Clothing: 

• Wool or synthetic socks. Ones that wick moisture away from the skin. 

• Sneakers 

• Pair of waterproof boots.  

•  Outer shell of waterproof, windproof clothing, including a rain jacket and rain pants. 

• Warm and waterproof hat and gloves/mittens that slip on and off easily. 

• Layers that are breathable and wick moisture away from the skin.

• Extra layers, including a warm and waterproof winter jacket and snow pants. We will be active outside, but there will be times when we are sitting which can be chilly.

• An extra pair of warm gloves and warm socks to keep in their backpacks.

• Layers that are breathable and wick moisture away from the skin. 

Please reach out if you need help gathering these items.

2nd week of school!

 What a lovely first full week!

First graders are settling in very nicely and are learning routines!  During reading, we spent time practicing our social-cognition work.  We talked about the importance of following the group plan, working together, the importance of staying in a group and recognizing that we all have a bubble space to respect, and how we have green, yellow, and red thoughts. We want to share thoughts that are kind and lift each other up!  

some books we read

WE also were able to go outside and begin learning about our ECO time. Our focus was on safety and respecting the forest.  We made beautiful bracelets that represented all that we love about the great outdoors! While we were outside we spent some time journaling some of the observations we had made that morning! There were many slugs in the forest that day - which seemed to be pretty exciting! :)

This week we also dove into our math unit where we are practicing counting, writing our numbers correctly, and refreshing our memory with 10/20 frames.  For our theme time, we are loving our time learning about butterflies!  We made beautiful life cycle pictures on transparent paper that we hung on our window!  We also now have 4 Monarch Caterpillars that we are observing every day!  Thank you for bringing them in!

Lastly, I wanted to thank you all for the classroom donations!  I appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity!  

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First Day Fun!!

 Hello,

If you have not checked out our blog yet - WELCOME!!

We had a fabulous day today at school.  It was so nice to meet all of these sweet children!  We were able to gather together and read several books, played with magic dough that predicted that we will have a great year, and created butterfly bracelets to release any butterflies we had on our first day! 

My favorite part of the day was during the story Amelia Bedelia's First Day Of School when many students broke out into hard laughter - it was the catchy kind of laughter!  Such a beautiful moment! We truly are going to have a great year!

Enjoy some first day pictures! ❤

Outdoor classroom creation in the upper forest!

 I am so excited to announce that we had a successful morning at RES today!  Community and staff members came together to create 3 more classrooms in our upper forest.  These spaces will be used for the younger students PreK-first grade!  We can't wait to explore them with our students! We are so grateful for those who came out and those who will continue to support these projects! Thank you!