Tinkering 101

In partnership with the Montshire Museum, Peacham Elementary is participating in their 40 Schools Project. I feel fortunate to have been able to get our school involved as it has always been important to me that children learn the design engineering process and what goes on behind the scenes of how technology works. For this project students created "Scribble Bots". Here is a brief photo editorial on the process:

Trying out different designs

Testing the bots

Tweaking the bots

Cool bots!

A visit from Howard Coffin

Being not only the school librarian, but also the writing and social studies teacher affords me great opportunities to collaborate with myself on curriculum regularly, like this one! Author Howard Coffin visited grade 3-6 students to talk about Vermont's role in the Civil War. He spoke for about 45 minutes to a captive audience and was impressed with their background knowledge and questions. Did you know it was Vermont who helped win the Battle of Gettysburg and turn the war in favor of the union? Go Vermont and thanks to Mr. Coffin for his visit!

Read Across Peacham Day

As part of the PBiS team here at school, one of my duties is to organize our school wide celebrations. To celebrate achieving our goal of 1,500 Peacham PRIDE points* students celebrated RAP (Read Across Peacham) day! This day was modeled after Read Across America Day and RAD (Read All Day) day at Northfield Elementary School with our own little flavor added for an exciting day.

There was an A-Z scavenger hunt, volunteers from the community read to classes, students made their own books and we even had a visit from our own Cat in the Hat!

Preschool students share the books they made with the school.

Students share their discoveries from the A-Z scavenger hunt.

Mr. Fulton surprises students with a read aloud of Green Eggs & Ham!

*Peacham PRIDE points are earned by following PBiS standards of being Positive, Responsible, Inquisitive, Diligent & Empathetic.

Creative Schools Initiative

Peacham Elementary is proud to take part in the Creative Schools Initiative in it's inaugural year. The program is brought to us from Catamount Arts. I feel very proud and fortunate to take part in this initiative and to give students this unique opportunity to use the arts to understand their studies and work with amazing artists like Heather Bryce & Evelyn Glennie.

Student's have been working hard to integrate movement into their social studies unit about Peacham's role in the Civil War while also incorporating elements of writing focusing on conflict and point of view.

HERE YOU CAN SEE THEIR SATURDAY PERFORMANCE WITH EVELYN GLENNIE!

News 7 was here recently to cover the project!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KhLUzyZYu5Q

The Caledonia Record also covered CSI! Creative Schools Initiative in Peacham

Learn more at: http://celvt.org/creativeschoolsinitiative.html and if you are in the St. Johnsbury area on April 9th we will be performing a snippet with the accompaniment of renowned percussionist Evelyn Glennie!!