Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It is great to be back in the classroom again.  I started back up again after my maternity leave on Monday, and since we had Tuesday off, it was a short week.  Katie's last day was on Wednesday but she has visited us twice since.  She will also return to sub when I am out for end-of-the-year assessing, which starts for us in early May.  I will start with literacy assessments and later in the month complete our PNOA math fluency assessments.  Thank you Katie for still helping us out!

I wanted to make sure you are all aware that our annual Reading Restaurant is scheduled for May 16th.  Our  celebration always occurs in the evening, and I will let you know as soon as I know the times for our two seatings.  For those of you who might not know, a Reading Restaurant is when we celebrate our students writing.  The students publish various pieces for our pretend restaurant, which are "served" to you- the guests.  We provide two seatings, at two different times, so you and other family members can attend.  I will send home times in the near future.  If your time does not work, please let me know and I will change it for you.  Each session (or seating) usually lasts for approximately 30-40 minutes.
During our restaurant, the students act as waiters and kitchen staff, helping you make selections from our extensive menu options.  We "serve" appetizers, main courses and desserts-all in the form of writing.  We are very excited to share this very special moment with you as the students have worked so hard all year long.  Our restaurant theme this year is Pond Life.  We will also decorate the classroom to reflect pond life and the students will participate in various workshops after the vacation to learn more about pond life.  They will learn about the frog life cycle, plant and animal webs and they will study pond water using microscopes to study micro-orgamisms and compare pond water to tap-water. The teachers of Team Harmony are very excited to offer these workshops and learning opportunities.

I also wanted to remind everyone that our team will attend the show"The true story of the three little pigs" at the Flynn on Monday, April 29th.  The bus will leave around 8:30am in the morning and we will return to ABS in the early afternoon.

On Tuesday, April 30th, our new service dog will join our team.  The dog, whose name is Victor, will join Ms. Crowley's class but all students on our team will have an opportunity to meet him for brief sessions in the early afternoon on Tuesday, April 30th.  Thank you all for talking to your child about the importance of not petting and interacting with this dog.  This is a working dog-not a pet.

Thank you all for your tremendous support in educating your children.  Have a great vacation.

Maria

Tracey Campbell Pearson Visits ABS!

Tracey Campbell Pearson is definitely a new favorite author around our classroom! We absolutely loved her visit and learned so much from her! All students wrote her a letter thanking her for visiting and shared what they learned.  Did you know it takes at least three years to complete a children's picture book?  We learned all about the process. In the pictures below you can see students holding up her real "dummies," ask your child to tell you all about them. Notice the post-it notes all over her "dummies"- we learned a lot about the editing process!  Then, in a workshop with her we learned how to illustrate our own books! Enjoy the photos below.