Weekly Update

Dear Families,

This week was also filled with many extra celebrations and activities, which are all part of our "I love to read" February celebration.  We continued reading Red Clover books in our mixed groups.  Every year in Vermont, there is a committee that selects 10 books for the Red Clover Award.  Classroom teachers all over the state read all of the 10 nominated books to their students and then the students vote on their favorite book.  Students at ABS will vote in march and sometime in April, there will be a winner for the entire state, when all the schools participating have had a chance to read and vote.  This is a very special award for the author as children vote.  At ABS, the students are mixed with kids from all the teams and Kindergarten.  They listen to the stories and also participate in a brief reading activity based upon the book.  For example, I am reading the book "The Matchbox Diary" along with Ms Blaine and Ms. Spagnolo.  With us, the students make a small paper box to use for special items, just like the character in the book.  This week, you will see many different reading activities coming home in your child's Thursday folder.  Please ask your child to tell you about the story and which book is their favorite so far, and why.

This week, we also had another opportunity to continue our science investigation with Julie Rogers, our fabulous enrichment teacher.  Ms. Roger's visited our classroom to teach the children more about the dangers of oil spills in our oceans and discuss what we can do to prevent these from happening, or what we can do to clean up the ocean.  The students worked in small groups.  Each group received a "situation card" with a specific task.  Some groups had to figure out how to clean up a oil spill from a ship, while others were challenged to think about how we can prevent oil from running into our oceans if it leaks at parking lots or even our own drive-ways.  Each group had a bucket of water with cooking oil to simulate the ocean and the oil spill.  Here are some pictures.  Enjoy!

This week in reading, the children continued to explore non-fiction books and magazines.  The students also had the opportunity to work as "detectives" and find non-fiction elements inside some non-fiction magazines that I had pre-selected for them. Each student received a booklet with one page for each non-fiction element, such as table of contents, captions, labels, photographs and glossaries.  They searched for each item inside their magazines and when they found the feature, they cut it out and glued it onto the corrected page.  we had so much fun learning about non-fiction text features together and feel better prepared to start our ocean animal research soon.  More information will follow later.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  Thank you all for so generously donating plates and goodies for our party tomorrow.  We will have our special celebration between 11:50-12:25 if you would like to stop by.  We understand if you cannot, but we would like to extend an invitation for those of you who might want to come by.  Thank you for helping us celebrate Valentine's Day together!

Next week is our last week before February break.  On Friday, February 20th, ABS will host a movie afternoon.  Information was already sent out in a separate email about the movies offered.  Here is the copied letter again in case you missed it:

Next Swarm Party @ ABS

Students at Allen Brook School have earned another PBiS school-wide celebration.  This celebration was earned by filling the beehive in the main office by being SAFE, KIND and RESPONSIBLE!  

The celebration, Movie Afternoon, will be on Friday, February 20 from 1:00- 2:30.  The following movies will be shown: THE JUNGLE BOOK, THE ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS, MONSTERS INC and FOX AND THE HOUND.  Students will be able to choose one of the four movies and enjoy the afternoon with their friends (all adults will be participating with supervision)!     

These are all G movies!  If you choose to have your child not participate and/or limit their viewing choice please notify your child’s classroom teacher by Friday (2/13) so that an alternative activity may be planned in advance.

Have a great day tomorrow and weekend,
Maria