What a crazy week in terms of weather! Both snow and warmer breezes.....will Spring ever come? It was nice to be able to go outside without freezing, however.
This week, the students started a new writing unit. We finally finished our ocean animal reports, which we will share at our upcoming Reading Restaurant (more information on that below). Our new writing unit is called "Persuasive, or Opinion Writing." In this unit, the children learn to present an opinion and back up this opinion with reasons, which in turn, are based upon evidence. It is a very interactive and fun unit for the children as they learn this writing style through letter writing. This week, we learned about the various elements of this genre by reading many books on the topic. A new favorite in our classroom is "I wanna iguana" by Karen Kaufmann Orloff, for example. We brainstormed different people we could write letters to, and what we could ask for. The students came up with great ideas and we have students writing letters to Mr. Terko, Mrs. Benoit, mom (or dad), and even the singer Bruno Mars! The students present many varied opinions, and many varied topics. Some children are asking for longer recess, while others are asking for a dog. Some children are asking for extra time between assessments, and one student is asking for school to start earlier! We look forward to sharing these letters at our Reading Restaurant.
For those of you who are new to our school, or first grade, Reading Restaurant is a special celebration when we share the students' writing pieces from the whole year. Itis also a time when we share our students' scrapbooks, binders filled with memories and special activities from our school year together. Harmony's Reading Restaurant is scheduled for Wednesday May 20th. It will be hosted in the evening and parents will be assigned a session to attend. We provide two evening "seatings" and when you visit our Reading Restaurant, your child will "work" in our restaurant. The children "work" in our "kitchen" where they help the waiters and waitresses serve our stories to our guests (you). We do not serve any food or drinks, rather our children's stories are served. Harmony's theme this year is Vermont, so we will decorate our classroom to resemble places and things in Vermont. We will also select a restaurant name for our classroom to reflect what is special to us about Vermont. We hope you can pencil in our Reading Restaurant now even though I cannot provide times yet. Thank you. It is my understanding that the Art Show is the very same night. In the past, it has never been problematic for parents to attend both, if desired. I just wanted to let you know. The 20th is a very special day at ABS!!!
We started our new social studies workshops last week on Harmony. We are studying Vermont. As before, the students rotate through various workshops and learn about Vermont. With me, they learn about maps and the geography of Vermont. In Mrs. Benoit's workshop, they explore tourism, attractions and what makes Vermont so special. In Ms. Crowley's workshop, the students learn about special Vermont symbols, such as the flag.
We visited WCS for the school play earlier this week. The students at WCS performed "Grease." They did an amazing job with the costumes, acting and singing. Thank you WCS for inviting us! Here are some pictures.
Best,
Maria
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