Friday, January 4, 2019

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
Happy New Year and welcome back to school!  I hope everyone had a nice relaxing holiday break.  It was great to see all the children again.  They had so much to tell!
We will have a busy couple of weeks ahead, so I hope you have a chance to read this post-hopefully containing all the important dates/times you will need!

Report Cards:
Report cards will go home with your child on Friday, January 25th.  I hope you have the time to read them with your child.  If you have any questions or concerns regarding the reports, please let me know.  I am happy to explain them to you and your family.

Field-trip:
Harmony House will see "The Magic School Bus and the Solar System" at the Flynn next week.  We will go on Thursday, January 10.  The bus will leave ABS around 8:45 and return around 11:45.  Permission slips came home today in your child's Friday folder.  Please fill out (two sides), sign and return as quickly as possible.

UVM Interns:
We are so fortunate to have another UVM intern join our classroom next week.  Ms. Sam will be with us full-time until April/May.  Some of you might have met her already because she worked with the Special Educators in Kindergarten last semester.
We will also have another UVM intern join us on Tuesdays and Thursdays, just like Mr Matt.

Harmony Family Breakfast:
Harmony House would love to try to host a family breakfast and we really hope the weather will cooperate this time around.  We are planning this event for January 18th between 7:45-8:30 am.  More information will soon follow.  Ms. Roberts will send out another invitation and sign-up document for donations.  Thank you in advance for your generosity and time.

Reading:
All students participate in mid-year reading assessments.  I hope to start next week and Ms. Sam will sub for me when I do this.  The children have worked so hard in reading.  I am excited to see all their growth!

Writing:
We will continue our unit on opinion writing for a few more weeks before starting our non-fiction animal reports.  This year, we will study ocean animals.  This will also be our theme for Reading Restaurant in May.

Science:
We started our new science unit on the solar system this week.  Since we follow the new NGSS standards in science, our focus will primarily be upon observable patterns in the sky and shadows.  The children started learning about shadows this week.  We discussed the science behind shadows and shared observations about the attributes of shadows at different times of the day, for example.  Your child brought home a little paper gnome today.  If your child wants to, he/she can put it on a white piece of paper in a sunny place and observe (sketch) the shadow at different times of the day.  What do you notice about the shadow?  Is it getting bigger? Smaller? Is it moving?  Why is it moving? Is the gnome moving? 

Mercy Watson celebration:
Here are some pictures from our buttered toast party when our unit on Mercy Watson, written by Kate DiCamillo ended.




Spreading Holiday Cheer:
Our class celebrated our wonderful bus-drivers and thanked them for their service before our holiday break as well.


Have a great weekend and get a lot of rest for next week of school!!

Maria

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