Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
We had a great week together. It was wonderful to be back in-person again. We revisited “old” routines and norms and reviewed what our learning community represents. Our classroom contract and self-portraits are hanging up in our kiva, proudly displaying what it means to be safe, kind and responsible on Harmony.
We also completed our “Hopes & Dreams” project this week. The students made paper bees and wrote about their hopes and dreams for this school year. Our bees are currently hanging above our lockers along with bees made by Ms. Fisher’s class. The children are so proud of their creations.
We learned about “active listening” this week as well. Active listening is when we listen with our whole bodies and when we can fully understand what is being said. We listen actively by looking at the speaker, having calm bodies and quiet voices. We practiced “re-voicing” what the speaker said after the speaker had finished. Re-voicing is a powerful way to engage young learners in the learning process as it encourages engagement and accountability. Students took turns sharing their “Me Bags” and their friends re-voiced what they learned from their friends. It was so fun. We discovered that we have so many things in common with our friends in class! Listening to learn is important in first grade as we do a lot of listening to each other. It is as important to listen to our friends when they share their thinking and understanding as it is to listen to adults and teachers. We will continue work on this next week when we will learn about strategies to use when it is particularly hard to listen to learn.
We continued our mini-unit “All About Me” this week as well. We completed a collaborative activity to get to know each other based around the Olympic flag. Each circle of the Olympic flag represented a different aspect of the students’ favorite things. Ask your child to explain more and look for these flags in your child’s Home Folder.
We filled our classroom buzzy jar again for being safe, kind and responsible. This time, the students voted to have extra time to play different games in our classroom.
Literacy:
We continued to build stamina in writer’s and reader’s workshop this week. We set goals prior to working and tracked our level of active engagement as a class. We are working effectively for longer periods of time every day! I am so proud of this hard-working class!
The students earned new and effective word study activities this week too. We played games around rhyming and word endings, along with activities to promote the development of sight word automaticity and fluency. More to come on this in the weeks to come as our Fundations classes start in full.
We also began our reading assessments. We use the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessments at ABS, which assesses reading comprehension, fluency and accuracy. These assessments will be completed next week and shared with families during our conferences later this fall (see below for more information).
Please continue to read with, and to, your child daily. Continued and consistent exposure to print helps children develop the solid foundational skills required for reading success. Thank you.
Fundations:
Fundations classes will start on Monday next week. Fundations is the curricular program we use at ABS. It is a comprehensive program that encompasses phonics, phonological awareness and word-level skills and strategies as young students learn to read and write. It is multi-sensory and highly engaging. You can learn more about it here
I will teach first grade Fundations this year and thus stay with the children. We will remain in our classroom together. This is a change from what was initially shared with you during our summer conferences. We have made this change in an effort to reduce transitions and exposure to Covid. I am really excited to teach Fundations to this awesome group of kids!
First Grade Math:
First grade mathematicians focused on composing and decomposing numbers this week through a series of hands-on learning activities. They used rekenreks and magnetic 10 frames to show different parts to numbers to 10, while also writing equations to match. We learned how to accurately “count on” from the larger number to find the missing addend.
Today was the 20th day of school. We celebrated this special day by counting and grouping objects of 20. Instead of counting these objects by ones, the students were encouraged to group them into groups of 5s and 10s, which helps young mathematicians see larger numbers more accurately and efficiently.
The students also counted larger groups of objects in class. They were handed bags of small plastic sticks and were challenged to count how many sticks were in each bag. They came up with many, creative ideas and they worked beautifully together as they shared strategies. We discovered that grouping these sticks into smaller groups helped us reach a more accurate result and it also helped us remember better! Perhaps your child wishes to do this at home as well? Take a small ziplock bag filled to dry, uncooked macaroni, or cheerios, and see how your child will count the objects inside. How can they do it without relying on counting by ones? Is it easier to count/group into 5s or 10s and then count the number of groups? How do we count by ones accurately? Should we move each object over slightly to ensure the object is not counted twice by accident?
Science:
We celebrated the first day of Fall this week. We went outside to collect leaves, which are now drying in our classroom for art projects next week. We also read an interactive book about fall leaves, followed by a water color art project. The results were beautiful. Some students will take these home. Some students chose to keep them in the classroom and will keep them in our scrapbooks. These scrapbooks will be shared with families at the end of the school year when they come home.
Update from UVM and Ms. Emily:
As part of Ms. Emily’s teacher licensing requirements for the state of Vermont, she must be observed by her professor several times during the semester while teaching different lessons. Due to Covid, we are hoping to achieve this requirement without having the professor come in person to our school. Instead, UVM has a video-recording option instead. In your child’s Home Folder today is a permission slip for you to fill out to give permission to Ms. Emily to video-record her lessons. These recordings will strictly be used for her own licensing portfolio requirements and only viewed by her and the professor. Please sign and return these permission slips as soon as possible. Thank you.
News and Reminders:
Please place the Technology letter with passwords/QR Codes etc in a safe place at home. This is in the event of another possible remote learning situation. Your child will need these codes in order to access our online learning then. Thank you.
Ms. Emily will be my substitute teacher when I administer the reading and math assessments next week. Thank you Ms. Emily!
ABS Curriculum Night: Administrators have cancelled in-person Curriculum Night. We will be sending out more information in coming weeks regarding a digital presentation the Harmony teachers will share via Google Slides.
Arrival & Dismissal Procedures: Administrators seeing a few things that we need to fix up for our arrival and dismissal procedures to make them run safely and efficiently.
Please stay in your vehicle and avoid extended chats with the adults as we are trying to efficiently move people through the pick up line. Please do not leave your car unattended in the lane at any time. We also prefer you NOT park your vehicle to come and retrieve your child. Our way of ensuring your child gets to you safely is that exchange at your vehicle for the adult to see.
Please pull all the way up to the curb for pick up as others are waiting to move up behind you.
Avoid "double-parking"/parking diagonally
We appreciate all you can do to follow these guidelines to ensure a safe and smooth transition in and out of school!
Changes in dismissal plans: If you ever have changes to the dismissal plans you shared with the school, please email absinformation@cvsdvt.org and me at mmccormack@cvsdvt.org.
Ms. Emily will conduct her solo weeks (a time when she acts as the lead teacher and I am in a supporting role) the first two weeks of November. I will host conferences during this time. These conferences will be remote. I will share links and more information as we approach this time. Thank you.
It is quite chilly in the mornings now. Please make sure your child comes to school with layers as morning outside time sometimes feels cold. Thank you.
Please make sure your child has a water bottle every day. Thank you.
Please return the writing assignment by next Friday. This will help your child write at school and know how to spell the names of different family members correctly. Thank you.
Here is this week’s School Bell.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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