Dear Families,
Here is our week in review:
Social-Emotional Learning:
This week in class, we learned about different skills for listening to learn. The students were introduced to different ways to focus their attention, how to be assertive and how they can use self-talk to improve their listening skills. In the weeks to come, we will dig deeper into each of these strategies together. The first activity will be to engineer an “attentoscope” to help us zoom into the important aspects of learning while removing distractions. The students will create paper binoculars. Here is a picture of the visual reminders we use.
The students also learned that two puppets in our class can help us learn better too. They met “Snail” and “Puppy” this week. These two characters are part of the Second Step program and we will use them as props as we continue learning about social-emotional learning together. “Snail” helps us listen. “Puppy” helps us practice and implement skills taught.
The students at Allen Brook filled the school Bee-Hive again for being safe, kind and responsible. We celebrated together with a Bubble Party. What fun! Each house received bubbles and spent some additional time outside together with their bubbles.
Next week, the students will earn Booster Buzzies for showing safe bodies at Allen Brook. We will revisit ideas around having calm bodies and showing respect for other people’s personal space.
Reading:
The students continued to practice their independent reading skills this week. Every day, their reading stamina improves. What a terrific group of dedicated readers we have. I am so proud of them. The students continued to practice setting individual goals for reading.
We started guided reading groups this week as well. This week, the students meet with the teacher in small groups in order to receive explicit reading instruction based upon their own respective needs in reading. The students learned norms and structures while participating in these small groups. For example, we practiced reading engagement: reading books together, while attending to the book and the text on the page. The students also practiced retelling the stories using evidence from the texts.
We also started to explicitly learn reading strategies to help us decode the words on the page. This week, the students learned about the importance of looking at the pictures (and using their “eagle eyes”) while also looking at the first letter of the word. Simply guessing the word based upon the picture is no longer sufficient. The students learned to point to the first letter of the unknown word to “get their mouth ready” to make the sound of the first letter of the word to help them read it. In class, we use this language. When you read to your child at home, you might want to try the same language!
Don’t forget to visit our Allen Brook School Library catalogue online. At this site, you can help your child browse books at ABS. You can also listen to ebooks online. Check them out! (type in ebooks in the search option). Have fun reading together!
Writing:
We continued our launching unit this week in writer’s workshop. Since the beginning of the school year, the students have been exposed to different kinds of writing. We have participated in collaborative writing, a time when the teacher writes the words on large paper or on the document camera for the students to see, but we brainstorm the words and sentences together. We have also explored various other types of writing that we do: lists, notes, reminders, signs, cards and letters.
First Grade Math:
First grade mathematicians learned how to subitize this week. Subitizing is an effective strategy in math as it helps us see groups of objects/numbers as smaller parts of a whole, thus helping us to “see” numbers without relying on counting by ones. This week, the students practiced these subitizing skills in different ways; through games with partners, through collaborative discussions in class and through independent work.
First grade mathematicians also explored the different domains of math problem solving. They learned the importance of making sense of the math. We practiced asking ourselves “Does this make sense?” before moving on. Using our own thinking smarts will help us build more confidence in math too.
The students also learned how to clearly show their thinking in math pictures, equations and representations.
Science:
We started our science unit on properties of matter this week. Throughout this science unit the students will participate in hands-on experiments and activities to test their claims. They will learn to observe carefully, collect data and use their reasoning skills to draw conclusions.
We experimented with liquids this week. The students rotated through stations investigating the properties of liquids. They used droppers filled with water to test the characteristics of water on different surfaces.
The students also created their own hats in an engineering challenge to protect themselves from heat and the sun. With the help of our friends at Mystery Science, the students pretended they were located on a tropical island and needed to create protective hats to shield their faces from the sun. The students learned that some materials provide better protection than others. I hope your child shared his/her hat creations with you at home!
News and Reminders:
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.
Many family members have asked about the procedures for having their child’s picture taken if they were absent from school on the day we had our pictures taken. I checked with the front office and I was informed that the photographer will be back after the initial pictures have been distributed to do picture retakes. At this time, the students who were absent on the school picture day will also have their pictures taken. Stay tuned for more information. I was told this will be scheduled in about 4 weeks.
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.
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.
Please remember to help your child pack his/her library books on Monday nights. We have Library Exchange on Tuesdays. 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.
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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