Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• This week, first graders continued to learn more about kindness and how we can be kindness detectives.  They were encouraged to show acts of kindness themselves and recognize it in others.  They did an outstanding job sharing kind words with adults and peers.  They also did an outstanding job showing kindness with different actions, such as helping others picking up dropped items, making cards or pictures to make someone else feel better or helping a friend when they got stuck on a task.  As a class, we also made a tissue paper flower bouquet for Ms. Filion.   We continued playing our Kindness Bingo too.

• We had another restorative circle with Ms. Nicole.  This week, we continued to learn more about self-control and how we all have super-powers to control our own bodies and reactions in times of frustration.

You Can: 

• With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, think about how your child can be a kindness detective at home too.  Think about ways in which your child can show acts of kindness to help you out at home too.  Talk to your child about how you can create a system that works for your family. 

Reading:

• We started a new class read aloud.  We are reading the book “Leroy Ninker Saddles Up” by Kate DiCamillo.  This series is a spin-off from the Mercy Watson series.  The students love this story about Leroy’s silly encounters and adventures.  As we read, we have class discussions about the complex and rich vocabulary, the idioms and the characters too.  When we read our books out loud, the text is usually projected for all to see.  Seeing the text and hearing fluent reading being modeled helps young children make connections between the spoken language and the print/letters on the page.  

• Ms. Addie taught a lesson about Jason Chin, the author we will meet on Monday at WCS (See below for more information).  The students listened to his book “Redwoods” and they shared different questions they have for the author himself.  

You can:

• Please check out Jason Chin’s stories at our local and school libraries (ABS Library linked here)

Writing:

• This week, first grade authors continued to work on their personal narratives by adding words related to our senses to add more detail and interest. They were encouraged to add a sentence or two about what they saw, felt, heard in particular.

• First grade authors also practiced penmanship, grammar and ending punctuation. They wrote in their Friday Journals and practiced hand-writing and spelling.

• First grade spellers also practiced encoding skills to represent digraphs and glued sounds (words containing the word endings -all, -am, and -an).  They also practiced new heart words, words that cannot be “sounded out” but must be memorized.

Math:

• We celebrated the 100th day of school this week!  We had so much fun creating 100th day crowns and explore the number 100 in our math class.

• This week, first grade mathematicians also continued to build a deeper understanding of math problem-solving, using representations, pictures and illustrations to show their thinking.  They were partnered up and worked collaboratively to solve a series of math problems.  While working together, our first grade mathematicians also practiced re-voicing their partners’ words and explanations.

You can:

• You can support your child’s math skills by asking your child to explain his/her thinking and re-voicing something you share.  For young learners, re-voicing is a powerful skill that not only enhances the learning, it also promotes effective listening skills and accountability.  At school, the students practice this skill by stating “I heard that….said….”.  Revoicing also promotes perspective-taking and relationship-building as our students learn to appreciate differences in how we process and share information.  It turns out that re-voicing is an excellent tool to use in other subjects and contexts too!  Try it at home.

Field-trips:
I'm excited to share that Harmony will be taking a field trip to Catamount Outdoor Family Center on Tuesday, February 20th. We will be there from roughly 11:45 AM - 1:30 PM. We will be participating in a guided snowshoe activity and learning about animal tracking. We are asking for a few family chaperones to support managing student groups... if you have completed all of your volunteer paperwork with the front office (Supervised Volunteers) and are interested in chaperoning this field trip, please let me know. If you aren't sure if your volunteer paperwork is up to date for this school year, feel free to reach out to Shani (svarricchione@cvsdvt.org).

Please remember that the Annual Fund helps finance these field trips.  As always, the student's admission fees and bus costs are funded by your yearly one-time contribution to the FAP Annual Fund.  Thank you so much for your support!.  Click on this link to learn more about the Williston FAP:

Allen Brook students will visit WCS on Monday, 2/12/24 to hear the author Jason Chin read and share some of his stories.  Buses will leave ABS at 8:15am.  We will be back at ABS after about an hour and a half.  

News and Reminders:

• Please see this attached letter regarding head lice from our school nurse.

• Allen Brook students will visit WCS on Monday, 2/12/24 to hear the author Jason Chin read and share some of his stories.  Buses will leave ABS at 8:15am.  We will be back at ABS after about an hour and a half

• We will celebrate Valentine’s Day in class on Wednesday, 2/14/24.  Please see these attached guidelines and our class-list if your child wishes to share cards/gifts with our friends at school.

• There is no school 2/26-3/1 due to our Winter Break. School resumes on Monday 3/4.

• There is no school on 3/22 for students due to our parent-teacher conferences.  I will share more information as we approach this date and send out a sign-up doc.  Stay tuned.

Have a great weekend,

Maria