Happy Holidays!

The students created another storyjumper book this week. We hope you like their incredible pictures, wishing us all a happy and safe holiday vacation!
Click here to view.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We have had another great week with lots of learning and special activities to celebrate the holidays around the world.
The students finished their special holiday presents for their families this week. These presents are wrapped and will come home today, along with many additional things from their cubbies and desks as we are trying to clean up before the end of the year! I will also remind the students to bring home snow-boots and pants today. Hopefully, we will get some snow so we can all enjoy some winter fun over the vacation. Lastly, the students will bring home a Vacation Journal in their Thursday folders today. This journal is for the students to write and draw in to share their holiday experiences with their friends. It is a voluntary project, so please do not feel that your child has to finish this book. Some students might even want to blog over vacation to share pictures and stories with us. I have created a "Guest" log-in account, in case you wish to post comments as well, or if your child wishes to comment on his/her Blogging Buddy from Ms. Davison's class. I will send out a separate email about password information. I look forward to reading about all the winter fun you will have.

Please do not forget that we have a school-wide celebration tomorrow. We will celebrate our warm buzzies all day, and tomorrow is a PJ Day! Please make sure your child wears warm pajamas because we will still have outdoor recess. Please do not send in any slippers or stuffed animals. We will also watch the movie "Polar Express" on our team and in the afternoon, the entire school will gather in the gym for a special sing-along. We are very excited. Thank you to all who have so generously offered to bring in foods and drinks for our celebration party tomorrow.

I hope you will have a wonderful holiday break from school with your family. I hope you will find time to rest and relax, read good books and share your expereinces via blogging or writing in our Vacation Journals.

Have a restful break,
Maria

We have published a new book!

We have published a new book online. Please click here to access StoryJumper to read it online. Please note that you and your family can choose to order this book in a hardcover format as well. They are very nice.
The book is about insects. The students created all the art-work based upon Eric Carle's art.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
I have a very short update for you this week as we are getting ready for the last week of school before our holiday vacation. Our last day of school is next Thursday, December 22nd. (School starts again on Wednesday, January 4th).
I will send home many extra just right books with your child next week. Hopefully, you will find the time to continue reading at home every day. We will not send home our weekly Homework folders, but I will send home a "Vacation Journal" that encourages your child to write and draw about his/her vacation activities. This Vacation Journal is optional, but many students love to chronicle what they do and share when they come back to school. If your child benefits from the reading/writing activities provided in the homework folder, please feel free to print your own reading logs online. I am delighted that many students are trying new ones and I would be happy to check them when we return to school. Don't forget about our KidBlog during vacation. The blog provides a terrific opportunity for your child to stay connected with friends. Thank you!
Next week, on Thursday December 22nd, the whole school will celebrate our warm buzzies again and have another Swarm Party. This time we will have a Pajama Party!! Please send your child to school in his/her pajamas, but make sure they are warm and snug enough for outdoor recess as the children will go outside for their regularly scheduled recess time. Children must wear regular shoes-slippers are not permitted. Please also refrain from sending in stuffed animals and blankets. We already have stuffed animals and pillow in our classroom. Thank you! In additiona to our PJ Day, we will also celebrate by watching the movie "Polar Express" written by Chris Van Allsburg. We will read the book and do various reading activities and on Thursday, we will "board" the train together, wearing our pajamas-just like the characters in the book. At the end of the day, all faculty, staff and students will meet in the gym for a special holiday sing-along.
Lastly, the students and I would also like to have a little celebration in our classroom, so if you can please send in some special treats/snacks for us, we would greatly appreciate that. Please send me an email to let me know if you and your family can donate some muffins, crackers, cookies, juice, and other snacks for our holiday celebration. Thank you.
I wanted to share some special pictures with you this week. There is picture of a a letter from Ms. Beeken to the class. She sent a letter to the students because they cleaned up her classroom after art-class. They did an amazing job and she was so grateful. Ask your child to explain. The other pictures are of our latest reading response activity. As the students read their books and think about these books, they start to recognize the various story elements that make them great. This week, we started creating our own awards for them. The students carefully choose a book that he/she likes and decides on what award should be awarded. The students create their own award by naming it themselves. So far, we have awarded "Best Chapter Book", "Best Detailed Story", and "Best detailed story" awards. Since the students also justify their award and write about why a particualr book deserves anaward, they are finding new ways to connect reading and writing. They are learning to once again read as writers and write as readers. Please visit our classroom for our display of these awards.
Regards,
Maria

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Reader

Mrs. Wentz joined our classroom last week as our Guest Reader. She read two wonderful books to us. Thank you for taking the time to read to us.

 

 

 

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We finally got some snow!!! We are so excited. Outside snow means winter clothes for outdoor recess. Please remember that we have outdoor recess every day. Snow pants, winter boots, warm jackets, hats and mittens/gloves are needed so your child can enjoy all the fun outdoor activities at this time. Thank you. Many of you are also sending in an extra change of clothing and indoor shoes as feet and socks sometimes get cold and wet. Thank you. We did a snow melting experiement this morning in our classroom. Ask your child to explain how we can ask questions, make predictions and observations as scientists. We filled one cup with fresh snow, and another only half-way up. We observed the snow using our senses. Then, we made predictions about what would happen to the snow. We quickly agreed that the snow would melt, but how quickly would it melt? Would the snow in the different containers melt at different speeds, and if so, why? Winter-time is a great time for science experiments! We have our classroom outdoor thermometer installed as well. Wintertime is a great time to check the outdoor temperatures.

I hope you all had a chance to see the pictures we posted from our classroom celebration with Mr. Terko earlier this week. If not, please scroll down on this blog to see an earlier post. Once again, thank you all for your incredible generosity sending in all the goodies we enjoyed. We could not have done this without your help, engagement and support. Thank you.

I wanted to remind all of you about our homework assignments again. Please note that students are only expected to spend approximately 20 minutes every night on homework, which includes the reading/writing and math homework. Reading logs are due back on Thursdays. I really enjoy seeing the comments from the parents and hope that you are all seeing the progress your child is making. I have received some feedback on the additional reading log suggestions (the email attachment I sent out earlier this week and which is also posted on the wiki). Thank you. I am glad to hear that they work well for you and your child. Please remember that these topics are voluntary. Math homework is sent out sporadically in grade 1, but second graders receive math homework almost every Monday. This math homework is placed inside your child's red Homework folder, and due back on Thursdays, along with the reading log. I have noticed that many children did not hand in their math homework this week. Please hand it in as soon as possible. I check it at school. It will be returned again so your child can play these games over and over again. Talking about math and doing math will help your child build the necessary and foundational skills for future success in mathematics. Thank you.

We had another great 4 Winds class today, learning about decomposition of logs. We saw a puppet show, enjoyed a visit from a professor from Cambridge University in England (although the students claimed it was Zachary's mom, I am not sure) and explored logs as scientists. Thank you parents for volunteering for this great class.

 

 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend,
Maria

Science Update

We love to do science in our classroom. Ask your child to explain how scientists write and make observations. We have learned to use our senses, rather than our feelings. We have learned that scientists carefully observe their surroundings and write about facts, such as what things/objects look like, feel like, smell like and taste like. This picture also shows how scientists always include labels to clarify their pictures. They also include the time, the date and give their writing a title. Perhaps you can make observations at home?

 

Reading Strategies Tools

We have discussed the various reading strategies tools we use as we read and build our stamina as productive readers in our classroom. This picture shows our classroom "Toolbox". Each "tool" in our box has a different strategy written on it. While certain tools might be better in certain situations, we need all of them to make sense of our books. Thank you for being such supportive parents and working on these at home. We are seeing incredible readers in our classroom!

 

Sharing our writing

We love to share and celebrate our writing every day. Sometimes, we "turn and talk" to a partner, but sometimes we share our writing to the whole class. Here is a picture of one of our friends, sharing another small moment writing piece. As we share ideas and writing pieces, we have realized that we are all authors!

Classroom Celebration with Mr. Terko

As you might recall, one of our students wrote a "Buzz Mail" letter to Mr. Terko, inviting him to our special classroom celebration for earning another "jarful" of buzzies. Today, we had our party and it was fantastic. Thank you to all the parents (and students) who baked muffins, cookies and other delicious treats for us! Thank you to all of you who brought in cups, cider and other snacks, such as tostitoes, pretzels, salsa and crackers and cheese. We could not have done this without your support. We wish you could have joined us, but hope that our pictures will provide a peek into our classroom party. In addition to our special snacks and Mr. Terko's visit, we also listened to our new favorite song on YouTube about bees. It is called "Do the Honey Bee". Who knew that Mr. Terko was such a good dancer??

Kiva Sharing

We had Kiva Share again today. The students did a terrific job sharing their learning with each other. They shared small moment stories, reading responses and wordles. The students from our class shared the video created from the pictures the students took from our visit from Mr. Anderson yesterday. If you missed watching the video, please scroll down to get an opportunity to watch it again.

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
Welcome back to school! It is wonderful to be back again with all of the students. I hope you had a great vacation with plenty of opportunities to rest and spend some time together. The students had so many great stories to tell about their exciting adventures and trips.
We are back in the full swing of things already. Homework folders and reading bags went home on Tuesday. If your child did not get an opportunity to write three times this week, please do not worry about that since we had no school on Monday. Reading selections this week were primarily just right books with students' own interests and desires as we have not had a full week of guided reading groups yet. Brand new book will be coming home next week. Every week, the students also have a free choice (or two) and some students might re-select some books. Re-reading books offer unique opportunities to practice fluency and word recognition which help in overall comprehension and automaticity. Re-reading books also offer students an opportunity to write about the book in new ways as the story is already familiar. Some ideas for writing entries are listed below but always check the weekly updates on the blog so you can integrate themes discussed in class.

Ideas for writing entries in the reading log:
My favorite part and why
My favorite character and why
Compare yourself to a character
How the character changed in the story
How the character is the same (or different) between different books (or chapters)
How a story reminds you of something
Write about the ending...did it surprise you, and if so, why?
Make a prediction before you read the book (then read the book and check. Was your prediction correct? Why/Why not?)

The above topics are only suggestions and completely voluntary. Your child can of course, retell the story and come up with his/her own ideas as well. The weekly entries are open-ended. Be creative. I look forward to seeing more wonderful writing. I will send a lists of possible topics in an email attachment so you can print it at home if you wish to see it. I also have many other reading logs listed online on the wiki. Please visit the wiki under "printables" if you wish to access them. Thank you to all of you whose children already started using some of these. Amazing.

Math homework comes home in the Homework folders as well. First grade mathematicians do not always have weekly homework, but 2nd graders usually do. Please make sure the math homework gets returned upon completion so I can check it off. I will send it back again so these games can be played over and over again. Math homework is homework. We usually do not have time to finish any un-finished math work in our classroom unless you specifically request that we do. Please let me know if you need assistance.

The weather is quickly becoming colder every day. Please remember to send your child to school with weather-appropriate clothing. We have outdoor recess every day. We also have snack every day. Please make sure to pack a healthy snack for your child every day. Thank you.

This week the students started writing "Buzz Mail" to each other and the teachers at our school. I think some students also wrote some "Buzz Mail" letters to their parents as well. "Buzz Mail" celebrates and highlights the wonderful choices the students make every day, showing that they are safe, kind and responsible. We wish to share that with you and our school community so we write letters acknowledging each other and sharing our accomplishments. This week, for example, a student wrote a "Buzz Mail" letter to Mr. Terko and invited him to our classroom celebration next week. Guess what? He accepted and even delivered a letter back to the student in our classroom!!! Wow, we were so amazed. We looked at the letter on our document camera. We decided that we would like to have a special snack/celebration when he comes next week. I will provide more information when I know the date and time, but we would like to ask parents to contribute small treats and snacks for this very special day. Thank you.

Lastly, Team Harmony learned about many exotic creatures today when three students' dad visited our team with animals from all over the world. Here is a video of this terrific event. Thank you, Mr. Anderson!

Thank you!

Dear Ben,
We are so happy that you got us a camera. We have already used the camera today! We used it with our blogging buddies in Ms. Davison's class. We used it during our class share this morning. We also used it in math! We like it and we hope to use it often.

If you want to see the pictures from today, please come back to the blog later this afternoon.
Love,
Mrs. McCormack's Class

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It has been so great to meet with all of you this week and share the exciting learning happening in our classroom. Thank you for your continued interest and involvement in your child's education. During our conversations, some areas emerged and were discussed that I wish to areas that I wish to clarify to all parents. First, your child is only responsible for the weekly reading log and math homework. We do not send home additional homework (in the traditional sense that needs to come back to the classroom and be checked by the teacher), but provide many additional resources on the school web-site for parents to access. All of these sites are hyper-linked in our classroom blog sidebar. Thank you. Second, your child might have brought home additional thinking queries and comprehension tasks specifically related to our author studies or reading response tasks. These are voluntary. Some children love the added challenge of these tasks. They do not need to return to the classroom. Thank you. Lastly, I am delighted to hear that the students love to write in their reading logs. I have definately noticed an amazing amount of writing! I am so happy to hear that your child loves this assignment every week. In an effort to provide additional resources and choices for parents and students, I have created additional reading logs on the wiki. You and your child can choose from a variety of reading logs. You do not have to use the one inside the reading log if you do not want to. Browse the choices on the wiki (Click here to access directly), or create your own. Some children like the challenge of simply writing on any lined paper. Other children prefer to write on other days. I understand that you and your child have commitments outside of school. If Mondays, Tuesday, and Wednesdays do not work for you, encourage your child to connect his/her writing and reading on 3 other nights. The wiki will have these logs as well, if your child wishes to see it in writing. Thank you all again for being so incredibly supportive and encouraging. Next week, I will also send home a list of suggested writing topics for your child. I wish to have this discussion in class and have the students themselves generate these choices. They are such terrific thinkers!
This week, the students accessed a program called wordle online. The url is www.wordle.net The kids love this site. If you have any time at home, please encourage your child to access this incredibly creative program at home. Your child will show you how it works! Amazing.
Being on Team Harmony means so many things....but one of the most rewarding aspects of our incredible team is our unity and process of team-building. Every day, your child has the opportunity to play, interact and learn with children from all of our classrooms. Many times, the children play in our Kiva together. They explore math, draw, write and read together. Sometimes they spell and share writing pieces together. Sometimes they use our blocks and build structures together. Here is a wonderful exxample of this. This structure is wonderful in so many ways. What do you see? What do you think it is? Do you think mathematically and look for shapes and patterns, or do you think creatively and see farms or gardens? Please respons, if you'd like.

Once again, thank you for all of your incredible support. I am very fortunate to have your child in my class.
Regards,
Maria

 

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It feels like this week went by very fast. Perhaps it has something to do with the changing of the clocks? As the days are getting shorter and darker, we also have to remember that the weather will get colder as well. As we have outdoor recess every day, it is important that your child comes to school with appropriate outdoor gear. Warmer jackets or coats are preferred. Some students also use mittens and hats already and that is great as it can sometimes be a little windy outside. Thank you for making sure your child is dressed according to the weather every day.
In Reader's Workshop this week, the students continued working in their guided reading groups on new books and peoms. You should have seen Reader's Theater scripts come home for practice this week. I hope your child read the script to you with fluency and phrasing. Perhaps, you even had the chance to participate as well, assuming one of the roles. The students also learned about what a narrator is and we discussed the meaning of main characters. This week, we will continue working on fluency, but the students will also resume reading books, which primarily deal with aspects of characters, setting, problems and solutions.
In Writer's Workshop, the students learned how to write letters. They learned about the letter writing format (addressing a person properly, date and appropriate endings) as well as the importance of the purpose of letters. When we write letters we think about the person we are writing to and why we are writing the letter. We have to decide what we are going to share and also perhaps ask a question to encourage a response. All students wrote letters to each other and to you. I hope you all received a letter from your child this week. We will write you emails soon so please look for those.
In math, the students continued working on counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s in math, showing their understanding in many artistic ways. Please visit our math blog for math-related projects. Click here for a direct link.
Today's visit to the Williston Central School for the show "Alice" was terrific. The show was amazing and so were the props and the acting. We had a great time.

 

 

Have a great rest of the week and weekend,
Maria

ABS Swarm Party

We had another Swarm Party at Allen Brook last week, celebrating our filled Buzzy Jar. The students, once again, did an amazing job working together and showing kindness, respect and responsibility towards each other. Mr. Terko visited all the classrooms, dressed as a bee and handing out "smarties" because the students are so smart following the school expectations every day!

 

Every Little PEACE Counts

Here is a picture of our mural, which hangs in our Kiva space. The students and I work on a year-long project on what we can do as individuals to show kindness to each other. We talk about how every little action matters when it comes to making others feel good and welcome. In other words, every little act of kindness (or peaceful action) matters. Small acts make a difference and many small acts work together to make an even bigger difference. Ask your child to share some of these ideas and how we can all help someone in need.

 

Pictures from our Harvest Party

Here are some pictures from our Harvest Party. Thank you so much for sending in healthy treats and goodies for us to enjoy. We could not have had this wonderful celebration without your generosity.