Library Books Due

All ABS Library books are due back on June 6th. Please make sure your child returns them all. Please also check to make sure that all of our reading group books are returned to the school. Those are the "just right" books your child has been taking home every week inside his/her book bags. It is very important we get them back as other students will be using them next year. Thank you!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
Another week is almost over. We have been very busy in our classroom, getting ready for our Reading Restaurant next week. Our restaurant's name is "Leafy Lounge" and we are very proud to show you all of our restaurant decorations and writing pieces. Our classroom looks just like the tropical rainforest-thank you all for so generously bringing in stuffed animals to borrow. These animals certainly add to our theme. If you have not returned the slip indicating how many people will visit our classroom for this reading restaurant, please do so as soon as possible. Also, please remember that there are two separate sessions. If the assigned session does not work for you and your family, please let me know. Thank you.

I hope you had a chance to read our newest online book publication with your child. It has already been shared but if you missed the link, simply scroll down on this blog to the the previous post.
The book is entitled "Our Community." Each student wrote a letter to his/her penpal in Great Neck, NY, a suburban town approximately 30 minutes outside NYC. Throughout this unit, we have learned about the characteristics of rural neighborhoods and how they are the same and different from suburban and urban neighborhoods. We will skype with our friends next week.

Reading assessments are almost complete. I am so proud of the incredible progress our students show. Their enthusiasm for reading, and learning in general, is outstanding! Thanks for all you do to support them at home!

Our field-trip to Shelburne Farms is this Friday. The buses will leave ABS in the morning and we will not return until the end of the day. It looks as if we will have some rain on Friday, so please dress accordingly. A light raincoat, jeans and sneakers, or boots, would help. If it rains too much, our classes will continue inside Shelburne Farms. We are very excited about this trip. We are going to learn about pond life; the plants and animals that live there. Thank you parent volunteers who will be joining us.

I hope you have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Maria McCormack

Publication of our new online book

Our newest online book has just been published. It is a StoryJumper books about our community; our school, our town and our surrounding areas. We have collected pictures throughout the year and the students wrote their entires as letters to their penpals in Great Neck, New York.
Throughout this unit we have learned about the features of our rural community. We have read postcards from our penpals and will also browse their web-sites this week. We have learned that while New York City is very urban, Great Neck is a suburban place. We will skype with our new friends soon so please check the blog again for updates.
Click here to read our book.

Some pictures from the Art Show this week

Here is a small collection of the students' work, which will be on display at our school tonight between 6pm-8pm. Enjoy the show!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some pictures from our week together

Here are some pictures from our busy week. We had a great Kiva Sharing with our entire team. Our friends had an opportunity to share parts from the tropical rainforest animal reports.
We also have some pictures to share from our science work this week.

 

 

 

 

Read Aloud Skyping

Last week, we had the opportunity to skype with Ms. Wentz in our school library. Half of the class listened to her read aloud in her library, while the other half listened to the story in our classroom. It was great to use technology and discuss literature online together!

 

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

Where did all the sunny weather go? What a wet and cold week this has been. Thank you for sending your child to school with warmer clothing and rain-coats.
We hope the sun will return soon.

Many end-of-the-year assessments will start soon. For example, I will start our reading assessments later this week and continue into the next. The students will also participate in math and spelling assessments as well. Earlier this week, all 1st and 2nd grade students participated in a district-wide science assessment, when they had the chance to conduct experiments, make scientific observations and show their understanding in diagrams, charts and words.. The students will have a sub on Friday (this week) and Monday (next week), as I will work one-on-one with them in reading. They are in excellent hands with our sub and the learning will continue as before.

We are almost done with our tropical animal reports and cannot wait to share them with you. The students voted on our Reading Restaurant name last week, and in case you missed it, our restaurant will be called “The Leafy Lounge.” We will start decorating our classroom to reflect this name. The students would like to make binoculars for our rainforest. If you can, can you please send an empty paper towel or 2 toilet paper rolls into school next week? We would like to use these to make our binoculars. Thank you.

The students will also continue working on the glogsters in school, but please know that your child can access these from home as well. It is voluntary to do it from home and not at all required.

Our upcoming fieldtrip to Shelburne Farms is scheduled for next week, Friday May 27th. We will be gone all day, so please pack peanut-free lunches and snacks and dress according to the weather forecast!

Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Maria McCormack

Announcement!

The students voted for the name of our Reading Restaurant yesterday and we would like to announce the winning name.
Our restaurant will be named The Leafy Lounge

We look forward to creating art-work to represent this name. Thank you all for participating in this democratic process and suggesting many different names!

Two new online publications

Hi all,
I just wanted to let you know that we have just published two new online books about our unit on the Solar System.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
The first book is a representation of all the knowledge gained in this unit. The second book represents a collection of the students' work in the different workshops. Click here to read.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

I cannot believe how fast time flies. We have almost completed another week of school again! We are getting close to summer already. With summer pending, many of you have inquired about Summer School. As a new teacher at the Allen Brook community, I am looking into this issue so I can respond to you all with correct information. If you have pressing concerns regarding this issue, please contact the main office so they can direct you and assist you as soon as possible. I know that the school will offer private tutoring over the summer (at parents’ expense). A list of tutors is being compiled and will be published in the school newspaper, the School Bell. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the meantime to help you.
Warmer and sunnier weather also means that many students wear flip-flops to school. Please be advised that flip-flops do not provide the safety we want the students to have while at recess. Sneakers are encouraged for everyday recess use. Please see a complete article on this matter in this week’s School Bell.
Our research and writing on our Tropical Rainforest animals are continuing with many students now typing their reports in Word. It is incredible to see their excitement as they share the writing process. The students love to share the information they have gathered-the cool facts about “their” animals, its food, and how it takes care of its young. The students love to share their time and energy helping each other in the writing process as well. They eagerly share books and other resources. They share computer knowledge and even access to the computers! I am so proud of all of them. What an amazing group of kids we have! We will start our glogsters on the animals this week. Each student has his/her own account, and each student will be encouraged to create one glogster on his/her animal to represent all the hard work. If you recall, a glogster is an interactive poster online, a multi-media platform that allows us to import pictures, words, graphics, images and videos. We can also link to outside live internet sites! Each glogster will, in addition to the animal report, include a title, an image of the animal and some fact bubbles/sections. Students are also encouraged to record videos using our flip camera. Some students have expressed an interest in writing poems and putting them to music, in the form of a rap! I am very excited about the creativity taking place. While we will work on these glogsters in school, some students have expressed an interest in working on them from home too. I will send the log-in information and passwords through an email on Friday. I am very happy to hear that our students wish to show their understanding in digital ways!
Our classroom has once again transformed itself. It is looking more and more like a tropical rainforest. For those of you who cannot visit our classroom, please view the pictures below. Once again, thank you for supporting your child’s learning at home and bringing in pictures, books, and stuffed animals for our classroom. We even had a student bring in an extra animal for our rainforest river, created in a project at home! Thank you!




The students will start reading more fictional stories next week, but you will continue to see some additional non-fiction stories as well. They have worked very hard on vocabulary, sentence structure and comprehension these last few weeks as we have explored “Reading for Information” together. Reminding ourselves of the importance of asking oneself “Does this make sense?” and “Stopping to Think” will benefit our readers now and in years to come. Thanks for supporting this reading at home every night.

Have a great rest of the week.
Regards,
Maria McCormack

Meeting our Reading Buddies again

We met with our Reading Buddies again this week. We had fun meeting new buddies as we switched up and changed partnerships. It was like visiting a whole new class. Thank you Kindergarteners for welcoming us every week!

 

 

 

New Web-site for our animal research

We wanted to share a new web-site for our tropical animal research. The web-site is www.a-z-animals.com
Here is the link

At this site, we can search for animals, look at pictures, and even listen to the computer read the text out loud!

Don't forget to visit our updated wiki folder on the Rainforest too. Here is a direct link:

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!
The students recorded a song for all of you for this very special day. We were accompanied by our own Riley on the recorder!
Click here to access a link to the song BECAUSE

Willy Wonka at WCS

Wewent to WCS today to see the play "Willy Wonka", performed by the students at WCS. It was an amazing show with incredible singing and dancing.

 

 

 

4 Winds

We had another interesting and informative 4 Winds class this week. We learned about animal defenses, such as spikes (on a porcupine), slime (on a worm or snail), and claws (on a cat). Here are a few pictures from this class. Thank you all parent volunteers for offering these wonderful classes to our students!

 

 

 

 

Podcasting Update

Just a quick reminder that our podcasting sites have been updated with new Kindergarten Reading Buddies interviews. We have also added a podcast featuring Ms. Jen, Allen Brook's fantastic Behavior Specialist from the BeeHive.
Click here for the podcasting library (then click on "All Around the School" to open up the window)
Click here for the RSS feeds on podbean (if needed)

Blue & Gold is here!

Click here for our latest Blue & Gold Publication (It is also linked on the school web-site).

Reading Buddies

We read books with our Reading Buddies again this week. We also shared our research on our Rainforest animals. Enjoy our pictures!

 

 

 

Visiting friend playing her violin

We had a friend from another classroom visit our classroom to play her violin to us. What a wonderful treat. Thank you!

 

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

It does not feel like May nowadays with all the rain and the colder winds. Thank you for sending your child to school with warmer clothes as we have recess every day. The classroom feels a little bit colder too, so a long-sleeved shirt and pants feel great. It is very muddy outside, so please remember to bring rain-boots for outdoor play.

Thank you all for bringing in tropical rainforest animals for our classroom. We have started to decorate our space to make it look like the rainforest and we are very proud of our work so far. We have an assortment of birds, reptiles and amphibians. We also have mammals and plants on display. Please ask your child to explain these types of animals. Also ask your child to explain where toucans, macaws, jaguars and gorillas live. We have learned that there are different types of rainforests. Gorillas, for example, live in the “Cloud Rainforest” in Africa, while the Giant Panda lives in the “Temperate Forests” of China!

The students have continued their research and writing on their tropical rainforest animals this week. They are reading to learn facts about their animals, specifically how this information pertains to what it looks like, its habitat, its babies and what it eats. Please encourage your child to find facts and read for facts at home as well. Reading non-fiction texts is very different from traditional fictional stories as readers encounter different sentence structures and content-specific vocabulary. To encourage re-reading and a foundational understanding of non-fiction texts, students will take home many already familiar texts next week (in addition to other books). Thank you for supporting your child’s learning and reading/discussing these texts every day.

We have new penpals! We will exchange a series of letters with a 2nd grade class in Great Neck NY as part of a study of how technology can be used to communicate and connect with people around the world. We will exchange letters and pictures of our local community; our school, our town and state. We already have a class in Sweden listening to our podcasts so they can hear the English language spoken by native speakers. We hope to connect with other classrooms around the world as well and will keep you posted! On a related note, don’t forget the WSC Multicultural Festival on Thursday May 12 between 6-7:30pm in the WCS Cafeteria. Also, do not forget to check our Daily Flip Share site (located in the right sidebar of this blog) and our recent podcasts for new and exciting tech shares. Thank you!

Team Harmony will attend WCS’s production of “Willy Wonka” on Friday afternoon. We are very excited about this opportunity. Buses and dismissal will occur directly after the show. If you did not receive information regarding this change, please contact the main office for assistance or let me know so I can assist as well.

Have a great rest of the week!
Regards,
Maria McCormack