Weekly update

Dear families,
This week went by too fast.  Today is Ms. Dani's last day with us.  We had a great celebration together.  The students had made a book of memories for her, which we rated together.  We also gave Ms. Dani a Bee-Pillowpet, to remind her of our classroom and school motto to be safe, kind and responsible.  Ms. Dani gave the students beautiful bookmarks.  We will use them every day.  We love to read.
We celebrated our nonfiction books with an Author's Cafe.  We served up stories and read them to our friends, learning buddies and parents.  Thank you for joining us in this special celebration and thank you for sending in all of the terrific treats.
In computer lab this week, we explored a website called wordle.net.  It is a site that allows the user to create visual pictures of words in different arrangements and colors.  Since we have studied character traits in the last couple of weeks, we created wordles, using words that describe ourselves.  We will continue using wordle.net next week as well.
In reading, we wrapped up our unit on character traits.  Throughout this unit, the students learned how to use the text to find evidence for different kinds of character traits, how characters change in books and how characters from different books have similar, and different, character traits.  Next week, we will read nonfiction books together.  We will search for non-fiction writing elements and talk about informational books and main ideas.
Lastly, the weather is getting colder.  We have recess every day. Please send your child in with snow boots, hats, gloves and warm jackets.  Thank you.
Have a great weekend.
Maria

Forwarded letter from our PE Teachers

Dear Families,
This is a copied/forwarded letter from our PE teachers.

Sneakers Are a Must for Physical Education

Welcome to the beginning of the winter months.  As winter weather is approaching we are noticing more children coming to school in boots which is a must for the outdoor weather but then not having sneakers for PE.  We are asking that your child please have sneakers for PE days.  If they have a pair of sneakers they can keep in their locker that works well.  If that is not possible please help your child make sure they have sneakers in their backpacks. 

We are back into full swing and P. E. classes are underway.  We want all children to have the opportunity to be active participants in P.E.  In order to accomplish this goal we need your support.  In P.E. it is imperative that all children have on appropriate footwear.  This is for your child’s safety. 

Your child needs to have sneakers for P.E.   Keens (sandal type shoe) and Merrills in particular are not appropriate as they do not provide the foot with the needed support for the level of activity and variety of activity your child will be participating in.  Both Keens and Merrills have very little support for lateral movements.  Merrills also have very little arch support.  Keen does make a sneaker but please if purchasing them for P.E. make sure it is the sneaker model and not a water shoe or sandal model.  The other sneakers that are not acceptable are slip on sneakers. Often these fly off while moving and again they don’t offer the lateral stability for the child’s foot.  Heallies are also an issue because of the lack of flexibility in the sole of the shoe.  Sneakers that tie or Velcro are the best. 

Please contact your child’s teacher if you are unsure of the days you child has P.E.  They have the schedule for all the Related Arts classes.  Please understand that if your child arrives without appropriate footwear he/she will be asked to change or they will not be allowed to participate that day. Our goal is to have all children active in all classes.  In order to achieve this goal we need your support in aiding you child to have proper footwear.

Thank you,

ABS Physical Educators

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
I cannot believe this week is almost over.  Next week, our students are off on their Thanksgiving break.  Ms. Dani and I hope that you will all have the opportunity to relax with friends and family.  We will see you again when school resumes again on November 26th.

The week of November 26th is Ms. Dani's last week with us.  She will return to St. Michael's in January to finish her degree as a full-time student.  We will miss her greatly.  We were hoping to have a small classroom celebration on Friday, November 30th in our classroom at noon.  If you and your family wish to contribute with small treats, such as muffins, cookies, juice and paper plates and cups, please let me know.  We are also going to share our "All About Books" at that time in something we call an "Author's cafe".  If you and your family wish to join our classroom for this writing celebration, please let me know.  We would love to see you.

This week in writer's workshop, students continued their writing pieces on non-fiction topics.  The students learned about glossaries and labels and started to publish their stories.

This week in reader's workshop, students continued reading as partners and in small groups.  Ms. Dani and I will send home book bags and homework folders over the Thanksgiving break as they did not come home this week due to our shorter week.

This week, our students went for a nature walk at recess.  They discovered birds and looked for signs of fall outside.

Thank you all for coming in to meet with me and Ms. Dani for our parent conferences.  It was great to see you all again and talk about your child's academic progress.
Reminders and News:

No school next week.  Thanksgiving Vacation.

 

Save the date! - Wednesday, December 5th (6:15pm - 7:30pm) for the Harmony House Potluck dinner in the ABS cafeteria.  Each family should bring some food to share (a main dish, salad, side dish or a dessert), and bring your own plates and eating utensils.  Drinks and napkins will be provided.  {Please do not bring any dishes that contain peanuts or tree nuts}.  It should be a fun evening for families to connect and socialize.  The wiki sign-up is located at: http://harmony-parents.wikispaces.com/home

Regards,
Maria

Thanksgiving celebration with our learning buddies

We had our Thanksgiving celebration with our learning buddies today.  We gave each other cards of thanks.  We are so grateful to learn together.

Forwarded Food Drive Letter

This post is a copied letter from our school Food Drive.

 11/13/12

Dear Allen Brook Community,

     

 We are so very grateful for all the generosity and kindness you have bestowed upon our organization and the fortunate people who will benefit from your donations. The children of Allen Brook blew us away with their energetic dedication to the Harvest Food Drive! When we initially began our project we anticipated raising maybe 200 food items, if we were lucky. Your school and community raised 1,082 food items!! There was so much food we could barely transport it back to our storage closet. On Wednesday during the food drive, Seanan’s car literally broke down from all the excess food weight it was carrying around. Don’t worry, it has been running fine ever since shedding that extra Thanksgiving weight. So now for what you have all been waiting for…Synergy took home the trophy this year for raising the most food items. Horizon was a very close second as it was only 14 items behind Synergy. Every house, including the Kindergarteners, raised over 200 food items! Truly an inspirational effort. In my opinion, the entire school was victorious! Everyone came together to collaborate on an effort that will truly make a difference in so many lives. Campus Kitchen is already utilizing your donations to cook nutritious meals that will be served at both the Salvation Army and the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf this holiday season. So many people depend upon this food to get them through the leaner months of the year. We are privileged to have worked with your community and wish to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!

                                    

Sincerely,

                                          

Seanan and Kaleigh   

Mona Lisa

Last year second graders participated in the Red Clover Book Project at our school with other students at Allen Brook.  Ms. Wentz and I read the book Who stole the Mona Lisa? and the students made their own self-portraits as a response.  All the pictures were upload into a computer program called AndreaMosaic, creating over 2000 picture tiles into the image of the real painting Mona Lisa.  Ms. Wentz and I ordered this as a poster and it is finally hanging in our school library.  Please visit our library and see if you an find your child's picture.

Guess our mystery readers

Dear Friends,
I have posted an audio file of two mystery readers on our KidBlog.  Please log in on our Kidblog and listen to the audio file of the poem "Five Little Pumpkins", linked as an MP3 file.  Write back a comment and guess who you think read the poem to us.  Good Luck!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
This week, we have continued with our Non-fiction "All About" writing unit. The students have all been able to pick a topic that they already know "all about" to demonstrate their ability to write an informative writing piece that includes facts and non-fiction text features, such as, a table of contents, headings, labels, and a glossary to organize their ideas. The students have blogged about what they have learned about non-fiction and what they have enjoyed about our unit so far. Please feel free to comment on these new posts! The class was able to use the iPads to create beautiful Doodle Buddy illustrations that include labels for their writing pieces. It is amazing to see how much technology can be incorporated into our classroom activities to further student's learning. For the next week, students will be finishing up their All About books and I cannot wait to see their finished pieces!

In Reader's Workshop, we have focused on identifying outside characteristics of characters in our guided reading groups, and in all of our read-alouds. Next week, we will be focusing on inside characteristics as well.

In Math this week, students have created a beautiful Sea Star Quilt which we have used to focus on counting by 5's. Next week students will be focusing on counting by 10's. We are wrapping up our current unit, and we are excited to be moving onto a new unit next week!

Mrs. McCormack and I will be co-teaching again for the next few weeks. We wanted to thank all of the parents who have come to conferences so far, and are looking forward to meeting with those we have not met with yet.

Regards,
Dani

Sharing about fiction and non-fiction

Today, we had two friends share about our knowledge of fiction and nonfiction books in kiva today.  They did an amazing job talking about labels, glossaries and other aspects of these books in front of the whole team.

Weekly Update

Dear families,
Another week is coming to an end.  Can you believe we're in the month of November already?  Thank you all for sending in warmer clothing with your child.  We have outdoor recess every day, so jackets and long pants are necessary now.

Our social studies unit on the Election is coming to an end.  We have discussed what voting is and what it means.  We have explored different types of voting in our classroom and discovered that 1st and 2nd grade students vote for many things every week.  For example, we vote for celebrations in our classroom when we fill our buzzy jar and we also vote for favorite books or authors.  We have also discussed the national election for President in our classroom, using Scholastic news magazines to guide us.  On Monday, students will be able to participate in a "Mock Election" here at ABS and vote for the President.  Here are some pictures from our unit on the Election.

 In reading, the students have started discussing characters and character traits.  They will learn to think about characters in term of their "outside" characteristics and "inside" characteristics.  This week, we began exploring "outside characteristics", meaning what the character looks like, the character's physical attributes.  We read books about Froggy by Jonathan London and Crysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, to name a few.  Ask your child to describe what Froggy looks like.  Next week, the students will start exploring "inside characteristics" and identify how characters can be understood by thinking about what they say, do and think in our stories.

In writing, the students finished their small moment writing pieces.  We will share these at conferences.  They worked so hard and we are excited to celebrate our learning in writing with you all.  Our next writing unit started today and Ms. Dani will teach us non-fiction writing in the form of "All About Writing".  Ms. Dani will conduct her "solo week" next week.  That means she will be the primary teacher all day, for all classes.  This is part of her teacher training and I feel very confident that the students will continue to learn and excel every day.  Ms. Dani is a terrific teacher.  Here is a picture of the first elssons from today.  The students did a book sort and serached for non-fiction writing features.  Ask your child to explain.

I hope you have a great erst of the week and weekend.  Thank you for signing up for our conferences.  I look forward to seeing you all again.

Maria