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