Dear Families,
We started off the week with wonderful exciting news from Mrs. McCormack! The class admired a beautiful slideshow of Maria's new family addition, baby Ryan. We are thrilled for Maria and her family!
This week we started our team wide five week Vermont Unit. Each week all students will rotate to five different Vermont workshops. Topics covered include geography, Vermont symbols, Lake Champlain, weather and attractions in our beautiful state. Our focusing question for all these workshops is "what makes Vermont important?"In addition to our workshops, each student will begin researching Vermont animals and will eventually pick one animal to write their own non-fiction, All About book about their animal. We've been learning about text features in non-fiction books (table of contents, headings, labels, captions, pictures, bold words, glossary, index) and how we can use these in our own All About writing. Our class even became the teachers for the afternoon and taught the class how to write All About books!
It was a chilly week! We only had one day of outdoor recess this week. Students were offered dancing and singing to provide some movement during indoor recess. Fresh air and movement is so important for our young learners. Hopefully the temperatures will allow outdoor recess for this coming week. Please, be sure to send your children with warm winter apparel so they can enjoy recess.
One more reminder, quite a few students have been missing their sneakers/indoor shoes to wear while at school and during P.E. It is very important students have their sneakers for P.E. We have P.E. on Wednesdays and Fridays.
On Wednesday this week we have Four Winds and will got o WCS for a 3rd/4th grade band performance. We will be back at ABS for dismissal.
Thank you!
Katie
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
First Week!
Dear Families,
Happy Martin Luther King day! We spent a lot of time learning about MLK this week. We had a special presentation in the library on MLK with Mrs. Wentz! Everyone loved learning about MLK and his dream for a world where we are all equal.
We had a wonderful first week together! Maria established such a strong classroom community and the overlap time we had together created a smooth transition. We did some community building activities during the week to support the students with me as their teacher. Ask your child about their bucket! We read the book How Full Is Your Bucket? by Mary Reckmeyer and Tom Rath. Then, we filled our own buckets with things that make us happy or fulfilled. Many of your children wrote things like helping others, kind words, spending time with my family, working hard and so on. Such wonderful children you all have! These will be displayed in our classroom to remind us how we can help fill each others' "buckets" in our classroom community.
During Writer's Workshop this week we finished writing our How-To books! Each student wrote their own how-to book on a topic they are an expert on! Student's learned how to pick a clear topic and write four sequential steps. They are wonderful authors. Your authors wrote books titled:
I look forward to seeing everyone back at school tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend!
Best,
Katie
Happy Martin Luther King day! We spent a lot of time learning about MLK this week. We had a special presentation in the library on MLK with Mrs. Wentz! Everyone loved learning about MLK and his dream for a world where we are all equal.
We had a wonderful first week together! Maria established such a strong classroom community and the overlap time we had together created a smooth transition. We did some community building activities during the week to support the students with me as their teacher. Ask your child about their bucket! We read the book How Full Is Your Bucket? by Mary Reckmeyer and Tom Rath. Then, we filled our own buckets with things that make us happy or fulfilled. Many of your children wrote things like helping others, kind words, spending time with my family, working hard and so on. Such wonderful children you all have! These will be displayed in our classroom to remind us how we can help fill each others' "buckets" in our classroom community.
During Writer's Workshop this week we finished writing our How-To books! Each student wrote their own how-to book on a topic they are an expert on! Student's learned how to pick a clear topic and write four sequential steps. They are wonderful authors. Your authors wrote books titled:
- How to Make a Snowman
- How to Draw a Dinosaur
- How to Make Egg Salad
- How to Make a Paper Airplane
- How to Rock Climb
- How to Play Hockey
- How to Do Crossovers
- How to Skate
- How to Make A Sandwich
- How to Make A Fruit Smoothie
- How to Pick a Just Right Book
- How to Bird Watch
- How to Play Football
- How to Build a Snow Fort
- How to Sled
I look forward to seeing everyone back at school tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday weekend!
Best,
Katie
Monday, January 7, 2013
Science experiments
We explored science together last week. We used our science journals and observed how we can melt snow effectively. Ask your child to explain how we can melt snow.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Weekly Update
Dear Families,
Although we had a very short week, the students came back eager and ready to learn again. It was great to see everybody and they had so many stories to tell about their holiday vacations.
I wanted to to remind you all that this upcoming week will be my last week before I go on maternity leave. My last "official" day is Friday, January 11th. My baby is due the following Thursday, January 17th. Katie Herbert will, as you already know, take over for the 12 weeks that I am out. I am scheduled to return to the classroom on April 15th. I am very confident that your children will thrive and learn in her care. We are very lucky to have Ms. Herbert join our classroom community. During my maternity leave, you will be able to reach me via email or phone, but please note that day-to-day communication regarding pick-ups and dismissal changes must be addressed directly to her and the school. Ms. Herbert's email is kherbert@cssu.org
Katie will also continue weekly updates on the blog. She will write about the learning that takes place, units of study and maintain our class calendar in the sidebar. She will conduct parent-teacher conferences later in the Spring and will send out sign-up information as we approach those dates.
Since we're on the topic of communication, I want to let you know that ALL students' email changed in our school. This is important for us as we use email together. Please note that your child's new email is now in a new domain entitled cssu.org (just like the teachers. We used cssu.us before for the students). I will send an email to you all with the new password information so you can reach your child again. This also means that I am asking all parents to send a new email to their child so they can start writing you back again. Thank you for your understanding in this transition.
In Writer's Workshop, the students are finishing up and publishing their new Small Moment stories. These personal narratives stretch over several pages with information about weather and adjectives to add more interest and suspense. The students also included dialogue to make their stories more elaborate. We cannot wait to share them with you. As previously introduced in our Writer's Workshop, the students also worked with an editing partner, checking on grammar and other aspects of the writing process. I am so proud of their hard work. Next week, we will embark on a mini-unit on "How-To" writing. The students will learn how to write a sequential and detailed piece about how to do, or make, something. These stories are always so interactive because we sometimes "test" some of them out when we are done, following the directions given. For example, I have tested my own "How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" in the past, realizing that my directions could have been more precise. I have not decided what my topic will be yet this year. I will ask the students to help me find a topic.
In Reader's Workshop, the students continued with reading groups although the week was short. Next week, we will explore characters, setting, problems and solution in more depth together in our reading adventures.
Regards,
Maria
Although we had a very short week, the students came back eager and ready to learn again. It was great to see everybody and they had so many stories to tell about their holiday vacations.
I wanted to to remind you all that this upcoming week will be my last week before I go on maternity leave. My last "official" day is Friday, January 11th. My baby is due the following Thursday, January 17th. Katie Herbert will, as you already know, take over for the 12 weeks that I am out. I am scheduled to return to the classroom on April 15th. I am very confident that your children will thrive and learn in her care. We are very lucky to have Ms. Herbert join our classroom community. During my maternity leave, you will be able to reach me via email or phone, but please note that day-to-day communication regarding pick-ups and dismissal changes must be addressed directly to her and the school. Ms. Herbert's email is kherbert@cssu.org
Katie will also continue weekly updates on the blog. She will write about the learning that takes place, units of study and maintain our class calendar in the sidebar. She will conduct parent-teacher conferences later in the Spring and will send out sign-up information as we approach those dates.
Since we're on the topic of communication, I want to let you know that ALL students' email changed in our school. This is important for us as we use email together. Please note that your child's new email is now in a new domain entitled cssu.org (just like the teachers. We used cssu.us before for the students). I will send an email to you all with the new password information so you can reach your child again. This also means that I am asking all parents to send a new email to their child so they can start writing you back again. Thank you for your understanding in this transition.
In Writer's Workshop, the students are finishing up and publishing their new Small Moment stories. These personal narratives stretch over several pages with information about weather and adjectives to add more interest and suspense. The students also included dialogue to make their stories more elaborate. We cannot wait to share them with you. As previously introduced in our Writer's Workshop, the students also worked with an editing partner, checking on grammar and other aspects of the writing process. I am so proud of their hard work. Next week, we will embark on a mini-unit on "How-To" writing. The students will learn how to write a sequential and detailed piece about how to do, or make, something. These stories are always so interactive because we sometimes "test" some of them out when we are done, following the directions given. For example, I have tested my own "How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich" in the past, realizing that my directions could have been more precise. I have not decided what my topic will be yet this year. I will ask the students to help me find a topic.
In Reader's Workshop, the students continued with reading groups although the week was short. Next week, we will explore characters, setting, problems and solution in more depth together in our reading adventures.
Regards,
Maria
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