Learning Buddies

We had a meeting with our Learning Buddies in Ms. Davison's class this afternoon.  This week, we are learning about what it means to be a digital citizen and how we use technology while being safe, kind and responsible.  We read a book about internet safety and shared our global "handshake" videos (our ABS video, posted and shared last week).  We also danced the Continental drift together, linked here.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
I am sure you have heard by now....we have completed our movie and we are on the school YouTube account.  We are very excited to unveil our school song video.  We could not have done this project without the help of Linda Scott, our Technology INtegration Specialist.  If you see her around our school, please say "Thank you".  I have linked the video under "Songs" on our wiki, which you can also access here.  It can also be accessed here with this url:
http://youtu.be/xdWUjfx5kRQ

We are so proud of this movie!

We have the ABS Harvest party next week.  If you wish to volunteer and help contribute vegetables for the soup, please read the letter from our school gardener and let him know when you can come in.  Students must bring their own utensils for this special event.  It is okay to bring them in on the same day, but I encourage you to send in a bowl and spoon the day before.  We can always keep the utensils inside your child's desk.  Thank you.  We hope to see you there!

In writing, we continued working on our "All About" writing pieces this week.  The students also had a chance to use a camera and take pictures of their topic for our school book "A is for Allen Brook".  This is the book we are writing with our school librarian, Denise Wentz.  I will contact parents who indicated they were interested in volunteering in our classroom sometime tomorrow or over the weekend.  We hope to start this exciting research project next week.

In reading, the students continue to respond to the literature in different ways.  As most students still immerse themselves in non-fiction books, we continued to explore vocabulary and backing up our thinking with evidence from the text.

In this week's Thursday folders, your child brought home unfinished writing pieces. Since we already finished our Launching unit in writing, and started the "All About" non-fictional writing, the students cleaned out "old" pieces to take home.  If your child wishes to finish these at home, please do so.  This is a class filled with aspiring authors and we never throw any writing out.  Writing is a process that takes time to perfect.  We have a movie to share about this as well.  It should be done sometime next week.

This week's Thursday folders also included Dolch lists for 1st and 2nd grade.  I included these for you and your child because some parents indicated in our parent conferences that these would be helpful.  Some students are working on recognizing these in print; others are working on learning how to spell these words.  Some suggested ideas for your child to do, is to go on "Word Hunts" during reading time.  Your child writes down one or two words that he/she wishes to search for during reading and every time the word appears in the text, he she writes it down on a piece of paper or index card.  We also love rainbow spelling!  Ask your child to explain.

Lastly, this week's Thursday folders included information about our new "Bee Wear" at ABS.  If you wish to purchase a T-shirt or winter hat with our school motto on it, you now can.  You can even donate to someone else.  Let's Bee Kind!

Thanks again for supporting our learning!

Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
This has been a very busy week for our classroom.  We started many new projects and we are so excited to tell you about them.

First, my class will begin working on a book along with Denise Wentz, our school librarian.  We just finished publishing our stories from our Writer's Workshop this week, and began our new unit on non-fictional writing.  Denise and I wanted to provide more opportunities for the children to write, research and use various forms of technology in a collaborative setting so the idea of making a book together was born.  The book is entitled "A is for Allen Brook" and it will include aspects of our special school in an alphabetical sequence.  The students have been partnered up and they will research and write about our school together.  Some students will write about our playground, while others will research our wind-turbine and garden.  Denise and I have created topics for every letter of the alphabet and all the children will receive help gathering information, taking pictures or conducting interviews with the "experts" at our school.  All of the information the students gather will eventually be put together into an essay, which will function as a "chapter" in our ABC book.  Denise and I will also have the book published in hard-cover format and make it available in our school library for everyone to read.  The children are so excited to get started.  I know many of you filled out my "Helping Hands" Volunteer Form at the beginning of the year.  I will contact you shortly to see if you are still willing and able to help us in writing and reading, because this book/research project would really benefit from additional adult help.  Thank you all for your continued support and if this research-project sounds interesting to you and you did not indicate that you are interested in helping out in reading or writing, please let me know.  Denise and I will start introducing the topics to the students next week and they will start using our ipads to take pictures for their writing pieces.

Second, our class is also participating in an online global collaborative community called "Flat Classroom".  Sharon Davison's Kindergarten class and Laura Dyer's Kindergarten class are also participating from our school.  Thousands of schools around the worls join together and share their learning together digitally.  We are now in the process of creating our global "hello, or greeting".  It is called "a Handshake" and we have decided to make a music video to go along with our ABS Song.  Linda Scott, our Technology Specialist, is helping us and we started filming today.  We hope to be done sometime next week and we will, of course, share the video with you.

This week in science, students continued learning about spiders, bats,and other interesting plants and animals in our life cycle and adaptations workshops.  I hope you saw some of their wonderful creations this afternoon.  We also continued learning about the weather.  Some words we explored this week: forecast, weather front, meteorologist.

In writing, the students finished publishing their first pieces.  We will share these at our conferences.  We began writing "All About" books this week.  All About books introduce the students to non-fiction writing without the pressure of having to do research as they are encouraged to write about a topics they already know a lot about.  For example, some students write all about soccer. The book might have a chapter on rules, equipment and how to kick the ball.  The students also explore how to create a table of contents, labeled pictures and a glossary.

Lastly, the students learned how to access books on our wiki today.  This is very familiar to the second graders, but new to the first graders.  Please send in a pair of head-phones for your child to use in our classroom for listening to books online.  Thank you.

Have a great day tomorrow and a wonderful weekend.
Regards,
Maria

Learning Buddies today

We met with our learning buddies today in Ms. Davison's class.  We shared our reading responses to the book "Lily's purple plastic purse" by Kevin Henkes and read some books together.  Here are some pictures from our meeting today.  Isn't it great to see our young learners engaged in active reading together, learning from each other?  I am so proud to know these kids!

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
I hope you are all finding time to go outside and enjoy this beautiful weather!  Before we know it, it will be dark and cold.

We started our year-long study of the weather a couple of weeks ago.  The students started by working together in small groups creating posters representing our 4 seasons.  We also learned why we have seasons.  Ask your child to explain.  We will continue studying different aspects of weather and climate in the next few weeks, integrating our science goals into reading and writing as well.  We will record daily weather trends as well and graph our results.

The students are in the midst of publishing in our writer's workshop now.  They have learned that good authors always carefully select their own best piece for publication.  We find our own best pieces by reading all the ones we have inside our writing folders.  After we read and select a piece, we start the revision process.  The students check finger-spacing, trick word spelling and grammatical rules.  They also check to make sure the words and the pictures match up and make sense.  The last step in our publishing process is to create a cover for our book.  The students looked at different books to get ideas what different book covers look like, but ultimately they are encouraged to use their own creative talents to create covers that make sense for their stories.

In reading, the students continued their work in their small guided reading groups, or Book Clubs as we like to call them.  Depending upon their reading need, the children receive targeted instruction helping them establish solid reading strategies.  I hope you and your child have an opportunity to read our books every night.  Thank you for your continued support reading and writing with your children.  I love reading what's written in our logs!  Don't forget to return the red homework folders (and reading logs) on Thursdays!  Thank you.

In math, first grade mathematicians focused upon chunking numbers by 5s and 10s.  We did many collaborative games and activities based upon the number line.  For example, we played a game called "Guess my number" and searched for the number before and after a particular number.  Ask your child to explain.  The students also started exploring first grade math problem solving.  We will show these at our conferences when we meet.

Thank you for signing up on the goolge doc for conferences.  Please do not hesitate to let me know if you and your family needs another time slot.  I look forward to meeting with all of you.

Lastly, I was hoping you could send in ear-buds or head-phones for your child to use at school.   It is more sanitary for the children to have their own ear-buds.  Please send in a set with your child next week.  Let me know if this is challenging for you and your family and I will help you get them.  I found excellent ear-buds at Walmart for just a few dollars.  In the past, parents have sent in ear-buds in a small ziplock bag with their child's name on it.  Thank you.

Thank you and have a great day tomorrow!

Maria