Weekly Update

Dear Families,
Tomorrow is Amy's last day with us.  It is hard to believe that time goes by so fast.  She certainly will be missed by us all.  We wish her all the best in her new ventures.  We are having a small surprise party for her tomorrow afternoon and I am still looking for some things.  We have juice, cups and cupcakes, but would also like to ask for some cookies and/or muffins.  If your family can contribute, we would greatly appreciate it.  Once again, thank you so much for your generosity.

The students at Allen Brook filled the Bee-Hive again.  Tomorrow is another swarm party and it is HAT DAY!  The children (and the adults) can wear a special hat all day.  We just ask that the children do not try on each others' hats.  Thank you for discussing this with your child.

Denise Wentz and I are almost done with the web-site that goes along with our year-long project on researching aspects of our school for "A is for Allen Brook."  We will share it with you as soon as it is done.  The children have already seen parts of it. As a last step in this process, we would like to video-tape the children reading their own writing pieces.  We would like to link these videos to our web-site.  The video would provide another celebratory way to share the students' writing and hard work and it would also allow more children to access all the research that was done throughout this project.  The web-site will be public when it is done and it will be shared in various ways (such as linked on my blog, shared at the technology conference that we're attending etc).  The children's names will not be shared.  In fact, there will be no names and identifying traits connecting to the videos and the writing pieces. If you and your family wish to opt out from this video-taping, please respond and let me know via email by May 2nd.  If you give permission to have your child be video-taped reading his/her writing and posted on our web-site, there is no need to tell me.  If I do not hear from you, I assume you have given me permission to link and share this video.

We have scheduled our Reading Restaurant for May 22nd.  We will send out more information when we get closer, but we normally provide two sessions for parents and families to visit our classroom.  The first session is usually around 6pm and the second seating usually starts around 6:50pm.  I will send out information about our reading restaurant the first week after we return from April vacation.  Our theme this year is the seasons.  Each classroom on Team Harmony will decorate their classroom around a season.  We are working on various art projects around Spring and the classroom is starting to relflect this.  If only the outside could as well!

Have a great day tomorrow and a wonderful, restful and safe break.

Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It is so exciting that we are finally getting warmer weather outside.  The children are thrilled to play outside for recess and it certainly is nice not to worry about snow-pants and boots anymore.  Hopefully, we will not get any more snow.

First, I wanted to mention that the placement input forms for 2nd grade parents are placed inside 2nd grade Thursday folders.  Please make sure you find this letter and fill it out, if you wish to.  This year, the parent input letter was also linked inside the School Bell, so you can also access it there.  Instructions for mailing should be in the bell, or on top of the letter.  The placement process is a complex process that takes many different variables into account.  There is a committee of administrators and teachers who eventually make the final decision.  We all trust their judgement.  I understand this can be a stressful time for you and your child as there are many unknowns and your child will be attending a whole new school.  Please let me know if there are any particular concerns you have.  Parents of 2nd grade students are usually notified of their child's placement sometime in early June.  Your child will have a "Step-Up" Day before the end of the school year; a day when he/she gets to visit his/her new classroom and meet with his/her new class-mates.  I will let you know when that happens.
1st grade students will remain with me for another year so there is no need to fill out a form.  We will be receiving incoming friends from this year's Kindergarten classes.  We will also have a "Step-Up day" when we meet our new class-mates.  This is such an exciting time.

This week, the students worked diligently on their Olympic research papers.  We are almost done.  They have had many opportunities to turn their notes into full sentences and writing pieces.  We will make our covers and table of contents next week.  These pieces, along with many other writing pieces, will be part of our Reading Restaurant.  Reading Restaurant is a time when we celebrate our students' writing throughout the year.  We pretend our classroom is a restaurant, and instead of serving food, we serve stories.  I will give you more information about this next week, when I can also share the date.  We are looking at an evening in mid-to-late May.  As soon as I know, I will let you know.  We want to make sure that our team-wide event does not interfere with other events and specials at our school, such as other teams' writing celebrations, and school-wide art shows.  Thank you for understanding. 

This week, the students participated in the district-wide On-Demand writing prompt.  All students write a constructed response to a given topic.  This topic is different for each grade-level.  A constructed writing response includes an introduction, 2-3 supporting details and, lastly, a conclusion.  The students did very well.  They are all such amazing authors!

I wanted to let you know that next Friday, April 18th, is our intern Amy Winter's last day with us.  We have enjoyed her company and enthusiasm this entire semester and will miss her terribly.  As I mentioned in earlier posts, she has already accepted a job as a teacher in CT, which allows her to be closer to her parents and home.  Congratulations Amy.  You will be a great teacher!
We were hoping to have a surprise party for Amy on Friday, April 18th.  If you are interested in donating treats for this party, please let me know.  We would like cookies, muffins, fruits, juice and cups and plates (nut free).  If you would like to join our party, please let us know too.  We would love to see you.  Thank you for supporting our learning and fun times, too!

Dates to remember:

• April 18th Amy Winter's last day with us 
• April21-25 April Break-No School
• April 30-4 Winds
• May 8th, Field-trip to the Flynn Theater to see "Stewart Little".  Bus leaves in the morning, show starts at 9:30am.
• May 9th, Visit WCS to see "Beauty and the Beast".  Show starts at 12:00 so we will have lunch in the classroom (nut free lunch for all please.  If your child has hot lunch, he/she will get a bag lunch that day).  As the show is rather long, we will also dismiss from WCS.  Children will board their normal bus from WCS.  If your child attends Part 2, a bus will take them back to ABS and I will also ride this bus.  If you are picking up your child on that day, please pick up in the office at WCS.  Thank you!

Have a great day tomorrow and a terrific weekend.  Enjoy the warm weather!

Maria