Update on the Iditarod Reading Challenge

Dear Families,
I hope you are all enjoying our time off from school.  I know some of you are traveling to warmer climates....I wish you could bottle up some of the sun and warmth for us here in VT.  Today was gorgeous, however.  If you are still in VT, I hope you had a chance to go out sledding, skiing or skating today.  Nothing beats traditional winter fun!

I wanted to give you all a heads up about our new reading log, starting next Tuesday when we get back to school.  As you might have noticed in your child's Thursday Folder, your child brought home a parent letter explaining our new "Reading Race".  On Team Harmony, we traditionally follow the Iditarod Dog Sledding Race in Alaska.  This year, the race officially starts on March 7th, but we will start our reading logs this upcoming week.  Your child has been assigned a musher, and as he/she races along the trail in Alaska, from Anchorage to Nome, your child will move his/her way along the trail by reading books and writing about them inside our new reading logs.  Your child's homework folder will be the same, however, we will have new reading logs inside it.  Your child will be expected to write about his/her book (or chapters) every night.  In other words, each book (or chapters) corresponds to one check-point.  As children are encouraged to choose "just right" books, some children might choose to read 2-3 chapters for each check-point.  Some children might decide that each check-point corresponds to 15 minutes of reading.  .We will create a reading contract when we return to school on Tuesday and this will be placed inside your child's homework folder so you know what he/she decided.

Please also note that the children do not race against each other; rather, they race along with their assigned musher.  This is a very engaging and highly motivating reading challenge.  I hope your child will embrace this reading task with us.  Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Enjoy the last few days of your vacation.  See you next week!
Maria

Here is a copy of the letter that went home:

The Annual Great Alaskan

Reading Event

Welcome to the Reading Event. We will keep track of this at school, but books that children read at home can be counted towards progress in the event. Each child will have an event card and a trail marker, which will be kept in school.

We will be setting reading goals with the children at school.  With the help of a teacher, the children will decide if their goal is to read one book for every check point, read for for 20 minutes, or read a certain number of pages.  Every time they achieve their goal, they will need to write up a summary.  Each correct summary handed in will be recorded on the child’s event card, by the teacher, and the teacher will move the marker to the next checkpoint on the Iditarod Trail.

We want each child to do their own writing when they complete their summaries.  Families can encourage neat handwriting and complete sentences.  We will be talking with your child about the expectation for this project.

Each child must turn in at least 4summaries a week as part of their homework so that they can move 16checkpoints along the trail by March 27^th. A certificate will be given to all children completing the 16 summaries. It is definitely possible to read more than 16 books in a month!

If 20checkpoints are reached (end of the trail) a special prize will be awarded.  The summaries may be filled out for books read at school and at home. We will have summaries available for students to take home.

*Children must choose books that are on their own reading level; Just Right books. For example: a student reading at a third grade reading level may not read The Cat in the Hat. Chapter book reading is highly encouraged for those who are ready. At any time, a teacher or other adult may ask questions about books read to make sure they read and understood the book.

Sample summary:

Title:                               The BFG

Author:                           Roald Dahl

This book was about:      A little girl and a big, friendly giant save the world from bad giants who eat people.

The problem in the story was that there were bad giants who were eating people. Sophie and the BFG had to find a way to stop them.

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

This week was also filled with many extra celebrations and activities, which are all part of our "I love to read" February celebration.  We continued reading Red Clover books in our mixed groups.  Every year in Vermont, there is a committee that selects 10 books for the Red Clover Award.  Classroom teachers all over the state read all of the 10 nominated books to their students and then the students vote on their favorite book.  Students at ABS will vote in march and sometime in April, there will be a winner for the entire state, when all the schools participating have had a chance to read and vote.  This is a very special award for the author as children vote.  At ABS, the students are mixed with kids from all the teams and Kindergarten.  They listen to the stories and also participate in a brief reading activity based upon the book.  For example, I am reading the book "The Matchbox Diary" along with Ms Blaine and Ms. Spagnolo.  With us, the students make a small paper box to use for special items, just like the character in the book.  This week, you will see many different reading activities coming home in your child's Thursday folder.  Please ask your child to tell you about the story and which book is their favorite so far, and why.

This week, we also had another opportunity to continue our science investigation with Julie Rogers, our fabulous enrichment teacher.  Ms. Roger's visited our classroom to teach the children more about the dangers of oil spills in our oceans and discuss what we can do to prevent these from happening, or what we can do to clean up the ocean.  The students worked in small groups.  Each group received a "situation card" with a specific task.  Some groups had to figure out how to clean up a oil spill from a ship, while others were challenged to think about how we can prevent oil from running into our oceans if it leaks at parking lots or even our own drive-ways.  Each group had a bucket of water with cooking oil to simulate the ocean and the oil spill.  Here are some pictures.  Enjoy!

This week in reading, the children continued to explore non-fiction books and magazines.  The students also had the opportunity to work as "detectives" and find non-fiction elements inside some non-fiction magazines that I had pre-selected for them. Each student received a booklet with one page for each non-fiction element, such as table of contents, captions, labels, photographs and glossaries.  They searched for each item inside their magazines and when they found the feature, they cut it out and glued it onto the corrected page.  we had so much fun learning about non-fiction text features together and feel better prepared to start our ocean animal research soon.  More information will follow later.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  Thank you all for so generously donating plates and goodies for our party tomorrow.  We will have our special celebration between 11:50-12:25 if you would like to stop by.  We understand if you cannot, but we would like to extend an invitation for those of you who might want to come by.  Thank you for helping us celebrate Valentine's Day together!

Next week is our last week before February break.  On Friday, February 20th, ABS will host a movie afternoon.  Information was already sent out in a separate email about the movies offered.  Here is the copied letter again in case you missed it:

Next Swarm Party @ ABS

Students at Allen Brook School have earned another PBiS school-wide celebration.  This celebration was earned by filling the beehive in the main office by being SAFE, KIND and RESPONSIBLE!  

The celebration, Movie Afternoon, will be on Friday, February 20 from 1:00- 2:30.  The following movies will be shown: THE JUNGLE BOOK, THE ADVENTURES OF MILO AND OTIS, MONSTERS INC and FOX AND THE HOUND.  Students will be able to choose one of the four movies and enjoy the afternoon with their friends (all adults will be participating with supervision)!     

These are all G movies!  If you choose to have your child not participate and/or limit their viewing choice please notify your child’s classroom teacher by Friday (2/13) so that an alternative activity may be planned in advance.

Have a great day tomorrow and weekend,
Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We had a fun-filled week together with many extra activities.

First of all, a police officer from the Williston Police Department visited our school.  He visited all the teams and read the book "Officer Buckle".  We talked about how we can be safe at home and at school and the children created their own safety tips and badges.

Later in the week, another police officer visited ABS and brought a working police dog, Casko.  The children prepared a question, which we asked in the gym.  Ask your child to share what we learned about working police dogs. Here are some pictures from that assembly.

This week, we started working on fluency when we partner read.  The children received individual packets of short stories and poems to help them focus on aspects of fluency.  We call these packets "Personal Readers".  The children learned that fluency is reading so that your voice sounds just like it does when you speak.  In other words, your voice goes up and down depending upon what the context is.  This week, we practiced paying attention to punctuation and re-reading poems and shorter texts so we can read words quickly and with automaticity.  They did a great job!

This week, we also went to WCS to see the 3-4 Chorus Concert.  It was wonderful to see our "old" friends from last year and siblings.  I hope you had the opportunity to attend their evening performance.  They are so talented.

We also have a very exciting week coming up.  This week, we will celebrate the 100th day of school.  It is on Wednesday, February 11th.  If your child wishes to create a 100th day project at home and bring in to share, it would be great.  This is not required, but completely voluntary.  Last year, some students showed the number 100 with groups of 10, using paper clips, pom poms and even candy!  Other children decided to write 100 different number sentences for 100!  If your child wishes to create a 100th day project, please bring it in on Wednesday to share.  We usually create a little museum for 100 in our classroom.  We will also do many extra activities to celebrate this at school.

We will celebrate Valentine's Day in our classroom on Friday.  We will have our celebration earlier in the day so our skiers won't miss this party. If your family would like to donate some goodies for our classroom celebration, we would greatly appreciate your generosity.  We need plates, cups, cookies, muffins, juice and other treats.  Thank you in advance for helping us celebrate Valentine's Day in our class.  I will send home a class list in your child's homework folder tomorrow if your child wishes to hand out Valentine's Day cards to their friends.  Please make sure your child brings in enough for all students if he/she decides to participate in this exchange.  Thank you!

Thanks again for supporting our learning!

Maria