Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We have had a great week back after vacation.  The kids had so many great stories to tell about their adventures over break.  It is nice to be back to some warmer weather too.  We have had great outdoor recess times this week and look forward to many more, warm and sunny times outside.

In today's Thursday folder, the children are bringing home two very important pieces of papers.

The first one is regarding our upcoming Reading Restaurant.  We are scheduled to host it on Wednesday, May 20th.  There are two seatings (or sessions).  Your family has been assigned a time.  If this time does not work for you, please let me know as soon as possible.  Your child will be "working" during your session.  In other words, you and your family will visit our Reading Restaurant and your child will "work" as a waiter, waitress, host, or kitchen staff.  We will serve our writing stories, stories the children have created throughout the year.  We will not serve any food, rather our appertizers, entrees and desserts are composed of small moment stories, animal resports and persuasive writing pieces.  We are so excited to celebrate our learning with you and your family.  Please respond to me as soon as possible to let me know how many people will attend from your family.

The children are currently working very hard on decorating our classroom to reflect this year's theme: Vermont.  We voted on a name for our reading restaurant earlier this week and the winning name was "The Covered Bridge Cafe." Next week, we will create little covered bridges, using popsicle sticks and papers.  We would like parent volunteers for this special project.  If you can assist, I am planning on doing this on Monday, May 4th between 10-11:10am.  If you wish to help out, please let me know.  We also created a mural this week.  This mural shows Mount Mansfield and the children are drawing animals from Vermont that we are adding to it.

The week before vacation, we had the opportunity to visit Horizon's Reading Restaurant.  It is always great to see what other classes do, especially for our new students and our first graders. Here are some pictures.  Ask your child to explain what his/her favorite was.

Your child also brought home a permission slip for our upcoming field-trip to Shelburne Museum.  It is on May 27th.  Please return the permission slip as soon as possible.  More information regarding our field-trip will come soon.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend,
Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,

What a crazy week in terms of weather!  Both snow and warmer breezes.....will Spring ever come?  It was nice to be able to go outside without freezing, however. 

This week, the students started a new writing unit.  We finally finished our ocean animal reports, which we will share at our upcoming Reading Restaurant (more information on that below).  Our new writing unit is called "Persuasive, or Opinion Writing."  In this unit, the children learn to present an opinion and back up this opinion with reasons, which in turn, are based upon evidence.  It is a very interactive and fun unit for the children as they learn this writing style through letter writing.  This week, we learned about the various elements of this genre by reading many books on the topic.  A new favorite in our classroom is "I wanna iguana" by Karen Kaufmann Orloff, for example.  We brainstormed different people we could write letters to, and what we could ask for.  The students came up with great ideas and we have students writing letters to Mr. Terko, Mrs. Benoit, mom (or dad), and even the singer Bruno Mars!  The students present many varied opinions, and many varied topics.  Some children are asking for longer recess, while others are asking for a dog.  Some children are asking for extra time between assessments, and one student is asking for school to start earlier!  We look forward to sharing these letters at our Reading Restaurant.

For those of you who are new to our school, or first grade, Reading Restaurant is a special celebration when we share the students' writing pieces from the whole year.  Itis also a time when we share our students' scrapbooks, binders filled with memories and special activities from our school year together.  Harmony's Reading Restaurant is scheduled for Wednesday May 20th.  It will be hosted in the evening and parents will be assigned a session to attend.  We provide two evening "seatings" and when you visit our Reading Restaurant, your child will "work" in our restaurant.  The children "work" in our "kitchen" where they help the waiters and waitresses serve our stories to our guests (you).  We do not serve any food or drinks, rather our children's stories are served.  Harmony's theme this year is Vermont, so we will decorate our classroom to resemble places and things in Vermont.  We will also select a restaurant name for our classroom to reflect what is special to us about Vermont.  We hope you can pencil in our Reading Restaurant now even though I cannot provide times yet.  Thank you.  It is my understanding that the Art Show is the very same night.  In the past, it has never been problematic for parents to attend both, if desired.  I just wanted to let you know.  The 20th is a very special day at ABS!!!

We started our new social studies workshops last week on Harmony.  We are studying Vermont.  As before, the students rotate through various workshops and learn about Vermont.  With me, they learn about maps and the geography of Vermont.  In Mrs. Benoit's workshop, they explore tourism, attractions and what makes Vermont so special.  In Ms. Crowley's workshop, the students learn about special Vermont symbols, such as the flag.

We visited WCS for the school play earlier this week.  The students at WCS performed "Grease."  They did an amazing job with the costumes, acting and singing.  Thank you WCS for inviting us! Here are some pictures.

Have a great weekend.

Best,
Maria

Weekly Update

Dear Families,
We have had such an amazing couple of weeks, filled with extra special events and learning activities.
Last week, we had a school-wide celebration because we filled the office bee-hive again.  We met in the gym and "jazzercized" together with Cooper's mom.  We had so much fun following her movement directions.  Here are some pictures:

Last week, Amy Huntington, a local author and illustrator, also visited our school.  She taught us about the writing process and how she makes children's books.  It was great to hear from a "real" author.  We realized that we are learning many of the same things in our writer's workshop!  For example, we meet with editors too and reflect on our own and our friends' writing pieces.  Furthermore, we also add detailed to our pictures and words.  Ms. Huntington showed us pictures from different stages of the book publishing process and she even read some of her books out loud to us.

Last week, Ms. Emilie, our visiting UVM student intern, also led Morning Meeting.  She taught us two new games and showed us a new "Spider Web Greeting."  We practiced team-work and kindness as we greeted each other.  Thank you Emilie for teaching us these fun and educational games.

Yesterday, we had our first Team harmony Iditarod Race.  It was a huge success.  Thank you parents for volunteering your time and assistance.  If you could not make it, I hope you have a chance to see the pictures below.  As you might recall from earlier blog-posts and emails, the students on Harmony participated in a series of workshops preparing for this race.  They were challenged to design a structure that would hold an egg (which symbolized the serum from the real Iditarod race) throughout the entire course on the fields behind our school.  The students were divided into small teams, with friends from all classes on Harmony.  The created a team flag and team name, assigned roles and mushers.  In the race, they had to go through 10 check-points, while working together to solve the various challenges.  For example, they answered trivia questions, participated in an egg toss, cared for their "dogs" and wrote a letter "home".  The children did an amazing job throughout this entire process and we had so much fun.  Thank you all for helping us out!

Lastly, we are scheduled to attend the WCS Play next Wednesday, April 8th in the afternoon.  We will dismiss from WCS.  If you need to pick up your child on Wednesday next week, please do so from WCS.  If your child attends Part 2, a bus will bring your child back to ABS.  All other children will follow regular dismissal instructions and board their respective buses at WCS.  Thank you!

Have a great day today and tomorrow.  Let's enjoy the warmer temperatures while we can. I heard it is getting cold again this weekend. 

Best,
Maria