Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
I hope you and your child are settling into our new school routines.  It is so nice to see the kids in the morning, happy and eager to play with their friends.  Thank you for supporting our learning at home.  These reading logs are great!  The kids are doing a great job reading at home.  Thank you for reading with them every night.

Writing:
This week, the students continued to expand on the genres of writing.  We talked about how writers write about many different things.  The students continued on picking different topics to write about. We have stories about special holidays, vacations and trips to grandma.  We also have stories about ninjagos and legos!  In writing, the students also started our weekly hand-writing practices.  Perhaps you read the earlier blog post this week, which described this in more detail.  If not, simply scroll down below this post to read more about it and see some pictures.  Hand-writing practice ties in with our writer's workshop classes because editing becomes a part of the publishing process.  Some children brought home some hand-writing samples from this week's class.  They are in their Friday folders.  If your child did not bring it home this week, he/she decided to keep the pages attached this week.  They will come home next week.
In writing, we also started our monthly writing prompts.  These writing prompts occur at the end of each month and gives the student a chance to write a personal narrative about anything he/she wishes.  In essence, it is an independent free write.  We collect these writing pieces in our scrapbooks, so at the end of the year, your child will have a sample from each month of the school year.  It is amazing to see the improvements that happen over a year and it is very motivating for the students to look at their own pieces whenever they want.  It is also empowering for them to share these pieces with other students and teachers.  We will share these with you at conference times and at the end of the year when we celebrate our Reading Restaurant. (More information will follow as we approach May!).

Reading:
Reading assessments are done and our guided reading groups are in full swing!  Your child should bring home books in his/her book bag every Friday.  These can stay home until next Friday.  If your child wishes to switch out books mid-week, that is fine.  Just send the bags and books back and we will change them.  As discussed earlier, the children are learning how to select "Just Right" books.  They are doing a great job.  This week, we also focused on finding a quiet reading spot and reading in one place for longer periods of time.  They are doing great with this as well.  We started discussing that readers also share their thinking about books in many ways and this work will continue next week.

Volunteering:
I start with parent volunteers in October.  If you are a parent who is willing and able to help out around the classroom, I would love to chat with you and figure out a day and time that works for you.  Some parents help out in reading, some parents prefer writing or math.  Others, help out during special events, host workshops or join our class to share a special skill or experience.  Please let me know via email if you are interested.  Please let me know what days/times work best for you.  Thank you!  I am looking forward to hearing from you. 

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

• Our field-trip is on Thursday, October 6th.  The bus will leave ABS around 9:30am and return to school around 1:15pm.  If you are volunteering, please meet us at Mt. Philo around 10am.  Remember, we will hike all the way up.  Your child needs weather appropriate clothing, sneakers, and a backpack containing a packed lunch and water bottle.  If you wish for your child to have a bagged lunch, please let me know by Monday if he/she needs a ham or turkey sandwich.
• We have our next school-wide celebration for filling the BeeHive!  We will celebrate on Wednesday, October 5th.  Please come to school dressed as your favorite athlete, sports team or sport!  Please no cleats, swim-suits or sticks.  
• Friday Folders: This week's folder contained a book-mark for your child to keep at home.  It represents the learning so far in reading and how we pick "Just Right" books.  Please encourage your child to think about the themes on it as he/she picks books.  Have fun reading! 

 
 

Classroom celebration

We filled our classroom buzzy jar again for being safe, kind and responsible. This time, we celebrated with lunch together in the classroom.

Scientist Meeting

We had another scientist's meeting this week. In a scientist's meeting, the students share their observations and wondering about a phenomenon in the natural world. This time, we practiced using our senses while observing a bird's nest up close. We also shared our wonderings about what we observed. Thank you Edward for bringing this nest in for us!

Hand-writing

We started hard-writing this week. The students practice their penmanship in special booklets. When the pages are finished and checked by me, the students tear them off and bring home in their Friday folders. Please look for them in the weeks ahead.

Tech lab

We went to the Tech Lab today. The students created a Google doc and learned how to name it. We called it "All about me". The students wrote about themselves today and shared the doc with me. In the weeks ahead, they will learn how to upload pictures into this doc and eventually share it with you.
Some kids already asked if they could add to these docs from home. Of course they can if you help them get onto gmail from home. We will find time to continue this process at school.
Stay tuned for more information on this exciting digital learning.
As the pictures show, learning digitally together truly is a collaborative effort in our class. The kids help each other very well and they all have something to teach someone else. Thanks for being such kind friends.

4 Winds

Here are some pictures from our first 4 Winds class last week. Thank you volunteers for making these scientific explorations possible.

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
The weeks seems to fly by.  It is hard to believe we're in fall already.  Please remember that the weather changes quickly so make sure your child comes to school ready for outdoor fun.  Long sleeve jackets, fleece jackets or hoodies are great at recess now!  Thank you.

Reading:
This week, the students continued to practice what good readers do when they read books.  They learned that good readers find a quiet spot to read and good readers stay in one spot for a longer period of time.  The students also continued practicing what their own "Just Right" books might look like.  We discussed how readers choose books for a variety of reason.  Sometimes, we want to read a book because of the author, or series that it is part of, but sometimes, we choose books because it interests us and the topic appears interesting.  Learning to choose appropriate books is a process.  Your child will slowly learn what he/she needs as an independent reader.  You can support this learning process at home by engaging in conversations about your child's particular book choice for homework.  For example, if you think your child's book appears "too easy", why do you think so?  Ask your child to read the book out loud to you, so you can encourage your child to focus on fluency, intonation and prosody.  Encourage your child to pay close attention to the punctuation to make the read aloud sound like spoken language, with proper inflection and phrasing.  If your child comes home with a book that appears to be "too hard", ask yourself why?  Encourage your child to express to you why this particular book might be too hard.  Ask your child why he/she chose the book?  Was it because the pictures, or the topic, was interesting, or because a friend read it and your child wanted to read it too?  The students are learning about the "5 Finger Rule".  If the reader cannot read 5 words on a page, it is probably too hard.  The 5 finger rule applies to both decoding, ie can your child read it out loud, but also to comprehension of the word.  Lastly, the students are also learning that we try to limit our challenging books inside our book boxes at school.  It is okay to keep 1-2 challenging books inside our book box (books that the student cannot read, but that is appealing because of the pictures) but we are really trying to find book that we can read.  Reading has to make sense.  If it does not, we have to make other choices.  Next week, the students will dig deeper into specific strategies that will help them decode books and words and deepen their understanding of these books.

Writing:
The students love to write!  I think this is their favorite class right now.  Everyone is fully engaged and the stories are terrific.  I am already excited about sharing these with you in October at conference time.  Currently, we're building a community of writers.  We are focusing on finding good ideas what to write about.  We are also learning about the different kinds of writing writers engage in.

Math:
First grade mathematicians continue to work in small group instruction in our busy classroom.  We are currently working on number sequences.  The students are learning that numbers make up other numbers and to be efficient in math, we "chunk" our numbers.  Ask your child to explain the game Bump or Egghead.  Ask your child to explain our number scrolls.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:
We have School Pictures scheduled for Tuesday September 27th next week.  If you want to order a photo packet, please send in your form before Tuesday.  Thank you.

Our field-trip to Mt Philo is scheduled for October 6th.  We will leave ABS around 9-9:30 and return around 1pm.  If you wish to chaperone, please let me know.  Thank you.

We have no school on October 12th due to Yom Kippur.

Have a great weekend,
Maria

Learning more about Digital Safety with Ms.Birdsall

Today, Ms. Birdsall joined our class to discuss digital footprints and the importance of keeping private information, such as your address, phone number and passwords private online.  Here is a video explaining this.

ABS Family Community Night

Thanks for coming to our evening family picnic at ABS. The turn-out was great.

Science

We continued to practice using some of our senses today as we studied sea shells. The students worked in small groups and acted like scientists as they described the shells in words and drawings. They also shared their findings with their friends.
Here are some pictures from today's class.

Great kids hanging out together

Check out our locker decor-Great Kids Hanging Out Together; a project we did with Ms. Crowley's students.

Friday workshops

On Fridays, students on Harmony sign up for different workshops to have the opportunity to explore new things, learn and play with friends from other classrooms, and move their bodies. Last week, some of us went outside to play ball and run. It was great to see old and new friends play together.

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
I cannot believe this week went by so fast!  I hope you will all enjoy a relaxing weekend because your child will probably be very tired after a full week of school.  It takes a while to get used to a new schedule and getting up early in the morning is tougher on some.....

Curriculum Night:
We had great turn-out for our Curriculum Night on Wednesday.  Thank you all for coming. If you and your family did not make it to Curriculum Night, don't worry.  I will inform you of all the pieces in the weeks to come as they pertain to our schedule and curricular objectives.
For starters, the most important change on Harmony is in regards to homework.  Our school, among many schools across the nation, are currently reviewing our homework policy.  This means that we will only assign reading homework at this point.  We will send home reading logs inside your child's Friday folder.  They are due back the following Friday at school.  Your child is encouraged to read for at least 5 of the days on the log.  We hope that sending the logs home on Fridays, you can read with your child on the weekends too.  We understand that families are busy during the week and it is more important that you and your child spend quality time together instead of having power struggles over homework.

Technology:
We started using the computer lab and our chromebooks this week.  It is exciting to start integrating digital tools into our learning, but there are some areas the kids need to practice more and I am asking for your help.  When we log onto our computers at school, the children must use their full names, not nick names. They must also use their last names. Some children do not yet know how to spell their full first names and their last names.  We will start practicing these skills at school next week but any opportunities your child has at home to practice this, the better.  Not being able to get onto the computer can be very stressful for a first or second grader.  When we use chromebooks, the students learn how to navigate by using the track pad.  Many children have never before used a track pad on a lap top.  They have only had exposure to ipads, which, of course, are touch, or traditional computers using a mouse.  We will continue practicing using a track pad, but the more opportunities your child has ay home getting familiar with this new device, the better.  Thank you!

Friday Folders:
This week's folder included Photo Forms for our school Picture Day, which is scheduled for September 27th.  Please fill out the forms and send them back as soon as possible.

This week's folder also included our first reading logs.  Please return this log next Friday.

This week's folder also included a permission slip for our upcoming field-trip to Mt. Philo.  We will go there on October 6th.  We will leave ABS around 9am and return around 1:15.  If you are interested in joining us, please let me know as soon as possible.  We love to have family members join us on field-trips.

Upcoming Events, Permissions and Reminders:
ABS has its first Community Night Family Gathering scheduled for next Tuesday, September 20th between 5-6:30pm.  Please bring a canned good for the Food Shelf collection and a packed dinner for you and your family and enjoy our school family for an early dinner here at ABS.

We would like to start our hand-writing/grammar instruction next week.  As returning parents already know, we let the students chew gum during this 30 minute block.  It is sugar-free gum and it is thrown out after the hand-writing/grammar class.  If you do not want your child to chew gum, please let me know by Monday.  Thank you. Research shows that hand-writing skills and fine motor skills along with kinesthetic learning opportunities help the brain learn faster and retain information more effectively.  The feedback from parents and students last year was amazing and the students made great gains in hand-writing while gaining confidence in their own abilities to learn.  We hope to do it again this year.  Thanks for supporting our students develop effective learning strategies while also having some fun along the way:)

I hope you all have a great weekend.
Best,
Maria

Celebrating Dot Day

Today, we celebrated Dot Day. Dot Day was created by the author and illustrator Peter Reynolds a few years ago and it is now celebrated in classrooms all around the world. It is based on the book The Dot, in which the main character makes her mark on the world and gains confidence through a simple dot drawing. We used chromebooks with Mrs. Birdsall and decorated paper dots to show how we can be safe, kind and responsible online. Here are some pictures. The dots will eventually hang in our computer lab. Please drop by to see them up close.

Digital Safety with Ms. Birdsall

Ms. Birdsall joined our class for another class on digital safety.  Today we talked about how we make safe choices online and what strategies we can use online to stay safe.  Here is a video for you to watch at home.

Reading buddies

Today we visited Mrs Davison's Kindergarten class again for reading buddies time. We go weekly and read books together.

Exploring geometrical shapes in math

First grade math students continued exploring geometrical shapes in small groups today in math.

Science

This week, we started some science explorations in our classroom. We read a book and practiced using some of our senses observing pine cones. We shared our thinking in small groups and will continue in a scientist's meeting next time.

School Celebration Video

School Celebration Video Link

Bee hats

We made bee hats for our school-wide celebration today. Here are some pictures. Ask your child how and why we celebrated at ABS today.

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
We had a great week together.  The kids are still practicing our new routines and schedules.  They are getting used to their new surroundings and friends as well.  They are doing a great job.  I hope they come home and share about our learning here at school.  If they don't,; well, there is always this blog to read together!  I hope the pictures, videos and news-letters help you stay connected with the things we do at school.  Thank you for staying connected and thank you for taking the time to familiarize yourself with our web-site.

Math:
We started math on Harmony this week.  Second graders in my class are divided between the two math classes offered by Ms. Crowley and Mrs. Benoit.  I keep all "my" first graders and get half of the first graders from Ms. Crowley and Mrs. Benoit's classes.  We have math every day and we use Bridges as our curricular guide. Although we have Bridges as a guide, we implement many math fluency skills, through number sense activities and small group instruction.  Please come to our Curriculum meeting at ABS on Wednesday this week to learn more about how we teach math at Allen Brook.

Reading:
This week, I started reading assessments for our first graders.  I will continue with second graders next week.  We use Fountas and Pinnell as our assessment system at Allen Brook.  We primarily assess three areas of reading: fluency, accuracy and comprehension.  We will discuss this in depth on Wednesday night's Curriculum night as well.  In our class now, the students are learning what reading looks like and what it sounds like.  We are also discussing how we choose right books.  We started a new author unit.  We will read the Elmer books by David McKee for the next few weeks.  Through his books, the students will deepen their understanding of reader's workshop and also start to dig deeper into various comprehension strategies.  Homework in reading will not start until after Curriculum night.

Writing:
The students received their writing folders this week.  They also participated in a beginning of the year writing and spelling assessment which will guide instructional approaches in the weeks to come.

Community Building and Responsive Classroom:
We continued to build a strong community of learners this week.  Ms. S, our school counselor, will join our class weekly for the next few weeks and teach us about the zones of regulation.  We talked about our "Peace Corner", a place where students can safely, and freely, take a break if they feel frustrated or unable to participate in our learning activities.  We continued doing work on Kelso's choices and finished our self-portraits. We also started a project with Ms. Crowley's class.  We are creating puppets to represent ourselves and they are going to hang in the space over our lockers.

Friday Folders:
I did not send home Friday folders this week because we are not starting homework until next week and all of our projects this week stayed at school.  Homework will come home in next week's Friday folder.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Best,
Maria

Pictures from Mrs. Birdsall's visit

Here are some pictures from the read aloud and the balancing activity we did, representing the importance of finding a balance between doing technology and other things in life.

Mrs. Birdsall visiting our class

Mrs. Birdsall, our school Technology Integration Specialist, came to visit our classroom today to talk about digital safety.  She read a book and discussed what we can do to be safe, kind and responsible online when we use various digital tools.  She also shared a song.  We loved it and want to share it with you too.
Enjoy.

Classroom Celebrations

The students filled the classroom jar with buzzies twice this week!  We will celebrate tomorrow morning with extra explore time and board games.  We will also have a school-wide celebration because the entire school filled our bee hive in the office.  Among other things, we will sing and dance "Do the Honey Bee".  Here is the link:
Do the Honey Bee

Another share

We had another share today and the student agreed to have her picture taken. Thank you all for following the class schedule and for involving your child in your family's monthly events. This is great practice and really connects the classroom with the home in a meaningful way.

Our classroom contract

We finished our classroom contract today. We same up with expectations for being safe, kind and responsible at school. We also shared ideas that we thought were particularly important to remember and put those down in writing on a frog. The frog represent Kelso who helps us make good choices at school.

More Friday Fun in school

We had our first kiva singing on Harmony on Friday. We sang songs together and enjoyed each other's company. Many of the songs we sing on Harmony already linked on the wiki, if your child wants to listen to them at home. I also joined the kids for recess and lunch.