Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It is hard to believe, but this is our last week before our holiday vacation and the new year.  Our last day of school is Friday, December 22nd.  Friday will be Pajama Day.  Traditionally, Team Harmony will spend the day watching the movie "The Polar Express" and do various holiday festivities on house.  If your child wishes to come to school in his/her PJs, please make sure that he/she can still wear regular sneakers/boots because we will still have PE and outdoor recess (weather permitting).  No slippers please, and no stuffed animals.  We will not celebrate with food or special treats this year.  The students will pack their book bags and take home reading logs over vacation.  Reading homework over vacation is voluntary, so I will send home two logs, just in case.

School-wide celebration:
The students filled the buzzy jar again.  This time, we celebrated with Jazzercise in the gym.  Thank you Casey for helping us organize this wonderful opportunity.

Technology:
The students are using chromebooks during literacy times sometimes.  They are using the literacy links on my wiki as well as pebblego.com to read books online.  This week, they will learn to respond to their online books with a written response.  I hope that your child can access some of this online reading at home over vacation, so I will also send home some online reading logs for your child to use at home, if desired.

FAP Grant:
Team Harmony received an incredibly generous FAP grant.  We were able to purchase some comfy reading chairs for our special "Executive Reading Lounge" in our kiva space.  Students from all classrooms rotate through using our kiva for reading and now we have these special chairs!  Thank you FAP for the amazing work you do and for the amazing opportunities you provide for our children!  If you have not yet contributed to the FAP, please consider donating now.  You can easily contact the front office at ABS or our teacher representative Becca Ashford at bashford@cvsdvt.org
Thank you!!

I hope you all have a great week.  Stay warm!

Maria

Ms. Kendal's last day

It was Ms. Kendal's last day with us on Tuesday.  She will go back to UVM as a full-time student and finish her classes for her degree in Elementary Education.  We will miss her very much and hope she will visit us again soon.

We had a small celebration together.  We gave her some new books for her future classroom and all the students signed them.

Good Luck with your classes and future endeavors!

Coding

Dear Families,
I wanted to let you know that we participated in a world-wide coding challenge for students today.  They did an amazing job and I wanted to share the web address with you so your child can continue at home if he/she wishes to.
The url is code.org
Click on "learn" and then scroll down to Minecraft.
We started coding in Minecraft Adventure today.

Computer coding teaches so much more than just computer-specific skills; it teaches problem-solving, stamina and fine-motor skills.  It also encourages risk-taking in students as they try to move their Minecraft characters through a series of increasingly challenging tasks.

Have fun coding at home!

Friday Workshop Fun

In my Friday workshop, students explored how magnets can be used used to "power" matchbox cars.  They tried to make the cars move without touching them and "drive" the cars up a ramp.  Next week, we will see how much weight we can put on the cars while still "driving" them!

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
WOW...I cannot believe we already finished our first week back after our Thanksgiving break.  It went fast!  This week, we were busy getting used to routines and structures again while learning lots of things together.  Our school focused on safe, kind and responsible behavior and teachers gave out extra large buzzies for students showing all three at the same time.  The kids really stepped up.  In fact, we filled our classroom buzzy jar again this week and celebrated with lunch and recess together in the classroom.

Writing:
This week, the students continued writing their small moment stories, primarily working on creating interesting and engaging "middles".  We read the book "Come Fly With Me", written by Satomi Ichikawa.  This is a wonderful story about a toy plane and dog, who venture out on an adventure together in Paris, France.  The book is a good example of a small moment story because it only deals with what happens on their trip to a special place in Paris.  The students learned how authors create suspense and interest by stretching the story over many pages, by adding dialogue and thinking.  We will continue working on this next week when the students will explore sound words and adjectives a little more.

Reading:
The students continued to read books in different series this week and participate in small guided reading groups.  We also had the opportunity to visit WCS for the annual Book Fair.  Thank you for sending in money with your child with his/her name clearly marked for safe-keeping! If you did not get a chance to go yet, I think they are still open until pretty late tonight.

Science:
We started our study of light this week.  The students participated in scientists' meetings and shared observations and questions about light in different forms.  We also did a sort, learning about opaque, translucent and transparent objects.

We also had another 4 Winds class.  This time, we learned about birds and migration.  Thank you parents for providing these opportunities.

Technology:
Our team web-site has finally been added to the new school web-sites.  If you did not already, please take the time to check out the new team-site at https://www.cvsdvt.org/Page/300


Have a great weekend!

Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
Thank you for coming to our Harmony Family Breakfast yesterday morning. It was great to see so many of you there.  I hope you had a chance to connect with other parents and eat some yummy treats.
Here are some pictures:

The students had a busy week at school.  We finished our "sound" portion of our science unit on "Light and Sound".  The students were partnered up completed an engineering challenge together.  They had to apply their knowledge of sound and how sound travels by creating a string telephone using different materials provided.  They did an amazing job. Ask them to explain how we used string, fishing line and styrofoam cups to create our phones.

When we return from our Thanksgiving break, we will start learning more about light.  We are excited.

The students brought home some books and a reading log for next week. This reading log is not due until the end of the first week back at school again (Friday 12/1) but if your child wishes to complete it over the break only, please ask your child to bring it in on Monday 11/27 for another one.

I hope you you have a safe and restful Thanksgiving week.

Regards,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
What a week!  I hope everyone survived the wind storm without too much damage to your properties.  The students shared stories of downed trees, loss of electricity and trampolines in trees!  With all the challenges that the storm brought for us as adults, it could not have happened at a better time for us in class because we just started a new writing unit on small moment stories and most kids chose to write about the wind storm and the day off from school! How about that!

Technology:
The students continue to build their skills using our chromebooks.  We use google classroom as our "hub," from which the students access links to other sites as a way to integrate literacy, math and science into our learning digitally.  Since the students access this learning online, they need head-phones to be able to listen clearly to books we read online.  Please send in a pair of head-phones for your child, if you did not already.  Thank you!

Writing:
We celebrated our first unit on personal narratives with our Kindergarten buddies.  The students read their published stories to their friends.  It was a great celebration of their hard work!

Science:
We continued our unit on Light and Sound.  This week, the students participated in a series of explorations about sounds and how sound comes from vibrations.  We looked at these vibrations using a drum, rubber bands and rulers, among other things.  Ask your child to explain.  perhaps your child will even show you at home what we did.  Here is a picture to help your child remember what we did with the rulers.

GUM:
We will start our units on grammar and hand-writing next week.  When we learn grammar and penmanship, we follow a process that we call "GUM".  It stands for Grammar, Usage and Mechanics.
When you are in first and second grade, it is extra exciting to be able to chew gum at this time so I am asking for your permission to give your child sugar-free gum for the times we do this.  There is no need to contact me if you approve.  Please just let me know if you do not want your child to chew gum during this class time. Thank you!

Upcoming Events & Reminders:

• Harmony House is hosting a family breakfast on 11/17 from 7:30-8:15am.  We hope you can join us for some special breakfast treats and connect with other families and friends from our team.  I forwarded an email from Sara Dunphy with a link to SignUpGenius earlier this week if you and your family wish to contribute.  Thank you so much for your generosity.
• I will have a sub on Wednesday when I, along with many other teachers at our school, will participate in professional development on math.
• We will have our Thanksgiving Break from school between 11/20-11/24.

Have a great rest of the day!
Maria