Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
I hope you're enjoying our winter break from school so far.  The weather was very Spring-like earlier today.  It was certainly nice to see the sun again!

Friday Folders:
Your child's Friday folders were filled with new and important information.  Below is a summary of some of the things inside it this week:

You should have received a Reading Bingo Game.  This bingo game is optional and there is not a "due date" for it.  Instead, I am hoping that this game will encourage reading at home and conversations about literature and books at home.  To play the game, ask your child to choose a square on the board, and complete that task/activity.  When you and your child have completed the task, cross it out, or place a sticker on the box.  Choose another square.  Play until the entire bingo board is filled. If your child wishes to bring it in when it is completed, I would be happy to look at it, and "check it off", like we do for our traditional reading logs.

Your child also brought home a packet with suggested books from different series that we have explored in class.  I hope this will serve as a resource when you and your child look for new potential books to read.

Your child also brought home a letter detailing our upcoming "Reading Iditarod Race" which starts the first week of March.  Traditionally, the students of Harmony House learn about the Iditarod at school, while simultaneously "racing their own Iditarod trail" while reading books at home.  (This, of course, is not a competitive race between the children.  Rather, it is a fun and engaging way for the children to read books and write about them while moving along the Iditarod Tail, just like the mushers and dogs do in the real race.  As the letter outlined, our reading logs will change for the month of March.  The children are still encouraged to read at least 5 times every week.  The biggest difference will be that there is a writing component every night.  We will send home the Iditarod reading logs when school resumes again.

First grade mathematicians also brought home some math games and activities for vacation.  I hope you will try some of the suggested math games!!  Thanks for supporting our learning of math at home.

Author Study:
Our study of Gail Gibbons continued last week.  The children learned more about her non-fiction features and they worked in small groups to compare her books to that of other non-fiction authors.  Ask your child to explain what some of these surprising differences are!

Science:
Our unit on landforms and earth processes also continued last week.  The children worked in small groups to deepen their understanding of weathering and erosion.  They used soil and sand to see the effects of drizzle, rain and flash floods.

Writing:
Our animal research writing unit is almost done.  The children have worked so hard to get their writing done.  Last week, we started comparing our own weight and height to that of our animal.  We also started our google slide-shows.  We look forward to sharing these with you (but for those of you who access gmail at home, your child's slideshow is already saved in his/her school email)

Enjoy your break!

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
We have had so many exciting projects and activities in school lately and we have many more during the upcoming week.  I apologize it has been a while since I posted pictures, but here they are!

100th Day of School:
So many students took on our snow day challenge and brought in their projects of 100 items.  We had a great day sharing 100 in many different ways.  We discovered that 100 can look different depending upon what it is.  We also discovered that we can count to 100 in many different ways; by 2s, by 5s and by 10s.  Some ways are more efficient than others!

Non-fiction reading and writing:
Our unit on Gail Gibbons continues.  Last week, Ms. Jess and the students created a chart showing the various non-fiction elements found in her books.  We discovered that Gail Gibbons includes many common features, such as labels, charts, diagrams and headings.  She does not include table of contents and photographs; two common non-fiction features from other non-fiction books we have explored.

Valentine's Day:
We celebrated Valentine's Day and the children enjoyed handing out their special cards and treats to each other.  We also created cards and special bags for our goodies. I hope you all received these special cards at home.  The children worked very hard to make them extra special for you!

Science:
Our unit on landforms and earth changes is in full swing!  Last week, we conducted some experiments using cookies, straws, droppers and spray bottles to learn more about weathering and erosion.  We discovered that rain, hail, snow and wind contribute to earth changes.  We also learned that these changes happen slowly, over millions of years.

Math:
First grade mathematicians started a new unit a little while ago.  Among other things, we are learning about multiple addends.  As we explore how to add many numbers together, we are primarily focusing on anchoring to 10 as our most efficient strategy.  For example, the picture below shows 9+4+6.  The children are encouraged to find 10 first (ie, 6+4) and then add 9 because 10+9 is more efficient than adding 6, 4 and 9.  Next week, we will extend this idea into equality and practice writing equations to show just that, such as 9+4+6=10+9

First grade mathematicians also had the opportunity to extend their learning in graphing.  Some of our first grade friends shared their projects on bar graphs, pictographs and pie charts.

Winter Olympics as a Workshop:
Ms Jess and I had so much fun putting together an indoor Winter Olympics workshop for Harmony House last week!  Here are some pictures.  We offered indoor hockey, curling, balloon tennis, snowball building and breaking as well as some indoor Olympic crafts.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

• Trading cards are not allowed at ABS.  Please talk to your child about the importance of not bring them to school.  We have seen an increase in children bringing them to school and keeping them inside their backpacks.  Thank you.
• We have 4 Winds on Thursday this upcoming week.  Please be advised that we plan on going outside if the weather allows it.
• We have Winter Break and no school 2/26-3/2.  Parent teacher conferences will be the week of 3/19 with most time slots during the day on 3/23 when the students have no school.  I will send out a google doc for you and your family to sign up.

Snow Day Math Challenge

Dear Families,

Friday is our 100th day of school. If you are looking for a quick and fun activity for your child to do on their snow day today you could have them count out 100 of something. This is optional, but if your child wants to, he/she could find something around the house (pennies, cheerios, Legos, Post-its, buttons, crayons, etc.) and count out a collection of 100 to share with our class on Friday. 

Your child will bring these items back home after school on Friday. If your child chooses to do this, challenge him/her to predict what they think 100 will look like before they start counting. How could we count 100 items if we don't want to count by ones?  Can we group the items into 5s, 10s or even 25s?  If so, how many groups would there be in 100?

Encourage your child to estimate; would 100 cheerios fill an entire bowl? How heavy would 100 pennies be? Do they actually have 100 trading cards, or do they have more or less?

As an additional challenge; ask your child to find another 100 of something else and then compare the two groups of 100.  Look at the differences between the two groups.  What do you notice?  100 is the same amount, but it looks different and feels different depending upon what the objects are, or how it is presented.

Enjoy the snow day!

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

It is still cold out there and a certain rodent just predicted another 6 weeks of winter!  I guess we have to keep packing those thick winter coats, gloves, hats and boot for a little while longer!  Sometimes the weather is so cold that we cannot go outside.  Last week, we really missed playing in the snow so we decided to bring it inside the classroom for our Friday workshops!

Reading:
The students started reading non-fiction books in our guided reading groups a few weeks ago and they are doing a terrific job recognizing the text features of such books.  I hope they share some of these new reading strategies and skills at home as you read together.  We have a visual anchor chat in our classroom to help us remember these features and you might have seen some projects related to this theme in your child's Friday folder.

We also started using some self reflection rubrics in reading.  The objective of these activities is to encourage the students to think about their choices during reading time.  We talked about the importance of choosing just right books, finding a quiet space to read and sustaining active reading for longer periods of time.  We also reflected on the reasons why students might choose a new spot to read and not find just right books, and what we can do to help ourselves actively read during reading times.  These reflection rubrics will come home periodically in your child's Friday folder.  Please look them over and see if some of the expectations at school can be, or already are, reflected at home. 

Writing:
We continued our animal research last week.  The students are currently practicing "Reading to Understand".  This approach emphasizes the importance of sense-making in reading, ie students read a passage, think about it, make sense of the text, and then, write it down in their own words.  They are doing a fantastic job.

I try to find many tangible opportunities for the students to practice this approach as they occur.  For example, a student in our class read that an adult chipmunk weighs as much as 15 quarters, while a baby chipmunk weighs only as much as 1 quarter.  The student collected quarters and then we all had the opportunity to feel the weight of a chipmunk.  Another student read that a baby raccoon is only 4 inches at birth, so we measured four inches using a ruler. Perhaps you will find similar learning opportunities at home as you read with your child.  Keep me posted and have fun making sense of what is read!

Looking for parent helpers/volunteers:
I am looking for parent helpers to support our animal research.  For the next couple of weeks, I would love to have parents read passages/chapters to individual students, or small groups, to help them understand the content in our books.  The students would do their own writing, but because many of our books on Vermont animals are not written for first and second grade kids, the writing task become particularly challenging when the students cannot access the content.  Please email me if you are willing and able to come in to read to our amazing researchers!  I truly appreciate your support!

Math:
First grade mathematicians recently started a new unit in math.  For the next few weeks, they will explore the number line and develop a greater understanding of equality.
We started our new unit by creating a life-sized number line exploring the relative magnitude between the numbers.  The students also have their own collections and can create different number lines as we solve mathematical problems.

Reminders & Upcoming Events:

• Emma Lang, UVM Intern, joined our classroom last week.  She will be with us every Thursday morning for the next few weeks.  Welcome Emma.  We are so happy to have you with us!
• Thank you for sending in all permission slips for the upcoming field-trip to the Flynn, which is on Friday Feb 9th.  The bus will leave ABS around 11:45, which means we will have lunch early and snack when we return.
• ABS will attend the WCS Chorus Concert on Wednesday, Feb. 7th.  Dismissal will be from WCS.  If you plan to pick up your child on Wednesday, please do so at the lobby at WCS.  All other children will board their regular buses or brought back to ABS for Part 2.