Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

It was great to meet with you last week and the week prior during our conferences. Many of you expressed an interest in sight words so I included some sigh word lists inside your child's Friday folder this week.  Next week, I will send home some of these words inside short phrases so your child can practice these words in a different way too.  We started practicing sight words and high frequency words at school last week and the students love this practice.  They all have small word booklets in their book boxes and practice finding these words in word hunts and word graphs as well.  Your child also brought home a reading game called "Reado" this week as well.  It is completely voluntary, of course, but I hope this game will create opportunities for you and your child to enjoy literature together in a new, interactive and fun way.

Reading and Book bags:
Thank you for reading with your child at home.  The students are very proud handing in their logs on Fridays.  I wanted to remind you to talk to your child regarding the book bags.  If your child prefers to read books from home, he/she does not have to pack books from school.  Please remind your child to tell me or Ms. Kendal.

Writing:
The students are working hard in writing.  They are currently learning about how to create interesting beginnings to their stories.  Last week, for example, we learned how we can use different sentence starters to get us going in writing.  The students practiced using phrases like "One day..., " "Not so long ago...", and "Last week..." to name just a few.  Next week, the students will learn how we can use words and pictures to write about the setting.

Technology:
The students continued "traveling" around the world using google earth and geotracker last week as well.  Mrs. Pius joined our class.  The students created dot-to-dot continents, then used the chromebooks to go on a world-wide scavenger hunt.  Ask your child to explain what the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower looks like!

Reading Buddies:
Our Kindergarten reading buddies in Ms. Davison's class joined us in our classroom last week.  What a treat!

ABS Buzzy Celebration:
The students at ABS filled the BeeHive again.  This time, we celebrated with a pumpkin decorating competition.  The students in our class voted to make a bee, showing our school mascot.  We won!!!!

Here it is and some of the other entries:

Harvest Soup:
ABS celebrated Harvest Soup last week as well!  We had a wonderful time eating lunch together, listening to Mr. Bolger and Mr Andrew play music while also saying hello to some local police officers.

Have a great weekend.

Best,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
Thank you for signing up for parent teacher conferences, starting next week.  If you did not already please check the link I sent you a couple of weeks ago so you and your family can meet with me and share in your child's progress here at ABS!

Reading:
We finished our author study of Todd Parr.  The students celebrated by creating self-portraits of themselves using ipads.  We discussed how we are all unique and how it is okay to be different. Here is a picture of our classroom mural.  Our new author study is David Mckee and Elmer.  The students are already discovering similarities between the authors and the characters.  They are amazing readers and they are learning to pay close attention to the texts we're reading!

Writing:

We finished our launching unit in writing today.  The children celebrated by sharing their favorite stories with a friend in class.  Throughout this process, they were exposed to many different kinds of writing; narratives, recipes, graphic novels, cards and letters, to name a few.  Next week, we will start our personal narratives called small moment stories.  More information will follow.

Math:

First grade mathematicians are working diligently on composing and decomposing numbers to 10 and 20.  This past week, we also explored how to deepen our understanding od math story problems and how to show our thinking using voice, drawings, and equations.  Additionally, we practiced making sense of our stories using manipulatives to actually build the stories created.  We celebrated today with Ms. Fisher's class.  The visited our classroom and we shared our stories and videos online.

Science:

Our pumpkin investigations continued this week with data collection practice.  The students acted like scientists and collected data from our classroom pumpkins regarding height, number of lines and they practiced using scientific drawings to represent their group pumpkins.

Special Event:

Our fabulous UVM intern Mr. Matt did a special read aloud and reading response activity with the class as well this week.  Mr Matt read a book about recycling and garbage.  The students learned about how we can take care of our earth by re-using materials and recycling materials at home and here at school.  Thank you Mr. Matt for sharing this book with us!

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I am looking forward to seeing you next week for our parent teacher conferences.

Best,

Maria

Visitors

We had some special visitors in our class for a read aloud.  Three lovely students from CVU joined our classroom one morning and read the book, "Not your typical dragon" by Dan Bar-el.  Thanks for taking time to visit us!

Engineering

The students finally tested their bridges as our culminating activity in our science inquiry/launching unit.  The students made a design, used only certain pre-determined materials and worked together to create a bridge that was 12 inches long, 6 inches above the ground and strong enough to hold a book.  Ask your child to explain the process in more detail.

Making slime

We made slime last week as part of our science unit.  The students created slime together in small groups and discovered different properties as we played with it!
Next week, we will try to improve our recipe and see if different structures will help us create a better outcome.

First Grade Math News

Dear Families,

Parent teacher conferences are right around the corner.  Some teachers on Harmony already started!  Traditionally, teachers at ABS only meet with their own homeroom kids and families.  This means that if your child is in Ms. Crowley's or Mrs Benoit's homerooms, you never really have a chance to check in with me about math.  Of course, the teachers keep each other informed and updated and we work together to create a positive and encouraging learning environment here on Harmony, but you, as a parent, might not have the opportunity to meet with me personally.

I wanted to share some quick notes about what your child is working on in my first grade classroom.  I also wanted to let you know that if you are concerned about your child's math learning, or simply want to learn more about what we do, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email, or check out my classroom blog, which is linked below (and also on the school web-site).  Checking the site and the blog will help you stay in touch with the math learning.

So far, first grade mathematicians have worked on ways in which we can create a classroom community of learners of mathematics. First grade mathematicians have also learned how we share math thinking in partnerships, how the habits of mind dispositions and private reasoning time influence our math understanding. Moreover, first grade mathematicians are also learning to become flexible thinkers. We practice showing a "growth mindset" in math class and strive to persevere and challenge ourselves to improve our mathematical understanding. First grade mathematicians have also learned that numbers can be organized in many different ways; one way is into decades. We practice the repeating sequence 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 to discover how this familiar number sequence helps us solve a variety of problems. The students are also learning about partners to ten, ten and more and how to use math tools to show their thinking. Lastly, the students are also exploring story problems, showing their mathematical understanding by using math tools, drawing representations and having a matching equation/number sentence.

I hope you have seen some of your child's math work come home already.  If you desire more math for home, please don't forget my wiki, which has multiple math sites and games linked to it.  

We started using Bedtime Math as well in our classroom.  Bedtime Math was integrated as a component to the library reading challenge this past summer.  It is an amazing math site that encourages children to see math in everyday life and situations.  It also encourages parental involvement and discussion and hopefully will spark more enthusiasm for math in your child.  The site has an amazing collection of books as well that can be purchased.  I already got some for my youngest child at home and share some with the kids at school!

Again, please stay connected and involved in your child's math learning.  Let me know if you have any concerns or questions.

Happy Math!