Saturday, February 23, 2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
Family Newsletter
Dear Families,
This week went by so fast. Remember, we have February break from school next week. Students return to school on Monday, March 4th.
Reading:
Your child brought home a new vacation reading log for our school break. We encourage your child to continue reading every day. The reading log can be returned when school resumes again on Monday, March 4th.
When we return to school, the children will start learning about the Iditarod. Traditionally, the students on Harmony follow the dog-sledding race, which takes place in Alaska, every year. This year, we will choose a musher to follow as a class. We will read many books in school, learning about the race, its history and the amazing dogs and mushers that are all part of this incredible race. This year, we will also host our "Kid Iditarod Race" on the fields behind the school. This amazing race will take place in the afternoon of March 29th, starting around 12:40. The children will be divided into mixed groups from Harmony and work as teams in small Iditarod teams. They will design a team flag and come up with a team name. They will also participate in an engineering challenge to construct a solid structure to protect an uncooked egg, which will symbolize the serum, which traveled the original Iditarod trail. The children will travel in their teams through a series of check-points on our field. We are looking for parent volunteers to help us with the different activities for each station. Please let me know if you are interested. Thank you.
Writing:
Many students brought home some unfinished hand-writing to work on at home during the break. This is voluntary, of course. We will start something new when we return.
Upcoming Events & Reminders:
This week went by so fast. Remember, we have February break from school next week. Students return to school on Monday, March 4th.
Reading:
Your child brought home a new vacation reading log for our school break. We encourage your child to continue reading every day. The reading log can be returned when school resumes again on Monday, March 4th.
When we return to school, the children will start learning about the Iditarod. Traditionally, the students on Harmony follow the dog-sledding race, which takes place in Alaska, every year. This year, we will choose a musher to follow as a class. We will read many books in school, learning about the race, its history and the amazing dogs and mushers that are all part of this incredible race. This year, we will also host our "Kid Iditarod Race" on the fields behind the school. This amazing race will take place in the afternoon of March 29th, starting around 12:40. The children will be divided into mixed groups from Harmony and work as teams in small Iditarod teams. They will design a team flag and come up with a team name. They will also participate in an engineering challenge to construct a solid structure to protect an uncooked egg, which will symbolize the serum, which traveled the original Iditarod trail. The children will travel in their teams through a series of check-points on our field. We are looking for parent volunteers to help us with the different activities for each station. Please let me know if you are interested. Thank you.
Writing:
Many students brought home some unfinished hand-writing to work on at home during the break. This is voluntary, of course. We will start something new when we return.
Upcoming Events & Reminders:
- Parent-teacher conferences will be in the week of March 18th. There is no school for the students on March 22nd. I will send out a google doc shortly with sign-up times.
- Kid Iditarod Race on the fields behind ABS, March 29th in the afternoon. More information will follow when we return to school, but please consider volunteering for this amazing race!
- School resumes again on Monday, March 4th
I hope everyone will have a restful February break.
Best,
Maria
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Learning about the Moon's Phases
This week, we learned about the moon's phases using oreo cookies and watercolors. Enjoy the pictures.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Family Newsletter
Dear Families,
Last week, we had a new student join our classroom. His name is Isaiah and he is in second grade. He joined our class on Wednesday and the kids were so excited to have a new friend. Welcome Isaiah! We are so lucky to have you in our class.
Reading:
We have shifted some reading groups around so the students have the opportunity to read with new friends and receive the best possible instruction they need. We are very excited. We also shifted our focus in reading. We started reading non-fiction books. The students learned about non-fiction text elements, such as table of contents, glossaries, headings and labels. We will continue our work for the next few weeks. The students are encouraged to add some non-fiction books to their weekly readings and their book boxes at school.
Our class read aloud is about the Magic Tree House and the Moon. This book allows us to discuss the differences between fictional and non-fictional stories as it balances both.
Writing:
The students completed the district-wide opinion writing assessment last week. We will start our non-fiction writing unit on ocean animals this upcoming week. The students will choose an ocean animal to research. They will access different sources, such as web-sites, magazines and books to find relevant information for their writing pieces. Each writing piece will have the following chapters: a description of the animal, the animal's habitat, food and how it takes care of its young. The students will gather their information and their final product will reflect the non-fiction text features we're learning about in reading. We will start our research this week by visiting pebblego to choose an animal.
Science:
If your child did not bring in his/her Moon Journal on Friday, please hand it in on Monday. We will celebrate our moon studies with oreo cookies (to show the phases) and we will also use watercolors to paint the moon.
Our study of the solar system continues. We listened to the astronaut Scott Kelly read the book Mousetronaut from the International Space Station. Here is a link. I also linked this to our online books on the wiki under literacy, again linked here.
I also added several new links about space to our solar system wiki. Hopefully, the children can explore more about space at home. The kids really enjoyed the videos from Chris Hadfield about doing everyday chores/tasks in space without gravity. Have fun! Here is that link.
Math:
First grade mathematicians started learning about congruent and non-congruent shapes last week. We explored these ideas in our Number Corner activities as well as in work stations using geoboards.
100th Day of School:
We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday with many exciting activities. We also had a special visit from Ms. Filion, our principal, dressed like a 100 year old!!
WCS Chorus and Songs on the Wiki:
On Wednesday, we visited the Williston Central School for the 3rd and 4th grade chorus. It was great to listen to some beautiful music and see old friends.
I have added many new songs to our classroom wiki over the weekend. In the next few weeks, we will explore them at school, but if your child wants to have a sneak peak, I have made it all public already. Here is the link to our songs.
The songs are listed alphabetically. Some of the new songs are from the musical Annie, some are by the musical group They might be Giants. I also added many songs by one of my favorite artists John Lithgow and the children's group Rosenschantz.
Have fun singing! Let me know know if you have any favorites you would like to to add.
Kindness and Valentine's Day:
We will celebrate Valetine's Day at school on the 14th. Students are encouraged to bring in cards/treats to their friends. We will hand these out to each other in the morning. I emailed the class-list to all of you. Please let me know if you did not get it.
We will not celebrate with cookies and sugars at school. Rather, our focus is on kindness and what it means to be a caring and thoughtful friend. A few weeks ago, we started a mini-unit on kindness. We have read many books on this topic out loud and discussed the meaning of friendship. Here are a couple of examples of these books:
The students also have "Kindness Cards" with specific sentence starters for how we can be kind using our words. For example, we practice asking each other for help, or if somebody would like to have a turn first in a game, etc. We try to find friends doing these acts of kindness. In other words, we are Kindness Detectives! This week, we will create our Kindness Mural in our classroom. We can't wait to share it with all of you.
Have a great day!
Best,
Maria
Last week, we had a new student join our classroom. His name is Isaiah and he is in second grade. He joined our class on Wednesday and the kids were so excited to have a new friend. Welcome Isaiah! We are so lucky to have you in our class.
Reading:
We have shifted some reading groups around so the students have the opportunity to read with new friends and receive the best possible instruction they need. We are very excited. We also shifted our focus in reading. We started reading non-fiction books. The students learned about non-fiction text elements, such as table of contents, glossaries, headings and labels. We will continue our work for the next few weeks. The students are encouraged to add some non-fiction books to their weekly readings and their book boxes at school.
Our class read aloud is about the Magic Tree House and the Moon. This book allows us to discuss the differences between fictional and non-fictional stories as it balances both.
Writing:
The students completed the district-wide opinion writing assessment last week. We will start our non-fiction writing unit on ocean animals this upcoming week. The students will choose an ocean animal to research. They will access different sources, such as web-sites, magazines and books to find relevant information for their writing pieces. Each writing piece will have the following chapters: a description of the animal, the animal's habitat, food and how it takes care of its young. The students will gather their information and their final product will reflect the non-fiction text features we're learning about in reading. We will start our research this week by visiting pebblego to choose an animal.
Science:
If your child did not bring in his/her Moon Journal on Friday, please hand it in on Monday. We will celebrate our moon studies with oreo cookies (to show the phases) and we will also use watercolors to paint the moon.
Our study of the solar system continues. We listened to the astronaut Scott Kelly read the book Mousetronaut from the International Space Station. Here is a link. I also linked this to our online books on the wiki under literacy, again linked here.
I also added several new links about space to our solar system wiki. Hopefully, the children can explore more about space at home. The kids really enjoyed the videos from Chris Hadfield about doing everyday chores/tasks in space without gravity. Have fun! Here is that link.
Math:
First grade mathematicians started learning about congruent and non-congruent shapes last week. We explored these ideas in our Number Corner activities as well as in work stations using geoboards.
100th Day of School:
We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday with many exciting activities. We also had a special visit from Ms. Filion, our principal, dressed like a 100 year old!!
WCS Chorus and Songs on the Wiki:
On Wednesday, we visited the Williston Central School for the 3rd and 4th grade chorus. It was great to listen to some beautiful music and see old friends.
I have added many new songs to our classroom wiki over the weekend. In the next few weeks, we will explore them at school, but if your child wants to have a sneak peak, I have made it all public already. Here is the link to our songs.
The songs are listed alphabetically. Some of the new songs are from the musical Annie, some are by the musical group They might be Giants. I also added many songs by one of my favorite artists John Lithgow and the children's group Rosenschantz.
Have fun singing! Let me know know if you have any favorites you would like to to add.
Kindness and Valentine's Day:
We will celebrate Valetine's Day at school on the 14th. Students are encouraged to bring in cards/treats to their friends. We will hand these out to each other in the morning. I emailed the class-list to all of you. Please let me know if you did not get it.
We will not celebrate with cookies and sugars at school. Rather, our focus is on kindness and what it means to be a caring and thoughtful friend. A few weeks ago, we started a mini-unit on kindness. We have read many books on this topic out loud and discussed the meaning of friendship. Here are a couple of examples of these books:
Have a great day!
Best,
Maria
Friday, February 1, 2019
School-wide celebration
The students at ABS filled the Bee Hive again. We celebrated with BEACH DAY! It was great to see the students so excited. They loved dressing up for warm, summer days on one of the coldest days this week! Enjoy the pictures.
4 Winds
We learned about air in yesterday's 4 Winds class. The students explored the properties of air in different stations. The students learned that air is everywhere around us. They learned that all living things need it. They also learned that air has pressure and weight. Thanks parent volunteers for making this possible.
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