Holiday Letter

 Dear Families,

We had a great couple of days together this week here at Allen Brook.  The kids participated in many different holiday workshops and we had additional outdoor games and activities together as well.  

We will not send home any homework over vacation.  We do, however, encourage the students to read every day. Your child has a reading bingo to complete at home if he/she wants to.  Your child can also, of course, finish any unfinished work online or on SeeSaw, if you wish.

Here are also some fun interactive at-home math games for the holiday break.  Greg Tang has an online holiday math competition if your child wishes to participate.  Here is the web-site with information.  If your child only wishes to play the games, they are linked below:

New Year’s Challenge 

Have a restful holiday.  See you back in 2021!

Maria

Pictures from our week together

 Friday Workshops: Learning about constellations and light

Playing outside in the snow:

Library read Aloud:

Word of the Week with Ms. Patti:

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• We focused on our Weekly Six Mindfulness Activities this week.  They are:

1.Mood: Checking in with the students about their feelings

2.Morning Breath: practicing our breathing exercises

3.Mindfulness: finding calm moments every day

4.Growth Mindset: Practicing this throughout the day even when it gets hard

5.Good Will: Show kindness and help others

6.Gratitude: Find ways to be thankful and say thank you.

The students were encouraged to find small moments throughout the days to be kind and show and engage in an act of kindness.  We discovered that we can show kindness in a variety of ways.  We can smile and say polite words, such as thank you and please.  We can ask someone if they need help or want to play, and we can wear our masks properly.  It is easy being kind and being kind to others fills up your heart with happiness!  It is our superpower!

• The students also learned a new breathing technique to find mindfulness and calmness throughout the day.  It is called “Open Heart”.  Ask your child to explain.  We love this breathing exercise because we can easily do it at our own desks.

• We continued our work on being attentive listeners and how we can be assertive and ask for assistance and help in polite and respectful ways.

Reading:

• We continued reading together in our small guided reading groups.  All students are working on various reading strategies to tackle unfamiliar and challenging words.  Please encourage this practice at home too every day when the students read from their classroom books, on raz kids or from their library choices.

• Next week, we will not send home any homework over vacation.  We do, however, encourage the students to read every day.  I will send home a reading bingo for your child to complete.  Your child can also, of course, finish any unfinished work online or on SeeSaw, if you wish.

• Here is a recommended list of graphic novels for kids, shared by our fabulous school librarian.  Have fun reading at home!

Writing:

• The students participated in a district-wide writing assessment and finished their “All About” books.  They also continued their individual goals on building writing stamina.  I am so proud of their positive attitudes and love of writing!

• The students also used a rubric to self-reflect on their own writing.  They were encouraged to check their own writing to make sure it reflected all the components of “All About” writing.  They checked for titles, headings, detailed pictures/labels, chapters that relate to their respective topics, and a glossary.  They did a fantastic job!

First Grade Math:

• First grade mathematicians participated in an end-of-the-unit assessment covering number bonds, parts of numbers to 10 and concepts like greater than, less than and equal to.  In our next unit, first grade mathematicians will continue building a deeper understanding of number relations, numbers to 20 and subtraction. We will also continue our work on data collections.

• First grade mathematicians are also exploring subtraction problems in our story problems.  They are encouraged to show their thinking in drawings, equations and words.  An example of a problem we’re working on now could be something like “Rose has 9 apple slices.  She gives 3 of them to Ally.  How many does she have left?

Science:

• Mrs. Benoit and I are aware that it has been particularly challenging to observe the moon in the sky in the last couple of weeks.  We have had overcast weather for a long time. This is why we send the Moon Journals home for several weeks.  Let’s see if the weather changes slightly in the next few weeks so your child can look at the moon, draw its current phases and write a sentence or two in the Moon Journal.  These journals are not due back until late January.  I hope we will get some clear skies before then!  If not; well, then we need to adjust the assignment!  Stay tuned (and let’s hope Mother Nature cooperates)

• We had Friday workshops exploring constellations today.  Your child created his/her own constellations using papers and flashlights.We also used different colored papers to see the effects on the light.  Ask your child to explain more about what we learned about light.

Technology:

• We continued Hour of Code this week with the help of Ms. Scott.  Your child took home his/her own login information in the Home Folder if he/she wishes to continue coding at home.

News and Reminders:

• We will celebrate our last day before the holiday break with a pajama day and special workshops.  Please make sure your child does not bring slippers, stuffed animals, and blankets to school.  We will still have a regular day with outdoor recess, so please plan accordingly.  If your child prefers to wear comfy sweatpants, tights or athletic wear, that is fine too.  We do not want families to worry about getting new pajamas for school.  

• Please consider ordering shirts from ABS to proudly display our logo “Be Safe, be Kind, be Responsible”.  We have a new design this year, created by students at our school.  Here is the order form and here is a picture of what the new logo looks like.

• Thank you for helping your child come to morning meetings online no earlier than 8:20!!  They all did an outstanding job this week.  I was the first one on.  Some children also shared they looked at the clock at the bottom of the chromebook and one child was reading a book about telling time while waiting for the meeting to start.  Thank you!

• Don’t forget that we have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays for the next few weeks.  The students will go outside. Thank you for sending your child to school with warm winter gear!  The students also have outdoor recess every day.  Layers are best as it gets warm in the classroom sometimes.  Don’t forget snowpants, hats and mittens/gloves!

• We have seen an increase in loud voices, physical play/closeness and leaving desks in the classroom.  Please talk to your child about the importance of staying socially distant at school.  We are so lucky to be able to have in-person learning at ABS!  Let’s all make sure we can follow the guidelines a little longer.  This will soon pass and we can get back to a “normal” school environment again. Thank you!

 

• Here is the link to this week’s Bell.

 

• December 23rd-January 1st-No School (Winter Break)

• January 18th-No School (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)

Have a great weekend,

Maria

Pictures from our week together

 Spending time outside:

Learning about SORA from Mrs. Clopton:

Learning about computer coding from Ms. Scott:

Enjoying read alouds in our library:

PE outside with Ms. Porter:

Playing games together to learn about coding:

Word of the Week Remote Meeting with Ms. Patti.  This week's word was shallow.  Ask your child to tell you what it means and give you synonyms and antonyms!

Learning about greater than, less than and equal to in math:

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• We continued learning about what it looks like and sounds like to be an attentive listener in class.

• We listened to The Learner Song many times. Ask your child how we can use our atten-to-scope and our eyes and ears to be better listeners.  Our hand puppet Snail also spent a lot of time with us. We also discussed that having quiet, calm voices help everyone learn better in our classroom.

• We also continued practicing having a growth mindset throughout the whole day.  The students are beginning to realize that we can do our best in any situation; in math, in reading and writing, but also at recess and during snack!  

• Next week, we will focus on “the Daily Six”:

1. Mood: Checking in with the students about their feelings

2. Morning Breath: practicing our breathing exercises

3. Mindfulness: finding calm moments every day

4. Growth Mindset: Practicing this throughout the day even when it gets hard

5. Good Will: Show kindness and help others

6. Gratitude: Find ways to be thankful and say thank you:

Reading:

• We continued reading the books about Bink & Gollie in class.  These books are by Kate DiCamillo, the author of Mercy Watson.

• We also listened to some books online together.  There are many fantastic online books sites.  You can access these at home too.  I have several sites linked on the wiki, also linked here.  Mrs. Clopton also visited our classroom to teach us about SORA, another online resource for home use.. SORA is linked on the school web-portal and it has also been bookmarked on your child’s computer. SORA has hundreds of digital books to borrow online and some of them even read the books to the children.  It is an amazing resource and I hope you will use it at home. Thank you, Mrs. Clopton, for showing us how to use SORA!

• The students packed their own books to take home this week.  They were encouraged to take home “just right” books but they also had a choice.  They did a great job carefully and thoughtfully selecting books to read at home.  If you notice that your child brought home the same books as he/she brought home last week, that is okay.  Re-reading books strengthens young readers’ confidence and fluency.  If you notice your child brought home books that might be too hard or too easy, please have a conversation with your child about his/her choices.  Why are the books too hard, or too easy?  What other choices could your child make next week?  The ultimate goal is for your child to know himself/herself as a reader and know what books make sense to read independently.  I am so proud of their efforts!

Writing:

• The students are almost done with their “All About” writing pieces.  We added glossaries this week and the students re-read their writing pieces using an editing rubric to help them make sure all the different components of this writing genre were represented.  They did a fantastic job!  We hope to celebrate with an author’s celebration in class!

• First grade authors also continued working on improving their writing stamina in class.  They are learning how to stay on task and how to remain productive even when writing feels hard.  The students are amazing using our word walls, alphabet charts and skills learned in Fundations to get their thoughts down on paper.  They are showing a growth mindset every day!

First Grade Math:

• First grade mathematicians learned how to read data collection graphs this week.  We focused on pictographs.  We learned that pictographs represent information in pictures so we can easily and accurately understand it.  We analyzed the pictographs too and looked at “how many more” and “how many fewer” when we compared data points.

• First grade mathematicians also continued working on basic number sense and we learned that knowing our double facts can help us solve math problems efficiently.

• First grade mathematicians also participated in an end of the unit assessment.  Next week, we will start focusing more on subtraction, while continuing our work on number bonds and equations.

Technology:

• We started Hour of Code this week at school.  Hour of Code is a global project to encourage young children to learn how to code computers.  Ms. Scott joined our classroom and we played some games before even using the computers to fully understand the complexities of sequential step-by-step directions.  We had so much fun as the children had to give clear directions for two friends to walk across the classroom!  We also had an opportunity to practice at home as I linked some initial games to SeeSaw.  In case you missed the link, it is also here.  Next week, the students will get their own accounts.  Stay tuned for more information.

News and Reminders:

• Thank you for helping your child come to morning meetings online no earlier than 8:20!!  They all did an outstanding job this week.  I was the first one on.  Some children also shared they looked at the clock at the bottom of the chromebook and one child was reading a book about telling time while waiting for the meeting to start.  Thank you!

• Don’t forget that we have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays for the next few weeks.  The students will go outside. Thank you for sending your child to school with warm winter gear!  The students also have outdoor recess every day.  Layers are best as it gets warm in the classroom sometimes.  Don’t forget hats and mittens/gloves!

 

• December 23rd-January 1st-No School (Winter Break)

• January 18th-No School (Martin Luther King Jr. Day)

• Here's a link to this week's School Bell

Have a great weekend,

Maria

Pictures from our week together

 Celebrating and playing games outside:

Ms. Shelby reading the book we made her as a goodbye present.  We will miss you Ms. Shelby!

Learning about math relationships and how to write expressions:

We continued our Word Study with Ms. Patti remotely this week.  This week's word was hollow. We found synonyms and antonyms together!

School-wide buzzy celebration: Paper Airplanes.

Look at this stunning rainbow outside our classroom window on day this week!  We love Vermont!