Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

What a fantastic week we had on Harmony and in our classroom!

On Monday, the students visited Williston Central School to see the play “Aladdin” that the students of Summit House performed.  They did an outstanding job and our students enjoyed the experience very much.

On Tuesday, we had our field-trip to Catamount.  We were lucky that the weather was a little warmer and the sun was out.  We spent a couple of hours together, learning about snowshoeing, trees and animal tracking.  It was fun to explore the outdoors in the snow.  Thank you parent chaperones who helped us and the students be successful.  We could not have done this without you!

On Wednesday, we added new movement activities to our math Number Talks and warm-ups.  The students showed their understanding of the concepts “greater than”, “less than”, and “equal to” by writing their equations and moving their bodies to different locations in the classroom representing these equations.  As a class, we collected the outcomes of these activities and equations.  We collected this data for the entire week in a game called “Race to the Finish” led by Ms. Addie.  On Friday, we had a special celebration and students had the opportunity to play their favorite math games..

On Thursday, we had 4 Winds.  Here is a message from the 4 Winds Institute: Sound is what we hear when something is vibrating. The vibrating object – whether a violin string, a singing bird, or a gurgling brook – creates a sound wave that travels to our ears, where we interpret its meaning. Sound waves need a medium like air, water, or a solid through which to move; they cannot pass through a vacuum. The Earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere provide a way for sounds to travel. Many animals depend on sound to learn about their surroundings and to communicate with others of their kind. The students learned more about sound through different stations.  They rotated between the classrooms and explored sound with different objects and they were encouraged to observe pitch, volume and the vibrations.  

If you and your child would like to learn more, please see this link for additional information on this month’s lesson.  Thank you parents for bringing hands-on science exploration to our students!

On Friday, we celebrated all day!  The students filled the classroom buzzy jar again this week.  As you know, the students celebrated with comfy clothes and hats at school.  They worked so hard this week and showed respect, responsibility and kindness to each other.  We played games in all classes and enjoyed some extra songs and dances too.  Ask your child to explain what the special surprise was at the end of the day! 

News and Reminders:

• It is Basket Raffle Time again!  This is one of FAP’s biggest fundraisers of the year.  The Big Basket Raffle is on Saturday, March 23rd. The event is held in the WCS cafeteria and old gym.  The event starts at 6:00 (with the first drawing at 6:45).  A Fun Night runs at the same time for students.  Our class theme this year is ‘A Day at the Beach”.  Please read the note from FAP to get some ideas for items to donate.  Thank you for helping this event be a success! Please see this link for information about this amazing fund-raiser.  Here is the link to Fun Night too.

• There will be no school 2/26-3/1 due to our Winter Break.  When we return, Ms. Addie will be our guest teacher for the first two days back due to my trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  I will return on Wednesday 3/6.

Have a great week off from school everyone!

Warm Regards,

Maria

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

We had a fantastic visit to the Williston Central School on Monday when we had the opportunity to meet the author and illustrator Jason Chin.  Mr. Chin read his book “Watercress” and showed us how he creates his illustrations from the beginning stages to the story-boards and the final product, which gets published in his books.  He also drew a large poster-sized picture for the students of ABS, which is hanging in our library now.  The students learned so much and were inspired by his charcoal drawings.  When we returned to ABS, they had the chance to try drawing with shading, just like Jason Chin!

Social-Emotional Learning:

• The students learned about the importance of perseverance this week.  They learned how using self-control and mindful strategies to self-regulate can help us stay on track and complete tasks even when things feel challenging.  We practiced having a growth mindset and persevering in different classes, such as writing, reading and math.  

• We continued our work around Kindness this week.  The students celebrated Valentine’s Day and shared their thoughtful and kind gifts with each other.  The students also decorated special Valentine’s Day bags for these gifts.  We hope you had the chance to see them all at home.  Thank you for supporting your child’s contributions at home. 

• The students filled the classroom buzzy jar again too for being safe, kind, and responsible.  This time we celebrated with pajama day.  

• We had restorative circles this week too.  In our “inside-outside circle” configurations, the students shared kind words with each other, giving each other compliments.  As you may recall, “inside-outside” circles allow for all students to share their ideas with partners, which rotate in a predictable manner. We also had a restorative circle with Ms. Nicole.  This week, we started some work around personal accountability and responsible decision-making during class work times.  We have noticed that when students are engaged in disruptive, unexpected choices, all students’ learning is negatively affected.  When students are blurting out, running in the classroom or engaging in other disruptive behaviors it is hard for everyone to learn and our classroom does not feel safe.  The students did a great job sharing how they can show self-control and make responsible choices during academic learning times.

You Can: 

• You can encourage your child to use mindful, self-regulatory strategies at home too when your child feels that a specific task becomes too difficult or challenging.  In class, we practice various types of breathing techniques.  This week, the students did the bunny breathing and the heart-shape breathing, for example.  Ask your child to explain or try any of the other strategies shared with you in earlier communications.

• For the month of February, the students have been encouraged to be “Kindness Detectives” and find kindness in the world around them.  They have also practiced acts of kindness themselves.  Consider doing this at home too.  Giving each other compliments, sharing a smile or some kind words go a long way to make others feel special, happy and calm.

Reading:

• This week, first grade readers worked on decoding skills to improve their independence and stamina during reading times.

• This week, first grade readers also practiced their reading fluency.  They learned about different ways to read out loud and they learned about the importance of repeated readings in an effort to improve accuracy, automaticity and reading pace.  They also learned that expressive reading is important for overall comprehension.  They read a readers’ theater script together multiple times, each time reflecting more phrasing, expression and deeper comprehension of the text.  They also tried echo reading, which is a fun and engaging way to read while taking turns.  After several practices, the students performed the script!  They did an outstanding job.  Ask your child to perform the text “ABC Animals” to you at home too.  (The script is inside your child’s Home Folders this week)

Writing:

• This week, first grade authors participated in a writing assessment to reflect their understanding of how first grade authors can write a sequential personal narrative with a clear beginning, middle and end.  They wrote about our visit to WCS when we met Jason Chin.  Our first grade students love to write stories and draw pictures to match!

• First grade writers also continued to build a deeper understanding of phonological/phonics skills for more accurate encoding.  While they are all working on different skills, all students are encouraged to carefully listen to the sounds they hear in the spoken words to ensure that these sounds are represented in their spelling.  First grade spellers also added more trick words/heart words to their spelling words practice.  This week, we practiced the following words: from, have, do, does to name a few.

You Can:

• Writing can be challenging and feel overwhelming for first grade authors.  At school, students are not only learning skills for spelling and the content of various writing genres.  They are also learning social-emotional skills to persevere and improve their writing stamina in a productive way.  When your child writes at home (maybe your child is in charge of helping you with the weekly shopping list, the  to-do-list for the weekend, or maybe your child writes in a daily diary/journal), consider all of these aspects of writing.  It is important that young writers learn that doing your best means that mistakes will happen and the spelling will not be perfect.  Doing your best means that your child tries spelling and writing while using the strategies he/she has practiced at school.

Math:

• This week, first grade mathematicians continued to rotate through multiple math stations.  They learned more about the relative magnitude of numbers and how to find, and show, the difference between numbers and quantities.  They had opportunities to develop more independence and a deeper understanding of the symbols >, <, and =.

• First grade mathematicians also continued to work on various number ordering sequences, counting forwards and backwards.  They also practiced number writing skills and penmanship.

News and Reminders:

• Harmony will be spending the afternoon at Catamount on Tuesday, February 20th from 11:30am – 1:45pm. Your child will need to be dressed appropriately for outdoor activities for that day.  Please make sure your child comes to school with winter boots, snow pants, warm jacket and hats and gloves.  We are excited that we finally got some snow so we can snowshoe and learn about animal tracking with the fabulous staff at Catamount.  We will return to ABS for regular dismissal.  Thank you volunteers for joining us!

• The students of ABS will visit WCS on Monday, 2/19, for the play “Aladdin”, performed by the students in Summit House.  Buses will leave ABS at 1pm.  We will return to ABS for regular dismissal.

• There will be no school 2/26-3/1 due to our Winter Break.  When we return, Ms. Addie will be our guest teacher for the first two days back due to my trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  I will return on Wednesday 3/6.

Have a great weekend,

Maria

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• This week, first graders continued to learn more about kindness and how we can be kindness detectives.  They were encouraged to show acts of kindness themselves and recognize it in others.  They did an outstanding job sharing kind words with adults and peers.  They also did an outstanding job showing kindness with different actions, such as helping others picking up dropped items, making cards or pictures to make someone else feel better or helping a friend when they got stuck on a task.  As a class, we also made a tissue paper flower bouquet for Ms. Filion.   We continued playing our Kindness Bingo too.

• We had another restorative circle with Ms. Nicole.  This week, we continued to learn more about self-control and how we all have super-powers to control our own bodies and reactions in times of frustration.

You Can: 

• With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, think about how your child can be a kindness detective at home too.  Think about ways in which your child can show acts of kindness to help you out at home too.  Talk to your child about how you can create a system that works for your family. 

Reading:

• We started a new class read aloud.  We are reading the book “Leroy Ninker Saddles Up” by Kate DiCamillo.  This series is a spin-off from the Mercy Watson series.  The students love this story about Leroy’s silly encounters and adventures.  As we read, we have class discussions about the complex and rich vocabulary, the idioms and the characters too.  When we read our books out loud, the text is usually projected for all to see.  Seeing the text and hearing fluent reading being modeled helps young children make connections between the spoken language and the print/letters on the page.  

• Ms. Addie taught a lesson about Jason Chin, the author we will meet on Monday at WCS (See below for more information).  The students listened to his book “Redwoods” and they shared different questions they have for the author himself.  

You can:

• Please check out Jason Chin’s stories at our local and school libraries (ABS Library linked here)

Writing:

• This week, first grade authors continued to work on their personal narratives by adding words related to our senses to add more detail and interest. They were encouraged to add a sentence or two about what they saw, felt, heard in particular.

• First grade authors also practiced penmanship, grammar and ending punctuation. They wrote in their Friday Journals and practiced hand-writing and spelling.

• First grade spellers also practiced encoding skills to represent digraphs and glued sounds (words containing the word endings -all, -am, and -an).  They also practiced new heart words, words that cannot be “sounded out” but must be memorized.

Math:

• We celebrated the 100th day of school this week!  We had so much fun creating 100th day crowns and explore the number 100 in our math class.

• This week, first grade mathematicians also continued to build a deeper understanding of math problem-solving, using representations, pictures and illustrations to show their thinking.  They were partnered up and worked collaboratively to solve a series of math problems.  While working together, our first grade mathematicians also practiced re-voicing their partners’ words and explanations.

You can:

• You can support your child’s math skills by asking your child to explain his/her thinking and re-voicing something you share.  For young learners, re-voicing is a powerful skill that not only enhances the learning, it also promotes effective listening skills and accountability.  At school, the students practice this skill by stating “I heard that….said….”.  Revoicing also promotes perspective-taking and relationship-building as our students learn to appreciate differences in how we process and share information.  It turns out that re-voicing is an excellent tool to use in other subjects and contexts too!  Try it at home.

Field-trips:
I'm excited to share that Harmony will be taking a field trip to Catamount Outdoor Family Center on Tuesday, February 20th. We will be there from roughly 11:45 AM - 1:30 PM. We will be participating in a guided snowshoe activity and learning about animal tracking. We are asking for a few family chaperones to support managing student groups... if you have completed all of your volunteer paperwork with the front office (Supervised Volunteers) and are interested in chaperoning this field trip, please let me know. If you aren't sure if your volunteer paperwork is up to date for this school year, feel free to reach out to Shani (svarricchione@cvsdvt.org).

Please remember that the Annual Fund helps finance these field trips.  As always, the student's admission fees and bus costs are funded by your yearly one-time contribution to the FAP Annual Fund.  Thank you so much for your support!.  Click on this link to learn more about the Williston FAP:

Allen Brook students will visit WCS on Monday, 2/12/24 to hear the author Jason Chin read and share some of his stories.  Buses will leave ABS at 8:15am.  We will be back at ABS after about an hour and a half.  

News and Reminders:

• Please see this attached letter regarding head lice from our school nurse.

• Allen Brook students will visit WCS on Monday, 2/12/24 to hear the author Jason Chin read and share some of his stories.  Buses will leave ABS at 8:15am.  We will be back at ABS after about an hour and a half

• We will celebrate Valentine’s Day in class on Wednesday, 2/14/24.  Please see these attached guidelines and our class-list if your child wishes to share cards/gifts with our friends at school.

• There is no school 2/26-3/1 due to our Winter Break. School resumes on Monday 3/4.

• There is no school on 3/22 for students due to our parent-teacher conferences.  I will share more information as we approach this date and send out a sign-up doc.  Stay tuned.

Have a great weekend,

Maria

Family Newsletter

 Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

• This week, first graders learned more about the unique differences and similarities we all share.  They learned that we are all unique on “the outside” (ie how we look) but also on “the inside” (ie how we feel and act).  First graders explored several different scenarios in which these unique similarities and differences play a role and when they do not.  They learned that we all react to situations in different ways and sometimes those feelings might look the same on the outside, but inside, these feelings can be different.  The students learned that they can be kind and caring friends to others while practicing compassionate acts and showing empathy. In fact, we will start a special “Kindness Challenge” for the month of February.  This month, the students will have multiple opportunities to engage in games and activities to learn how to recognize kindness in others and how they can show kindness to themselves and others.  We are very excited.

• This week, we had several restorative circles to continue to build our community as learners.  In our restorative circles, all students have a chance to share their wonderings, worries and thoughts about different topics.  This week, Ms. Filion facilitated a chat about the different strategies we can use when we feel worried or scared at home or at school.  Thank you Ms. Filion for joining our classroom and helping us feel safe and connected to each other.  We also had another restorative circle with Ms. Nicole.  This week, we learned more about self-control and how we can show self-control at home and at school.  At school, for example, we can show self-control in the hallways, during circle time or during work times in the classroom. Ask your child to explain.

You Can: 

• You can support your child’s emerging social-emotional skills by going beyond naming the feelings they (and/or you)  are experiencing in a particular situation.  Encouraging your child to share the reasons why he/she is feeling this way and recognizing the feelings of others open up the possibilities for proactive and positive problem-solving and conflict-resolution.  Encourage your child to name specific solutions and/or strategies to use to resolve the issue peacefully and praise your child for being honest about his/her frustrations.

• Think of the different situations that arise at home when your child needs to show self-control.  When is that and what does it look like? 

Reading:

• First grade readers participated in many different reading structures this week, reading both authentic texts and decodable books.  They practiced heart words and went on “word hunts”, spelling and highlighting words with specific sounds or word-endings.  They did a great job and seemed to enjoy engaging with the texts.

• First grade readers also continued working on their own reading fluency skills this week.  They are encouraged to whisper read their decodable books and texts multiple times (in different ways) as a way to improve automaticity of words and word parts while also learning to pay close attention to ending punctuation and plot.

• We started a new chapter series for our daily read alouds in our classroom.  We are still reading books by the author Kate DiCamillo, but we are currently reading her books about Bink and Gollie, another fun and silly series.  Ask your child to explain more.

You can:

• You can support your child’s reading by reading the decodable books/texts that we have sent home over the last several weeks.  Some children also come home with games from Fundations and other literacy classes.  These games are highly interactive and worth playing again.  Ask your child to explain how.   They all love to play games.  You can also support your child’s reading at home by encouraging your child to access Lexia, our online reading program.  As your child masters new skills, the program automatically increases the challenge and text complexity.  

Writing:

• First grade authors continued to build their writing stamina.  We increased our quiet, productive writing time to 20 minutes this week!  Ask your child how he/she managed to do that and what strategies helped your child stay “brain in” on writing!

• First grade authors continued to add details to their words and pictures in their personal narratives.

You Can:

• You can support your child’s understanding of personal narratives by asking your child what he/she is writing about.  How did they start their stories and what other details do they plan to include in their stories?  Verbal story-telling is a powerful way for authors to organize their ideas before writing down the words.  If you recall, the students started this process last week, so hopefully they have many things to share at home with you!

Math:

• This week, first grade mathematicians started a new unit on fractions.  In this unit, they will learn about wholes and halves.  They will learn how fractions are equal parts of a whole.  They will explore these concepts through a variety of games and multisensory games and activities.

• First grade mathematicians also continued to develop basic number sense and place value understanding while also comparing numbers and quantities.

• Lastly, first grade mathematicians started systematic problem-solving, a time when they are encouraged to explain their mathematical thinking and calculations through drawings, equations and representations.  

You can:

• You can support your child’s emerging understanding of fractions by being careful how you use your own social language at home.  It is common for young learners to have a strong sense of “a bigger half” (especially when they are referring to something desirable such as a cookie or pizza that gets divided into smaller parts).  The mathematical definition of a “half” is equal to another half of the same whole, thus a half cannot be “bigger”.  Encouraging your child to see that two halves of the same thing/quantity must be identical while not identical to those of another object/quantity can be challenging and requires time and patience.  Our colloquial language uses of fractions make this so much harder for our young learners!

News and Reminders:

• Harmony will be spending the afternoon at Catamount on Tuesday, February 20th from 11:30am – 1:45pm. We will send out more information as we approach our field-trip day.  We are still waiting to hear back regarding chaperones.  At this point we do not know but we will communicate with you all as soon as we receive more information from Catamount.  We are very excited to go!

• Here is a letter from our school counselor, Ms. Heather:

Hello,

My name is Heather Scandale and I am the school counselor at ABS. I live in Central Vermont with my three children. I spend most of my time skiing, mountain biking, seeing music, and driving and watching  (and driving some more!) my children to their sporting and dance events. I will be facilitating a Changing Families Group for children who are or have experienced a transition such as a death, birth, separation, divorce, or marriage. Children participate only if they want to and with parent permission. Children are able to attend one time to just "try it out" and determine if it is something that he/she would like to continue.  Other ways I see students at ABS include classroom guidance lessons, small groups and individual check ins.  If you feel that your child may benefit from this please reach out to your child's teacher or me at  hscandale@cvsdvt.org. I am happy to answer any questions at any time regarding your child and his/her participation. 

Warmly,

Heather Scandale, MA

School Counselor

• We will celebrate Valentine’s Day in class on Wednesday, 2/14/24.  Please see these attached guidelines and our class-list if your child wishes to share cards/gifts with our friends at school.

• It is cold outside and our playground/fields are covered in snow.  Please remember to send your child to school daily with weather-appropriate clothing.

• Please take a moment to go through your child’s backpack periodically.  Many times, soggy/wet clothes are left in the various pouches, or at the bottom, making papers and books wet as well.  Checking your child’s backpack daily is strongly recommended.  In fact, Harmony House encourages all families to encourage their own child/children to start taking some responsibility at home with packing and unpacking backpacks.  For example, encourage your child to pack their library books for Wednesdays, and unpack the backpack daily.  Not only will this empower your child and improve their confidence and independence, we also hope families will notice if any items of clothing are missing.  Our Lost & Found racks/bins at ABS are overflowing with left-behind winter gear and sweatshirts.  We encourage families to inventory items of clothing that might be missing and encourage their children to look for them at school.  Please also label your child’s clothing clearly.

• Winter gear gets wet and soggy quickly.  We encourage families to send in a grocery bag for these clothing items as backpacks often are too small to fit boots, mittens and snow pants.  Having an extra bag for packing winter gear will also reduce frustrations and stressors for our young learners’ end-of-the-day dismissal procedures.  Thank you.

Have a great weekend,

Maria