Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

It is cold outside!  Please make sure your child comes to school with a winter jacket, boots, snow-pants, gloves/mittens and hats.  We have recess every day unless the weather gets too cold.  Last week, it was so cold and windy, we had to have indoor recess.  For Friday workshops, we brought the snow inside instead!  We had so much fun playing in the snow and making slush!

4 Winds:
We learned about Snowflake Bentley and snowflakes in our 4 Winds class.  We learned that snowflakes have six sides and have different shapes.  We also learned that Snowflake Bentley came from Jericho, Vermont!  He is a local hero.  If you wish to learn more about his amazing discoveries about snowflakes, please contact the Jericho Town Clerk's Office.  They would be happy to direct you.
We went outside and collected snowflakes.  Just like Snowflake Bently, we looked at the flakes through magnifying glasses.

I hope you had a chance to see our follow-up activity using SeeSaw.  They students did an amazing job manipulating geometric shapes online while creating a snowflake and then recording their new learning from 4 Winds!  If you did not get a chance to go online, please do so.  The students love the comments from you all!  Thank you.

Math:
First grade mathematicians have been busy learning how to add three addend and how to find efficient strategies for doing so.  They are encouraged to find groups of 5 or 10, or rely on familiar, already known facts.  Among other things, we have used unifix cubes to show our thinking.  Here is an example how to show 3+4+8
Notice how the two solutions both anchor to 10, but in different ways.  Ask your child to explain!

Reading and Writing:
We continued our investigations into non-fiction writing and reading.  The students are learning how to read non-fiction books efficiently while also focusing on comprehension.  In writing, we focused on adding labels to our scientific drawings in our all about books.  Next week, we will add glossaries and different kinds of text!

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

• Report cards go home with students on Friday, 1/24/20.  They will be inside your child's backpack.
• ABS will attend the WCS Chorus performance on Wednesday, 2/5/20.  Dismissal will be from WCS.  More information will follow.
• The 100th day of school is on Monday, 2/10/20.  We will celebrate in school.  Stay tuned for more information.
• Our intern, Ms. Z, will slowly increase her responsibilities in our classroom.  She will teach a mini-unit on non-fiction animal report writing, starting mid-February.
• Don't forget to hand in your reading logs on Fridays.  Students are encouraged to read just right books at home every day!
• Don't forget to bring a snack every day.  Don't forget to pack a spoon for your child if he/she eats something that requires that.  We are running very low on Harmony!  Thank you!

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
Happy New Year and welcome back to school!
Our two days together last week went by fast.  I am sure your children came home tired, but I also hope they came home happy to be back at school again.  I know my own children were exhausted:)

I would like to welcome Ms. Z to our classroom.  Ms Z. is a student at St. Michael's College and she will do her teacher internship with us until April vacation.  She will be with us every day and she will take on more responsibilities as time progresses.  Eventually, she will conduct her solo week, a time when she plans and leads all the lessons in our classroom.  More information will follow.  Ms. Z will also sub for me when I have meetings, or when I need to do assessments.  I will start next week, when I will do the reading assessments for accuracy, comprehension and fluency.  Report cards are scheduled to go home with the students on Friday, January 24th.

Literacy:
We started a new unit in reading and writing.  We will learn about non-fiction books and non-fiction writing in the next few weeks.  Throughout this unit, the students are encouraged to make connections between reading and writing.  In other words, they are encouraged to read non-fiction books for new information and content knowledge acquisition.  They are also encouraged to read non-fiction books as a way to understand the different text features of these types of books.  For example, they will search for headings, captions, glossaries and labels.  They will learn to identify table of contents, photographs and indexes.  The ultimate goal is then to apply these features to their own writing, which will be in the form of an "All About" book first, and later animal research, which this year will focus upon rainforest animals.  More information will follow.

Last week, we started with a scavenger hunt using the books written by the author Gail Gibbons. The students were partnered up and searched through many books together.  We started to collect non-fiction features on our class anchor chart.  They did an amazing job!

Mindfulness:
Last week, the students also brought home a small jar of playdough.  We use playdough in our peace corner, our take a break space, in the classroom.  I hope that your child might want to create a mindfulness corner/space at home too.  Periodically, I will send home calming tools we use in our classroom for students to try at home.  Ask your child to explain to you what the purpose is of these mindfulness tools and how they help us learn at school.

Engineering and Creativity:
Ms Rogers joined Harmony House on Friday to share some of the amazing arcade games her groups had created using recyclable materials.  Thank you for sharing these projects! Here are some pictures:

New Year's Resolutions and Friday Workshops:
We used SeeSaw to create New Year's Resolutions for school and home.  I hope you will have a chance to see them and comment on their goals for the new year.

We created indoor snow for our Friday workshop since we could not go outside in the slush and ice.  The recipe simply calls for 3 cups of baking soda and 1/2 cup of conditioner, if you would like to create it at home.

Have a great weekend!
Best,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Happy Holidays everyone!
I hope you are enjoying your holiday break from school and have a chance to spend time together with friends and family.

We had a great last week of school.  The students were busy finishing holiday crafts and projects.  We hope you will like their gifts!

We also performed our reader's theater scripts to our friends in class.  The groups did a great job taking turns reading their lines and reading with expression.  We hope to do this again when school resumes again.  Here are some pictures:

Again, happy holidays!

Best,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
We have a busy week before our holiday break.  We hope to wrap up our literacy units and our science unit on light and sound. When we return next year (!), we will start non-fiction reading and writing and a new science unit on earth structures and processes.

Friday, December 20th:
Friday, 12/20/19, is our last day before our holiday break.  We will celebrate with pajama day and a movie.  We will have regular recess on Friday, and children must wear shoes at school, so please make sure your child does not wear PJs with built-in socks as they tend to be uncomfortable in shoes and boots.  No slippers, blankets or stuffed animals either please.  Your child does not have to wear his/her pajamas to school.  Some kids choose to wear hoodies and athletic pants or sweatpants.  Regular clothing is fine too, of course!

This year, Harmony House will show the movie Frozen. The students at WCS will perform the play Frozen in the Spring so we are excited to be able to discuss the similarities and the differences between a movie and a play.

Literacy:
The students are in the midst of practicing their Reader's Theater scripts.  They are doing a great job taking turns reading out loud, with expression and fluency!  They are using props to indicate their different parts and they are all getting more and more comfortable reading out loud.

Our small moment stories are done and we are so excited to get them ready for Reading Restaurant now.  Our last instructional focus was upon sound words and how authors use different text features to show sounds.

We read the book "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers.  As I read the book to the students, we looked at the pages on the smart board so we could all see how the author presented each sound by changing the font, the direction of the text or the size of the letters.

Then, the students worked in small groups as "Sound Detectives" using other books that also featured various sound words.  They collected words and we wrote them down on our anchor chart.  Look how many we found:

Lastly, the students used sound words in their own stories!  They did an amazing job throughout this process!  They are so kind to each other and show collaboration and patience every day.

We also finished our read aloud about Helen Keller.  The students learned about her incredible life and hardships, growing up blind and deaf.  We also learned that Helen did not give up.  She persevered and her passion for learning has inspired millions across the world.  We were inspired too.

Math:
First grade mathematicians explored more data collection.  The students learned about bra graphs and pictographs while finding ways to calculate "how many more/how many fewer" more efficiently.  They also continued developing a deeper understanding of greater than, less than and equal to, when comparing two numbers.  Lastly, we worked on counting forward and backward between a set of numbers, always crossing decades.  We learned a new math word too; decuple.  Ask your child to explain what this is. Lastly, we had a special buzzy celebration with Ms. Fisher's first grade mathematicians.  We played different math games together.  The students learned more about subitizing on the ipads, and the practiced their addition strategies of 2 or 3 addends playing egghead or bump.

Technology:
Last week was Hour of Code.  Hour of Code is a world-wide celebration of computer technology and coding for children.  We kicked off this celebration with Ms. Wilson, looking at a map to see how many students around the world participate.  Check this out:  It is amazing and we were part of it.  They were so excited to see us on that map too!

We used kodable and code.org
All passwords and usernames were sent home in your child's Friday folder.  I hope you will support this incredible online learning at home.  Coding teaches perseverance, problem-solving and patience.  The students did great and were also motivated by the various levels and stars/points earned.

Have a great day today!

Best,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
Last week went by so fast!  I hope you all had a restful and nice Thanksgiving break with your friends and families.
As you saw inside your child's Friday folder this week, your child brought home information about online reading.  Your child got an account for raz-kids or Lexia.  I hope you will follow the instructions on the sheet and set up this online reading program at home.  Your child's online book portal is directly tied to his/her reading needs so all the books accessed can be read by your child successfully.  The children earn points as they read and move ahead.  It is a very engaging and motivating reading program.  We use it at school sometimes, but I also hope your child will read at home as well.  Let me know if you encounter technical problems or have questions about this.
Since we use this reading program at school too, I am asking that you please send in a set of head-phones for your child to use at school.  Thank you.

The week before Thanksgiving, we played Colonial School in our classroom.  The students sat in rows, we created quills, using feathers and tape, and instead of asking for a drink of water, we asked to go to the well!

Reading:
We are working on fluency in reading.  Last week, all the children received reader's theater scripts.  Throughout this unit, the students will learn how to attend to punctuation, read with expression and think about the story to make sense of their reading.  Stay tuned for more information about this. 

Writing:
We took a little break from our small moment stories to write some collaborative letters to our new pen-pals at Wake Robin. The students worked in small groups to compose a reply to the letters we received earlier.  We learned so much about letter writing and about our new friends' diverse backgrounds and experiences.  Ask your child to share with you.

Math:
First grade mathematicians continued working on 10-partners and partners to 20 while developing fluency and confidence. We also continued our work on story problems, a time when mathematicians show their thinking using representations, labels, equations and keys.  Last week, we primarily solved math problems relating to "how many more".  Here is an example:

Mrs McCormack baked 9 muffins.

Ms. Fisher baked 7 muffins.

How many more muffins did Mrs. McCormack bake?

Science:
We continued our scientific investigations into sound this past week too.  We went on a listening walk around the school and explored sound effects in movies.  We learned that sound is sometimes made by vibrations and that it has volume and pitch.  We even learned a new song about sound!

Before our Thanksgiving break, we also learned about pine needles and pine cones in our 4 Winds class. The students looked for attributes and sorted them accordingly.

Ms. Cristina and Ms. Cece's last days:
Ms. Cristina taught us about China and how to write Chinese on her last day.  It was very intersting and fun!  She is applying to graduate school now and she hope to earn her masters/PhD in education.  We wish all the best!

Ms. Cece ended her intership with us as well. We will miss her so much next semester but we learned that she will do her full-time student-teaching with Peter Lake on Synergy so she will remain at ABS! 
In January, we will welcome another student intern.  Her name is Ms. Z and she is currently a student at St. Michael's College.  She will be with us full-time, starting on January 2nd.