Mrs. McCormack's Class Blog

Friday, October 16, 2020

Pictures from our week together at school

Working together on writing:

Dancing together with Ms. Anne:

Math explorations:

Drawing detailed and colorful butterflies in science class:

Here is our learning community chain link, symbolizing our linked worries, "happy feelings" and questions:

Treasure hunt outdoors finding parts for making our own creative and edible butterflies:

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social/Emotional Learning:

We continued building our learning communities around respect, empathy, risk-taking and kindness. The students deepened their understanding of each other as we explored our similarities and differences. The students started creating their own self-portraits, adding details about the things they like to do in the background. We look forward to finishing these next week and hanging them up in our classroom.

In literacy students:

took the iReady reading assessment. Most students are finished. The students also started practicing reading stamina during our reader’s workshop classes; reading independently for longer periods of time.
did independent reading razkids. We strongly encourage the students to read on razkids at home as well.
Also started reading one-on-one with the teachers for their formal Benchmark Reading Assessments, Fountas and Pinnell. This reading assessment addresses fluency, decoding and comprehension. We will continue doing this with individual students for the next couple of weeks and share the results with you when we meet online for a mid-semester check-in.

1st Grade Math:

First grade mathematicians continued exploring number sense in our Number Corner Journals. We practiced writing the date, and showing numbers in different equations and in our 100 grid.
First grade mathematicians also practiced “counting on” as a strategy when solving math problems. They primarily focused upon finding 5 or 10 first; then, counting on from that number.
First grade mathematicians continued showing a growth mindset when using different strategies to understand 10 and some more.

Science:

The students learned about animal camouflage and butterflies this week. We learned that animals have different colorful patterns for many different reasons. Ask your child to explain. The students went outside for a treasure hunt, searching for different snack items to assemble their own colorful butterflies. It was a beautiful fall day to be outside together and learn about nature and animals.

Essential Arts:

We have a new EA class rotation starting on Monday, October 19th:

McCormack First Grade:

Mondays/Tuesdays PE. Wear sneakers on PE days. Please make sure your child has a second set of socks and shoes in case the class is outside and the grass is wet.

Thursdays/Fridays: Enrichment with Ms. Rogers.

Technology and Remote Learning on Wednesdays for the next few weeks:

Since we’re back at school for in-person learning 4 days a week starting on Monday, October 19th, we will no longer post remote learning slides for literacy and math on Wednesdays. Instead, your child will take home a game or learning activity on Tuesdays to be completed at home on Wednesdays. We ask that your child returns these on Thursdays in the Home Folder. (We will also send home a spelling activity for your child). The homework check-list will still come home and reflect what will need to come back to school.

We will continue to post a morning read aloud or learning activity on SeeSaw to be completed anytime at home on Wednesdays.

We will still meet as a class for our morning google meets between 8:20-8:45 on Wednesdays.

We will keep the chromebooks at school on Mondays and Tuesdays. We will send them home on Tuesday afternoons to be charged and used for remote learning on Wednesdays. Please keep the charging cord at home.

Please return the charged chromebook to school on Thursday for our in-person days. We will send the chromebooks home again on Fridays to be charged and used for school activities and reading over the weekend. Please return charged chromebooks again on Mondays.

Please do not forget to pack your child’s head-phones. We use the chromebooks every day for reading and it is helpful if your child has his/her own set. Thank you.

News and Reminders:

We are excited to welcome all students to school four days a week starting on Monday. We understand all families are receiving lots of emails and links relating to our new in-person school model, but we strongly encourage you to take the time to fully understand the social distancing guidelines as well as guidelines around snack/lunch and recess now when we go back to a whole-class, in-person classroom. We will continue to do our best every day to encourage the students to wear their face masks, wash their hands and stay socially distant; even when we are outside. We will minimize contact with other cohorts and continue to build our learning community together in outdoor activities and workshops. Thank you for your continued support and understanding.

In preparation for our new school routines, please talk to your child about the importance of being patient with our classmates and having calm bodies as we are now sharing one classroom together. It will be hard for some students to wear masks for four days a week as well. Please talk to your child about this too and validate their worries and concerns about this. Thank you.

Please see this linked letter regarding new drop-off and dismissal procedures for Allen Brook and this map.

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

Lastly, I would like to welcome our new student William to our class! We are so excited to have you join us on Monday! We cannot wait to meet you.

Have a great weekend.

Warmly,

Maria, Justine and Carah

Friday, October 9, 2020

Pictures from our week together at school

Exploring numbers and parts of numbers in math:

Selecting books to take home and reading together:

We love our daily mindful moments together. Here is a picture of the classroom poster that reminds us how to get ready:

Playing in our classroom:

Check out our new chairs!

A special read aloud this week. What would you do if a dinosaur came to your birthday party?

Ms. Filion sharing the book "I Promise" by LeBron James with us.

Learning together with the second graders outside:

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

This week the students continued exploring different ways we are all connected by creating a paper chain. Each strip of paper symbolized a different worry, question or excitement we all share. We hung our paper chain in our classroom!
This week, the students continued learning more about different strategies for finding calm moments and mindfulness. We practiced belly breathing and listened to calming music while engaging in mindful coloring. We even learned a new song about belly breathing!
Ms. Filion joined us for a special read aloud. She read the book “I Promise” by LeBron James. She taught us how to make special promises for how we can spread kindness to others and how we can make the world a better place. We also learned that resilience, creativity and resourcefulness are wonderful attributes and we should always be true to who we are and be proud of who we are. Thank you Ms. Filion for sharing this wonderful message of hope with us.

Literacy:

The students participated in our online reading assessment. This online reading assessment is a screener and gives us a snap-shot of the students understanding of phonological awareness, phonics, high-frequency words/vocabulary and reading comprehension. The results will be shared with families at our check-ins later this month/beginning of November. Teachers will also administer the Benchmark Assessment System by Fountas and Pinell. This will also be shared with you at our check-ins later this month/early November.
The students continued to participate in literacy activities focused upon defining characters and their traits in the books we read. The two grades met outside for a special literacy performance by the second graders. The second graders read pre-selected passages from various books written by Kevin Henkes, while the first graders helped them define the characters in these passages. Thank you second graders for modeling fluency and reading responses.

1st Grade Math:

First grade mathematicians continued work on number sequences and deepened their understanding of the concepts decade, equation and sum in our number corner activities and games. We also looked at columns in our Number Corner Journals.
First grade mathematicians practiced numbers and combinations of numbers using ten-frames and rekenreks.
First grade mathematicians explored the second decade (10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19). They learned that these numbers are also called teen numbers (and they are different from the -ty numbers, like 30,40, etc)
First grade mathematicians learned that teen numbers are composed of a group of 10 and some more/some extra.

Upcoming Events, News and Reminders:

The students at ABS participated in the first Fire Drill of the year. They did an amazing job following directions, having calm bodies and quiet voices.
Your child brought home a Sight Word Booklet in his/her Home Folder. This booklet contains high-frequency words, words that often occur in early reader books and most of these words do not follow our decoding/sounding out strategies. Your child is encouraged to read these words at home so he/she can automatically recognize them in texts to enhance reading fluency and comprehension. Thank you for practicing these words at home with your child. When we use these booklets at school, the child earns a sticker or star in the bottom box when all the words can be read fluently and without hesitation and mistakes. The corresponding circle on the cover will then be colored in as well. When all 10 circles are colored in, your child can bring the booklet back to school for a certificate!
Shhhhhhhh, we are having a special surprise Treasure Hunt with the students on Monday. Please do not tell them about this event. We wanted to check in with all of you to make sure that the following snack items are okay for us to give your child after the treasure hunt:

Cheese sticks

Pretzels

Welch’s fruit gummies

All snacks are already individually wrapped.. If we do not hear from you, we understand these snacks are okay for your child to consume. Please only get back to us if your child cannot eat any of the above snacks. Thank you.

There is school for ABS on Monday, October 12th.
The days are getting colder. Please send your child to school with weather appropriate clothing. Layers are best as it usually warms up quite significantly during the day.
Our outdoor whiteboards have arrived at ABS! Thank you for installing these outside our classrooms so we can now bring our learning outdoors.
Our student foldable chairs arrived last week. We do not need any more beach towels at school. Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

Warmly,

Maria, Justine and Carah

Friday, October 2, 2020

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

Here is our week in review:

Social-Emotional Learning:

We continued building our learning community by exploring the many things we have in common. Through a series of art activities, the students discovered that we have similar worries, questions and feelings of happiness and excitement.
We continued building our understanding of “Growth Mindset” and practiced having flexible thinking throughout the day.

Literacy:

The students participated in many different read-alouds, while we continued building our whole body listening skill-set and stamina. They love stories and we are so excited to share our love of books with them all!
We joined the two grade-levels for an afternoon of reading and writing outside. We read the book “Library Mouse”, written and illustrated by Daniel Kirk. As a follow-up reading response, the students wrote their own mini-books with mini-pencils; just like the main character in the story. We also learned that we are all authors and there are many different kinds of stories to be told. The students were so eager to write their own books! We have a group of wonderful authors and we hope your child will share his/her story-ideas at home with you.
Students also thought about how we are linked as a community. We all have worries and aspirations. We are not alone. We are creating a paper chain to show how are ideas and feelings are linked
The students used their chromebooks to access razkids, our online reading program. We encourage the students to access this at home during our remote learning days for independent reading times.

First Grade Math:

First grade mathematicians continued their work on showing numbers and quantities in different ways. This week, we focused on writing a matching equation to any given number 0-10. We learned that an equation can also be called “number sentence” and that equations can be written in many different ways.
We also learned that the equal sign means “same as” so we can write the equation 5+2=7 as 7=5+2. Amazing discovery!
First grade mathematicians also learned that the number sequence 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 is called a decade. This number sequence repeats over and over again in our number system.
First grade mathematicians practiced having a positive attitude and a growth mindset every day as mathematicians. Our goal this week was to “Try your own best”. They did just that and we are so proud of them.

In Science students:

Learned about scientists Galileo and Mary Anning
Learned about making observations and asking questions
Drew detailed/ labeled diagrams of their hands with accompanying questions

News and Reminders:

We received folding stadium type seating chairs- we will no longer need the beach towels!
Next week, your child will bring home pictures, projects and worksheets worked on, or completed, in the classroom. We hope you will take the time to look at these at home. If some of these pictures/worksheets are incomplete, your child can finish them if he/she wants to, but there is no need to send them back. Perhaps you even have a special memory box or drawer for school-work?
The ABS School Community is working hard on making sure that dismissal procedures are working smoothly and safely. Our school is asking parents to pull up against the curb so the teachers can safely walk the child over to the car. We ask that parents do not exit their cars. This is to ensure quick pick-up and smooth traffic flow in our limited parking lot. The parent pick-up window is between 2:40-2:55. Thank you for following these safety protocols. In the event of rain, there will be a staff member from our school outside with a radio, calling into the building for your child. The adults at ABS will help facilitate walking your child to your car as you pull up. Thank you.

We need your help! Please be sure to charge the chromebooks before sending them back to school. We have very limited space for charging and no extra charging cords. Uncharged computers slow down the technology work we are attempting to achieve. Beginning Monday, we will be using chromebooks for reading assessments.
Wednesday October 7: No remote google meetings or snack chat: Teachers have been scheduled for a meeting.
Friday, October 9th: No School
Please note this information. Monday, October 12th: YES School for ABS!
Fall Conferences/ Academic Screeners
Fall conferences will be occurring in late October/ early November. We are still getting to know the students and their social and academic strengths and needs. Next week, we will be administering a reading screener to all the first/second graders. We are in the process of some beginning of the year math screeners. I will be in touch in a few weeks to set up a conference time for late October/ early November.
Please read this linked letter from Angela Filion about our move to begin school four days a week.