Another snow day...

...or should I say, ice day?

Check out the ice at my house!  Ryan and I wanted to share with everyone.  Hope you are all staying safe and warm.  Hopefully you could spend some time outside!

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
WOW; time flies!  We have only one more week of school before our Thanksgiving break.  I will send home a special "vacation reading log" and some math games for everyone to take home on Friday in case you wish to do some additional learning over the break.  As always, these packets/games are voluntary but we hope your child will at least attempt a few learning activities over vacation.  In case second grade families did not get the updated information last week, I have updated the math wiki with lots of extr math games for you to print and play at home.  They can all be accessed from the wiki (which is linked on the school/team web-site), or here and here for your convenience.

Don't forget our annual Thanksgiving Family Breakfast is on Friday, November 22nd between 7:45-8:30am.  We hope you can come and enjoy some early morning treats and catch up with friends and families before vacation.  Hope to see you then:)

Reading:
Last week, the students continued both independent reading and guided reading work.  We explored character traits more deeply and learned that there is a difference between describing characters "on the outside" (ie what they look like) and what they are like "on the inside".  The students learned that we have to infer meaning to describe the characters by paying attention to, and understanding, what the characters say, do and feel.  We read some books out loud in class to practice finding character traits; then, the students partnered up and worked together to find character traits on their own.  Here is an example of an anchor chart we used in class to help guide us in this work:

Math:
First grade mathematicians were busy last week!  First, they all completed a check-in on number sense, partners to 20, number before and after a number to 20.  Then, they learned some new games relating to comparing numbers using the words "greater than", "less than" or "equal to".  They also learned how to draw these mathematical symbols (>, <, =).  They did a great job!

Technology:
We made another post to SeeSaw.  We shared some work from our Gratitude Journals and the students chose to record or video-tape their writing online.  I will share our published work in a separate email since I will need to share a password/QR code to get access.  We hope you will take the time to log in and comment on your child's or any other students' work in our class.  They are truly digital learners and we are so excited to share this with you all.  Stay tuned....more information will come soon.

Thank you also to those of you who came to our school-wide Harmony-led morning meeting on Friday.  We had a few student representatives sharing their gratitude cards, which we hung on a special Gratitude Tree.  Please stop by the ABS lobby to see this amazing work.  We hope all the classes from ABS will join Harmony in celebrating all the things we have and all the things we should be thankful for every day!

Enjoy this beautiful,sunny winter weather we're having today.  I will go sledding with Ryan soon.  I hope you can enjoy the outdoors as well!

Best,
Maria

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

It seems like winter is coming early this year!  It is already very cold and it looks like we're getting more snow early this week.  Please remember to send your child to school with hats, gloves, winter boots, snow pants and a warm jacket.  They get cold out there for recess!  Thank you.

Reading and Writing:
Our author study is in full swing!  The children love reading the books by Mo Willems and they learn to use his "author tricks" in their own small moment writing to make their own stories more engaging and interesting.  They are doing a fantastic job!  On Friday, your child brought home a class book containing various reading responses to the books by Mo Willems.  I hope this book will inspire your child to read many more books and share them at home with you.

Math:
First grade mathematicians continued working on number bonds, ten and some more and number sense.  They continued adding decades to their numeral rolls as well as exploring the 100 rekenrek to build numbers as we dig deeper into place value.  As efficient mathematicians, we are trying to group 5s and 10s together as often as possible.

Classroom Celebration:
We filled the classroom buzzy jar again!  We celebrated with a special Friday workshop with boardgames and a special visit from Ms. Pius, our Technology Integration Teacher last year.

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,
I hope you are enjoying the weekend.  We had a busy and fun-filled week at school.  It feels like it flew by.  Here are some highlights:

Reading and Writing:
We continued our author study of Mo Willems last week.  As we read more of his books, we are trying to make connections between reading and writing.  We are learning that sometimes we can read books as writers and pay attention to how the author uses the language and the art of writing to convey meaning.  For example, we noticed that many of Mo Willems's books tell the story through speech bubbles and dialogue.  We tried to do the same in our small moment stories.

We also did partner reading.;  We revisited the expectations of partner reading; ie that we take turns reading to each other and listen attentively as our partner reads.  It was very exciting to do partner reading last week because we used our "Partner Reading Library", a collection of books that we have two copies of.  Ask your child to show you how we do partner reading at home.

Science:
We had another 4 Winds lesson last week.  We learned about different kids of leaves and sorted them based on different criteria.  Can you figure out how this group sorted their leaves?

Upcoming Events and Reminders:

• Please remember to help your child pack his/her library books every week.  We have library on Wednesdays and Mrs. Clopton noticed that many children in our class are not exchanging their books on time.  Please help your child return these books on Wednesdays so other children at ABS can read them as well.  Please remember that your child can go down any day to exchange a book or two in case he/she is reading quickly at home and a lot of books.  Thank you.
• On Tuesday, November 5th, our class will switch from Art to Guidance for our rotating essential arts class.
• Thanksgiving break is 11/25-11/29.

Ticks

Here is a resource shared by Ms. Fisher for regular tick checks.  I just wanted to share as we're spending a lot of time outdoors at school.

Family Newsletter

Dear Families,

It was great to see you all for our parent-teacher conferences.  Thanks for taking the time to come in and thank you all for your continued support.  It truly takes a village.  These kids are amazing and we're creating a very strong learning community together, built on trust, friendship and perseverance. 

Reading and Writing:
We started our new author study last week.  We will read many books by the author and illustrator Mo Willems in the next few weeks.  We will use his books as mentor texts in both reading and writing.  We started by exploring the setting in his books.  The students discovered that the Piggie and Gerald books lack setting, so we created our own setting.  Look at some of this work!  Can you figure out the setting from these pictures?

Next week, we will explore how Mo Willems is using dialogue in his books.  As writers, we will try some of his ideas and use speech bubbles in our own stories.  We will also look at character traits and study the character Pigeon together.

Science:
We did a lot of science last week.  First, we learned more about leaves with Mystery Science and Ms. Fisher's class.  We went outside and collected leaves.  We partnered up and used our science thinking to describe our leaves.  Here are some pictures:

We also continued our work on light and sound.  We follow the NGSS science standards at ABS.  Throughout all of our science units, the students are encouraged to derive understanding through experimentation, scientific inquiries and data collection by adhering to reason and data.  We watched a short video about rainbows and learned about light.  We sorted different materials in groups based on their respective attributes.  The students learned that materials can be opaque, transparent or translucent.

Math:
First grade mathematicians continued working on partners to 10 and 10 and some more.  We also continued math problem-solving, using representations, labels and equations to show our understanding.  The students learned new domino games as well.  As the students are becoming more familiar with their math facts, we are encouraging them to count on as they figure out their calculations.  For example, it is more efficient to count on from 5 if you are adding 5+3 than starting at zero and counting five and then another three.

Flynn Theater:
We had a wonderful trip to the Flynn.  We saw "The Magic Flute".  It was performed by a theater company from South Africa, with incredible singing and dancing.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. 
Best,

Maria

Nature Notes: Snow on Mount Mansfield

There was snow on Mount Mansfield this morning.  Winter is coming.....
I hope you had a chance to get outside today and enjoy the fall sunshine.