Thursdsay October 18th

Synergy News
 
Thursday October 18, 2012

NEWS

Nothing like "CRAZY HAIR DAY" to end the short week in a calm, relaxed way!  (See the pictures below)

***You should have received an email with a link to a Google document with conference sign up times.  Please sign up directly on the Google document.  If you do not see a time available that works for your family please email me directly so we can find a time that works.****

Last week we had our first celebration/ publishing party.  The students did an amazing job fixing up their stories and then sharing them with the class.  We have begun our next unit "Small Moments in Time", or personal narrative writing.  This unit we will continue focus on the writing process, focusing in on a very small event and telling every detail of that event, including the 5 sense, and feelings.  At the end of the unit the students will choose one story to edit and revise with their writing partners.
It is still not to late to place a book order!

ASK ABOUT

• Theme
• Crazy Hair Day

Kids Quotes

• "My brother really likes Curious George books and I just don't get it"

Listener of the Week Ava with last weeks Listener of the week Mitchell

October 12

Synergy News

Friday October 12, 2012

NEWS

We had an exciting Tuesday this week.  We had our first visit from Four Winds.  They taught the class about complete and incomplete metamorphosis.  After a puppet show and puzzles to help lean more about the different type of metamorphosis we all went outside to attempt to capture bugs.  As you might recall Tuesday morning was one of the coldest mornings of the fall so far.  In our search for bugs we found several of milkweed bugs and a few little spiders. As soon as we finished Four Winds the Williston Fire Department came in to teach us about fire safety.  Just as they were beginning their presentation their radios blared and many of them had to leave on a call.  Luckily two firefighters were able to stay.  To end the presentation we went outside and each student was able to climb up into the fire engine.

SNACKS!  Last week I looked in students snack bags, interested in the snack choices of today.  I began reading labels.  In one student's snack bag they had about 1,000 calories and 75 grams of sugar !  The shocking part was they did not appear to be unhealthy snack choices; yogurt, fruit roll ups, juice boxes, cheese and crackers, and chips. I was shocked!  Research has proven that a good healthy food increases students achievement.  Some good options are cheese sticks, yogurt, fruit, vegetables, seeds, almonds, cashews, pistachios.  Please avoid sweets whenever possible!  Also we have several students in Synergy that have peanut allergies,  PLEASE DO NOT SEND SNACKS THAT CONTAIN PEANUTS!

 This week in Writer's Workshop the students continued to work with their editor to get their pieces ready for publishing.  The students graded themselves and their writing partners, before they sent their pieces to the publisher (me).  We had our first Publishing Celebration this morning.  Each student got up in front of the class and read their story.  Each students also shared one way they improved their story after their initial writing.  This was the first of many Publishing Celebrations we will have this year.  Each celebration is a little more involved.  The first one was just our class.  The next celebration students will each get to invite one other friend from ABS.  Then our third celebration we will invite family.

We earned ANOTHER school-wide celebration! 

On Thursday, October 18th we will have

CRAZY HAIR DAY

at ABS to celebrate!

It is still not to late to place a book order!

Book Club Order Due Date : October 28

Scholastic Book Clubs Ordering Information

www.scholastic.com/bookclubs

Class Activation Code: HFWGD

ASK ABOUT

•  Four Winds
• The visit from the firefighters
• What they studied this week for theme
• Art in the Tech Lab

Important Dates:

• Wednesday October 17th is Spirit Day dress in Blue and Gold.
• Thursday October 18th is Crazy Hair Day

Kids Quotes
"My dad has more nose hair than anyone I have ever seen!"

 

·   

Friday October 5

Book Club Order Due Date : October 28

Scholastic Book Clubs Ordering Information

www.scholastic.com/bookclubs

Class Activation Code: HFWGD

This month's Scholastic Book Club flyers are ready for you to explore with your child. Children read more when they choose their own books, so I encourage you to look at the flyers together.

Give online ordering a try. It saves time, offers more book choices, and earns extra rewards for the classroom!

When you place your order online, you'll help earn FREE Books for our class and you also get a $5 FREE Book Pick Coupon to use on your next online order!

 

Ordering online is fast and easy:  Click the logo above!

•     REGISTER at www.scholastic.com/bookclubs

•     ENTER the Class Activation Code at the top of this letter

•     CHOOSE from thousands of print titles, value packs, and Storia eBooks

•     SUBMIT the order to your child's teacher

•     EARN FREE Books for you and the classroom too!

David Shannon is going to be at the Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne on Sunday at 12:00. He is one of my very favorite authors and illustrators. You must preregister!  I highly recommend it!!!!

This week our class had a substitute on Wednesday and Friday.  Both days I spent doing fall assessments with the students.  I had the opportunity to sit and read with each student and then have a discussion about the book that they read.  It is a great experience to be able to sit and read and talk to each student for about 30 uninterrupted minutes.  In the life of a school teacher there is never 30 minutes of time with out interruptions.  To have this time with each student allows me to fulfill the assessment requirement, and get to know each student even more as a reader and personally.  With the information gathered we will focus our reading group instruction and make sure that each student is reading books that are at their instructional level.

We are coming to the end of our first unit in Writer's Workshop.  the students have selected one of the pieces of writing they have been working on, and have begun the process of getting it ready to publish.  Some of the steps they have taken are reading it it with a friend to make sure it makes sense, revising it by adding more to their words and pictures, and they each will get a rubric to help self-assess.  They are looking over their writing to make sure there is a beginning, middle, and end, checking spelling and checking for clarity throughout the piece.  Next week they will be assigned an "editor" and together they will look over each others writing.  We will have our first Publishing Party next week!

ASK ABOUT

• Art in the Tech Lab
• The days with the substitute and reading with Mr. Lake
• What they did for Friday workshop

Kids Quotes

• Student 1: “For Pete’s sake!”  Student 2 : “No you mean for Peter Lake Sake!”
• to me in the lunchroom "Hey are you that guy in Youssef’s class?”
• “I think the floor ate more cupcakes than we did!”
• “I went to NH and ate a lot of things, that’s why I have a runny nose.”
• A students response to why they had a sub  "Mr. Lake didn't feel like teaching today!!!"  

Friday September 28th

Synergy News

Friday September 28, 2012

NEWS
I hope you all enjoyed the unusual week.  It was interesting to have a day off in the middle of the week.  It made the week feel very short.  The students definitely had more energy come Friday.

Part of the balanced approach to literacy here at Allen Brook is Fundations.  We utilize this curriculum to teach spelling, and word work.  So far this year our time during Fundations has been spent reviewing what the students learned last year.  We have been quickly moving through the units reinforcing the strong skills they have from Kindergarten.  In the coming weeks we will begin to move away from individual letter sounds to letter combinations and the role syllables play in spelling patterns.  The day to day procedures are designed to be repetitive and reinforcing which leads some of the students to say “it’s too easy”.  However we are creating strategies that will hopefully lead to good spellers in the years to come.

This week we also had a visitor to our class.  Olivia Wilder is St. Michael’s student who will be joining our class every Thursday afternoon.  She will be working one on one and with small groups of authors during Writer’s Workshop.

Cold season has hit our class hard.  It seems like nearly every one of our students, and teachers, in our classroom, have some sort of cough or cold.  We have been working hard at washing our hands more often and being conscious and careful of our germs. 

ASK ABOUT

• Art in the Tech Lab
• Creating animation in the Tech Lab
• Ways to sort buttons, frogs, sea creatures, and bugs
• Jam Move it day
• Creating stories on the I-pads

Kids Quotes

·         “Why did the worm cross the road?... to shave his beard”

·         “I would take the class to outer space…or New Hampshire.” 

A few photos from Reader's Workshop

Synergy News

Friday September 21, 2012

NEWS
It was great to see many of you last Wednesday at curriculum night.  The Synergy teachers spent over an hour explaining the different curriculum that we use to teach the different core subjects.  Ms. Ashford also used the smart board to teach us where to find different things on the schools  and teams websites.  A great resource is found at the bottom of the Synergy team home page, the Parent & Student information Wiki .  

We had our first Swarm Party last week.  Allen Brook is one of the many schools throughout the nation that use Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS). This is a school wide system that helps support positive behaviors throughout the school.  Each time a student is “caught” following the 3 Bee’s, being kind, being responsible, or being safe an adult can give them a warm buzzy.  The warm buzzies are then collected in each classroom in a honey jar.  Once the classroom jars are full they are delivered to the office and placed in the beehive.  Once the beehive is full then we have an all school celebration, the Swarm Party.  The Swarm Party was a huge success with dancing, singing and recognizing the amazing job the students have done so far this year.

We are fortunate enough to have 60 I-pads at Allen Brook.  Last week our class got to use them twice.  The first time we used them during our Foundations time.  We utilized an App that has the students writing words and letters using the proper letter formation techniques.  It is an amazing resource to that only allows students to form the letters in the correct manner.  We also got to use a whole cart of 30 I-pads on Tuesday morning during explore time.  Students were looking at the statue of liberty on Google Earth, seeing what constellations were above us with Star Finder and many things were created with the Paint app.  We are all looking forward to using the I-pads more throughout the year!  Also please see the photos on the blog which were all taken by the students on the I-Pads.

ASK ABOUT

• What they did on the I-pads
• The Swarm Party
• Hat Day  

Kids Quotes

• "My Dad’s going to be mad at you if I have to write that.”
• “When is the bearded guy coming to read with me? Not you the other guy”
• "Hey Dad?...  whoa you are definitely not my dad!!" 

Dates

·         No School! Wednesday September 26^th