Synergy News

Friday November 30, 2012

NEWS

HOME WORK FOR EVERYONE!!  The homework for this week is to learn and practice tying shoes!  With boot season upon us, shoe tying is an essential skills at least twice a day.  We have a few experts at tying shoes but it would be great to have a whole classroom filled of experts.

On Wednesday we had our second publishing party.  Each student was able to invite a friend from another class at Allen Brook.  The class was then split into two groups and the each Author read their book.  We had practiced reading aloud in our “big” voices and pausing after each page to show the pictures.  The Authors and audience did a fantastic job.  After all the Authors read we celebrated with goldfish, juice and reading a book by one of our very favorite authors, David Shannon.

We also continued to compare and contrast school long ago verse today.  Ms. Pillsbury, one of the speech teachers, brought in her backpack from when she was in first, 60 years ago!  We compared her backpack and what was inside it to our backpacks today.  Her backpack was amazing as it contained some of her work from 1-4^th grades.  There were math, spelling and art lessons.  We noticed that she solved math word problems much the same way we do today.  The biggest difference in the backpacks was the size.  We thought that we could fit 4-5 of her backpacks into one of the students backpacks today.  The students were also amazed at the very small pocket that she had to put her lunch and snack.  The students couldn’t come up with how it would be possible to get just their snack into it.

ASK ABOUT

• Making their timelines
• Giving  Buzzies to Ms. Stein’s class
• Buddy reading with Ms. Kate’s class
• Making and eating bread

Kids Quotes

·        “My mom drove off the road this morning on purpose”

·         On Friday “I’m taking 5 days off this week”

Guan-Jhen is the Listener of the Week!

November 9, 2012

Abby R. is our listener of the week!

It was fantastic to conference with all of the families this week!  Have a great three day weekend!

The first day of snow!

Watching a short movie comparing school today and long ago.

November 2

Synergy News

Friday November 2,  2012

NEWS

Crafternoon was a huge success.  There was 13 crafts stations set up in various rooms.  Each student rotated to three different stations. The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed crafternoon and we are all looking forward to the next crafternoon.  Thank you to all the parents who were able to volunteer.  

ABS is holding an election Monday November 5.  Our voting time will be from 10-11am.  The students will each receive a ballot and will be able to vote for president, governor and lieutenant governor.  We spent some time talking about the election and the candidates this week and will again have a discussion Monday morning. 

Today we finished up our Human Body theme.  Each student rotated between the four classrooms of Synergy and learned about human development, the senses and germs.  Next week we will begin our next theme which is long ago vs. today. 

Conferences are next Tuesday and Wednesday.  Please check the schedule.  If  you are unable to make your scheduled time please contact me as soon as possible.

Wednesday , November 7, 2012   
Time    Student Name
3:00:00    Tyler
3:30:00    Sierra
4:00:00    Youssef
4:30:00    Guan-Jhen
5:00:00    Kyle
5:30:00    Mitchell
6:00:00    Poppy Eaton
6:30:00    Abby

Thursday, November 8, 2012  
Time    Students Name
3:00:00    Hiwot
3:30:00    Open
4:00:00    Hailey
4:30:00    Kevin
5:00:00    Abby
5:30:00    Ava
6:00:00    Gabbi
6:30:00    Noah Healy
7:00:00    Zach

Hiwot is our listener of the week!

ASK ABOUT

• Cafternoon
• What they learned in Science this week

Kids Quotes

• In the middle of math “My uncle's name is Joe and he has a big mustache! ”
• "I don't have an electric pencil so it takes me like 7 minutes to sharpen one.:"

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!!!"