Annika Has Arrived!

Customize a slideshow This week we were very excited to have our friend Annika join us!  Annika is from Sweden and we feel very lucky to have her as part of our Firefly first grade class.  Annika shared her Me Museum with us on Monday. This week we learned how to tap out three letter words in Fundations.  In Readers' Workshop we talked about how readers are like runners-they warm-up before reading and read long and strong. We warmed-up and  read many books together-both non-fiction and fiction. We practiced warming-up and reading long and strong during quiet reading time.  We also began discussing how authors stretch small moments when they write.  We read a variety of books and noticed how different authors stretch their small moments.  We talked about strategies for using words we do know how to spell to help us learn how to spell new words. In math we continued to focus on sorting, estimating, graphing and counting.  We have been working on our observation skills to help us notice what is alike and what is different about objects before we sort.  We have also been practicing different ways to count and thinking about what strategies we can use to be efficient counters. Kody's Dad, Tim, joined us on Thursday during our math time.  He will be helping out every Thursday during math.  A big thank you to him! Our friend Barbara has also been joining us twice a week to help us with our fluency in reading.  She will continue to work with us throughout the school year.  A big thank you to Barbara for volunteering her time in our classroom.  Tristan's Mom will be in on Monday to help us gather the last of our garden vegetables and clear out the vegetable beds.  Thanks so much, Erica, for doing this. We will be finishing up our Communities unit next week and will move on to our first science unit of the school year.  This unit will focus on solids, liquids and chemical engineering. Beginning next week Vicky Wideman, our school counselor,  will be visiting our classroom once a week for six weeks to teach us social skills.  More information about this will follow next week. A reminder that Wednesday is picture day.  Our class will be having their pictures taken at 8:30 AM, so we should all still be looking our finest for our pictures!  Just a heads up that Tuesday is our first math studio day, so don't be surprised if your child comes home talking about all the teachers who were in our classroom for math that day. This is the first week for homework.  Please check your child's Friday Folder for his/her homework packet. Homework is due back to school every Friday, but can be returned before that if it is done early. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. Have a great weekend!

Fire Prevention Day!

Another slideshow by Smilebox This week we finished up reading Red Clover books and voted on our favorite.  Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell was the winner for the Firefly team.  This book was about Jane Goodall.  If you are interested in learning more about her please visit the following:  http://www.janegoodall.org/media/news/animal-planet-accompanies-dr-jane-goodall-global-excursion-during-roar-campaign . Wednesday was Fire Prevention Day.  We learned about tools vs. toys, how to stop, drop and roll and how to stay low.  It was a fun morning for everyone! We finished our first Fundations unit today and will begin Unit 2 on Monday.  This unit will focus on blending, reading and spelling three sound short vowel words. We will also learn capitalization, punctuation and word spacing for sentence dictation.   We are continuing our bug unit in math.  This week we solved our bug problems, sorted bugs and practiced counting ten and more.  We also worked in structured math groups.  Please check out the Fastt Math letter that went home in Friday Folders today from the math department.  This will be the first week for reading homework.  Everyone now has a book bag that they will bring back and forth every day between home and school.  They may choose two new books from our library every day to bring home to read.  I'm asking every student to read for 10 minutes each night and complete their reading record.  Reading records can be turned in every Friday with other homework.    Please feel free to have your child read books from home during their reading time too.  I am sending home books daily to supplement what you already have at home for reading. I will be sending additional homework in the Friday Folder beginning September 28th. It has been a terrific week of getting to know each other better and settling in to school routines.  We have had many compliments on our hallway behavior and I have been very impressed with how well everyone is staying focused during quiet reading time and during all the learning we are doing throughout the day.  First grade is a big leap from Kindergarten, all of our Firefly first graders should be very proud of the accomplishments they have made already this year!

PTO Minutes for September

PTO NOTES & NEWS FOR SEPTEMBER 2012

The PTO has received almost $2000 IN DIRECT DONATIONS!  Thank you to those who have donated!  Anyone can donate to the PTO at any time and your donation is 100% tax deductible.

The GENEVIEVE FUNDRAISER kicked off yesterday.  Sales will go until 9/25 and pick-up of gift wrap will be on 10/23.   80% of profits go directly to the teams, 10% goes to UA and the other 10% goes to the PTO.  This is your team's main fundraiser for field trips, special class activities, etc.

The PTO is also selling BUY LOCAL COUPON BOOKS.   These books contain coupons for over 200 local businesses.  The books cost $20 and the coupons are good from now through September 2013.  Interested?  Contact Randy Sweeney (sweeneyrs@gmail.com). 

The HANNAFORD HELPS SCHOOL program has begun and runs through 12/1.  If you shop at Hannaford look for the "Hannaford Helps School" logo on specially marked foods.  You need to buy 4 of each designated food to earn points then you will receive a separate receipt when you check out.  Please put receipts either in the kiosk at the Shelburne Road Hannaford or in the box in the school office.  We make at least $1000 on this every year!

PRICE CHOPPER TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS program - if you shop at Price Chopper you need to enroll your card at www2.pricechopper.com/toolsforschools) school code - 15260.  Our school earns points on what you spend and we are able to buy school supplies at the end of the year.

The SCHOOL DIRECTORY is almost done!  Information is being updated and local businesses are buying ads that fund the printing of the directory.  

We agreed to allocate money for another VISITING ARTIST PROGRAM that would potentially benefit K-5 graders with an integrated arts program through the Flynn Center.  We will vote officially on this in October.  More info. on this program to come!

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

David Kelly, Bob Miller and the SCHOOL MAINTENANCE TEAM did a phenomenal job improving the school this summer - a complete building cleaning, new carpets in the C and administrative wings, new flooring in the kitchen and custodial spaces, asbestos removal and new office spaces were among the many things they worked on.

SUMMER SCHOOL was very successful giving students an opportunity to get a jumpstart on their school year.

TABLE TO FARM:  Beginning the 1st day of school all students have been sorting their waste into composting bins, recycling bins and garbage.  Parent volunteers are there every day to support this effort.  Interested in helping?  Contact Cathy Townsend (cjovt@yahoo.com).

The FEED program was busy over the summer utilizing the garden bounty by making pickles, salsa, pesto and processing and freezing vegetables.  This week all students are making Garden Tomato Sauce and will be taste testing it during lunch on Friday. 

Teachers attended lots of PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT this summer.  Topics included Common Core, bullying/harassment training, technology integration and mindfulness workshops.

SCHOOL ENROLLMENT is at 773.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:

• Walking Wednesdays:  Every Wednesday in October (meet at the town green and walk to school!)
• Newberry Cup Bake Sale:  October 13
• UA Curriculum Night:  October 23
• Genevieve Gift Wrap Distribution:  October 23

HELP WANTED:

• Newberry Bake Sale - helpers and bakers C:  Dawn Fragola (Dawn.Fragola@vtmednet.org)

THANK YOUS:

• Rita Daley & Teresa Shuptrine for our beautiful PTO bulletin board!
• Sarah Vincent and the Teacher's Breakfast chefs and helpers
• First Day Greeters
• Leslie Borrok and Lisa Merrill for figuring out the School Directory!
• Everyone who filled out a PTO volunteer form

Next meeting:  Tuesday, October 9, 6:00pm

Pizza & babysitting provided!

Shelburne Farms, Sauce Making and Hands On Nature!

Our first full week of school has been sprinkled with many fun events.  We had a gift wrap presentation on Tuesday and got our gift wrap packets to bring home.  Gift wrap orders are due on September 25th.  We collected garden vegetables on Wednesday for project FEED and visited the cafeteria to clean them, cut them, and add them to the sauce our school has been making to share on Friday. We also learned about bus safety. On Thursday, we visited Shelburne Farms.  We hiked the trails looking for living creatures and plants on our scavenger hunt list, then spent some time at the farmyard enjoying all the animals, including the chicken parade.  Today we had our first Hands On Nature lesson of the school year.  We learned all about spiders.  We enjoyed a puppet show, observed some spiders in jars and then went outside to find more spiders around our school yard.  We were able to identify many different kinds of spiders and learned about their bodies and how they adapt to their environment.  A huge thank you to all the parents who helped with all these wonderful events this week.
We spent our math time this week solving bug problems and sharing different strategies for problem solving.  We talked about the meaning of addition and subtraction  and how we use addition and subtraction to solve problems.  Please let me know if anyone has trouble logging onto Fastt math at home.  If you can get your child onto Fastt math at least three times a week at home it will help to support their learning here in school.
We will continue doing literacy activities focused around Red Clover books again this week.  We have three more books to read and then we will move on to another unit.
If there is anyone else who has a half hour a week you would like to volunteer, please let me know.  I am still looking for fluency volunteers to support student learning in literacy.
Have a great weekend!
 

Make your own slideshow design

Red Clover Books!

In Literacy this week, we began our first unit about Red Clover books.  First and second graders are working together for this unit to continue our team building and give first and second graders an opportunity to get to know each other. We read "The Princess and the Pig", "Three By the Sea" and "Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade". For "The Princess and the Pig", 2nd Graders paired up with a 1st grader for a compare/contrast activity with two other Fairy Tales ("Puss and Boots" and "The Sleeping Beauty").  Everyone did a terrific job noticing how the stories were alike and different.  For "Three By the Sea" the 1st & 2nd graders were put into small groups and acted out scenes in the story. This was a lot of fun to watch and see how creative everyone was with their scenes.

We also began our first Math unit this week.  We have been learning about work stations and exploring a variety of math manipulatives.  We have also been learning about coordinate grids and math language.  This week we focused on "Private Reasoning Time".  We also talked a little about "Connections" and "Mistakes and Stuck Points".

It was great to see so many families at Curriculum Night last night.  For those families who were unable to attend, I sent home the Curriculum Night packet in your child's Friday folder. Please let me know if you have any questions.  There is also a reminder about our field trip to Shelburne Farms this Friday.

In addition to our field trip to Shelburne Farms, we have some other special activities taking place this coming week.  Tuesday we will be learning about selling Gift Wrap from the PTO, Wednesday we will have a special Bus Safety Presentation and will also be taking part in the FEED program's sauce making activity.  On Friday we will have our first Hands On Nature lesson.  If you are able to help with the sauce making Wednesday (9 am) please email me or contact Anne Marcoe or Erica Frey Delaportas.  We can use all the help we can get! Also, I am still looking for a couple of volunteers to come in weekly to do fluency with students.  This takes 30-45 minutes and we can be flexible to make it work with your schedule.  Please email me if you think you would like to help with this.

It has been a wonderful week of getting to know your children.  I look forward to their "Me Museum" shares so we can all learn more about each other and continue to build a strong community together.

Have a great weekend!