Pen Pals From Gilford New Hampshire!

Firefly First Grade has had a very exciting week!  We received our first letters from our pen pals in Gilford, New Hampshire.  Our pen pals are students of Brendan's aunt, who teaches first grade in Gilford. Our pen pals' first letters told us all about Gilford, New Hampshire and many of the things they like.  We sent our first letters back this week with a picture of ourselves and all the things we like to do here in Shelburne.  What a fun opportunity this will be for us to make new friends, learn about another community, and practice our letter writing skills!

We will be having a special celebration at the end of the school day on Valentine's Day.  Students are welcome to use the class list sent home in last week's Friday Folder to make cards for their classmates.  If you child is making cards, please make sure child makes a card for every child in the class.  We will be creating bags the week before, so students may bring their cards in anytime after Thurs., February 7th.

Wow!  Firefly First Grade got a huge compliment from Mrs. Nelson, our gym teacher, this week.  She announced that ALL first grade Fireflies completed a 10 minute run without stopping or walking once!  Great job class.

Our class also received many compliments during our third math studio on Thursday!  One of the most meaningful compliments they received was from a teacher who noticed that every student justified their reasoning when responding to a question.  Your children were focused, and consistently used their habits of mind and interaction throughout the lesson.  They were amazing!

I have been absolutely amazed by the projects that have been coming in this week.  Students have been building different kinds of bridges, conducting experiments to share, creating penguin dioramas filled with interesting penguin facts, and creating songs/dances  about their learning.  Thanks so much for supporting this at home.  It's a wonderful way for them to apply their learning to new experiences.

On Monday, February 11th the Firefly Team will be going on a field trip to the Flynn Theater to see "Medicine Bear".  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for a field trip that day.

The SCS book fair is coming up in a couple weeks.  Check this week's Friday Folder for the book fair flyer!

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Researching Penguins

This week we learned about King penguins, Little Blue penguins and predators.  We sorted and compared Rockhoppers and King penguins, and created and played a variety of penguin games to practice our addition facts, reading 2-digit numbers and counting by 10's and 1's.  Next week we will learn about Gentoos and Chinstraps.  Tuesday will be a studio day for math, with other K-2 teachers visiting our classroom for math.
We learned about how forces act on structures by experimenting with a one-story structure and a tower.  We also learned about how civil engineers make structures stronger and more stable.  Next week we will conduct an experiment to compare strength of beam, arch, and deep beam bridges.  We will also talk about different reasons a particular bridge type is the best choice to construct.
Last Friday we shared our expert books and have moved on to researching penguins during Writers' Workshop.  We have been using the custom search engine I created on our webpage to do some of this research.  It can be accessed at home by going to the Firefly team page.  It is on the left hand side at the bottom and is called "Penguin Search Engine".  The search engine includes penguin sites that are kid friendly.  We have talked in school about how to skip the "advertisement" sites and go to the sites included with the search engine.  Although these sites are kid friendly, your child will probably still need some assistance reading the information.  We will be choosing a kind of penguin to become an expert about next week, and will begin writing our reports.
Another reminder to sign up for spring conferences on the Firefly webpage.  Class photos are coming home today in Friday Folders along with a a class list for Valentine's Day.

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Sign up for spring conferences

The spring conference schedule is now posted on the Firefly webpage.  Please take a minute to check it out and sign up!

A Very Busy Week!

Firefly First Grade has spent the week diving into our penguin unit.  We have been measuring our height and weight so we can compare them to penguins' heights and weights, reading about penguins, learning about penguins on BrainPop, playing games about penguins that help us practice our math facts and money skills, learning about Antarctica, conducting experiments with ice, hot and cold water to make water the same temperature as it is in Antarctica (30 degrees Fahrenheit) in January, and spent Thursday and Friday focusing on Rockhopper penguins.  Next week we will continue to work on our math skills through our learning about King penguins, Little Blue penguins and penguin predators and facts.
We also began our force and balance unit about bridges this week.  In addition to our learning about forces, balance and gravity, we have been learning about different types of bridges.  We learned that a beam bridge is made of a flat piece or beam, laid across two or more supports or piers.  We learned that an arch bridge is made from one or more arches and abutments.  We also learned that a suspension bridge has cables hanging between two towers that support the bridge.  Next week we will talk more about pushes and pulls, and learn about one-story structures and towers.
We will continue our non-fiction units in Reading and Writing Workshops next week.  In Readers' Workshop, we will move away from our learning about non-fiction text features and begin talking about strategies we can use to figure out tricky words in informational books.  In Writers' Workshop we will finish up our expert books and move into report writing about penguins.
Have a nice long weekend!

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Some great information about growth mindset from John Madden, SCS Math Coordinator!

Growth Mindset Information

When students, educators and parents have a growth mindset, they understand that intelligence can be developed. Students focus on improvement instead of worrying about how smart they are. They work hard to learn more and get smarter. Based on years of research by Stanford University’s Dr. Dweck, Lisa Blackwell Ph.D., and their colleagues, we know that students who learn this mindset show greater motivation in school, better grades, and higher test scores.

Websites:

Mindset Works

Moving Beyond the Myth of Talent

How to Praise Your Children For Best Results

The Talent Myth

Articles:

Raising Successful Children

How Not to Talk to Your Children – The Inverse Power of Praise

How to Help Them Succeed

Compiled by John Madden, Math Coordinator, Shelburne Community School

jmadden@cssu.org

Hands On Nature

We enjoyed a lesson from our Hands On Nature parents today about about animal skulls and teeth.  We learned about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.  We talked about how animals chew and which teeth they use to chew different kinds of food.  Many thanks to Erica, Anne and Jamie for this terrific presentation!

This week we jumped into non-fiction in both Readers and Writers Workshops.  We learned strategies good readers use when they are reading non-fiction text and learned about a variety of non-fiction text features and how they help us understand the new things we are learning from our non-fiction books.  We carried this over into Writers' Workshop where we have begun writing expert books about a topic we know a lot about, are passionate about and want to teach others about.  We will continue with this work next week.

January is a big assessment month.  I have spent the week doing reading assessments with everyone.  I will continue with this work next week and hope to be finished within the next couple of weeks.  It is always amazing to see the growth first graders make the first half of the school year in reading.  Everyone has been doing a terrific job on these assessments.


We completed our math unit this week and completed assessments for this unit on Wednesday and Thursday.  On Monday we will dive into our Penguins unit by learning about where Antarctica is, talking about what we already know about penguins and what we wonder, and getting our passports to Antarctica!

We finished our Social Studies unit about Long Ago and Today this week and shared our projects in groups today.  We will begin our Balance and Force unit about bridges on Monday.

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January PTO Minutes

Convened at 6:05PM

Reviewed minutes.

Principal's Report by Pati Beaumont

-13 SCS students scored a 7/7 and advanced to the schoolwide finals of the GeoBee.  The winner in the finals was Tomas Georgsson, with Zach Loiter as the runner up and Sarah Clauss as our 2nd runner up

-Visiting Thai scholar, Chalinee Samutphong, is here at SCS from December through January visiting classes

-SCS Selected as one of three nominees for a US Green Ribbon School.  This is a very competitive nomination that evaluates carbon footprint, environmentally friendly learning spaces, student health+wellness, and sustainability in the curriculum.

-CVU visits are beginning for 8th graders.  Band visits on 17January, and 8th Grade student evening on Jan 30 for Q+A

-Gretchen Garvey received a grant from from SCHIP to defer costs for her mindfulness training that she is sharing with colleagues and students this year.

-Much more in the written report...

Fundraising:

-3 local coupon books left.  Contact Randy Sweeney if you are interested

-Red Barn Fundraiser is underway.  Flyers went home on 4-Jan.  Orders due back on 18 January, with delivery on 7 Feb from 2:30-6

Fundspending 

-John Gailmor will be the artist in residence again this year!  The program will be April 8-11.  Hopefully many classes will be able to interact and learn.  Week culminates in a 5th grade performance.

-We received a full grant for the Flynn Theater Arts program that will be coming to the school in the spring.  Thank you to Sally Stevens for your hard work on this grant.

Mark your Calendars!

-International Pot Luck Dinner on 18 January 6-7:30p

-"Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Petulance: normal adolescent behavior or something more" a presentation by SCS Parent, Elena Ramirez, PhD on 15 January at 6PM in the Alpha Space.

-Margo Austin: "Effective Parenting Strategies for the middle school years", a 7:30am presentation at the SCS Cafeteria on THursday, 7 Feb.  This is a change to a morning presentation to help get info to folks who don't want to come to an evening presentation.  Kids can have breakfast at school during this...

Help Wanted:

INternational Potluck Dinner (contact Alice)

Coffee and breakfast treats for Margo Austin talk (contact Alice)

Red Barn distribution on 7 Feb from 1-3 (contact Alice)

Get out the vote calls (contact Randy)

Girls on the Run looking for afterschool volunteers (contact Sarah Dunn)

Coat Drive:

The coat drive is a little behind schedule from earlier years!  If you have any kids-middle schooler outerwear that you don't use, consider bringing it to the office to share with those in need.  Gloves, boots, jackets, snowpants all accepted.

Thank Yous:

Rita Daley and Teresa Shuptrine for the International Themed bulletin board

Jan Thabault for organizing the holiday food baskets

Kate Danforth for coordinating the coat drive.

Next meeting:

12 Feb at 6PM.

Free babysitting and Pizza!!!

Something Interesting Regarding Mindset

 Click below if you're interested in listening to this interesting talk about Mindset:

Growth Mindset

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  It is great to be back at school and back in the swing of things for the start of 2013!  We have spent the past two days settling back in and getting ready for some fun new units of study.  Last night I enjoyed reading the "How To" books that were completed while I was out.  These books will be going in portfolios to share with families in March at conferences.
We will begin a new math unit focused on measuring, sorting and computation this week which is centered around a "Penguin" theme.  This is an integrated unit that encompasses all areas of the curriculum and will last throughout the month of January.  We will embark on a pretend journey to the South Pole and learn about different kinds of penguins.  This learning will be infused in our Readers and Writers Workshops as we will be reading non-fiction and fiction texts about penguins and writing reports about penguins.  At the end of this unit, we will be having a "Penguin Party".  Families will be invited in to join us as we share our penguin reports, life sized penguins we have created and our penguin folders showing our math learning.
In two weeks we will begin another engineering unit called "To Get to the Other Side:  Designing Bridges".  This is another pilot unit from the Museum of Science in Boston.  It will focus on balance, forces, and civil engineering.  At the end of this unit, students will use their learning about balance and forces to work in small groups to create bridges.
Our new Fundations unit introduces some new glued sounds- the letters have their own sounds but they are difficult to separate.  The glued sounds that will be introduced are:  ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, unk.
Caitlin did her Discovery Table presentation about China today.  She showed us examples of clothing from China, shared maps of China, talked about the population, and showed us money, a fan, and top from China.  Great job, Caitlin!