Our trip to Williston Village was a huge success! The children had many questions for our presenters and were quite attentive. One would have thought we took them to a far away land full of mystery and intrigue. Here are some of their responces when we arrived back at ABS and were enjoying well deserved apples from Adams Farm.
Eve - There is a lot of old fashion stuff upstairs in the library that I didn't know about.
Beckett - I saw the old bell that Mr. Allen was talking about.
Camille - We got to go inside the old church. I wish we could have gone into the bell tower.
Lily B. - Mr. Allen told us about how the church caught on fire by lightening. Most of the damage was done by smoke and water.
Riley - I liked the big light in the church.
Sophie - We got to vote for the real president when we were at the town hall.
Adele - When we voted we got to get a sticker.
Ben - At the town hall we found out the things that Williston does like ambulance, police, and road construction.
The FUN RUN is scheduled for October 4th and we hope that everyone will be able to participate. In the past the FUN RUN was a Vista House team building event that brought everyone together for an afternoon of family, health, and fun. It turned out to be a great way to raise funds to help support the extra curricular needs in the house as well. All fundraising efforts in the lower houses will now be combined to benefit the greater good of the school. We would like to make this years FUN RUN the most successful fundraising event of the year as well as kick off the school wide initiative. Make sure to check out the FUN RUN flyer in your childs Monday Folder and send in your registration early. We will also be holding an informational meeting this Monday after school in our kiva at 3:15. If you are able to help with the last minute details or work the day of the event please attend this meeting or send me an email letting me know you would like to help and we'll plug you in somewhere. Children are welcome at this meeting. They can play in their classroom while we meet.
We have been reading Barbara Cooney books and learning little tidbits about her life. The book Miss Rumphius inspired us to think about what we could do to make our school a more beautiful place. Each of the children came up with their own idea and turned it into a personal quote, wrote it on large drawing paper, and surrounded it with fingerpainted lupines. That wasn't enough for them so we also started a wall size mural with lots and lots of lupines and everyones quote woven throughout. It was a wonderful way to bring a busy week to a close.
Guided reading groups begin this week. The two classrooms have been mixed together creating 8 groups. Caitlin, Jessica, and I will split the load and spend twice as much time with each group as we would be able to if we each ran groups for our individual classrooms. The beginning readers will be bringing books home in ziplock bags that we hope will be read at home, several times if possible. Please make sure the books are sent back to school the very next day as we begin the next days lesson by rereading the previous days book. More advanced readers will also bring books home, just not as frequently as they will have assignments in class pertaining to their books that require more than one day for completion.
Our first writers workshop unit of study is off and running. The children are mass producing stories with illustrations, covers, and title pages. Our lessons have been based on writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end, sentence completion, punctuation and capital letters, and most recently determining the most important part of the story in order to add more details. My favorite part of each lesson is the daily sharing. The children are expected to give feedback to each child who shares. They are brutally honest, ask great probing questions, and say the nicest things to each other about the stories they are hearing. Most of the time the child sharing walks away with a plan for how to make their story better by making a very simple change or addition.
I would really like to hear from you as to what changes or additions you would like to see in this blog. I am very open to any and all ideas and want the time and effort I put into informing you best meet your needs.
Happy Reading,
Julie
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