Third Grade and Catbirds Share Meeting for Worship

This Wednesday, the third graders enjoyed spending our Meeting for Worship time with our partner class, the Catbirds in early childhood. After sharing some settled silence together, the Catbirds invited us to join them in a study that they are working on about friendship. In the coming weeks, the Catbirds will be sending us questions about friendship that they are wondering about like, "What does it mean to be a good friend?" and "Can friends disagree and still be friends?" Third graders will be discussing these questions and sending their written answers back to the Catbirds.

After our Meeting for Worship time together, Third graders and Catbirds spent time cultivating our new friendships by playing together on the Redbud playground. 

Literacy in kindergarten: The Secret Code

The students in our classroom are excited to learn.  Whether we are running around outside, playing math games, or writing about our families, we are having fun.  Learning how to read and write in our classroom is like deciphering a secret code. As we gain knowledge of the letters and their corresponding sounds, we are able to put them together on paper to share our ideas without even having to speak them out loud! This is a fascinating and mysterious process. There are so many ways that we build literacy skills in kindergarten.  Here are some examples...

Practicing letter formation in our hand writing books

Asking questions and listening to upper school friends talk about robots

Spelling our names with letter blocks

Sharing books with friends

Labeling our play structures

Pretending to be Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Writing about what kind of candy we would invent if we had our own factory

Establishing a joyful relationship with academic activities is essential for building a foundation of effective lifelong learning!

Upcoming Lower School Events

The pace of fall has us moving along briskly with events in Lower School! 

• November 16, author Eric Luper visits Lower School

• November 17, 8:00 – 9:00a.m Book Club for adults in the LS library

• November 20, 7:00 – 8:00p.m. Lower School Affinity Group Meeting for Families of Students of Color in the LS music room

• November 22, 8:00 – 8:30a.m. Home and School Social in LS library, 8:30a.m. Family Meeting for Worship in the Meetinghouse

• November 22, 12:00 p.m. dismissal for Thanksgiving break, no Extended Day, buses will pick up at noon

• November 29, 8:00 – 9:00a.m Family Coffee in the LS library with our consulting psychologist Stephanie Fields

• December 13, 3:00p.m. Gift wrapping for Toy Drive

• December 15, 10:00 – 11:30a.m. Winter Program, Muller Auditorium

• December 15, 3:00p.m. dismissal, no Extended Day, buses will pick up at 3:00p.m.

Lower School Book Club for Adults

Join us for our next Lower School Book Club for adults led by Ann Botel-Barnard, our Language Arts Specialist. We are excited to come together to share a love for a great story!

Book: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Location: Lower School Library from 8-9am

Date: Friday November 17, 2017

Enjoy a light breakfast and great conversation as we discuss what we loved about the book, what we had questions about and what we could connect to. Feel free to join us even if you have not read the entire book. You will still have a lot to contribute and the discussion will enhance your reading of the book. A Man Called Ove has been made into a film that is quite wonderful and is available through Netflix. You are welcome to bring adult friends and relatives that are also interested in discussing this book.

RSVP: Ann Botel-Barnard  abotelbarnard@abingtonfriends.net

Place Value Practice in Second Grade

Mathematical work in second grade encompasses a wide variety of skills and concepts that are introduced and practiced through lessons, games and independent written work.  Recently, students have continued to build their understanding of bigger numbers and place value using base ten blocks as they learn how to represent and compare 3 digit numbers, as well as "counting on" and "counting back" by ones, tens and hundreds.   

On Halloween, students had a spooky scavenger hunt as they wandered around the two classrooms looking for clues that required them to write numbers in standard form, word form and expanded form, as well as identify a digit's place value.

Meeting Partners 'Build' Community

On Halloween, the first graders met their fourth grade meeting partners with great anticipation!  The students gathered in a big circle and one at a time they introduced themselves and shared something that they liked or liked to do.  After their introduction, they chose a block and added it to a structure being created in the center of the circle.  When someone tried balancing a block atop another narrow block it was met with gasps and giggles of joy as all wondered if it would stay.  Some blocks did and others did not!  The students loved it either way!

Once the amazing community 'building' was complete, the students paired up and spent time getting better acquainted through books, Lego building, games, drawing and lots of calm, joyful conversation.  The atmosphere was magical!

The next morning, first and fourth grades teamed up again and walked into Jenkintown to the Breathing Room Foundation. There, Volunteer Coordinator, Eileen Carissimi, explained many of the ways they provide support to families affected by cancer.  The AFS students spent time writing colorful, heartfelt notes to families that they tucked inside carefully decorated cups filled with either tea bags or hot chocolate and Hershey Kisses.  These will be included in holiday baskets that will be given to families to brighten their days and lessen their loads.  It was so rewarding to see how the older students took the first graders under their wings and helped them with spelling and ideas for their notes and cups.  Creativity and thoughtfulness were definitely the themes that were expressed in all the students' work.  A lovely walk there and back with many first grade parents made this community project a rich treat for all!

Second Grade Reads Biographies

Second grade is spending November and December walking in the shoes of people who made a difference in the lives of others. Reading biographies allows students to explore in depth the lives and character traits of people who overcame challenges to create, support, lead and innovate. The life of Helen Keller has been a shared reading experience allowing students to discuss in small groups the qualities that helped this amazing person to lead a life that included learning how to communicate through sign language, to ultimately speak, graduate from Radcliffe College with honors, write numerous books and to travel the world becoming an advocate for people with disabilities, campaigning for women's right to vote, and  inspiring others to live their life with meaning.

Helen Keller became blind, deaf and unable to speak after an illness when she was nineteen months. Her family sought advice from Dr. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who advised them to hire a teacher for Helen. Annie Sullivan became Helen's trusted teacher and companion for more than fifty years. Our second graders have experienced the thrill and sense of relief when Helen Keller connected water running over her hand with the sign for water that Miss Sullivan was trying to teach her and Helen finally realized that she could communicate with other people.  As they chart Helen's personality traits, second graders learn how events and accomplishment's from Helen's life coincide with a trait such as kindness, adventurousness and being smart. Learning about Helen and her life serves as a guide post that one can always find a way to meet any challenge with persistence, creativity and faith.

After reading about the life of Helen students will be choosing biographies about other people who have contributed to society read in small groups. 

At home reading is connected to this biography study as student's choose a biography from school to bring home and read, talk and write about with their family. Our second graders are certainly walking in the shoes of another and experiencing empathy and inspiration.

The link below is one of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller demonstrating how Helen learned to speak.  It is fascinating and illuminating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLqyKeMQfmY