A Fabulous Day of Fall Celebrations!

With assistance from our Upper School Students, Kindergarten through Fourth Grade participated in the annual Abington Friends School Halloween Parade.  Butterflies floated past and penguins marched their way around the circle in front of the Faulkner Library.  Bands of rock stars were also seen roving amongst a wide variety of costumed characters - several of us are sure we saw Elvis! Our Home and School Association provided some delicious snacks for families and hot coffee and tea to help those of us not decked out in costumes to warm up!

Mid-morning, Kindergarten, the Owls, the Catbirds and the Cardinals went out to the Nature Playground for a fun and fantastic Fall Festival! Our younger students festooned themselves with tattoos, bowled over ghosts with pumpkins and enjoyed a wide range of yummy treats.  Lower School played host to far more treats than tricks!  Check out the photo video below to enjoy more images from today's celebrations.

Thank you to all our families for helping make this day so much fun.  For those who will continue celebrating tonight, be safe, have fun and share your candy with the grown-ups!


                                 

Our Resource Riparian Buffer Team!

                                      

                                    

                                     

A Day in Kindergarten

Here are some snapshots of a magical, musical day in kindergarten...

A drum jan during morning Choice Time...
            Followed by another book by Percussionist/Author/Illustrator Brian Pinkney during Library time.  When the children returned to the classroom, they took turns sharing their library books with partners, practicing their literacy and communication skills.  We had a delicious snack.  At Morning Meeting, we explored patterns, ten frames, and counting by 1's and 10's. Then we were off for some sunshine-drenched Outdoor Play!

We concluded play time and went to Music class with Aedin!

After music, we engaged in fun literacy activities, playing letter and word games and puzzles, building phonemic awareness, and practicing reading.  Our action-packed morning finally culminated with a delicious and nutritious (we have noticed the wonderfully healthy lunches you provide your children) lunchtime!  After lunch, we walked across the AFS campus, taking in the stunningly gorgeous autumn colors, to visit our friends at A Step Up Academy!  We played with them on their playground, and sang songs with them.

One might think our musical explorations were done at this point in the day. However, as we walked back toward Kindergarten, we noticed some musical sounds coming from the Upper School Music Room.  We saw Jayne, the chorus teacher.  I explained to the students that this coming Monday, Jayne would accompany Aedín on piano as our very own music teacher sings us opera!  The children are so excited for Monday!  One of our kindergartners said, "I wish we could go in and see the big kids play music."

Jayne said, "I'll go ask them right now!"  A minute later, we were treated to some live Samba music performed by the Upper School Music Teacher named Mark, and an Upper School student named Emily.  The children were starstruck!

To cap off our adventures, we stopped by the "Black Box," a room used by our theater students, and made the room very dark while running around pretending to be vampire bats, ghosts, and werewolves...way too fun!   When we finally landed back in our classroom, we had just enough time to read a picture book about Halloween...

... and when we ended our day together with our ritual Appreciation Circle.  There was a whole lot to appreciate!!!

3rd Grade Chinese Lanterns in Art

The third grade artists have been hard at work creating stunning batik lanterns inspired by design motifs found in Chinese artwork. The third graders started by drawing either a fish, which is used as a symbol of good fortune and prosperity, or a dragon, which is used as a symbol of strength and health.

After tracing their designs to complete two sides that are symmetrical, the third grade artists carefully transferred their images to cloth, applying glue on the outlines of their designs.

After learning about the painstaking traditional technique of wax batik which is used in China and other Asian countries, as well as some areas of Africa, the students appreciated the level of detail that can be achieved in fiber arts! They made the connection that where they had applied glue to their fabric kept the fabric white and when they added paint that would fill in the rest of their fabric.


They then got ready to paint their fabric using either a warm or cool color palette.


After the paint was dry, the fabric was washed and the students were very pleased with their beautiful handiwork, which they glued in place around wire to create a lantern. They are eager to see their lanterns come to life at the Mid-Autumn Moon Celebration!

Third Grade Writer's Workshop

Third graders have been very busy during Writer's Workshop the past month!   One of the secrets of writing we have been discussing is that writers write about things that they are passionate about.  As a class, we brainstormed ideas and shared about things that we love: dogs, bacon, furry things, soccer, cooking, kittens, fried chicken, talking, reading, and more!   In circle, students brainstormed writing strategies to show how much they loved the topic that they chose.  Some students came up with lists to show all the reasons for what they love.  Others thought of a specific memory or story that told about the first time they were able to enjoy an experience.   We also talked about showing and proving all the ways you can be passionate about something.   Expressing interest and excitement is a skill that third graders work hard to develop over the course of the year. 

We’ve also been working on a fun, new writing project this year that Shana created.  In the spirit of Shel Silverstein,  students have been writing poetry about fictional characters with an obsession for pizza, Legos, beds, flying, coconuts, hamsters, coffee, yoga – you name it!  Together we read some of Silversteins’ famous poems about General Spaghetti, the king who loved peanut butter, as well as Shana’s story about her ice cream fantasies.  We’ve been practicing our spelling and looking at word patterns as we think of creative ways to rhyme and also tell our story.  We’re excited to publish our stories in a few weeks! 

Help Fill the Shopping Cart!

Join the AFS Lower School Community in Helping those in Need

Fall Food Drive and MusicFest
Sunday, November 9
3-6 pm
Muller Cafeteria
A Fun Family Event!

We will be sorting and packing boxes of food for Whosoever Gospel Mission.  Each grade is assigned the food items listed below.

Food donations will be collected in a shopping cart stationed in the Lower School Lobby and the children will then get to use their math skills to sort and graph the items. 

• Card making
• Entertainment by Rich Nourie, Head of School, and Upper School a cappella and band musicians
• Dinner and Dessert

OWLS:  complete pancake mix, syrup
CARDINALS:  oatmeal, sugar (white or brown)
CATBIRDS:  boxes of Mac and Cheese, instant mashed potatoes
Cris- K:  rice (brown or white)
Kathy K:  canned soup, chili, beef stew
Raji K:  ketchup and mustard, salt and pepper
1st:  canned chicken and stuffing mix
2nd:  canned beans, baked beans
3rd:  canned fruit
4th:  canned vegetables
 
Please consider donating multiple servings.
 
We hope to see you. THANK YOU in advance for your support!

Let us know you plan to attend by clicking HERE.

Whosoever Gospel Mission provides shelter and three hearty, nutritious, balanced meals a day to homeless and/or needy men in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area.  The mission serves over 80,300 meals each year along with joyful fellowship, laughter and the deliverance of hope.

Visiting Music Teachers, Mallet Technique, and Halloween!

The AFS Lower School Music Room is alive and buzzing.  This month we welcomed two visiting music teachers to our classroom.  Dawn Pratson, from the F.A.C.T.S. Charter School, and Diego Maugeri, from The Miquon School.  Both specialists came to spend a day engaged in observation, learning, music, and movement.  Many of our children met Dawn and Diego, and had the opportunity to share their learning during class.  Dawn and Diego also shared some of their own treasured musical experiences.

FOURTH GRADE MALLET MADNESS

4th Grade is currently working on reading notation, singing, and utilizing correct mallet technique on the barred instruments.  Glockenspiels, xylophones, and metallophones all bring about beautiful music as we engage in conversations about ensemble, balance, and sensitivity.  Below are a few pictures of our work.  Be sure to take a moment to watch a clip of a group of our fourth graders in the middle of a practice session HERE! 

 

THIRD GRADERS KNOW IT MUST BE HALLOWEEN

October is a favorite month for many of our students.  We sing many songs about trees, birds, fall leaves, and the coming of Halloween.  There is also chatter of a favorite puppet coming to visit us this week!  One favorite activity of our third grade is "Must Be Halloween."  We sing, dance, play instruments, and bring to life the creative and spooky sounds of the season.  Below are some photos of our third grade and their representations of Halloween.

Strike a pose!

Fourth Grade Lenape Research

Students adding their research and artifacts

Fourth Grade Lenape Research 

The students have been immersed in researching different aspects of Lenape Indian life from the 1500's. Each student chose some aspect of daily life, culture, customs, government or belief systems to research. They set about focusing on the features of non-fiction and how to use their research books to the best advantage. Students found pertinent facts to their topics and put them into their own words. They worked on figuring out the best order to relate their facts and wove them together to tell their story.  To start their papers, they created great topic sentences. 

Who would have thought this could become...

part of a  Lenape Village

adding finishing touches

Once the students finished writing and typing, they were set to the task of creating some artifacts representative of their topic. They made a map of their village and were given seeds, nuts, leaves and 

making magic

branches and other vegetation from our autumn landscape to fashion their artifacts to enhance their stories. Using things from nature much the same way the Lenape did, students' imaginations went to work. The items that were created are beyond amazing! The research, artifacts, 2-d drawings of themselves as Lenape and the map are all on display outside the 4th grade lower school classroom. Come by and check out the research and the miniature world that 4th grade has created. 

Community Time with Kindergarten

Kindergarten had a noteworthy (pun intended!) morning this past Friday.  After our wonderful Riparian Buffer Assembly, we gathered with all the Resource Teachers for our first Community Time. We split into small groups and went off with our clipboards and a data sheet from Rosanne on a listening walk.  It was a cool, crisp morning, perfect for a walk outside!  We would travel a short distance, stop and listen.  The children would record the sounds they heard on their data sheets using words, pictures or both.  They heard the wind blowing, leaves crunching, birds singing... lovely sounds of nature.  They also heard lawn mowers, planes and trucks, our more pronounced human sounds.

After a most productive listening walk, we had a snack and headed downstairs to the Extended Day Room where the tables were filled with a vast array of art materials to create shakers. Students were able to work in small groups as they chose a container and filled it with rice, beans, beads, metal bottle caps, plastic bottle caps or a combination to produce just the sound they wanted.  Then they decorated their shakers with colored paper and markers.  They were so fascinated by the changes in sounds as they added different materials and different amounts to their containers.

Once everyone was finished, Aedin led us in the song, I Am a Fine Musician, that allowed us to use our newly created instruments!! The sound was shaking!!

Lower School Riparian Buffer Assembly Celebration!

With the sun shining and the wind blowing through the autumn tinged leaves, all of Lower School gathered to celebrate the work done last week to install our riparian buffer.  Rosanne shared with us that more than 350 people helped plant the trees, including students in Lower, Middle and Upper Schools!  After we were done cheering, our voices joined together to sing the wonderful Riparian Buffer Song lyrics by Raji and music by Jason and Aedín. To hear the song, click HERE!  We walked around the creek area to see the work done and then gathered to sing one more time to conclude our assembly.