Our "Growing" Body Study and More!

Our five senses study that began the year has fueled a "growing" kindergarten interest in the human body. A variety of fiction and non-fiction books has helped us to raise and gather questions as we begin this new study.

• What body part is that? 
• Why do we have that...?"
• How does it work?
• What bone is that?
• What is made out of?
• How do we grow? 
• Why do we grow?
• What does the brain do?

Our time together outside has also created space for children to bake and cook and sell delicious food- at exorbitant prices by the way. One $58 cake was especially yummy! The children have been working together creating recipes and taking information from library cookbooks to add to their imaginative ideas as they open restaurants and grocery stores outside.

"Would you like some food to eat?
It's good and healthy! Have some pasta cake."

Some pasta and sushi
for the animals

While we will look at the various body systems, our hope is to delve even deeper and think about  other important questions such as: 

• How am I the same and how am I different from others?
• What can I do with my body?
• When do I feel my best? Why?
• What can I do to help my body to grow and be stronger? 

One of the many things
we can do with our body

Creating our skeleton costumes

 for our annual Halloween Parade

"I know what that is! Those are muscles...
and that's blood..that part sends
messages to your brain."

The kindergarten students and teachers have become very intrigued about the possibilities for our human body study. We have been witnessing the class molding this study with their keen observations and very thoughtful and invested questions about the exploration before them. If you or anyone in your family have any age appropriate resources about the human body (books, songs, pictures, activities, etc) or know of anyone who would like to come in to share with our classrooms about their work with the human body (nurse, doctor, yoga, physical therapy, dentist, nutrition, etc), please let us know! Do you know a place or person we could visit? We value our families' input and resources for our work together only strengthens the lives and learning of the children. Thank you for your support as we embark on our new human body study!

Language Arts and Reading Apps and Internet Sites

                         Language Arts and Reading Internet Sites and Apps

The following sites and apps are great resources for Lower School families. Enjoy exploring them!

ReadWriteThink Printing Press from the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Literacy Association has tools online for children to write newspapers, flyers, brochures and booklets.  The web site is www.readwritethink.org http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/grade/1-2/

Additional web sites that promote phonemic awareness and phonics include: www.starfall.com, http://www.bugbrained.com/phaw.htm

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.visuallearningforlife.lettercrosstracking&hl=en

Letter Cross Tracking a free app with information about it found on the following page http://www.bestappsforkids.com/2015/letter-cross-tracking/

Children can listen to stories on line at www.storylineonline.net and http://www.storynory.com/.

A few sites that your children can use to research their interests are www.AJkids.com, http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/ , https://www.pebblego.com/login/  and www.enchantedlearning.com.  

Scholastic’s web site is a rich source of books and activities for families. http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/developing-reading-skills/6-great-reading-apps-kids

The next several links center on reading lists and suggestions for parents about promoting reading.

http://www.readaloudamerica.org/pdfs/2015%20Reading%20List%20signed.pdf

http://www.readingrockets.org/books/booksbytheme

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/28/books/review/28-new-york-times-best-illustrated-childrens-books-of-2015.html?_r=0

Trips to Meadowbrook Farms Begin!

On Monday, we had our first 4th grade visit to Meadowbrook Farm.  Two years ago, we began an amazing partnership with Meadowbrook Farm, which is part of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.  Click here to learn more about Meadowbrook Farm.  Our 4th grade goes to Meadowbrook once a month to learn about botany and horticulture, culminating in a trip to the Flower Show in February.  We'd participated in a plant forcing experiment for the show and compared plants grown at Meadowbrook to plants grown at AFS.   Last year we did a science/art collaborative project, making nature "plates" in the style of plates found at the Pennock home.   The students went this past week for an introduction to the property.  What a wonderful afternoon!  Below you can see some highlights of our first trip.

Julie and Glenn gave us a bit of the history of the farm before the students entered the beautiful Pennock home.  The estate was designed and created by J. Liddon Pennock, Jr, and is situated on 25 acres in Abington Township. Jacqueline explained that the original house was given to Liddon and his wife, Alice Herkness, as a wedding gift by her parents in 1936. The house was designed in the English Cotswolds style by architect Robert McGoodwin.

The students loved these terra cotta sculptures!  Perhaps an idea for this year's Flower Show??

Glenn and Julie point out some of the unusual specimens planted by the Pennocks.

Mrs. Pennock's "dipping" pool.

The Queen's garden.

The Metasequoia is huge!

Taking a moment for some quiet journaling and sketching in the gardens.

Second Grade is All about Birds

bird banding station 

Our avian awareness is increasing daily, from our field trip to Rushton Woods and the visit with three owls from the Academy of Natural Sciences to making informal observations around campus and even through our classroom windows.

 
enjoying the herb garden            a bird in the hand          exploring the perennial herb garden

Our most recent read-aloud book was For the Birds by Margaret Atwood. Although Atwood is best known for her adult fiction and poetry, she has written several books for children. She blends fantasy with factual information in this tale of a young girl who is becomes a Scarlet Tanager and experiences life from a bird’s point of view. From this new perspective, she learns about the lives of birds and the effects of development and pollution on wildlife.

In book groups we have begun reading about penguins. Students are taking notes as they read looking for and categorizing information, building on the techniques used in first grade animal research. Students have started looking at our classroom collection of bird books. We have quite a selection! The students are starting to think about their individual bird research projects. After choosing a species, they will use books as an initial source and collect notes about specific aspects of their bird’s life.

During our bird studies we use a variety of resources: videos, websites as well as books. One to start with is the Cornell University website. It has lots of information about birds. You can learn about a specific species: where it lives, what it eats, and even listen to the sound it makes. You can also use the site to help identify birds seen in your neighborhood.

Our next read aloud book is Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat. This autobiographical book, set in Saskatchewan in Canada, tells the often-humorous story of the author’s two pet owls, Wol and Weeps. You can look forward to hearing about the interesting adventures Billy has with his two winged friends!

  

                                    Owls from the Academy of Natural Sciences  - Hands on! 

Early Childhood and Kindergarten Harvest Fest

Dear Early Childhood and Kindergarten Families, 

Join Us for EC/K Harvest Fest

Friday, October 30
10:00-11:15 a.m.
Redbud Nature Playground

Our children in Early Childhood and Kindergarten are planning a special morning to celebrate the season.

They would love to have their families participate and share in all of the fun! There will be snacks, pumpkin painting, pin the nose on the pumpkin, pumpkin bowling, and more! 

There are also lots of opportunities for families to help make this day a success:

• Provide a snack
• Help with set-up or clean-up
• Help with an activity

Click on this link to sign-up.

Thank you in advance for anything that you can do to make this a fun and exciting day!

Thank you, and we hope to see you there!

Rebecca, Amy, Keri, and Karen (your EC and Kindergarten Clerks)

Singing a Song for Diwali with First Grades

This week in music class, first graders started learning a song to sing for the celebration of Diwali. Diwali is an Indian celebration also known as "The Festival of Lights". The holiday commemorates Prince Rama's return to his father's castle after being exiled by his stepmother for 14 years. It also celebrates his defeating the evil King Ravana, who kidnpped his wife, Sita, while Rama and Sita were in exile.

We started music class by hearing two stories about Diwali. One, about the story of Prince Rama, and one about how the holiday is celebrated all over India.

Reading the story of Prince Rama

Learning about celebrating Diwali in India

We learned a very popular song in Hindi called "Om Jay Jagadeesha" taught to Keisha by first grade parent Janani Rangaswami and her son, first grader, Rudy.  Rudy helped Keisha teach the class. It is a very challenging song but our first graders sounded great!

Rudy helping to teach first grade the song Om Jaya Jagadeesha

First graders learning the first part of Om Jaya Jagaseesha

First graders will continue learning the song over the next few lessons. Ask your first grader what they learned about Diwali in music class and see if they can share the song with you!

Lower School Adult Book Club

Parents and grandparents of Lower School children had their first meeting of the year on October 20. We shared our insights, connections and feelings about Anne Tyler's book A Spool of Blue Thread. It makes for an interesting discussion when we all have our own varying perspectives about the book. Discussion along with coffee, scones and yogurt parfaits was rich and fulfilling. Come join us for our next book club for adults as we discuss Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel on Tuesday December 1from 8:00-9:00 am in the Lower School library.

Station Eleven is a powerful novel that explores what it means to survive an apocalypse- in this case a virus that eliminates the majority of the world population. What would you keep during a world disastrous event? The author reveals that art survives as she focuses on a traveling theater and symphonic troupe that travels the Midwest sharing their art and forming friendships and a family bond in the process. This novel was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pen/Faulkner Award and the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

RSVP: Ann Botel-Barnard abotel-barnard@abingtonfriends.net

Text Connections: An Effective Reading Strategy

A powerful and effective reading strategy is making text connections. Good readers are able to think about the characters and issues that occur in a book and relate them to their own lives. Our first graders are practicing this strategy in reading workshop.

The Hating Book by Charlotte Zolotow was a favorite recently read by first grade students. Two girls misinterpret a conversation and become very angry at each other. When they finally realize their mistake, they laugh and their friendship is strengthened. We all worried when the girls were angry and experienced hurt feelings and felt so relieved at the end when they were friends again. Students shared their text connections with a partner and then wrote about the event from the text and then their own personal connection.

First graders continue to practice this skill while reading books with a partner, engaging in conversation about their connections and then writing about their own experience. Second, third and fourth graders continue to make connections to their own lives, to other books they have read and to the world. Recent book group selections Frog and Toad Are Friends and Mouse and Mole, Fine Feathered Friends in second grade explored issues of friendship and problem solving, topics that lend themselves to forging connections with the text to their personal lives. Third graders reading Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express and Ivy and Bean Book 1 and fourth graders reading Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World, Mayfield Crossing and Riding Freedom are exploring book group selections that effectively contain topics and characters that students can connect to their own lives. During discussions in all of these book groups, one can often hear a student making a connection to their own lives, another book they have read or an important issue in the world.

Pennies for the Playground

Dear Families and Friends,

Our Lower School students are so excited to see the Headwaters Discovery Playground come to life that they wanted to have their own fundraising drive.  Between now and October 30th they have a Pennies for the Playground campaign on display in the Lower School lobby. 

Next to our friend the scarecrow are three different jars. Students who wish to make a contribution to the playground will be bringing in their own pennies, nickels, dimes and more so that they can feel like part of the fundraising process, too. 

We hope this gives families an opportunity to talk about your own traditions around giving and share your favorite causes... and practice math & counting skills!  We are very proud of our students' desire to pitch in and glad to see them feeling a sense of ownership for the playground.

We can’t wait till the building work begins!

Kindergarten Chemistry

In science class, we have embarked on a new unit: Kindergarten Chemistry!  Chemistry experiments are perfected suited to young children, as you can carry out an experiment quickly, with very clear results.  The experiments can be very exciting and graphically illustrate an idea or concept. We've been working on chemistry for the past few weeks and will continue with this unit for the next month.  So far we've discovered what chemicals combine to shine pennies, how liquids mix (and don't mix) and explored the chemistry of color.  After the experiments, the students are challenged to draw the experiment and illustrate what happened.  This helps reinforce concepts and gives them practice in recording their work.

Is there any way to clean a penny once it gets dull over time?  That's the question that the Kindergarten students set out to answer last week.  We tried four different solutions to see if we could bring a shine back to our pennies.  Three of our solutions didn't work, but it was exciting when our last combination of vinegar, water and salt worked and made our pennies look new again!  Take a look on the experiment page of my blog if you'd like the recipe.  

Do oil and water mix?   The students were so surprised when the oil stayed on top of the water no matter how much they tried to mix it!  What came next was even more startling.  We added drops of food coloring.  The food coloring did not mix with the oil and in fact, became dozens of tiny, colorful drops suspended in the oil.  When a drop fell through the oil to the water, it definitely mixed with the water!

Fourth Grade Immerses Themselves in Lenape Research

The fourth grade students have been reading and researching about various aspects of the Lenape culture dating from the 1500's. Each student selected a topic that interested them and set about reading text and synthesizing information related to their subject. They have recorded their facts and are in the process of deciding how to tell their stories. They are creating topic sentences and arranging their facts into subcategories. One of the many things they are working on is seeing and understanding the big idea within their subject, while also including interesting details in their subcategories.

The students are also still working on building their wigwam. The structural pieces are in place. They are weaving cordage through thin reads to create a covering for the sides. Another group is working on a small bed like structure so they can sit on something inside the wigwam other than the ground during the colder months.

Art All Around

Our lower school artists have been busy engaging in a variety of art activities around campus this fall. Last Friday, during our Green Apple Day of Service, students volunteered their efforts to complete our fabulous recycled plastic bottle greenhouse that was made in collaboration with the art department at Penn State Abington. Friends were delighted to add their finishing touches and the greenhouse has been a hive of activity during recess. Thank you to Penn State Abington and all of those who donated plastic bottles to make our greenhouse come to life!

 

The first grade artists have been creating stunning Monarch butterfly wing costumes which they will be wearing at the upcoming Halloween parade. The first graders learned about color mixing and brush selection in painting, as well as reinforcing concepts of symmetry explored in science class and their knowledge of Monarch butterflies from their classroom study.

                      
The second grade artists made wonderful connections to their classroom bird study and their learning about feathers in science class, while completing careful observational drawings of feathers. In art class, they learned about the concept of contrast in artwork and enjoyed using metallic color pencils to create contrast on both black and white paper.
                                
Exposing young artists to a variety of experiences, from STEAM based building projects that promote re-use and stewardship, to the theatrical tradition of costume-making to traditional observational drawing, gives both breadth and depth to their understanding and appreciation of art.