Spring Break Begins Thursday!

Wednesday is a regular full day of school and there will be regular hours for Extended Day.  Thursday begins spring break.  We will return on Monday April 4!

http://cliparts.co/

Second Grade Marketers

Our second graders are gearing up for Egypt Night and are excited to market this night to the community. In our second foray into podcasting, our creative Egyptian scholars created commercials.

Anjali and Amani

Samara and Jordin

Monica and Logan

The process started with brainstorming everything they knew about Egypt. Then we listened to a radio commercial to identify the important parts. We also all created a quick radio ad to sell a pencil and shared those with the class.

Ariana and Amir

Hannah and Laszlo

Grace and William

After discussing what makes a good ad and how to use sound effects, we paired up and got to work. The students were much more independent using Garage Band this time. Although they needed some scaffolding and reminders on how the program worked, there was obviously a higher skill level than we had in September.

Elise and Patrese

Clellan and Brian

Leila and Audrey

The students really enjoyed creating these advertisements, so I know you will enjoy listening to them. 

Kendall and Matthew

Luca and Gus

Lyra and Julian

Mindfulness Meditation for Parents - Group Practice

Hi - This is Lee Pachter, father of Evan (1st grade) and Lauren (4th grade). For the last few months a few AFS parents have been getting together for a small weekly parent meditation group at AFS on Wednesday evenings, and we’re at the point now where we’d like to extend an invitation to all AFS Lower School parents to join us.

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that parents might find beneficial for a number reasons. Here are two: First, we’re fortunate that the AFS Lower School is committed to incorporating mindfulness practices into our children’s education. In order for us to support our children with this, it would be helpful if we parents have our own meditation practice. Second, I’ve found that the practice of mindfulness has helped me as a parent get through some difficult parenting situations. (Have you had any of those lately? J) We could all use a little support during those trying times, and a regular meditation practice can sometimes result in a mindset that’s a bit less reactive.

We get together on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 in the Lower School music room, and learn how to meditate, and actually do it together. If you’ve never meditated before, it’s no problem. We all learn it and experience it together. No special knowledge or ability is needed. As long as you can breathe, you can meditate! You don’t even need to sit crossed-legged—most people sit on chairs! These are “drop-in” sessions—you can commit to coming one time, every week, or as much (or little) as you’re able to. Each session runs about 45 minutes although not all of that time is actual meditation.

If you’re interested in trying this out, or learning more about it, or if you have questions, please email me at Lpachter@comcast.net , text me at 860-508-2148, or speak to me at drop-off/pick-up. If Wednesday evenings are a particularly bad time for you but you’re still interested, let me know. Thanks for reading this, and I hope that this may be of benefit to us (and our children).

Lee Pachter

The View From our Window - Second Grade Observations of Playground Progress

Last week,  we saw the workman make big holes and a big mound.  Then a cement truck came and filled in the holes with cement and put cement on top of the mound in a wooden base.  They dug a ditch outside our window and now we can see a pipe.  They pulled out the tar path that used to go from the school door to the door by the nurse's office.  They put flags all around. There is also tape on the trees and a fence around to make sure people don't come in.  Andrea even came into our classroom to see the progress when she visited school!

This week,  there was not much happening in the beginning because of all the rain, but we noticed there is something covered by a big white sheet.  We think it might be a big mound of dirt that they didn't want to get wet.  Then when it stopped raining, they started putting in boulders!  Big dump trucks came and dumped them on one side where the bottle house used to be, and now it looks like a wall.

   

Fourth Grade Reads Historical Fiction

Fourth grade is engrossed in reading, writing and discussing in small groups the book Shadows On Society Hill- An Addy Mystery by Evelyn Coleman.  This book follows the life of eleven year old Addy and her family living in Philadelphia right after the end of the Civil War. There is a mystery that Addy and the reader need to solve as the plot unfolds. The author has included historical details about the way of life, and the varying attitudes and prejudices of people living at that time. There are even real people portrayed in the book.

Halfway through the book, the readers have are introduced to Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield- the Black Swan. In order to learn more about her life, we read an article about her from http://www.biography.com/people/elizabeth-taylor-greenfield-40267. Students, read aloud, discussed and selected facts of personal interest to highlight. They then had the opportunity to share why they selected those facts. Later in the book, we will meet Mary Bowser, a freed slave who worked as a Union spy during the Civil War. After the War, she was worried that she would face retribution from members of the the Confederate Army. There is little known of her life after the Civil War. The article about her life that we read is from the following link.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bowser
Both Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield and Mary Bowser began life as slaves but were freed by the matriarchs in their families after the patriarchs' deaths. Both matriarchs were Quakers and both women ended up in Philadelphia at various times in their life, after they were freed.

The following links are videos about the life of each of these women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqZGQeCNFSA&ebc=ANyPxKoav_NpHW0iXfRbEUmKpYviGPVbrlIM41Zuod_aaY-4fxgAp_O4L6Zi9z81OaHk5jZydyDbq-P-i74PR0xTj6KITnKMHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7AiOCkx-e8

No Adult Book Group on Tuesday, 3/22

We will not hold our adult book group meeting on Tuesday, March 22.  At the April meeting, will discuss Language Arts first and then for the people that read 10:04 we will make time toward the end to discuss that book as well. Have a wonderful spring break and we forward to our April discussion!

Final Week of the Post Office

Get your pens and pencils busy and write lots of letters!  This is the final week of the First Grade Post Office.  Next Tuesday, March 22nd will be the last day for pick up and delivery.  The first graders have enjoyed every aspect of our postal unit and would love to make lots of deliveries before it ends!

You may be wondering what was involved with running a postal service.  Well, read on!

First, all the students brainstormed what they thought would be involved in running a post office from advertising to creating stamps and selling them, and all the jobs that we would need to do to make it work.  We read several non-fiction books (and some fiction books, too) and invited a first grade parent to join us and share all about his job working for the U.S. Postal Service to make sure we hadn't missed anything.  We heard all about big machines, busy days and even about some unfriendly dogs that may be encountered when delivering mail!

Then we got busy making signs, mailboxes and most importantly our hero stamps!  We took a field trip to the Elkins Park Post Office to get a first-hand look at how it all comes together.  Then bingo, we got our service up and running.  We learned the value of different coins and how to add them together and how to make change if it was needed.  We practiced sorting - a very important postal skill, and we even wrote lots of letters too!  And, we went to Tyson House to use the stamp machine there to send our very special valentine cards to our families!

We had another first grade parent visit and share his extensive stamp collection with us.  We even got to soak old stamps off of envelopes and start our own stamp collections in our own albums! It was great!

On another field trip we visited the post office where Benjamin Franklin worked andsaw a museum all about him!  He was the first Postmaster General in our country!

You can see it is a lot of work and a lot of fun to run a post office.  So please keep us busy for our final week and write lots of letters!!

(Please note: this Smilebox slideshow would not cooperate, despite numerous attempts, it duplicated slides and ran slides out of order, so you may not see what was created, but hopefully it will be close!)

A picture slideshow by Smilebox

4th Grade Mold Symposium

The 36th Annual Mold Symposium was a complete success!  The students did a wonderful job presenting their mold projects and had a fun afternoon of "Moldy Lunch", and "Mold Songs."  The Mold Symposium was started 36 years ago by our very own former Lower School teacher Lynn Mass here at AFS and continues to be a wonderful learning experience for our students, as well as being a day filled with fun and excitement. Here's the story of our adventure with mold...

Students came in early to practice presenting their boards.  They wanted to be well prepared for the day!  After doing their experiments that started in January, the students prepared science boards that included all the steps of the scientific method including the question, hypothesis, list of materials, procedure, results and conclusion.

We traveled to Plymouth Meeting Friends School for the Symposium this year, along with Greene Street Friends.

 Students were divided into groups of about 18 students and described their experiments to each other.  There was a question and answer period for each presentation.  Questions like, "If you were to change this experiment in any way, how would you change it?" and "If you were going to do a totally different experiment, what would it be?" were very popular.  At the end the students spent some time discussing the similarities and differences between the experiments.

On to lunch! Students were careful to sit with students from other schools and made some new friends in the process.  A damp recess followed, but that didn’t stop the students from getting outside and having fun!

 Next it was time to get the students settled into the auditorium for sharing and "Mold Songs".

 Each school presented their mold song.  From show tunes to popular music, each school had a unique and clever song all about mold.

We closed the program with the traditional "Moldy Gifts" song (sung to the tune of Simple Gifts).

 It was then time to say goodbye to new friends as another wonderful Mold Symposium drew to a close.  

Click on the link to see their wonderful Mold song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yZoXEvPbM

4th grade Piqued by Poetry

The fourth grade students have been exploring poets and assorted different ways to be inspired to share their multi-faceted selves. We started with list poems and moved on to the George Ella Lyons poem titled,"I Am From". 

We used this poem to help us brainstorm categories that we could include in ours. Students have created wondrous poems reveling in the different minds and tempos of their soul. They've noticed nuance about people in their lives and shared what they know to be true in the world. They created found poems using words and phrases from other writers. We are in the process of editing and learning how to line our poems. The students are excited to make chap books of the poems they've been writing.

Where I'm From

By Skye Sydney

I am from the rough, brave, viscous fox running in my blood

from all over Emporia, Virginia

and from hearing lots of country talk like y'all and ain't.

I am from the rubber scrunchies in my hair

 to get my wild beautiful hair out of my way.

I am from homemade ribs that are chewy

it makes me speechless and takes forever to get down my throat.

I am from burning hot chili that the spice goes away after awhile. 

I am from my grandma spoiling me with goodies and treats that gives me lots of cavities.

I am from South America, from words that sound really silly.

Chinese Art Explorations in 3rd Grade

The third graders have been enjoying a study of Chinese art in the art room, leading up to their field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to view their collection of Chinese artwork. The third grade artists investigated traditional ink and brush painting, learning how to mix three shades of ink - dark, medium and light - and how to grip the special paintbrushes, made of bamboo and animal fur, so that they hold them vertical to the paper.

The paintings were done on rice paper, and students built up a number of skills, learning different brushstrokes and how to traditionally paint pandas, bamboo, mountains, flowers and fish. Once the third graders had a few classes to practice to their newfound skills, they combined elements that they had learned to create their own unique compositions which will be mounted on scrolls.

The third graders were also busy getting their hands messy in clay. After examining some images of Chinese dragons, they noticed their distinctive claws and long body shapes. The third graders used a combination of slab and coil construction techniques to create their own dragons out of clay, giving each one a distinctive expression and unique details, like fire in the mouth, special scales and long curly tails. The clay dragons will be put in the upcoming raku firing, when AFS welcomes visiting artist Brett Thomas.

Elmwood Park Zoo: Let's Celebrate Dr. Seuss

A wonderful event centered around books and authors will be taking place this Sunday! 

The Elmwood Park Zoo is participating in Read Across America Day on Sunday, March 13, 2016 from 11-3. This event is free with zoo admission. There will be a book fair by Children's Book World. Arthur the Aardvark, The WHYY Kids Club and The Berenstain Bears will make appearances along with author Heidi Rader reading from her newest book, Chatter in the Caldera:Monkeys of Bioko Island.  The author of the book Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli will also be a guest at the zoo. Visitors will be able to purchase this book as well as have it signed by the author. 

DVRA Families and Reading Committee will be participating and will be distributing free children's books and parenting information at this event. 

http://www.elmwoodparkzoo.org/event/245

Dr. Tamar Chansky - Helping Kids Overcome Worry and Stress - Thursday!

JOIN US! 

Psychologist Tamar Chansky, a national expert on treating anxiety in children and adults, will be speaking at AFS next week about simple strategies to help kids overcome worry and stress. 

Her presentation, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 10, in the Muller Auditorium is free and open to the public. Join in and invite your friends and neighbors, too.

To learn more about Dr. Chansky, here are some helpful links:

Dr. Chansky's website-  http://tamarchansky.com/

Dr. Chansky's Blog in Psychology Today-  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/worry-wise

Blog Interview about freeing yourself from anxiety from Psych Central-  http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/01/22/freeing-yourself-from-anxiety-an-interview-with-tamar-chansky-phd/

Huffington Post Blog/Article about transitions authored by Dr. Chansky-  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tamar-chansky/transition-tips_b_1851793.html

Ayudantes de la comunidad en 1º Grado – Community Helpers in 1st Grade

To integrate with their social studies unit on Heroes, the first graders have been learning the Spanish vocabulary for some of our Community Helpers. In their main classroom, the students have been studying the community of people they associate as being heroes, someone they look up to and/or admire.

In a large group, we began the conversation about héroes and how they are not just people who lived long ago or far away. Some héroes live in our own comunidad that we can refer to as Ayudantes de la comunidad (Community Helpers). There are many different ayudantes de la comunidad and each plays an important and helpful role in each town and city.

We first read Roger Priddy’s book, “ABC of Jobs.” This was an introduction to the Spanish vocabulary for some of our ayudantes de la comunidad. Because in Spanish all nouns have either masculine or feminine gender for grammatical purposes, the students practiced using the definite article to distinguish between genders. For example:

el bombero, la bomera – fireman, firewoman

el veterinario, la veterinaria – male veterinarian, female veterinarian

el cocinero, la cocinera – male cook, female cook

el maestro, la maestra – male teacher, female teacher

el cartero, la cartera – male mail carrier, female mail carrier

el granjero, la granjera – male farmer, female farmer

We also discussed that the nouns that end with –o are usually masculine and those that end in –a are often feminine. But, there are times when this rule does not apply and only the definite article (el, la) is our clue whether a noun is masculine or feminine.  For example:

el policía, la policía – policeman, policewoman

el dentista, la dentista – male dentist, female dentist

After the read aloud, the first graders explored with large sized clip art representing some of the professions that impact the lives of others. The faces of the characters in the props were cut out and a mirror was taped in its space. This way when the students looked at the characters, they could “see” themselves in the role. All the first graders laughed themselves silly. We will continue to explore with this topic in many fun and interactive ways.

Exploring Fractions in Fourth

Fourth graders have been studying fractions and building on their prior experience with fractions in second and third grade.  They have been learning to create equivalent fractions, to simplify fractions and most recently, to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers.  Having a solid understanding of multiplication and division is a great help in working with fractions.

On Friday fourth graders used Cuisenaire rods for fraction based problem solving tasks.  Cuisenaire rods are a collection of rectangular rods, each with a different length.  As they worked with the rods, the students made observations about how Cuisenaire rods relate to fractions.

Some of their comments were: 

"Four reds are the same length as one brown, so a red is 1/4 the length of a brown."

"The orange is like a whole and all of the other colors are smaller so they are fractions, or parts, of the whole."

"Two light greens are equal to one dark green, so a light green is 1/2 of a dark green."

Construction begins!

Construction has begun on the Headwaters Discovery Playground!  Due to be completed at the end of April, the playground will serve our 1st through 6th grade students.  It's not just a playground, it's an outdoor learning and discovery environment!  It will have a canopy tree walk play structure, a water play area (with pumps and sluices), a "big science" area (think physics),  a nature play area and places to sit and contemplate our beautiful outdoor setting.  Watch for more pictures as the construction continues!