Spring Program Friday - The Chain of Kindness

We are excited to present our Spring Program, A Chain of Kindness: Saving Hollow Springs, which will begin at 1:00 in the Muller Auditorium.  There will be coffee and snacks offered in the lobby before the program, courtesy of our wonderful Home and School Association. Parking will be tight as we expect to welcome many families. Please watch for guidance with parking and keep safety in mind.

The auditorium will be open for seating at 12:30.  Please be respectful of all and do not save seats. We also ask that you be mindful when taking photographs, and do not obstruct others’ view of the stage. The stairs must be kept open for student entrances and exits and also for safety reasons. Should the Muller Auditorium be filled to capacity, we will be streaming the performance in the black box theater. Thank you for your partnership in making this special performance a success. For families unable to attend, the performance will be live streamed and can be accessed via the AFS YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/AbingtonFriendsVideo

Following the program, there will be a joyful spring celebration with games and a treat. (Again, thanks to our Home and School Association!)  Lower School will end at 3:00 tomorrow, after the celebration.  Buses will run as usual. There is no Extended Day.  Please make sure you’ve made arrangements for your child to be picked up by 3:00.

Our Spring Program lifts up the essential importance of kindness, caring and willingness to work through conflict.  It beautifully expresses what it means to be a community, and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Spring Program

We look forward to seeing friends and family on 

Friday, June 2 at 1:00 p.m. in the Muller Auditorium for 

“The Chain of Kindness: Saving Hollow Springs.” 

The auditorium will be open for seating at 12:30p.m. and we are grateful to Home and School for providing snacks and beverages prior to the start of the program.  Please note there will be no Extended Day Care on that day. At 2:15 following the program, there will be a Spring Celebration also courtesy of our incredible Home and School Association.

A Visitor in the Lower School

Desmond Daniels, a familiar face in the Lower School community, has become even more familiar as he spends his Senior Independent Project (SIP) shadowing Andrea Emmons. Seniors at AFS are required to do an independent project before graduating, which gives the opportunity for Seniors to experience something they love. This could be working on a project that they have not had the opportunity to do, deepen/enrich previously learned skills, or work in a career setting. Desmond chose to work in a career setting of his dream job. . . one day being part of educational leadership and working in education management.

For Desmond's SIP, he is studying education administration because he would one day love to become an administrator. He hopes to learn how schools work from this type of perspective. For his SIP project, he has shadowed Ryan Kimmet who is Greene Street Friends School's Head of Lower and Middle School, Andrea Emmons who is the Lower School Director of Abington Friends School and has also shadowed Secretary Pedro Rivera who is the Secretary of Education of Pennsylvania. Desmond is very excited to be working with such awesome, motivating, and inspiring individuals and appreciates them spending their time with him!

Families Getting Muddy!

Several Lower School families, got tough in the Tough Mudder  Race last weekend!  They gave it their all and had a fabulous time taking on obstacles and racing through the mud! 
Congratulations on a race well run!

Second Grade Fraction Museum

For the culmination of our study of fractions, second grade students created a fraction museum in their classroom.  Each student curated his or her own fraction exhibit using materials brought in from home. There was a wide range of exhibits, from stuffed animals to nail polish to skittles.  As each second grader perused the fraction museum, they had to find fractions that were equal to 1/2, less than 1/2 and greater than 1/2.  They had a great time checking out what their peers had brought in.  Through their exhibits, second graders did a great job showing their understanding of fractions as part of a whole and their grasp on fraction size.

Fourth Grade Dream House Project

Fourth graders recently finished creating the floor plans for their dream house project, a fun project that was an extension of our study of area and perimeter.  The guidelines set forth were that each house needed to have between six and eight rooms, include two composite shapes and have a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom.

We recently learned how to find the area and perimeter of composite shapes (a figure that can be divided into two or more basic shapes, such as squares or rectangles) and we wanted the students to apply what they had learned.  We also stressed the importance of knowing your multiplication facts when finding the area of a rectangle or square because it is much easier to multiply length by width than to count each square on grid paper!

Students planned out their houses and created their blueprints on grid paper, and then they found the area and perimeter of each room.  There was a lot of creativity in terms of the types of rooms included; there was everything from horse stables to a water park and lazy river to a virtual reality room.  It was great to see how the students expressed their personalities while also practicing the math skills of finding area and perimeter.

The dream house projects will soon be hanging up in the hallway by the fourth grade rooms, so make sure to stop by and check them out!

Animal Research in First Grade Inspires Poetry

First grade students have been immersed in researching the animals featured in fairy tales. They have read multicultural versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. The black bear, gray wolf and the pig are the three animals from these tales that students have delved into researching. Students have been inspired to write a poem about each of these animals. The poem about the black bear was based on the poem Sleep With A Bear by nine year- old Yana Nicole. https://allpoetry.com/poem/11760970-Sleep-With-A-Bear-by-Yana-Nicole 

Students read her poem several times and imagined themselves as the bear in the poem. They then wrote their own poem using one of her lines to spark their own poem. The poems about the wolf and the pig are based on the students envisioning themselves as that particular animal based on the research they have conducted. For each of these poems the student brainstormed sensory images and words and then wrote and illustrated their poem. The students then had the opportunity to read their poem to their classmates.