Tuesday 9/30

Thanks for your support to Arlington EATS.. Keep sending in those rice and beans! 

Check out our sunflower observations on Vine 

Our hopes and dreams are up!  Stop in to see them! 

Read to self- made it to 11 minutes! Building our stamina! Woohoo! 

Thanks for coming to Curriculum Night!! It was so great to see so many families tonight. As always, please email or stop by with questions/concerns. The iMovie will be sent out soon... Good night (from our super clean classroom)!

Monday, September 29th

Today we went on a listening walk, just like the story we read! 

We used 4 of our senses though!

Our Read Aloud was: 

Each child then dew one of their hopes for first grade... Check out the bulletin board at Curriculum Night.  We'll see you at 7pm on Tuesday evening.  

*Food Drive* 1st Grade: Rice & Beans

Dear Thompson Families,

You are invited to participate in the Arlington EATS fall food drive!  Now that school has begun Arlington EATS is focused on ensuring all Thompson kids have enough healthy food during the school day and over the weekend.

From September 29 through October 10, Arlington EATS will be collecting the following food items:

• Kindergarten - oatmeal and/or boxed cereal
• 1st grade - rice and/or beans
• 2nd grade - ultra-pasteurized (shelf-stable) milk and/or granola bars
• 3rd grade - canned fruit and/or vegetables
• 4th grade - mac & cheese and/or canned pasta
• 5th grade - peanut butter/sunbutter and/or jelly

• We always need healthy and easy-to-eat snacks (eg: bananas, clementines, cheese-sticks, Gogurts, baby carrots) to distribute for snacks, so these items are welcome as well.

Your child should bring the items to his/her classroom and place them in the Arlington EATS box. Each day we will tally the number of items contributed per classroom.

The class with the highest participation will receive extra recess during the week of October 14!!

Thank you again for the support! Please remember to visit our website to make a donation or see other volunteer opportunites: www.arlington-eats.org and like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Arlington.EATS.

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REMINDER:  If you believe your child could benefit from the free weekend food program but you have not turned in the consent form, please contact Vicki Rose (main office) or Nicole Melnik (Room 108) at Thompson.

Friday, September 26th

We had a busy day!  Can't wait to see our class picture!

Most kids finished their Daily 5 stations.  Check your child's folder to see their work.  Some children may have some work they still need to finish.  On the back of their smiley face checkoff is their goal... The kids were very honest about whether or not they reached their goal for the week.

The first graders went upstairs to Ms. Dichter's class and taught the second graders how to use Kidblog.  They were SO excited!

At the end of choice each Friday, the kids can take my phone to snap a picture of something they are proud of (and it helps with a quicker clean-up so no one is upset that their structure/lego creation/etc. is being taken apart).
Here's what I found:

Wednesday 9/24

Each Morning we start with a Morning Message. 

We listened to The Listening Walk.  We then took a few minutes to sit silently and count how many things we could hear.

Our first day of Writers Workshop went great!  Each first grade author is writing a small moment across three pages.  

The kids worked hard at adding many sounds into their writing.

We ended our writing time with a share.

Tuesday 9/23

Today the kids wrote some words with digraphs- 2 letters that make one sound.

In Science, there was a read aloud about the 5 senses.

During Morning Meeting, we figured out all of the combinations to 6.. And even noticed some patterns! 

Monday 9/22

Writing: Picking one moment from the weekend to write all about

Math: Practicing combinations to 6 

Upcoming Parent Forum

 PARENT FORUM

 October 2, 2014

7-8:30pm                                                                                        

THOMPSON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

                      Children’s Experience of Adoption, Ambiguous Loss

                             and Membership in Non-traditional Families

                                                 Michelle Novelle, MSW, LICSW,

PRESENTER:

Michelle Novelle is a researcher whose focus is on the process of identity formation for adolescent social orphans, that is, those children who live outside parental care despite the presence of at least one living biological parent. In particular, Michelle focuses on the impact of ambiguous loss for these youth; how does the psychological presence yet physical absence of the missing parent(s) influence the adolescent’s sense of social belonging as well as their ability to successfully negotiate the tasks of adolescence? She has conducted research in Colombia as well as the United States and continues to provide consultation and training to MSPCC in the areas of foster care and adoption.

This training will provide participants with an overview of:

            

             1.     Ambiguous loss   

            2.     The seven core issues inherent in adoption

            3.     Common responses in children with respect to adoption

            4.     Typical features of non-traditional families

5.     Successful strategies for interacting with children who have membership in         non-traditional families ; same sex as well as families formed by adoption                         

      

Upcoming Dates- Emailed out 9/21

Hello First Grade Families, 

I hope you had a nice weekend.  I went to CT to visit with my parents. 

This is the email list that Vicki compiled from PowerSchool.  If you notice anything that should be changed, please let me know. 

What a busy week!  Important dates this week:

Tuesday- Early Release 1pm 

Tuesday- PTO Meeting 7-8:30pm (I'm joining as a teacher rep, hope to see many of you there!) 

Thursday- No School (First evening of packing/passing out food bags for Arlington EATS- let me know if you'd like to volunteer or would like to request a bag for your family)

Friday- Picture Day 

*Save the date* Curriculum Night, Tuesday, September 30th (Mrs. Donato's talk at 6:45, visit our classroom 7-7:40)

If you don't get email updates from our blog, mrsmelnik.blogspot.com, let me know.

As always, let me know if you have any questions/concerns. 

Best,

Nicole 

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday!

Wow! This week flew by!

The kids have been working very hard at becoming more independent as we have many one-on-one assessments to complete so we can learn the students just right reading level and working number in math. 

Recording fluency and comprehension 

If I have 5 in all and you can see 2, how many are hiding? Finding the right number to practice in math! 

Tuesday, September 16th.. Dot Day!

Here's a Vine showing our fun word games from this morning!  Yesterday we decided that we had to practice keeping our sounds more quiet during word time.. And today the kids did a great job at it!

Today we celebrated Dot Day! 

We were inspired to make our mark on Drawing Pad.

video link

You can listen to The Dot here

We made our marks on paper with markers and paint too!  Look for an art gallery of these unique dots soon.. 

Look at all of those dot clothes too!

Then we used the colAR app to watch our dots go from 2D to 3D. 

Monday 9/15

Daily 5- Soon the kids will have 5 stations to choose from each day. 

Today the kids could choose between 3 stations- word work, read to self, and work on writing. Each child worked on 2 of these stations today. 

New pillows were a big hit! 

Calming time drawing:

Friday 9/12

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  Great to see so many of you at town day!  

Tuesday- wear dots! 

Here's a few pics from Friday. Readers workshop... Look at the engagement! 

Writing favorite memory of the week:

Favorite memory of the week- Kidblog!! 

2 upcoming events from Town Day that you may be interested in: 

Thursday, 9/11

The kids had a blast at Work on Words today.  They had many games to choose from... Swat was a hit!  Who doesn't have fun racing to swat a word with a fly swatter ;-) 

Check out this Vine, 6 second video:

Video link 

For Science today, the kids picked their favorite type of weather and we created a class graph.

As part of closing circle, we played Human Bingo.  Ask your child who... has a dog, knows how to ride a bike, has a brother/sister, has been on an airplane.  It was a fun way to end our day!

I have some "at home" jobs.. Let me know if you have a bit of time to help cut out game pieces.. Thanks in advance :-) 

Arlington EATS

I'm passionate about helping to decrease food scarcity in Arlington.
As part of the newly formed Arlington EATS organization, I helped make/pass out lunches and weekend food bags for families this summer.  We are now ramping up to have snacks available for students at schools across Arlington, as well as sending home weekend food bags.

Please consider helping out...
Visit our new website: http://www.arlington-eats.org/ or like us on Facebook at Arlington EATS.

Thank you for your support :-)

Wish List

Anyone have plastic test tubes?  I'd love to use them for a fine motor activity.


Supplies we'd love to add to the Work on Writing station:

ongoing all year:
49cent stamps
envelopes
stationary paper
stickers
pens with soft grip

Thank you! :-)

Wednesday, September 10th

What a wild Wednesday!  It all started off when I wished everyone a terrific Tuesday! oops! 

We ended our day with a dance party!!  We listened to music all day long.. during work, transitions, and for fun :-) The kids were singing, humming and dancing all day.

Wemberly Worried craft.. They're almost finished! 

In Science, we're studying all about weather.  Today's activity was a clothing sort.

One of our favorite movement breaks: Cha Cha Slide

Tuesday, September 9th

Our first day of Read To Self!  Each child read independently for 3 minutes!

Some of the reasons why the kids love Read To Self:

Morning Meeting Activity

Greet your neighbor with a handshake and remember to look your neighbor in the eye when you say "Good Morning ____ (name)."

A catchy song we have been practicing: Numbers in the Teens, They Start With a 1

Everyone was so busy during Math stations:

Monday, September 8, Day 5

Sounds like everyone had a nice weekend.. Check out http://kidblog.org/MrsMelnik/ to see some great Weekend Writing.  The goal today was to add spaces between words.

Look at these boys hard at work!!

Our first science unit is about weather.
Everyone loved our silly poem today!

Our focus in Mat was on our birthdays. Check out the bulletin board in the hallway.

Ask your child...
How did Lily's feelings change during our Read Aloud today?


We learned about Read to Self.  We will try it out tomorrow!


Today we practiced the sounds of the letters A through I.
Baby Echo helps us repeat the sounds.