April 1, 2014

Reading Restaurant is Coming Up!  Can you help us get ready?

Greetings, Parents!

We have been hard at work on our Space Research projects. We are also painting phases of the moon, making Elmer's Glue moon craters, and  twisting apart Oreos to create a Waxing Gibbous Moon!

The Horizon Reading Restaurant will take place here in Horizon on Thursday, April 17th. I will be sending out to you an invitation tomorrow. Please sign it and send it back as soon as you can to let us know how many seats we should reserve for you!

Here is what we need help with:

1. Make  (milk-jug) Space Helmets  for the kids: Take home our 20 milk jugs, cut them into the shape of a helmet with scissors, spray painting them (paint provided). estimated time: 1.5 hours.  You can do this at home. Deadline:  Friday, 4/11

 2. Make (soda-bottle) astronaut jet packs for the kids: take home 20 pairs of soda bottles, spray-paint, glue, and tape them onto cardboard. Estimated time: 3 hours  Materials are provided. You can do this at home. Deadline: Friday, 4/11

3. Put up Bulletin-Board Displays in the Classroom: come in any day this week or next. give me an hour of your time. We have five or six "moon", and "space" displays that we need to complete with a little cutting, pasting, and labeling, and then put up on our walls.

You would let me know what day or days you have free, and we'll get you in here for an hour or so. Deadline: Friday, 4/11

4. Volunteer to come in (and bring your kid!) on Saturday, April 12th or Sunday, April 13th any time between about 8:00 am and 1:00 pm. We'll be in here doing final painting of scenery and hanging of (electric) stars. Doughnuts, juice, and coffee provided! We had a great time together last year.

5. Type up our students' rough drafts of their research projects into final-draft form for our Reading Restaurant. Estimated time: your call. One to two hours. Can be done at home. Deadline: Friday, 4/11

6. For the most courageous of all: come in to the classroom, sit down with a student, help her to read her book about Saturn and talk to her about how to pull out the information and answer the questions she has for her report. Estimated time: 40 minutes. Value: priceless.

6a: Ask your own child what he or she is doing for the space report. It'd be great if you could spend some time over the next couple of days helping your boy or girl look up their topic on Youtube. You may find an interesting Discovery-Channel program on your child's topic. Also, just talk about what you know about his or her topic. It'll give them a foundation and a lot of confidence for when they dig into their books and websites in here.

That's it for now.  Have a great week. And thank you, in advance, for whatever you can do.

Mr. Bolger

March 19, 2014

March 19, 2014

Hello Parents! 

A few dates and details: 

1) Reminder: can you donate $1.00 with your child to  the Heifer Project 

 (look it up on YouTube) -- the $ is used to buy and donate a farm animal to families in developing countries.   I have asked your children to do a chore to defray the cost :)

2)  Williston Variety Show- this Friday evening (Call WCS front office for tickets. Hurry! They sell out!) -Mrs. Powers, Mr. Terko, Ms. T-H, and I, will be in it. I think tix are $5.00. 

3)  Jump Rope for Heart:; Friday, March 28th.

4)  Field Trip to the Flynn Theater on Weds. April 16th.

5)  Reading Restaurant: Thurs. April 17th (Theme: Space)

   - note: please send in gallon milk jugs (for making  18 space helmets) .  

             Also, please send in two-liter soda bottles. We need enough to have two

             per student (jet packs!) 

6) Field Trip to  The Montshire Museum: Friday, May 16th.

7) We are studying the moon and the constellations as we launch our Space Studies unit. In Writing, we are finishing up our fictional short stories and we will begin research projects next week. 

8) FYI: we've had another sighting of Strep in Horizon.

That's it for now. Hope to see you at the Variety Show!

Mr. Bolger

February 6, 2014

Feb 6, 2014

Dear Parents,

We celebrated the 100th day of school today. It was a ton of fun; about half the students created 100th-Day projects and they shared them: "100 places I've been," "100 books I've read," "Here's a bridge I made out of 100 marshmallows," etc.  I really noticed how when you invite/allow a child  to show artistically something they know about, each kid's display is entirely different from the next kid's, and each kid is often into something enirely different from his or her classmates.

Yesterday, we went to see the 3rd-4th-grade chorus perform at WCS.  It was exciting to see so many former Horizon students; they were singing their hearts out.  Our kids were thrilled when one of the songs the 3rd and 4th graders did was Amani Utupe  which we sing in the kiva all the time. Ask your child to sing a couple of bars for you.

Dental Cleaning: There will be a dental cleaning clinic at ABS in the coming days. Please check the School Bell for info, or call the main office to schedule a cleaning for your child.

Feb. 5, 2014

Feb. 5, 2014

Dear Parents, 

Wow! What a busy couple of weeks.  Here's a quick overview of what we've been doing:

In Reading and Writing, 

- we have been finishing our Opinion pieces. I asked students to think of the best place in Vermont and then to try to convince others to go there.  Our list of "best places in Vermont" include Cochran's Ski Area,  Derby Line, and Olive Garden.  We've focused on organization and voice in these pieces.  Look for them soon on our KidBlog. 

- Elsewhere in Literacy, it's I Love to Read and Write Month, so every classroom at ABS is doing 10-minute "Stop, Drop, and Read" periods throughout the day tomorrow.  Another interesting project is that a rolling writing easel is making its way from room to room. Every classroom adds two lines to an ongoing  story. Ask you child to tell you what this exciting fiction story has, thus far, been about! 

- For Read-Aloud, we are reading Matilda. We just can't get enough of Roald Dahl. 

- Please keep those reading logs coming in. We've got a lot of good loot from the holidays hidden in our treasure chest!  Let me know if your child is having trouble finding good books to read. I went to the bookstore recently, and I have lots of suggestions. 

Comings and goings:

- We were sad to say, "Good-bye" to our classmate, Halle Christian. She and her mom, Jessica,  moved to Colchester, but she will continue to have a spot on our Kidblog. It will be fun to see her comments pop up on our blog posts! You can still reach Halle by the telephone number written on the Bolger-class Friendship List we sent home (or see it below.)

-Danielle Hertz, a Junior from Champlain College, is our new Tuesday/Thursday teaching intern. She's from Los Angeles, and she brings us lots of energy.  Welcome also to Alyssa Jeffer from UVM. She will be with us every Thursday. 

Science Experiments:

- As you know,  we have been growing lettuce and carrots in our indoor, classroom garden, and we harvested and ate a huge salad of it yesterday. Yum! We also got the idea to do an experiment to figure out if saying nice things to a plant will make it grow taller that a plant to which we say lots of mean things. We designed an experiment on Monday after lots of discussion as to what would prove it one way or the other.  Now,  we will be saying lots of sweet and sour things this week  as we measure and record our data. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, our sharing theme for this week is "Do  you think your feelings (and expressing those feelings) can affect how tall a plant grows?" 

Upcoming Events:

- Weds: The 3rd-4th-grade music concert:  we will bus over at about 1:15 pm. tomorrow.  We will be back at ABS in time to take board buses from ABS to go home. 

- Thursday: We celebrate the 100th Day of School! Our optional assignments: make something that has 100 in it. Also, we are inviting students to look in their cupboard and see if they can WASH THEIR HANDS, and then count out 100 of something that we can add to our class's 100th-Day Gorp. We will have 100th-day  activities throughout the day.

Thank you, kids, and Karen Allen, for my magnificent 100th-day t-shirt complete with 100 buttons! I opened it up today, but I promise I won't wear it until Thursday. 

- Next 2 Weeks: Parent-Teacher Conference/or ands: don't forget to sign up! There are slots still available between next Monday and the Friday the 21st. 

- Next Friday: Valentine's Day Celebration: will take place, of course, on Friday, February 14th. Because many students leave to ski on Friday afternoons, we have decided that we'll exchange valentines and have a little celebration in the morning. Then, we'll  have Valentines cupcakes in the afternoon, and  for the skiers, we'll wrap the cupcakes up in little bags for them to take home with them.

- Thursday, April 17th: keep the date for our Horizon Reading Restaurant.

A couple of last things:

- Thank you, Karen Allen, for bringing  in your harp last Wednesday and playing for us. It was  just beautiful. We sang This Land is  Your Land, Loch Lomond, and You are My Sunshine with new  words. 

- Looking for 1-pint or 1/2-pint mason jars. We would like to grow sprouts in our indoor garden to eat during snack time. 

Well, that's all, Folks!   Have a wonderfully-snowy-but-safe end to your week. 

Mr. Bolger

Sign Up for Parent-Teacher Conferences (Monday, 2/10- Friday, 2/21)

Jan. 30, 2014

Dear Parents,

Please cut and paste the link below into your browser to sign up for Upcoming Parent-Teacher Conferences. Slots are available between Monday, February 10th and Friday, February 21st.  On most days, I have openings from 7:00-7:30 a.m. and then from 4:00-4:30 p.m. On several days, there are also openings from 3:00-4:00.  If none of these times work for you, please don't hesitate to email me.

Thanks. See you soon!

Mr. Bolger

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F084FA4AF2EA02-bolger

Happy New Year!

January 2, 2014

 

Hello Parents!

Welcome back! It was great to see all the kids today. We came up with our New Year's resolutions. Each child will be posting his or hers on our Horizon display in the hall. Ask your child what his or her resolution is.  We also visited the library -- they had an extra slot and we took advantage of it since we missed Library on Tuesday. If your child still has a library book at home from before the vacation, please help him or her remember to bring it in tomorrow.

Next week we will be launching a writing unit on Persuasive Writing. We will also begin our second six-week "WIN" unit of the school year ("What I Need") For the 2:00-2:30 block Monday through Thursday, we organize all of our (Horizon) students into a half-dozen study groups. Each group "attends" a particular mini-course with a Horizon teacher.  We pair students with an academic focus because of an expressed interest or a talent or a need for strengthening in that area. We do these intensive studies in a variety of subjects from reading fluency or reading comprehension or handwriting to math-facts fluency or  math problem-solving to research or science. The first round was a big success, and the kids were enthusiastic.

That's all for now. Happy (almost) Friday (already).

Mr. Bolger