Monday Memo 4/30/18

I hope you had a great weekend!

Yard Sale

Thank you for all of your help and support with our yard sale.  We had a great time, and we are excited to determine the charity to which we will donate the proceeds.  This week in math, we will count the money and roll the coins.

Mystery Reader

Thank you to Edan's dad for being our Mystery Reader on Friday.

Penpals

Thank you for helping your child complete the penpal assignment.  All the travel journals and photos of our penpals' Flat Stanleys' in various locales were priceless.  My aunt was in town yesterday for her vacation, and I gave her the package to bring back to her classroom.  We will Skype with our classes next week!

May Homework Calendar

Please click here for the link.  A paper copy will be sent home tomorrow, along with this very important assignment:  Community Worker Interview.  This assignment will be due on your child's Sharing Day next week.

Author Grace Lin to Visit!

Thanks to a grant from the Wayland Public School Foundation, ​this Friday ​morning ​

we will welcome a​uthor Grace Lin who will address the Happy Hollow Community about the importance of reading books that are mirrors of your own experience and windows into the lives of others. Grace Lin is the author and illustrator of more than a dozen children's books including Year of the Dog, which our class is currently reading.

Grace developed a Community Bookstop at Sunnyside School to bring the topic of race into the home and beyond.  She is the inspiration for developing our very own Community Bookstop.​  The Happy Hollow Community Bookstop will be located in the main lobby.  It is a collection of books for students and parents to read together that features characters from different cultural and racial backgrounds. We believe that the more discussions that our whole community is having about race and cultural backgrounds, the better educated students will be about the world.  Grace will perform a ribbon cutting to open the Bookstop.   We expect books to be ready for circulation in about two weeks time.

Open House

Please mark your calendar for Thursday, May 31 from 8:30-9 for our Open House!  We will have a short performance for you, and time for you to see your child's fantastic work. 

Have a great week!

Monday Memow (Tuesday Edition) 4/24/18

Bonjour!

I hope your vacation was wonderful.  Mine was completely and totally amazing.  We should all move to Paris.  It is so, so beautiful.  Here's a highlight:

With Mr. Lee and Kyle Tsiaris' Flat Stanley at Tour Eiffel

Is that a scream or what?!?!?!

Flat Stanley Penpal Homework Due THURSDAY! 

Please make sure your child has this assignment on Thursday.  We don't want any disappointed second graders in Santa Monica.  Please click here for the assignment.

Yard Sale

The Yard Sale homework is due on Friday.  Thank you for your help with this.

Field Trip

We had a great trip to The Butterfly Place.  I was so impressed with the second graders' excellent behavior.  It was a pleasure having Mr. Galizio, Mr. Zocco, Mr. Richter, and Ms. Williams.  Thank you very much for giving so generously of your time.

Our next field trip is Friday, May 25 to the North End, and all parents are welcome to attend.

Mystery Reader

Thank you to Christina Cevolani, Jack Buckley's mom, for being our Mystery Reader last week.

Monday Memo 4/9/18

Good morning!

I am very excited to be at the Massachusetts Reading Association Conference conference today and tomorrow.  Although I will not be at school, your children will still be with me in spirit because Gretchen Knox and I are presenting their Writer's Notebooks at the conference.  In November, Gretchen and I presented a similar workshop at the Connecticut Reading Association, and this conference is a kind of culmination of (almost) a year of writing with your children.   The students and I have discussed this a lot, and they are very proud to know that I am using their work.  I am so grateful to them.

We have an exciting week ahead of us.

Flat Stanley

Thank you so much for helping your child send their Flat Stanley off.  We are excited to share these projects this week.  As I've told the kids, some of the Flat Stanleys don't return by the due date, and it's fine.  We look forward to seeing your child's Flat Stanley when he/she arrives.

Oh, Baby!

Sharing the baby photos on Friday was so much fun, and no one guessed the correct baby on the first try!  If your child did not bring in their photo yet, please help them find one and send it in by Wednesday at the latest.  If you can't find a physical copy or are unable to provide a paper copy, please email it to me, and I will print it.

Mystery Reader

We loved having Dave Richter read to us on Friday.  Please try to sign up to be a Mystery Reader if your child has had someone sign up yet.  If the time listed doesn't work for you, please email me, and we can try to figure something out.

Earth Day

Your whole family is invited to Natick's Earth Day celebration on the Natick Common!  My father Pat Conaway runs this amazing event.  This year I can't attend (because I will be flying home from PARIS!!!), but I hope some of you will be able to check it out.

Penpals

Did you hear?  We received a package from our penpals in California, and they sent us Flat Stanleys!  Can you believe it!  Your child will bring home their penpal's Flat Stanley on Wednesday, and your child will take care of the Flat Stanley during vacation.  You can help your child by taking photos (no more than 5) of Flat Stanley in various places.  More info about this fun assignment will be given on Wednesday.  Stay tuned!

Thank you so much for all of your help and support.

Miriam

Monday Memo 4/2/18

Happy April!


 I hope you had a wonderful long weekend.

Flat Stanley

Flat Stanleys are due to return home to you on Friday, April 6.  We will share them next week on your child's Sharing Day.  Students can bring Flat Stanley in on Friday, or they may wait for their Sharing Day the following week.  Airlines being what they are, I know that sometimes Flat Stanleys are delayed on their return flights.  If your child's Flat Stanley is not returned in time to share next week, your child may certainly share the week of April 9th.

Once student's have shared the adventures of their Flat Stanley, they add a mini Flat Stanley to our second grade Flat Stanley bulletin board in the hallway and pin the place to which their flat friend traveled.  This turns into an amazing display. 

Homework

A paper copy of the April Homework calendar will be sent home today.

Sharing

Find a baby photo!  Our Sharing this week is Hello Baby!  This is due on Friday, and we will guess the babies.

Field Trip

Thank you so much for submitting the signed permission slip and check.  We are excited for our journey to The Butterfly Place.  I will let you know by Friday if you have been selected as a chaperone.  Thank you for your willingness to help.

Our Painted Ladies hatched!

Author Visit

We were inspired by Matt de la Pena's visit to Happy Hollow last week.  The author of Last Stop on Market Street and Love, among others, told us about his childhood growing up with a Mexican mother and a white father in San Diego and how he wanted to write books for children that they could see themselves in, as he often couldn't find books as a child that reflected the poverty in which he grew up.  Thank you to Colleen Flannery, our Library/Media specialist, for arranging this event.

Talking with author Matt de la Pena

Have a great week!

Miriam