Family Camp

One of my favorite summer getaways is our family camp on Woodbury Lake. I get to spend time with my mom & dad, brothers, sister-in-laws, and nieces and nephews. We've had loons on the lake for several years though never nesting loons. This summer one of the pairs of loons hatched an egg and now we get to watch the chick as it grows and learns how to be a loon. Just this past weekend it learned how to dive under water! Now it can begin fishing and feeding itself. The parents don't seem to mind us kayaking close by. Of course we are quiet and very respectful of their privacy. They actually don't even seem to mind when we go flying by in the motorboat with skiers and tubers trailing behind!!

Bookmobile

Have you seen the Bookmobile cruising through your neighborhood? Mrs. Tursi and I caught up with a group of children checking out books and playing games that the bookmobile driver passed out. We had a great time reading, drawing, and playing with Mrs. Tursi's stuffed animals. We even got to see a rainbow! If the bookmobile doesn't visit your area make sure to take a trip to the town library. There are loads of great events listed on the kids page.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Graduation Day

Sam graduated from Mount Mansfield Union High School on Saturday, June 19th. Given that his passion in life is digital filmmaking he decided to mount a small video camera on his hat and film the graduation ceremony. After he had received his diploma he turned and faced all the other graduates, many of whom proceeded to do the wave! I am so proud of the fine young man he has turned out to be! Sam is a joy to live with and fills our house with laughter. He will be going on to Champlain College to study digital filmmaking later this summer.

Final Spelling Test

June 16, 2010

Hi Friends,

You've only been gone for 3 hours and I already miss you! Here are the pictures from our final "spelling test" that we had today. I just loved the looks on your faces when you smelled and felt the shaving cream on your hands. It didn't take you long to dive in and have fun!

Remember to use your summer reading calendar every day, create stories from the the small moments in your life, and check the blog every week to see what's new and what I've been up to this summer. The 3 best things you can do this summer in your free time are read, read, and read!

Fondly,

Ms. Rogers

Scientists Solving Environmental Polution

We have been experimenting with various environmental toxins or simulated toxins as it were. It's quite refreshing how many children already knew about organic gardening and foods. Good work parents! Our latest experiment was on how best to clean up an oil spill. The children devised a fair test for 6 different materials (newspaper, cotton balls, paper napkin, nylon stocking, copy paper, and coffee filters) and cleaned up a simulated oil spill using motor oil. It was amazing how quickly some test materials absorbed the oil and how others had to be saturated with water prior to absorbing the oil. The children had a great time and learned a lot about absorption and the current PB oil spill.

Happy Farmers

We have completed our farm unit in math! Every group worked diligently, right up to the purchase and planting of the very last crop and scarecrow. They are all very proud of their farms and want to keep them as their own. We will be having a random drawing for each farm group and 4 lucky winners will be bringing home a gentleman's farm. Might I suggest the entire front of your fridge as a way to display their hard work?! If not you can always copy one of the pictures below and make it your new desktop picture.

Wordle

The class created a "wordle" this morning describing what they like best about Allen Brook School. It will be displayed on a tree with all of their names festively written in glitter! The tree symbolizes our roots here at ABS while all our other teammates will be flying around our tree as a flock of doves, symbolizing the wings they will need as they move over to WCS.

The bigger the word, the more times that word was entered into the wordle. No surprise to me that the biggest word is activities! They are an active bunch.