First Grade

December Has Been a Very Busy Month In First Grade!

We have completed a multi-disciplinary unit on animals and have begun a new one on communities. Our units always consist of lots of reading, writing, drawing, and discussion.  Science and Social Studies projects are also included.

Our math activities have centered on learning to tell time on an analog clock, count coins, and identify and extend number patterns.

The holidays are almost here! The children worked diligently to learn seasonal songs and poems. Their holiday show was a great success! All of the first graders looked wonderful! They sang with beautiful voices and recited their poems with expression.

As always, it is a pleasure and a privilege to work with our Cove first grade students!

We wish you all a very happy holiday season and a healthy new year!

~ Grade One Staff

Fourth Grade

Working together to achieve a goal.  That's what the fourth grade has been learning about during their reading block. The essential question for this section in our reading program is: What can teams accomplish?  The students have been reading stories that answer this question.  As a culminating activity to tie into the season, groups of fourth graders across the three classrooms teamed up to create beautiful winter murals.  We observed collaboration, imagination, and smiling faces.

 Happy Holidays from the Fourth Grade!

Mrs. Egan, Mrs. Gilligan, and Mrs. Zieff

To All Parents that Attended out Winter Concert

Kindergarten Cuteness

Loving Crazy Hat Day!

The Educators of Cove School

Thankfully, the past few days have gone smoothly at our school. I wanted to take the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the educators and staff here. These amazing people have pulled together to create an environment of not only normalcy, but joy. These are human beings with big hearts and a true love of children. Rest assured in these troubled times, your children are in good hands.

I truly could not be more proud of them!

~Lisa Oliver, Cove Principal

Dear Cove Community,

We are all heartbroken to hear of the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary. Out of respect and support we are encouraging staff members to wear the colors green and white on Monday. These are Sandy Hook's school colors. Children are welcome to participate, if as a parent you are comfortable and feel this is appropriate.

Please reference the links below for what psychologists are reporting as appropriate ways to help children understand violence.

Please copy and paste to your browser:

http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/resources_for_families/talking_to_children_about_community_violence

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/talkingviolence.pdf

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22193150

Lastly, please watch for a parent email via Connect Ed with additional information about our safety procedures at Cove.

With Sympathy for the Sandy Hook School Community,
Lisa Oliver
Cove Principal

Free Books Online

The  Internet is a great source of free materials.  One often overlooked resource is the availability of free books that can be read on the computer, tablet or smart phone.  Most public libraries now offer limited downloading of books.  The following is a list of websites that offer free books for registering:

The commercial web sites www.barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com offer many free books.  In their search engine enter - free books.  Both require that you download their reader software.

These websites load their books in pdf files:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/ over 1,000,000 books online - tends more to academic subjects

http://manybooks.net/ includes links to Kindle and Nook downloads

www.wattpad.com - millions of reader uploaded stories

www.gutenberg.org - one of the original eBook sites more than 40,000 books whose copyright has expired

www.PageByPageBooks.com - classic books online - search by title or author

www.free-ebooks.net/ - free limited to 5 downloads a month - paid subscription offers unlimited downloads

www.scribod.com - huge number of free books

Winter Celebration

Kindergarten Families

Please Join Us for a Celebration of Winter Warmth!

Date: December 20, 2012

Time: 1:15

Place: Cove School Library

The Kindergarten Children will perform a short show featuring a winter poem and songs.  

Refreshments will follow in the Kindergarten Classrooms. 

Counselor’s Corner

By Ilene Conway, MSW

School Adjustment Counselor

How to Successfully Change Your Child’s Behavior: It’s Not Easy!

(Adapted from David Corcoran’s “An Overview of Applied Behavioral Analysis”)

Many parents ask themselves why their children engage in certain behaviors and the answer is a simple one. Behaviors happen because of what occurs immediately after. It is the consequence to the behavior that determines if the behavior will reoccur. A consequence is not a punishment it is a response or reaction a child receives or experiences as a result of his/her behavior

Many parents respond in a way that makes a child calm down(“giving in”) or keeps the child from experiencing a natural consequence, or allows a parent to sleep, or allows a parent to accomplish something (s)he needs to accomplish, or allows them to avoid dealing with a tantrum in that moment. Parents often chose the short-term solution which most often leads to an increase in problematic behaviors, rather than choosing the high demand behavioral intervention. It requires a great deal of time and energy to change behavior. In fact, children require a 7:1 ratio of positive reinforcers to negative reinforcers in order to change behavior.

(Next time: What are Natural and Logical Consequences to Negative Behaviors)

Early Dismissal Dec 5th

A Gentle Reminder that Children will be Dismissed at Noon Due to Parent Teacher Conferences on December 5th