Winter Program ~ Friday, December 20 ~ 10:00 a.m.

El Día y La Noche

The Day and The Night
An Abington Friends Lower School Winter Program
Friday, December 20, 2012 ~ 10:00 a.m.
Abington Friends School Muller Auditorium

~ Winter Program Concert Attire ~
All children, 3 years old through Grade 4 should dress in black shirts, long, black pants, and comfortable shoes.  Children are welcome to add a white accessory as a way to connect to our program theme (a white bowtie, white hair accessory, a white scarf, etc.)  We encourage children to be creative with this choice!  All children are encouraged to bring their concert attire clothing to school on Thursday prior to the program.  Children will be given the opportunity to change at school on Friday morning prior to the 10 a.m. performance.

Please note that all children will be involved in movement activities on stage and should wear pants and comfortable shoes (no heels please).  In addition, we ask that third and fourth graders wear black socks for their movement performances.

We look forward to celebrating our accomplishments with you on

Friday, December 20^th in our Muller Auditorium beginning at 10:00 a.m.

If you have any questions, please contact Aedín Larkin, alarkin@abingtonfriends.net or Jason Novak, jnovak@abingtonfriends.net.

EC Extended Day's Chinese Names and Zodiac Signs

During Extended Day, Shengjie taught friends a few things about Chinese background and culture. Each friend was given his/her name written in Chinese and what the meaning behind his/her Chinese name is. Some friends drew a picture based on the meaning of their Chinese names. With some help from their teacher, friends practiced writing their name in Chinese. 

Next, friends worked with their teacher to figure out what their Chinese birth year Zodiac Sign is.  Friends that are 3 years old are born in the year of the Tiger; and our 4 year old friends are born in the year of the Ox. Last, our 5 years old are the year of the Rat. Once friends figured out which year they were born in, they cut out their animal and glued it to their sheet.  Each friend could not wait to share their new Chinese information with their families at pick up time. 

Stay tuned, because friends will be learning a special Chinese song!

Our First AFS Lower School Assembly

First days of school are filled  with many new experiences!  The air of  excitement is felt in our Cardinal classroom as we approach each new activity.  This week we joined as a full Lower School community and participated in our assembly program.  Assembly is a special time in our Lower School world where the children come together as a  community and begin to feel  the connection to our larger AFS family.  As the children gathered together in the Mueller auditorium,voices of joy were heard as children spotted familiar faces, friends , siblings and Lower School neighbors.  Joining together as one community fosters one of our most valued goals of building community from within.   

In today's assembly program Rich Nourie played guitar  and sang songs with us! We joined in a sing-a-long and everyone enjoyed singing together with all of our new friends!  We became more familiar with the names of the teachers in Lower School through a fun, interactive game .

As we walked through the hall back to our classroom, children we relaxed, holding friends hands and chatting along the way! What a great beginning to our school year!

Sharing Traditions

Our opening days of school have been fantastic! Children are making new friends and are thrilled to be back at AFS reunited with classmates and old friends.   Our sense of our "Cardinal family" and classroom  community is evolving and is clearly observed and felt throughout the day.  Morning Meeting has been a wonderful way for the children to begin to connect with each other,  their teachers and our flow of the day. Today at Morning Meeting , Paula shared some of the traditions and customs she and her family have in celebrating Rosh Hashanah.  Paula set 'the holiday table' with several of the traditional items that her family has on their table for the holidays and sang the blessings that her family sings when lighting the candles, breaking bread and drinking from the kiddish cup.  We looked at beautiful photographs of children celebrating the holidays in the book Celebrate Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur and learned that Rosh Hashanah is the celebration of the New Year.  The children loved eating challah for snack and enjoyed dipping apples into honey to symbolize a sweet year for all! Sharing family traditions supports our goals of developing a deeper awareness of our similarities and differences as well as establishing our sense of community. We welcome you to share family traditions and customs throughout the year.  

Our Writing Center is evolving.  Children are asked to  sign-in each morning upon arrival . This a an opportunity for children to practice fine motor skills, develop pencil grip and support readiness skills. We have a basket of the children's names available for copying and several of the children are learning to recognize and read the written names of their friends. As interest and readiness  in writing develops, children often select words and names from our word baskets and enjoy copying words for their work. 

 We introduced journals today in the Writing Center.  The children were very excited to have new 

journals and were fully engaged in both drawing and dictating stories.  Several children asked to share their journals at meeting and were so proud of their work!

Glimpses of Choice Time

Glorious First Day of School

Our first days of school have been glorious!  The children are becoming familiar and comfortable  with our Cardinal classroom and seem to be adjusting to the beginning days of school with ease!  Children are engaged in play with each other in several learning centers in our classroom as well as in our outdoor classroom. On more than one occasion, we have all commented on how the group has blended together in such a natural way and that it actually feels like we have been together for weeks !  What a great feeling....

It has been a joy to observe new friendships emerging as well as old friends reuniting after our summer break.  Our pictures speak a thousand words... enjoy getting a glimpse of our first days of school captured though the photos we have taken.

Happy beginning of our Cardinal year together!