April 2018
Rm. 25
Dear Families,
Our first day back
after spring break was filled with smiles, laughter, hugs and plenty of
stories! It was great to see how excited our class was to see friends and get
back into our routine. They seemed well rested and eager to continue the
journey of learning. As teachers, we have had many discussions about higher
expectations for the children for the end of the year and we feel that they are
ready for these new challenges. We will be continuing our work with skills in
reading, writing, science, social studies, and math. The calendar says that
spring is here, but when we look out our windows and see a fresh 12 inches of
snow, we wonder…April is a time to begin preparing for change.
Reading
Reading groups continue
to go well. Our focus on comprehension, fluency and reading with expression has
really paid off. During the next month we will be talking about identifying
with the characters in our books. We will discuss three main points:
1.
Readers
read and reread, paying attention to what characters are thinking and feeling,
and use smooth storytelling voices to bring out characters’ thoughts and
feelings.
2.
Readers –
like actors and directors – find the important moments in stories and talk and
think more deeply about them.
3.
Readers pay
attention to patterns to predict and understand characters – and we share our
discoveries to grow our understandings.
We continue our word
work and have begun talking about “no excuse words” – words we really need to learn how to read and
spell correctly. We will also have a lesson on punctuation – “A Punctuation
Conversation” and read the book “Exclamation Point.”
Thank you for your
support with “Take Home Reading”. Our reading log for April asks children to
record the time of day they are reading, and how that time works for them.
Writing
The focus of our new
writing unit is realistic fiction. We will begin by having children do
something they already love doing – pretending! We will learn that fiction
writers call on their pretending skills to invent characters and small moment
adventures and then we will come up with characters of our own, name them and
put them into imagined scenarios.
Throughout this unit we
will encourage students to write lots of realistic fiction stories quickly and
with independence. We will talk about the notion that characters face a bit of
trouble - and that writers then get their characters out of trouble to give
readers a satisfying ending.
We are looking forward
to teaching this unit – we are guessing it will be a favorite. I hope you continue to share family stories. Tell
your child stories of your day and expect to hear similar stories from your
child. This will help develop your child’s
oral language skills and it will fill your child with ideas for writing. Thank you for your support!
Science
We will begin our
dinosaur unit soon. This unit demonstrates more of our ever-changing earth and
helps us create a timeline of life on earth. Our field trip to the MN Science
Museum on Wednesday April 24th (non-uniform day) is certain to be
exciting, and we are sure they will come back more enthused than ever to delve
deeper into the subject! We will visit as scientists who take notes and make
sketches in our journals.
Social
Studies
Our new C.A.R.E. Theme
is: Advocacy
Math
We began our week with a few lessons on telling time to the hour and
half hour. We practiced using the term o’clock to tell the time to the hour and
to read and show time on a clock. We are now ready for our next math unit -
getting ready for multiplication and division. In this chapter, your child will
be introduced to the concepts underlying multiplication and division. Some of
the skills your child will practice are:
· Using
objects or pictures to find the total number of items in groups of the same
size
· Using objects
or pictures to find the number of items in each group when sharing equally
Before learning to multiply and divide numbers, children must understand
the conceptual idea underlying these operations. Use simple activities around
the house to help them grasp the idea of sharing objects equally.
Birthday Wishes ... April 9 – April 23
As
you know we have been talking about Birthdays as part of our on-going social
studies unit. First grade is helping Ms. Zosel with Birthday Wishes – a food
drive to help our local food shelf. We want all children to enjoy celebrating
their birthday! We are collecting items that make birthdays special, like cake
mix, frosting, candles, paper plates, napkins, etc. We have learned that people
around the world celebrate in other ways and so we have included the following
things on our list of items to collect: rice, noodles, cookie mix, pizza crust,
pancake mix, disposable cake pans, oil, etc. Students may bring these items to
their classroom or to the 1-2 Commons. As always, our collections are OPTIONAL.
Thank you!
Thank you for volunteering throughout the year. The
events that the children have enjoyed so thoroughly have been greatly enhanced
by your enthusiastic participation.
IMPORTANT DATES TO
REMEMBER:
April 24 All-day
trip to the Minnesota Science Museum –
Please wear good walking shoes, and comfy clothes (this is a non-uniform day.)
April 27 6:00 p.m. “Get in Gear” Fun Run
May 18 Field Day 9:30
– 11:30 (all parents are welcome! –
this is a non-uniform day).
May 25 Field Day rain
date
May 28 NO SCHOOL – Memorial Day
June 1 Closing Exercises
Sincerely,
Marie Murphy and Carly Skates
No comments:
Post a Comment