Hi Parents,
What a fun week we had, with our field trip and a performing arts performance and the book fair! Our springtime has been so busy with activities. I'm hoping the flexibility of the "going green" homework will help you to be able to take a deep breath and do what's important for your child. I hope you got an opportunity sometime this week to visit our wonderful book fair. Thank you Keaton and Miranda for donating books to our classroom library from the book fair! With the exciting interest in chapter books, the children are loving these new additions! Check out below to find out what we've been doing this week...
Phonics/Grammar: This week, we learned three new spelling patterns for long e (ea), long a (ai) and long o (oa). It is going to be more important than ever for you to make sure you check your child's folder on Monday and Tuesday to look for the week's phonics focus words since we will not be sending homework packets each week. We devote at least 30 minutes every morning during the week to learning and practicing these new spelling patterns, but some children require additional work at home and that is where your job begins. Our spelling pattern for next week will be the two sounds of y when it is found at the end of a word. Examples of words are city, candy, Cindy and sky, cry, shy.
Writing: This week, we began our final genre of writing; Response to Literature. In this type of writing, the children will learn how to read or listen to a story and then write a summary and state their opinion about the book, relying on details from the story to base their opinion. I hope your child shared the first response to literature story with you that came home on Wednesday. This was a guided story, meaning we wrote this together in order for me to teach the important components of this type of writing. Next week, the children will show me what they can do independently.
Reading: We worked on challenging chapter books in small groups this week to incorporate all of the strategies we have learned this year that make us better readers. We completed several skill-based activities as well as comprehension activities with these books. We reviewed nouns, verbs, and compound words as well as using the UNRAAVEL strategy (which is used in 2nd grade and up) to help us answer comprehension questions. We also read several chapters in our book, The White Giraffe. Ask your child to tell you about Martine's adventures! The kids are so excited every time I pull out this book. I would encourage you this summer to choose chapter books to read out loud to your child at night. Kids this age still need to be read to, which really develops fluency as well as increasing vocabulary knowledge. If you'd like some book recommendations, let me know!
Math: We worked on double digit subtraction strategies. We first used models of tens and ones to understand the concept of subtracting from the tens and ones, then we moved to the steps needed to solve without the use of models. Make sure you look over your child's work that is coming home. Provide that extra support and practice if your child struggles with this skill. Subtraction gave some of the students a challenge.
Science: We learned ways to classify animals according to their skin covering. We read several online resources on the Pebble Go site, teaching us which animals were covered in skin, feathers, hair, scales, or fur. We made a flip book and illustrated it with animals.
Class News and Reminders...
Wow! I have to give a shout out to my first grade friends! WAY TO GO on that AWESOME behavior Thursday at the Botanical Gardens! Everyone listened and was respectful. I heard wonderful manners when we left the bus, and our bus driver commented that our class "was wonderful and so polite with their manners".
Thank you, Mrs. Huffstetler, who chaperoned our field trip! Even through the drizzle, we had a wonderful time.
Thank you, Abrams and Samiec families, for your donations to our classroom from the book fair!
I also wanted to thank all the parents who donated their valuable time this year to help with AR. Next week will be the final week for AR helpers.
The talent show is tonight at 7:00. You will also have the opportunity to visit the ART SHOW and purchase your child's artwork.
Make sure you keep up with your child's tie-dyed shirt. We will be using those one final time, when we go to the Atlanta zoo.
We have gone all the way through our class list with the snack sack. If your child brings home the snack sack, you have the privilege of getting it twice this year! Thank you in advance for helping fill our tummies every morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment