**Please return all field trip permission slips ASAP. If your child is getting a library card, please read the info on filling out the application. The student must write their first and last name themselves. If you are interested in volunteering your time...join in the fun!
**Our Traveling Poets time was last Wednesday. Ms. Noonan supervised the students as they traveled from room to room spreading poetry joy! A poetic time was had by all.
**The 4th Annual Poetry Slam, under the direction of Mr Williams, was a smashing success!! Let's hear it for our little slammers, Ethan, Ariadne, McKenna, Hannah, Gabriela and Sammy, Niko and Henry! They were marvelous. Great poetry original, read and recited. We heard poetry in Chinese, French, couplets, limericks and haiku. Kids and grown ups alike joined in.
**Our end of the year Tech Project (Memory Book) is going well under the direction of Mrs. Appleby. We have another session on Wednesday, May 25th from 8:30-9:30 am. B. Metric, T. Zurawski and M. Chapman-Rienstra are slated to help. If you have that hour to spare...come join us!
**Our All School Olympic Day is Friday, May 27th. See the homework packet for info on events. We will perform our Olympic feats from 8:30-10:45 am. You are welcome to come.
Following Olympic morning, we will be walking to Barrie Park to have lunch to celebrate our 120 Eagle Wings. Permission slips for that will go out on Monday from Ms. Creehan. Feel like taking a walk and having lunch with us....just let me know.
**Our last Friendship Club with Ms. Bell-Bey was Friday. The students choose to have a free choice time to demonstrate their interpersonal skills.
**The ULTIMATE VOCABULARY CHALLENGE has come to an end. All the students received frisbees (which we used on Thursday afternoon). By far, the word REPUGNANT was our most favorite and widely used new word!!!!
**Reading Grandma's final time with us will be Friday, June 3rd. We will miss our Fridays with her.
**Don't forget Sibling Hour is Friday, May 27th from 2:00-2:55 pm. All siblings 4 and under are invited to attend. Our "almost first graders" will show them around!
**The last day of of school is Tuesday, June 7th from 8:00-9:00 am. I am already getting teary eyed! It is a family hour. We will have a mini breakfast (granola bars and fruit), sign our autograph books and get report cards/summer tips. First Grade, here we come!!!!!
**Last book order of the year is on line only.--click on the book at the top of the blog--activation code is under it.
**Spelling City is updated.
**Please let me know if you need your xtramath code number for the summer.
This week: It was all about seed sponges, seed bags and WORMS! We have much to observe in our classroom. The students are studying what occurs when seeds are spread on super wet sponges and in plastic bags that contain very wet paper towels. Jack brought us some super great red wiggler compost to observe and feed. We took some of the wigglers out to see them under the magnifier. Wow, they really wiggle and move effortlessly through the soil. Jack was very mindful that they needed to be put back into the compost to keep doing their work. We studied information about the earthworm and read one of our favorites, "Diary of a Worm."
Reading: This week, we have concluded Unit 7-Teamwork, our final unit in our Open Court series. We continue to review all phonemic awareness and phonics skills. We are reading for meaning. We continue to discuss the main idea of our decodable and literature stories as well as story elements. We are using written form to express what we think, to sequence events, retell, infer, to tell what will happen next and to practice our sentence writing. We are using our oral language skills to discuss, pick out details, predict and build fluency. We will continue to use this format until the end of school.
Math: We are continuing to review money-- coins and values and ways to use coins to make a
dollar. The students learned to play the "Digit" and "Double Digit" games. Students use special number cubes. They take turns rolling the cubes and recording the lowest number made and the highest number made. The students also reviewed pattern block shapes and geometric solids. We will dismantle our MULTI-DIMENSIONAL SHAPE MUSEUM next week. The students partnered up to create a page for our Story Problem Book. The partners created a story problem, wrote is out, illustrated it and wrote the number sentence to go with it, We have some pretty creative stories. It will be on display for you to check out next week. We are still having a ball with "What's My Rule." The students are getting quite adept at it.
Writing: We studied Worms and Worms became the focus of our 4 sentence paragraphs. We started by brainstorming what we learned about earthworms(pre-writing). We then formulated 4 questions that our paragraph would answer. The students wrote the answers to the questions on their draft. They re read their draft. They checked for capital letters, lowercase letters, use of punctuation. (beginning proof reading) Their inventive or phonetic spelling remains acceptable. Next week, we will write our final copy.
Science: We are observation central this week. The students continue to observe and reflect on their home plant. Many student's drawings reflect secondary leaves and new growth. The students continue to observe and measure the height of their table plant. They are now going around to the other tables to discuss and compare leaf shapes, stem size, which plant is the tallest so far, which plants stems are not straight etc. It has been pretty fun! The students are also observing what is taking place on their seed sponges and seed bags and recording and reflecting on that information. We continue to observe our indoor class garden which contains the cucumber plants we will plant very soon in our outside bed. We are feeding and observing our compost bin with the red wigglers. (What happened to that mango piece and strawberry
slice?) Everyday, something new to observe and reflect on. Next week--water vs. no water.
Literature: "Tools for a Garden," "Growing a Garden," "All Kinds of Gardens," "What Lives in a Garden," "Diary of a Worm," "Earl the Earthworm Digs for His Life," "Animals in the Garden," "I Can't Said the Ant," "The Life and Times of the Ant," Poetry from "Hip Hop Speaks to Children," "Poetry for the Young by Langston Hughes."
