Welcome Chicks!

This week has been an exciting one! We welcomed 8 new members to our room 4 community. These 8, happen to be slightly smaller and fuzzier than the rest of the students. 8 Chicks arrived. & arrived 1-2 days early and the last one arrived on schedule, day 21. We brainstormed names throughout the week and have named them all.In no particular order we have: Uno, Bruno, Pippie, LuLu, Pancake, Henrietta, Snickerdoodle and Squishy. They are pretty awesome! We have learned about the brooder box and the needs of a chick. Students will learn more about the life cycle of a chicken and their anatomy,etc. Other things we had going on this week were a book swap on Wednesday morning, mindfulness with Tara Luce (it was great), and Ms. Leah has been taking students out in small groups two times per week to water our flowers in the community garden. On Friday students earned their prize for willing their pom-pom jar for positive behavior and they chose a movie day, so we had popcorn and watched, "Chicken Run." Will has been coming to help us out in the afternoon and next week will be his last week; students will really miss him and so will teachers. He has been a big help and very kind to students. We will celebrate him on June 1st with a gift and party.

Here is an overview of some of the learning going on as we approach our last month of school:

Reading:

Students continue to practice their syllable rules and learn the /aw/ and /all/ patterns. Students are working hard on contractions and I am hoping to work on handwriting with all students so I send them to 2nd grade with both well-polished handwriting and strong grammar skills. We continue with daily guided reading groups and building fluency and comprehension skills. I have been finishing up BAS assessments with some help from Beth Wotjsuik. Students have made so much progress. Please keep reading with your child each day this summer; even 10 minutes each day will make a huge impact!

Writing:

Students are finishing up their research paragraphs on embryology and chickens. Students worked in pairs based on common research question interest. Students learned about different text features like table of contents, index, glossary, labels, photos, captions, diagrams, etc. and used these features to gather facts and details to answer their question. Students also used computers to do some of their research, using kid-friendly search engines. One great one is kiddle.co! Students are working on writing an introduction, giving facts with supporting details and adding a conclusion to their paragraph. Then students will add scientific drawings to support their writing.

Math:

Students have been working on coins this week. Students have been identifying coins, adding and subtracting, building different amounts using coins, when giving a certain number of cents. Students have been challenged by making the same number with coins in two different ways. Students have also practiced making change and we have set up a class store. We will finish coins next week and start measurement as our last unit before the end of the year. With the help of Mary Lambert, our math coach, 1st grade teachers have been working on the end of the year assessments for math, which is using an AVMR assessment. Students were given this in the fall and by reassessing them at the end of the year we can see where they fall in five different categories: number ID, forward counting, backward counting, structuring, and addition and subtraction. 

Reminders:

• We would love snack donations to get us through the end of the year.
• Monday, June 5th is our field trip to Look Park. Please send your child with clothes that can get wet, a towel, and/or change of clothes. Sunscreen and a water bottle is a great idea.
• Monday 5/29 is a holiday-enjoy your 3-day weekend!