NEWSLETTER 4-29

Hi! It’s great to be back! The kids are rested and ready to work! We are in the midst of the rain forest. There are animals and plants everywhere...some are even life size:)! It’s been great learning about the rain forest animals that the kids have researched. We are taking notes as we learn in our journals.

The play, AN EARTH DAY CAROL, is coming along great! We will perform it for family and friends on Friday, May 13th at 8:30 in the cafeteria. Everyone is invited back to the room to see our rain forest after. The entire thing will last 30-45 minutes.

READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS

We started something new in reading this week. Each child is responsible for reading one book or two chapters silently. After reading, they respond in a journal. If they finish before time is up, they read from their free choice book. I meet with individuals during this time to listen to them read, talk about vocabulary and check in with their comprehension.  As you can see we are getting older, becoming more responsible and doing a great job with our reading!! It’s exciting to watch.

We wrote autobiographies. They go great with our play because we told about our past, present and future! We will share them with your after our play on the 13th!

MATH

We finished up our Unit 8 assessment and will head into our final unit of first grade math next week. Don’t worry...I won’t stop teaching math just because we will finish the program early! We will review skills, play some new math games and keep learning new skills. Unit Nine will cover two digit addition and subtraction, money, making change, geometry and measuring.

HOMEWORK ALERT

I will be sending books home less frequently because many of the kids are at the point where they do not need to reread their book unless they want to.  I also like to leave chapter books here until they finish them. Students should still be reading each night either to you or by themselves. If they need books, they can borrow books from the room anytime :)!

DATES TO REMEMBER

• Friday, May 6th - Swim day.

• Wednesday, May 4th - Scenery and rain forest building day.

• Wednesday, May 4th - Screen Free Activity Night - 6:00 - 7:30 pm

• Friday, May 6th - Swim day.

• Friday, May 13th at 8:30 am in cafeteria - AN EARTH DAY CAROL

• Friday, May 13th - Grades 3-5 Musical 1:00 and 6:00 in gym

• Books For Bikes forms are due back on or before Friday, June 3rd.

• Wednesday, May 25th - Spring Concert

• Thursday, June 2nd - 8th grade musical, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

• Tuesday, June 14th at 1:00 pm in gym - GO FISH (Primary Musical)

• Friday, June 17th - Last Student Day.