I'm glad I didn't put my winter coat away....

My son had two baseball games this weekend and I FROZE!!  Here it is the end of April and I was wrapped in my winter coat and wishing I had brought a pair of gloves.  Crazy, crazy weather.  But I do love watching him play - GO RED SOX!!!

We are on the home stretch of First Grade!!!  Can you believe it??  We are entering assessment time again - writing assessments, DRA's, math assessments, DIBELS....whew!  Lots of work to do.  We also will be getting ready for our open house on May 10th.  This week we will begin writing our autobiographies.  We've been talking about this project this week and the students seem really excited to share all of their information about themselves.  You will be able to see the finished project at open house.

This week in ELA:  Our phonics focus for the week is long vowel u (u-e as in fluke). We are on our last book in our anthology series and the story we will be reading this week is "Amazing Animals".  Our comprehension focus for the week is alphabetizing and using graphic organizers.  We have used a couple of graphic organizers in the past but this week we will be using a graphic organizer that lists the animals in our story, their special feature and how it helps. Seeing information in a graphic organizer makes it easier to remember and understand.  Our grammar focus for the week is verbs.

This week in Math:  We just finished up our unit on money and I was so proud at how well everyone did on their test on Friday (they will be coming home on Monday)  Money is difficult to learn, especially coins, when most people are using debit cards to pay for things.  It was really important for us to incorporate real coins into our math centers for the students to hold them, see them and notice the differences between a  penny, nickel, dime and quarter.  This week we will begin our unit on measurement using non-standard units of length.  This unit is going to be a lot of fun.  We will be using paper clip chains and yarn to measure things in the classroom.  We will be using our feet as a unit of measure as well.  This unit gets the kids up and moving and being creative with what items they will choose to measure.  Which item was biggest?  Which one was shortest?

This week in Science:  I'm sure you've heard by now the bugs are in!!!  We have our mealworms and thanks to Dr. Sidell we have a really cool handheld digital microscope to use via the SmartBoard to see them up close and personal.  We were able to count how many segments they have and we were able to see their legs moving.  We began discussing what makes a bug an insect.  We also started talking about the life cycle of a mealworm.  What does the mealworm turn into when it comes out of its pupa?  This week we will be taking the mealworms out of their containers to watch them move across a paper plate and we will use what we are learning in math to see if our mealworms are longer or shorter than a paper clip.

Have a wonderful week everyone!  

Mrs. M

Mrs. Cataldo

Mrs. Fiore

April Showers Bring May Flowers...

Only one more week until school vacation but who's counting?? Even though March was a long month, I feel like the time is flying by. Before you know it, we'll be wrapping up our year!!

A look at the week ahead:
In ELA - Our phonics focus this week is long vowel o or o-e words such as smoke. The story we will be reading in our anthology is a non-fiction story called On Saturday. We will learn different ways people spend their Saturdays. What do you do on Saturdays? Our comprehension skill of the week is drawing conclusions and answering questions. Our grammar focus is using describing words that end is -er and -est. During writer's workshop this week we will write about what we like to do on Saturdays.
In Math - we will begin our unit on Money. We will be discussing pennies, nickles, and quarters and how many different ways you can come up with a specified amount using different coins. We have been talking about coins since the beginning of the school year during our Morning Math Calendar so I have a feeling the students are going to do really well.
In Science, we will be talking about wind. We will be looking at bubbles and kites and how the wind effects their movement. We also are expecting our shipment of mealworms this week - after April School Vacation we will beginning our unit on Insects!! Dr. Sidell bought each classroom a handheld digital microscope that we will be able to hook up to our Smart board. It will be perfect to look at the mealworms as they go through their life-cycle!!

Dates to remember:
Popcorn day - April 12th. If you would like your child to have popcorn on Thursday, please send in $1. Thank you!

Have a wonderful week and a fabulous vacation!!

Mrs. M
Mrs. Cataldo
Mrs. Fiore