With the arrival of May brings the anticipation of the end of the school year. I'm proud of their efforts and we continue to work on being good listeners, staying focused, and doing our best work. On Monday, the worm will move to number "165" on our number line, which means day "180" is creeping closer, but we still have lots to learn and do.
Spelling- This is week 29 of our spelling lists with week 30 being the final week for spelling and large group reading lessons. I have been quite proud of their efforts to learn their weekly set of words. The students have been very successful and I've been pleased with their Friday scores. A great big thanks to all parents who have helped/encouraged their child to practice at home.
Math- We have just started the final chapter in the "Go Math" series. The lessons in this chapter will focus on two-dimensional geometry. We will sort, combine, and describe two-dimensional shapes, we will find shapes in shapes, and take-apart two-dimensional shapes. We will also explore equal and unequal parts and identify halves and fourths. This week, we will also take the "Go-Math" end of the year test. At conferences, I shared the beginning of the year and middle of the year version and now we are ready for the final one. We have learned so much this year and I know that everyone will show growth on this assessment. Next week, the students will be given the progress monitoring probe for addition and subtraction for facts to 10. This is the same probe that was given in the fall and winter. We have worked really hard on progressive timings to prepare for this.
Reading- Our learning goals this week will be to read and spell words with au and aw, summarizing after we read, and using I and me correctly. Next week, our reading goals will be to read and spell words with oi and oy, our grammar skill will be to combine sentences, and our comprehension skill is cause and effect.
Science- We completed our unit on "Nutrition and the Food Groups". Last week, your child brought home a "Healthy Shopping List" booklet. We read about a different food group each day, did a matching activity and brainstormed foods to put in our booklet. The pocket chart center also had a variety of cards with pictures of food and they were to classify them into the correct food group. Last week, we also began our next unit which is "Recycling and Taking Care of our Earth". We have created a "We Care" journal and will be writing complete sentences in them practicing the skill of listing things and using the comma. I also have many fun and interesting books to share. On Friday, they also created a writing activity expressing at least two ways they could take care of our beautiful earth. We will continue to read about and explore recycling this week.
Writing- Last week, the students wrote an opinion piece with the title being "What profession do you dream of?" They first chose a job they felt would be the coolest to have. They wrote three reasons expressing why they chose that job and finished with a concluding sentence stating the cool job they chose. After brainstorming and writing down their ideas, we used a day of guiding reading to edit their work and then they wrote the final copy using their best handwriting and spacing. These will be placed in their portfolios. We also completed another writing piece which will be placed in their cumulative folder which follows them from grade to grade. Every year, they will create a writing sample for their cum folder. I had them write about themselves and then to illustrate. They did a "great" job with both writing pieces and I am amazed at the growth they have all made as writers.
Our next Field Trip is on May 8th to Quandt's Auto Salvage and The Recycling Center. After reading and learning about recycling it will be interesting to see what it is all about in real life. We go in the afternoon after lunch and each tour lasts about 30 minutes. We appreciate that both these businesses are taking time out of their busy schedules to show us what they do.
Iowa Assessment scores are being sent home on Monday, April 28th. If you have questions regarding the scores, please call or send me an e-mail. The score we pay most attention to is the NSS. A NSS score of 145 or above means they were proficient on that test for 1st grade.
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