April 18th

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this past weekend!  Hopefully, spring has officially arrived! :)  This can be a very busy time of the year.  Many of the children are playing spring sports and have long afternoons and evenings at different event.  Please try, however, to keep up with our school events and weekly homework.  This will help the children continue to build routines even when their schedules are super busy.  It also helps to reenforce our learning as we begin to prepare for second grade!  Thank you :)

Spelling & Word Wall:  Our new word wall words for this week are:  family, girl, boy, house, & can't.  The children are doing a great job reading our word wall words quickly and fluently when they see them in books.  Our spelling words for this week are all about Earth Day.  The children picked their own words from a list to work on.  Many of these words can be tricky.  Just have your children try their best to read and write these words during the week.

Reading:  We are working in our Daily Five Literacy Stations and we are spending more time working as independent readers each day.  We are working on retelling main ideas, making connections to stories, and reading with expression and fluency as first grade readers each day.

Writing:  We are writing our very own poems!  The children love reading and listening to poems each day.  This is the time of the year where we try to write our own.  So far, we have worked on writing poems about spring.  We will continue writing many different types of poems throughout the next two weeks before moving onto a new unit.

Math:  We are just beginning a tricky topic ~ adding two digit numbers!  We will work with math tools and learn several different strategies when adding two digit numbers.  Some of these strategies are very different from the way many of us have learned in the past.

Reminders:  
~Our warm & fuzzy jar is full for making good choices as a class!  The children may wear pajamas or super comfy clothes to school and may bring in a stuffed animal on Tuesday, April 19th.
~ Please submit all Scholastic Book Orders!  The order will be placed Tuesday morning.
~ Friday is Earth Day.  This week we will be learning about ways to help the earth. One idea our school is working on is 'Litterless Lunch'.  Try to create a litterless lunch each day.  It's tricky, but we are trying to come with ideas.

Thank you for your ongoing support.  As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne :)