Portraits

Pictures came home yesterday afternoon. If you do not plan on purchasing them, please send them back to school. Thanks!

Keep Reading This Summer!

Summer is just a few short weeks away! I wanted to share with you information about St. Louis County Library's summer reading program. I participate every year, and will be doing so with my son this summer also! It's a fun way to keep the reading momentum going and continue to help your child grow.

https://www.slcl.org/content/summer-reading-clubs-whole-family-0

Current Essential Questions

Here are the essential questions we are currently working on:

Writing: What do writers learn from other writers? How do writers of nonfiction engage their readers? Why do writers revise? What do writers think about when they revise? How can working with a partner improve a piece of writing?

Math:  How do we describe shapes and objects?  How can geometric figures be constructed?

Reading: Why do readers read nonfiction texts? How do readers become experts on topics of personal interest? Why do readers collaborate? How do readers get to know their characters well? What can readers learn from characters and their experiences?

Science: How can you tell if something is living? What do living things need in order to stay alive?
How are plants and animals alike and different?

New Unit - Science

This week we are beginning our Living Organisms unit in Science! The essential questions for this unit are:

How can you tell if something is living?
What do living things need in order to stay alive?
How are plants and animals alike and different?

During this unit students will observe real live organisms in our classroom. Arriving tomorrow will be some insects as well as some freshwater fish and snails. We usually have fish available at the end of the unit. Do let me know if you are interested in having any come home with you! There's the possibility of bess beetles or millipedes being available, too.

Geometry

We are well into our geometry unit. During this unit students will:

- identify shapes based on their defining attributes.
- build shapes with defining attributes.
- draw shapes with defining attributes.
- sort shapes by their defining attributes.
- recognize when an attribute is non-defining.
- use two or more 2-D shapes to create new shapes (e.g., put triangles together to make a rhombus or a hexagon).
-use two or more 3-D shapes to create new shapes (e.g., combine two right triangular prisms to create -a right rectangular prism).
-make new shapes from composite shapes.
-recognize what shapes are used to make composite shapes.
-partition circles and rectangles into two and four equal shares.
-describe equal shares as halves, fourths, or quarters.
use the phrases half of, fourth of, or quarter of.

I encourage you to discuss 2-D and 3-D shapes with your children at home. Notice all the shapes in our world!

Volunteer Applications

Some volunteer records may have been lost and need to be updated.

1. Visit parkwayschools.net

2.Underneath the employment tab - select volunteer packets

3. Select volunteer application

4. Complete application

Please note if you want to join us for the field trip, this will need to be updated! 

Thanks for your help with this!

Word Work This Week

We will be working on several blends again this week:

fr-  gr-  pr-  tr-

and the accountable word is: this

Library Information

The last week for student check out is May 1-5. All student library books need to be returned by May 11th.

There is one more book fair - May 11th and 12th!

Maps

We have had so much fun learning about various types of maps. We have looked at world maps, United States maps, local maps, maps of specific locations (zoo, Busch Stadium,etc.), and globes. We have also been able to look at Google maps and identify locations in the world.

Students worked in small groups to study a continent and then chose a way to present information to their class: song, poster, story, etc. The kids really enjoyed it! Ask them what they learned about the seven continents.

This week we have been studying grid maps. Students used grids to identify different locations on a grid map and then created their own.

We continue to practice with cardinal directions and relative location.

Reader's Theater

Students have had fun getting to know their characters better during our Character Study writing unit. Now they will work to apply what they learned about how characters behave, how they feel, and interact with other characters through a reader's theater performance! Students will be working in small groups to learn a script and practice their lines so they can be delivered with fluency and expression. Students will also incorporate what they learned during our story elements unit to display the setting of their reader's theater story. The stories we are working on are: Chicken-Licken, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, and The 3 Little Pigs. In the past I have been able to video tape the performances and share them with parents. I will try to do the same this year!

Math - Time

This week our focus is telling time to the hour and half hour. Students are doing well identifying times to the hour and half hour. We are doing some story problem work with elapsed time as well. Students are writing stories using time. For students that have mastered time to the hour and half hour, we will be working on time to the quarter hour. Our next unit is geometry, which will begin next week!

Writing

We finished our how-to books and were able to share both our expert books and how-to books with Mrs. Kellog's second grade class last week. The students enjoyed sharing their non-fiction books!

We are moving into our next writing unit. During this unit students are working in partners to research a topic, become an "expert" and then create a google presentation sharing information on their topic.

Students chose their topics this week and we gathered some resources such as books and articles. Students are working together to identify important facts from their resources. Students are currently collecting facts. Once facts are compiled, we will work to organize the facts into categories for their slide shows.

By week's end they will begin work on their google presentations. Stacia Wagers our librarian helps the kiddos get started with their google slides. These presentations always turn out really neat.

Once they are all finished I can share the presentations with your e-mail address if interested. I will share individually upon request :)

This week

A few things about this week:

* Word Work: This week we are working on blends rather than chunks. The blends are: bl- cl- fl-
These work great to practice with some of the patterns we have already studied!

*Wednesday is a late start. School begins at 11:05.

*Friday is our rescheduled spring party at 2:55. First grade will be watching a performance in the cafeteria during that time