Library Info

The school year is coming to an end! Mrs. Wagers has informed us that the last week for student check-out is the week of 4/30. Books checked out that week may be kept until the following TUESDAY as per usual but then everything needs to be turned in for the year! Now would be a good time to double check your home shelves (and let's be real look under the couch, haha!) and make sure you don't have any library books that need to be returned. Thanks for your help with this :)

Hat Day

HAT DAY for ABILITIES AWARENESS (4/13)
$1 Donations will be accepted for wearing a hat to school on Friday, April 13th.  100% of these donations will be divided up and given to some of the organizations that we have invited to present during our Abilities Awareness Week (4/16 - 4/20).

We will be donating to:
CHAMP Assistance Dogs
Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments
Disabled Athlete Sports Association (DASA)
Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation
Spirit of Discovery Park - Starting an all-inclusive playground

Dates

April 10 - Student LEAD Time (2:55-3:50pm)
April 10 - Librarian & Bus Driver Appreciation Day
April 11 - Board of Education Meeting @Central Middle (7pm)
April 12 - 4th Gr Music and Strings (+Honors) Concert (6:30pm)
April 13 - Hat Day for Abilities Awareness ($1 Donation)
April 14 - SVE Rummage Sale (8-11am)
April 15 - Leader in Me Parents Online Survey DUE
April 16-20 Abilities Awareness Week
April 16 - Project Parkway Mtg at South High (6:30-8pm)
April 17 - PTO Meeting at 7pm
April 18 - Hidden in Plain View at West Middle (6:30-8:30pm)
April 20 - Earth Day
April 20 - PTO Kickball Event on Blacktop (5:30pm)
April 21 - Spring Beautification (8-11am)
April 21 - All-District Art Show @Queeny Park (10am-4pm)
April 22 - All-District Art Show @Queeny Park (12-4pm)
April 23-27  MAP Testing
April 25 - 2nd Gr Field Trip
April 27 - NO SCHOOL

ABCDE Letter Days for the WEEK
(Mon = A) (Tues = B) (Wed = C) (Thurs = D) (Fri = E)

Science

We have begun our last science unit of the school year - living organisms. In this unit, students explore the similarities and differences between plants and animals.  They observe living organisms and compare and contrast terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals. Next week LIVING plants and animals will be delivered to our classrooms! We will have a variety of freshwater and forest plants and animals. There may be some items needing a home at the conclusion of our unit. If you are interested in letting your child adopt an item let me know. Guppies, snails, and large bess beetles may be available.

Reading

This week we are digging deeper into comprehension concepts in our new unit. This unit will focus on a more intense character study. Whereas previous units relied heavily on the reading process, this unit is designed to help students understand the power of story. It teaches the comprehension skills of empathy, envisionment, and prediction that bolster student engagement with a fiction text. It relies on the knowledge of story elements and on the skills that are foundational for literal and inferential comprehension. This unit supports first grade readers as they track the events of a story to determine importance and retell key details in sequence. It also teaches students to pay close attention to their characters to grow ideas about how they feel and think. In addition this unit supports children as they dig deeper and pull life lessons from their stories. Finally it encourages readers to recommend favorite books and pass along those life lessons. This unit was created to assist students in comprehending increasingly complex texts.Our culminating activity at the end of this unit is the children performing reader's theater!

Essential Questions:

How do readers keep track of the events in a story?
How do partners share their reading adventures?
How do readers study the characters in books?
What important lessons can I learn from the character and their experiences?
How do readers share their opinions about books?

Math

Before break we had wrapped up the measurement portion of Unit 5. Before we left we had learned telling time to the hour and half hour. We are refreshing with those skills this week before we take the Unit 5 assessment.

Our next unit is Geometry. Essential questions for this unit are:

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

Goals for this unit include:

-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.

Persuasive Writing

Before spring break students finished up their persuasive books. They learned that in order to convince their readers of something they would need to state their opinion and provide evidence to support it. To name a few of their original titles: Birds Are Amazing, I Want More Wii Games, Animals in Danger, Why Hamsters Are the Best Pet, Why I Should Have a Cat. :0) !!!!

We are now moving into writing reviews. We are beginning with book reviews and may be branching out into other areas such as musical reviews, restaraunt reviews, etc. This week students are being introduced to book reviews, the componenents of a book review, making a list of books they might be interested in reviewing and planning to write a review. To publish these pieces, students will record one another! Think "Reading Rainbow" style. The students are very excited!