April 30th Newsletter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As our texts get more and more challenging at this level, we are starting to see students face some new challenges with reading at this point of the year.  As words become less regular and are made up of more syllables, they also tend to be words that aren't in our first graders' vocabularies.  The good news is that reading is one really great way to build that vocabulary.  

The students need to know what to do when they either don't know the meaning of the word, or they can't even tell what the word is.  First, they need to slow down and think about it, and the context of the sentence or the paragraph.  Pictures or photographs can often be helpful.  Thinking about what is going on is also very helpful.  If the book has a glossary, checking that is a great idea!  Looking for a familiar part of the word, or even the base or root word helps a lot.  Lastly, sometimes asking an adult, or even a sibling/friend can work.  We always want to emphasize that the point of reading is to understand the author's message.  This week, we are working hard on noticing when something doesn't look right, sound right or make sense, and then what to do about it!   

In math we will be working on fractions.  We will begin to explore fractions by partitioning circles and rectangles into equal shares.  We will also describe the shares using the words halves, fourths, and quarters.

This week we will continue learning about the life cycle of a plant.  We will learn about the parts of a plant, what they need to grow, and the importance of the plants leaves.

A special thank you goes out to Miles mom for coming in to plant a variety of vegetables and seeds with our class!  We are so excited to watch them all grow!

Our ABC Countdown will begin next week!  Thank you to all of the families that have volunteered to donate items for this fun countdown to summer!  I truly appreciate your generosity!

• May 8: Awesome Art Day
• May 9: Baby Picture Day - Please email me a baby picture if you haven't done so already!
• May 10: Crazy Socks Day
• May 11: If you Give a Dog a Donut Day

Special Points of Interest

• May 5th - Father Daughter Dance
• Our final Scholastic Book Order of the year is due Friday, May 18th. Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub Class Activation Code: JBVLX