Post 30

NEW INFORMATION:

It has been such a pleasure watching your children present their China projects. We are learning so much from each other and it is obvious that they put a lot of time and effort into their work. Thank you for supporting them in this! 

I am also interested in your feedback about projects for homework. Did this work well for your family? Did you feel that you had enough time to complete the project? Too little? Too much? How often would you like to see projects sent home throughout the year for your child to complete? Monthly? Every 6 weeks? Bimonthly? Quarterly? Were the directions clear enough or did you feel that you needed more information/support? Please reply to this email to provide feedback. Thank you in advance!!  

IMPORTANT DATES:

Friday, May 26, 2017 - Red, White and Blue Day - Join other students and staff at M-S and wear red, white and blue to show your patriotic spirit!

Monday, May 29, 2017 - NO SCHOOL - Memorial Day

Thursday, June 1, 2017 - Art Show - More info to come

Thursday, June 8, 2017 - Field Trip - Boston Children's Museum

Friday, June 23, 2017 - LAST DAY OF SCHOOL - 12:00 release

REMINDERS: 

Water bottles: Please make sure to send your child to school with a sport top water bottle (i.e. one that you do not have to take the cap off to drink) each morning that s/he should bring into class each morning to keep on his/her table to have easy access to water throughout the day. Thanks! 

Wow words: Please continue to help your child gather new words each week through their reading and your conversations at home and bring them in on Wow Word Wednesday. Here are links to an online dictionary (Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central) and our wow word worksheet in case you need a new one. This is an ongoing reminder for the year. Please make acquiring new words part of your home routine.

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading: 

• We read trickster tales and mapped various trickster tale elements. We also read several Brer Rabbit stories and made a poster with Brer Rabbit's character traits.

At home, search the internet or head to the library to find some trickster tales that you can read together.   

Next week, we will begin a poetry unit.

In fundations (word study): 

• We finished our work in unit 11, which covered the long e sound.  

At home, please refer to the Units 1-12 family letter to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations/word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child needs practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards. Here is a link to a great website with different sight word games that you might like to try. 

Next week, we will begin unit 12, in which we learn about the vowel teams oi and oy.

In science we:

• We made predictions about how long it would take our caterpillars to turn into adults, what the process would look like and what they would look like as adults. 
• We wrote and drew observations of the chrysalis. 
• We explained how we would design a new habitat for our butterflies.
• We discussed whether or not we think a chrysalis is alive.

At home, ask your child about whether or not they think the chrysalis is alive and why.

Next week, we will learn more about butterflies and begin learning about the earth, sun and moon.

In writing: 

• We continued writing opinions.
• Brainstormed awards that we would give to our most treasured books.

Next week, we will write book awards. Please make sure your child brings in his/her book that s/he wants to give an award to each day over the next 2 weeks. They may give more than 1 book an award over this period of time.

At home, ask your child to share what book s/he will give an award to. What award would s/he give that book? What examples can they share from the books to support their award choice? 

In math:

• We completed our measurement unit.
• We began our place value unit with a multiple day project titled color the hundreds in which we we given a large grid and were challenged to determine how many squares were in the grid by breaking the grid up into multiples of 10.

At home, practice place value concepts through games such as Place Value Hockey or these place value games. 
  

Next week, we will continue work with place value.

In CAP:

• We reviewed being safe, strong and free. 
• We reviewed safe places and people in our lives. 
• We talked about what to do when someone who is not a stranger says or does something that makes you feel uncomfortable. TELL, TELL, TELL!

We also participated in A Day in Ghana presentation. We learned about what a child's life is like in Ghana. We practiced some of the chores that children might do, such as baby wearing and fetching water using a large bowl carved from a gourd. We also learned how they would sing the ABCs and learned the dance that accompanies it. Ask your child about it!!

Have a wonderful weekend!