Dear Room 2
Parent(s), Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Spring has sprung!! Well, a snow-laced,
chilly weather spring! That hasn’t stopped these amazing writers in Room 2 from
creating some wonderful books about the season. I hope you saw your child’s
book, “That’s What Happens When It’s Spring!” The kids did such lovely writing.
We’ve also enjoyed singing our new spring song, “This Morning In My Garden”
filling in the blanks in the song with many different signs of spring. Ask your
child to sing it to you!!
I
hope you’ll have a chance to enjoy some of the lovely weather that’s forecasted
in the coming week. Maybe those snow pants will get packed away once and for
all!!
Save The Date!
Please
mark your calendar!
Room 2’s First Grade Celebration
Monday,
June 13, 2016
8:00
a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
I hope
you’ll be able to attend! Calendars fill up quickly this time of year so I hope
this helps to give you some advance notice. We will have an Open House and a short
presentation to celebrate our year together in Room 2. I’ll be in touch with
further details in the weeks to come.
We Love Whales In Room 2!
Big whales, small whales, you name it!
We’ve been learning about these graceful, gentle creatures for several weeks in
class. We’ve read a wonderful array of fiction and nonfiction books, as well as
some new poems and songs. Our favorites include “Blue Whale”, “Baby Beluga” and “A Whale Is Not A Fish!” We also really
enjoyed The Snail and the Whale, Ibis, Humphrey: The Lost
Whale, and I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. We’ve had our hands
on some artifacts from the New England Aquarium, including real whale teeth and
baleen. We also played an echolocation game that helped us to learn how several
types of whales find their food. We measured the lengths of a number of whales
and recorded each length with masking tape on the floor in the cafeteria
hallway. We’ve learned about common traits of all whales and have focused on a
few specific whales, such as the humpback whale, the blue whale, the beluga
whale, the narwhal, the orca, and the sperm whale. Some are known for singing
songs and frequent breaching (humpbacks), some are known for being deep divers
(sperm whales), some are fierce predators (orcas), and some are playful and
smart (bottlenose dolphins). We also discovered that many whales migrate
hundreds of miles each year to find food and have their young. Children found
it interesting that toothed whales have one blowhole while baleen whales have two
blowholes. Tomorrow, we’ll create 4-square posters with interesting facts about
these gentle giants!
Literacy
I
encourage everyone to continue the valuable practice of reading with your child
for at least 15 minutes every day. It’s so wonderful to curl up and enjoy a good book together! I hope you are as
proud of the progress your child is making as I am. All of the students in our
class are making important gains this year, and encouraging your child to read
both independently and with you shows him/her that you know how hard he/she has
been working.
During Reader’s Workshop, we’ve continued our exploration of nonfiction
text. We’ve looked closely at the conventions, or features, of nonfiction
literature, including captions, maps, photographs, labels, types of print,
comparisons, cut-aways, the table of contents, and the glossary. Children have
worked independently and with partners to peruse nonfiction texts on a variety
of topics. The interest level is quite high when studying nonfiction. Children
are always eager to share their books and newfound knowledge with the group!
Children have learned that nonfiction books don’t have to be read cover to
cover like fiction. A reader can look through the book by reading the table of contents
or the index and then find the sections of text they are interested in or
focused on. He/she can also look through the pictures and read the captions to
learn about the topic.
We’ve also been enjoying the “Piggie and
Elephant” books by Mo Willems, using them to practice attending to print and
punctuation while we read aloud. Children worked with partners to read several
different books in the series; the smiles and giggles were endless as they
flipped through the pages and experimented with tone, fluency, and pausing.
Math
As their work in mathematics progresses,
children are beginning to use larger numbers in their daily work. We have
explored the system we use for writing larger numbers by focusing on the
concept of place value. For example, in
the number 72, 7 is in the tens place, so there are “7 groups of 10” and 2 is
in the ones place so there are “2 groups of one” or “two extras.” Children have
used Unifix Cubes to represent numbers and to find the sums of two numbers.
They also used place value to determine “greater than” and “less than”
relationships. We have also continued our work with addition and subtraction
facts. Knowing basic math facts (with the sum of up to 10, or with 10 as the
greatest minuend, i.e. 10-7=3) is as important to mathematics as knowing words
by sight is to reading. Your child should begin to master many of the addition
and subtraction facts by the end of the school year. Learning the facts takes
practice. It’s not necessary to practice for a long time, but it is important
to practice often as we do in class.
The Life Cycle Of The
Chicken
Our chicken eggs will arrive from Drumlin Farm after
vacation! I’m sure you’ll hear a great deal about the life cycle of the chicken
over the next several weeks. Former first graders have been asking since
October WHEN will the eggs arrive???, so
you can imagine how exciting this unit of study has been for others and will be
for these first graders as well!
Many, many thanks to all of our volunteers
during the past month! We all appreciate having Paul Migdalen, Marchella Lee,
and Ilana Wyner in to help with math and writing! We are also very grateful to our Sugar Shack
Field Trip chaperones, Nate Buffum, Susan O’Neill, and Audrey’s grandfather,
Poppy, as well as our pancake breakfast volunteers~Lauren Alongi and Kate
Ozpeynirci. Please let me know if you’d like to join our class for math or
writing after vacation!
Enjoy the vacation week ahead! If you have
travel plans, I hope the road ahead is safe and wonderful. For those of you
enjoying time at home over the next week, may your days be filled with family,
fun, and sunny skies! I’ll be spending part of my vacation at home in
Framingham and then my family and I will head to upstate New York to see my
mom. I can’t wait to see her! She is 90
years old so my kids, husband, and I treasure our visits with her. I look
forward to sharing my adventures with all of my Room 2 friends when we return
to school!
As always, please let me know if you have
any questions about your child’s day or about our curriculum.
Take care,
Lise Weig J
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