SUNSATIONAL READING BEGINS!

Monday, June 13th through Thursday, June 16th our first grade class will be doing some Sunsational Reading to get ready for summer.  Please remember your beach bags with towels, sunglasses, visors, sunscreen, and some favorite books!

Get ready for a SUNSATIONAL week!

Student Reporting from June 3rd

Wow, we have had quite a fun week!


We began by celebrating Memorial Day to honor people who have served our country.

The weather was very nice!

Let’s Pass It On was a musical! It was fun to see so many people in the audience.

As writers, we keep practicing the words in our fancied-up stories.

In Math, we continued splitting things into groups. We started to learn fractions.

In science, we transferred the caterpillars to the butterfly cage. We wonder how long it will take for them to emerge from their cocoons.

Student Reporting by: Paige, Nicole, Olivia, Simone

Student Reporting

Last Friday we were so busy again, so we’re reporting today about last week.

The weather was very hot!

As writers, we started to fancy-up our hard cover books and practice reading our words.

In Math, we continued working with equal groups.  Then we took a big number and split it into equal groups.  Here’s a secret:  Sharing a big number is really:  division!

In science, our caterpillars ate a lot of food.  A few of them have started to form their chrysalis.

In music, we are practicing our lines a lot for our show.

In Gym, we had field day on Thursday!

Student Reporting by:

Jeremiah, Matthew, Jack W., Jack Y., and Freddie

Student Reporting

Last Friday we were so busy, so we’re reporting today about last week.

In Gym, we have been practicing for field day which happens this Thursday!

The weather has been very, very cold!

In Readers Workshop, we’ve been learning about some different types of poetry.

As writers, we finished revising and editing our hard copy stories.  Then, we started typing our stories so they can look like some of the books we see in bookshelves and libraries!  We thank the moms who helped us get them started typing:  Olivia’s mom, Ben’s mom, Charly’s mom, Nicole’s mom, and Jeremiah’s mom!

In Math, we can count by twos and threes really well.  Then, we started working with equal groups.  Here’s a secret:  Equal groups are really:  multiplication!

In science, we studied the butterfly life cycle. It has 4 stages:

1. eggs

2. larva (caterpillar)

3. pupa (cocoon)

4. butterfly

We started in class with the larva stage because our caterpillars arrived on Friday! We each gave 2 or 3 of them their own little cabin. We feel very excited to see what happens next!

Student Reporting by:  Katelyn, Charly, Jacqueline, Madden, and Mia

Student Reporting

It finally feels like Spring!

We have been very, very busy, so we haven’t reported in a long time!

We had our class character celebration and loved seeing all of the story puppets our classmates made!

We learned about the main parts of a plant and loved watching ours grow. Plants need:
water, sunlight, soil, room to grow, and care.

Here’s a poem to help you remember what living things need:

Food, water, shelter, space
Habitat is a beautiful place!

We are learning about another life cycle now. We had a scientist visit from the Bruce Museum and tell us all about butterflies. We can’t wait until our eggs arrive next week!

In math, we learned what a “mirror image” is. This is called symmetry. We practiced with a half of a picture from a magazine. Try it at home. It works best if the picture has a front view instead of a side view.
We had a cleanup day around school on Arbor Day to celebrate Earth Day which happened over vacation.

This week we had a great Book Fair. We also had Barbara McGrath visit. She’s a real author with published books in stores and libraries! We are working hard on our stories.

In reading, we are learning types of poetry. We will soon start writing some of our own poetry.

First Grade is going by super fast.

Student Reporting by Chase, Jack, Jack, and Jeremiah

May/June McMonthly News

May will be filled with many spring-time activities, and we will still be working hard!  We will have several rehearsals to prepare for our Let’s Pass It On  play later at the beginning of next month.  We are excited about our roles!

LANGUAGE ARTS

Our reading challenges have been exposing us to larger vocabularies and comprehension strategies that help add deeper meaning to the stories we read. We continue to review short and long vowels, blends, digraphs, and sight words. Learning about different types of poetry will be our focus soon in Reading and Writing Workshop.

MATH

We will soon begin to make sense of “multiplication” by putting together groups that contain equal parts. Likewise, we will soon make sense of the big-kid word “fractions” by splitting bigger groups into fair shares. As always, it is beneficial to encourage your child in math by using real-life examples or everyday objects to help understand these tricky concepts.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES

The class scientists have enjoyed learning about the plant cycle. Soon, we will learning about another cycle and will be hatching our own butterflies! As we travel throughout this busy time in June, we will be enjoying geography concepts and locating places on maps (although we’ve used our classroom map throughout the year!)

TECHNOLOGY
We are very busy whenever we’re able to get to the Computer Lab. We have become adept at trying some Smartboard templates, locating letters on the keyboard, manipulating objects and words on the screen, and using educational websites. We have also been lucky to have Penguin Cold Cash and Gold Medal Math on our classroom computers, programs that were actually created by a former Ox Ridge student! We soon hope to start typing our final Writers Workshop stories!

MAY REMINDERS
Wed., May 4:                Butterfly “Bruce Mobile” (In-school enrichment)
Mon. 5/9 – Wed 5/11:   Book Fair, “The Hunt for a Good Book”
Tues., May 10:              Barbara McGrath, Author Visit
Fri., May 20:               Summer Library Visitors
Fri., May 20:               Scholastic orders due (Will be sent home 5/16)
         *** Part of the Scholastic News proceeds will go to Japan!***
Thurs., May 26:           Field Day, 12:45-2:15  (Come, all family members!)
Fri., May 27:               Raindate for Field Day
Fri., May 27:               School Spirit Day, Patriotic Day (Wear red, white, & blue)
Mon., May 30:             Memorial Day, no school

MAY BIRTHDAYS

Thursday, May 12:       Jack Wilber

Friday, May 27:         Madden Hart

JUNE REMINDERS

Fri., June 3:                Music Performance, 10:30 for 1-Mc & 1-D
               ***(Families, come early for good parking & seats!)***
Wed., June 8:             Ice Cream Celebration Author & Memory Share,
                                  1:30-3:00 Mrs. Mc’s Classroom
Fri., 6/17:                   Shortened Day, Last Day of School

JUNE BIRTHDAYS

Sat., June. 4: Nicole Bolger

JUNE/SUMMER BIRTHDAYS

July 18: Charly Covello

July 19: Josephine Williams

July 22: Austin Peck

July 28: Matthew Lia

July 30: James Durkin

OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES
What a busy time of year! I am hoping you can all come on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 8th. We will be having our Author and Memory Share combined with an ice cream celebration. We will meet in the classroom first, and weather permitting, head outside after that. Feel free to bring other family members with you for this exciting, culminating activity!

Our last Spelling Test will be right before Memorial Day weekend. We will be having an informal spelling bee early in June for fun! We learned so much!

Thank you for your generous contributions to Pennies for Patients, Box Tops, and the other numerous school fundraisers. The last day to collect box tops for this year’s class contest will be Friday, May 20.

Make Change for Japan fundraiser will continue until Friday, May 27.

Thanks also to those involved with the scenery for the Let’s Pass It On play to be performed in June by all first graders.

Thanks to the hard work during March Math Madness!

All volunteers, continued thanks to you!

If your child has borrowed some of our classroom library books or materials, please return them to school by the last week of May. Thanks!

SIGHT WORDS

after

again

always

around

as

ask

because

been

before

best

both

call

does

don't

draw

found

goes

had

him

its

just

pull

read

sing

their

then

these

us

very

walk

wash

were

which

why

would

your

Student Reporting

We had a very interesting April Fools Day!

We finished our All About stories. We can’t wait to read them to another class!


We are working hard on our character puppets in Readers Workshop and will celebrate next week!

In math, we did tricky stuff with tens and ones with really big numbers.

We learn about a lot of expressions and know what it’s like to be a “Good egg!” Our classroom is in “mint condition” Friday afternoon too!

On April Fools Day, we dressed up all miss-matched.

The weather feels like an April Fools joke, but we are glad we didn’t have a snowstorm!

Student Reporting by Charly, Mia and Jacqueline

Miss Patti and Mrs. Mc!