April McMonthly News

IN LIKE A LAMB, OUT LIKE A LION


Wow, the weather expression was a little opposite this month with the flurries and cold weather we’ve been having!

LANGUAGE ARTS


We are focusing on comprehension strategies in our stories, as we continue to review short and long vowels, blends, and sight words. We have also been enjoying paying more attention to the characters in our just right reading. Next week, we will have our "All About" project celebration that follows our non-fiction writing unit! Our next writing unit focuses on Realistic Fiction where stories are true to life, but may not have happened. With our Word Study, please remember to keep practicing our old spelling patterns as we keep learning new patterns.

READING HOMEWORK INFO


In addition to our “paper” homework that we do almost daily, we should be reading approximately 15 minutes on our own, so that we can continue to build fluency and understanding – even on the weekends! (Thanks for encouraging your children.)

MATH


We soon return to shapes, attributes and measurement, and we anticipate some cool activities working with symmetry. To help us understand bigger math problems, we are also using counting strategies in a much more advanced way than we did earlier in first grade!

BIRTHDAYS

Thursday, April 21: Freddie Persia

Monday, April 25: Andrew Popson

Tuesday, April 26: Peter Durkovic

REMINDERS

Friday, April 1: Class Spirit Day, Clothing Clash day

April 1 – May 31: “Let’s make change for Japan” fundraiser

Wednesday, April 6: Character project due

Thursday, April 7: Scholastic orders due

Friday, April 15: No School, Staff Dev.

April 18 - 22: School closed, April vacation

April 25 - 29: After-Earth-Day Week, save energy by keeping lights off as much as possible

UPCOMING DATES

Wednesday, May 4: In-school enrichment, The Bruce Mobile (Bruce Museum)

Mon – Wed, May 9-11: The-Hunt-for-a-Good-Book Book Fair

(Scholastic orders will go home the next week)

Thursday, May 26: Field Day, 12:45 - 2:15

Friday, May 27:Raindate for Field Day

Wednesday, June 8:  Memory Share/Ice Cream Celebration

Friday, June 17: Last day of school for students

The Springtime gets so busy at Ox Ridge with a myriad of activities. Please be on the lookout for schedule changes and additions.


Our class reporters have been such hard workers and have been doing their best to blog our class highlights weekly. Keep an eye out on our class website!

A TON OF THANKS


• Thanks for encouraging your child to participate in March Math Madness!

• Thanks for your support for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society with the "Pennies for Patients" fundraiser!

• Keeping in mind the importance of every penny, we will continue collecting spare change through May. Student Council will send along the proceeds for Japan-relief efforts. Thank you so much if you’re able to contribute. Every penny does really count!

• Thanks for your support for "Box Tops for Education!"

• Thanks for your support with the Daffodil Drive!

• Thank you, Volunteers, at school and with your home support!

• We are one very lucky classroom.

MONTHLY WORDS

could

every

get

good

her

how

look

once

ran

round

start

thank

that

them

there

think

under

warm

when

white

Student Reporting

We are drafting our All About story books in Writers Workshop. We listened to Miss Blake’s fancied-up stories. They did awesome!

We have been paying close attention to characters in Readers Workshop and found traits that we like and don’t like.

 

In math, we keep figuring out new strategies for hard problems. We even learned tips to use when the number is missing from the middle.

 

We reminded ourselves what we can do when we are finished.

 

Pennies for Patients are still being collected through March 31st.

 

The weather was bad and snowy on the first day of spring!

 

Student Reporting by Ben

 

 

 

Mrs. Mc wants families to know of some upcoming dates that were not on the original calendar:

• Next Friday, April 1st: CLOTHING CLASH DAY(for some April Fool’s Fun)

• May 4: Butterfly program at Ox Ridge by the Bruce Museum

• May 9-11: The-Hunt-for-a-Good-Book Book Fair in the Library

• May 26th: Field Day, 12:45 – 2:15 (for families!)

• May 27th: Field Day raindate, 12:45-2:15

• June 8th: Memory Share and Ice Cream celebration, afternoon (for families!)

 

**Be on the lookout for the Musical performance dates…..

 

 

 

FIRST FULL DAY OF SPRING?!?

SPRING IS HERE!

STUDENT REPORTING

This week was Conference week.  Mrs. Mc had us work very hard!

We started our All About story books on our own in Writers Workshop.  We feel great about our stories! 

In math, we learned strategies for figuring out math problems.  One that is really tricky is called Fact  Families when you have 3 numbers in a family and can write 2 subtraction facts and 2 addition facts using the same numbers.  Doubling is also helpful.

St. Patrick’s Day made us feel very lucky for many things.  Some of us thought there was a real leprechaun on the playground.  It didn’t play any tricks in the classroom.

The first place winner of the Iditarod dog race in Alaska was John Baker.  This was the first time he was in the race and he broke the fastest record.  He takes good care of his dogs.

Mrs. Mc wants families to be on the lookout for some upcoming dates this spring (field day, musical performance, memory share).  Coming soon!

Student Reporting by Austin, Peter and Jeremiah on Friday afternoon.

Student Reporting

We continued to read Dr. Seuss stories and learned that Dr. Seuss helps us with rhymes and important messages.

We shared our non-fiction team reports with kindergarten classes. That made us feel great.

In math, we learned about Capacity of containers and comparing objects using a balance scale.

We put 3-D objects together to make a creation that looks like a space ship or cruise ship.

We checked into the Iditarod dog race in Alaska. We found out that they will finish at the town of Nome.

Student Reporting by Andrew, Jack W, and Jack Y

STUDENT REPORTING

We celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday by making rhymes and having moms and dads make us green eggs and ham.  We also read a lot!


Simone shares Dr. Seuss’s birthday.

We are working on non-fiction writing projects in teams of 3 students. Some of our topics are shooting stars, dolphins, glaciers, marvelous mammals, blizzards, and America.

When a character talks in a book, we try to talk like them.

In Math, we are studying 2-D, flat shapes and 3-D shapes.

Student Reporting by Jacqueline, Madden, and Valentina