This free slideshow design customized with Smilebox

What a busy week we've had! As we lead up to the poetry jam next week the students have been hard at work preparing their poems to recite and putting the final touches on poems that they have written that will be on display.

It was nice to be able to take a break from poetry practice as we listened to writing pieces by fifth and sixth graders who came over from WCS for the afternoon. The students were captivated by the "big kids" and were inspired by their beautifully written fairy tales.

In math it was "Pay Day" on the farm and the students used their earnings to purchase chickens and chicken coops. I am so impressed with the way that they have been working together as cooperative groups to make decisions about purchasing land, animals and equipment.

Enjoy the slideshow from the past week!

Our Family Book

Earlier in the year we did a unit on families where we learned about different kinds of families, families in different places and shared about our own families. After reading Todd Parr's Family Book we were inspired to create a class book about our own families. Instead of putting our book on paper we decided to use technology to create a book that could be shared in a more interactive way. We used Parr's unique illustration techniques as a model and created our own illustrations using the Paint program. Then we created text to go with the illustration and narrated the text using a voice thread program. We hope that you enjoy our book.

That's A Fact!

In addition to becoming farmers in math. The class has also been practicing to increase their fact fluency by completing a mad minute fact challenge every day. Fact practice is something that you can easily practice at home by making flashcards, practicing with the completed fact sheets that come home or by going online to a fact practice website. I have included a great one here.

If you see that your child is still using the finger counting method starting from 1 encourage them to count on by putting the biggest number in their head and then counting up the remaining number. For example, 5+3 would be 5,6,7,8. This is a much faster method and with consistent practice these facts will come with automaticity.

We are still working hard at reading poems as we prepare for our Poetry Jam. After a poet recites their poem his/her classmates provide the reader with thoughtful feedback telling them what they did well and what they can work on next time. This is a very powerful tool and the students are so receptive to the constructive criticism that comes from their peers.

In Writer's Workshop we have been learning about using our five senses to create color poems. The students are dong such a beautiful job of thinking creatively to describe a color in a way that is unusual and creates a descriptive image in the readers mind.

Even as we are ending the year it is still so important for your fist grader to be reading at home. The only way that I have to record this reading is through the reading logs that go home. I have noticed that many of them aren't getting returned to school. If I could have your help is making sure that your child keeps up with this responsibility as we close the year it would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Spring!

Poetry Jam Date Change

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Poetry Jam that was scheduled for Wednesday, May 25th has been changed to the next week on Wednesday, June 1st from 6:30-7:30. When setting up the date we didn't look at the events at WCS and there is a band concert that night that many of our student's middle school siblings are participating in. We apologize for the glitch and look forward to showing off the students hard work on their poetry unit and hope to see you all there.

Thanks!

Friendly Farmers

As I'm sure you may have heard at home our Farm Unit in math is off and running and boy are we having fun! The students are working in teams of four or five to create a model farm. So far, they have had to work together to make decisions on what to call their far and how to spend their money on a road,farmhouse, barn, silo and tractor. This has taken a lot of cooperation and the students were introduced to what the word compromise means! Next week we will begin to buy fencing and think about what animals we will purchase for our farms while learning about what contributions each animal makes. We are all learning so much about farms, math and teamwork while having fun at the same time.

In Reader's Workshop the students continue to practice reciting poetry as they begin to prepare for our Synergy Poetry Jam which is being held on May 25th from 6:30-7:30. The students have also learned about how poets add juicy words to their poems by using similes; that is when you compare one thing to another by using the words like or as. (Ex. The mom was as busy as a bee, the tired first grader slept like a baby)I have told the class to be on the lookout for this type of figurative language in poetry books, fiction books and in conversations because we use them all the time! In Writers Workshop the class has learned how to write acrostic poems and created a special one for all of our moms. Next week we will write poems about our favorite color using our five senses.

We were fortunate enough to be able to end the week with a sneak preview of the middle school spring play, Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. The students loved the play and were very respectful audience members. I even heard some of them aspiring to be on the stage when they reached middle school!

I hope that everyone had a restful Mother's Day and got a chance to enjoy this much deserved spring weather.