Planet Projects

APRIL NEWS FROM FIRST GRADE

Important Dates

April 16th - 20th is April Vacation week

Another month has arrived ever so quickly.  It is so hard to believe how fast this year is going.  The students have made so many gains in many areas. It is always so amazing to see the progress in reading, writing, and in math practices.  

This time of year is so muddy out on our playground please help us encourage the children to try to stay away from those areas.  It is still a great idea to have them wear/bring boots to play outside in. We still have snowy areas to play in, so snowpants are also needed.

Reading - We will continue to build reading fluency while working on story structure, comparing and contrasting, and noting details.  In grammar we will work with the correct usage of is and are and was and were.   In spelling we will be working on long i spelled with y, and adding -es to naming words, and the vowel sound in coin.

Math - We have just begun working in the pattern unit.  The children are doing well with this math concept. Working with number patterns will be the challenge in this unit.  Students can use the top portion/practice portion of their mastering math fact sheets to practice the facts they are working on.  Every little bit of practice helps…..practice makes permanent.

Writing - We will be writing book reviews.  It is very interesting to read the opinion writing and the reasons to support their thinking.  We are still focusing on capital letters and periods to complete sentences….these are a must.

Science - We have begun the parts of animals unit.  The goal of this unit is to be able recognize certain animal characteristics and how these characteristics help the animal survive.  

CENTER DRIVE SCHOOL

OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL

March 30, 2018

Dear Parents/Guardians,

We are in the process of reviewing our current math program. This process involved looking at many different math programs and narrowing the search down to two. If you are receiving this letter, then your child’s teacher has been part of this process and has agreed to pilot a math unit from each of the math programs. These units have been carefully chosen to coincide with what they would be teaching from the current program Investigations.

We are notifying you of this, as you may see some changes in the homework and/or tests that your child brings home. We, of course, welcome any feedback that you may have.

Sincerely,

Judy Marvin

Building Principal

We are published authors and we feel proud!

Many students have been talking about their planet projects.
Thy seem to be very excited and anxious to share all they have
learned.  Here is a copy of the letter that went home 
last week.

Your job is to design a travel poster to make people want to visit your planet.

You have become a space travel agent, and you want visitors to come to your planet.

To do this make your poster neat, colorful, and creative.  

You will present your poster to the other space travel agents in our class.

To be included on your poster:

1. Planet size
2. Planet temperature
3. Position in solar system
4. Does your planet have any moons?
5. What is your planet made of?
6. 3 to 5 random and cool facts about your planet
7. Picture or pictures of your planet
8. Sentence or sentences persuading us to visit your planet

**Return completed poster by March 30th**

HAVE FUN

March News

Important Dates

March 2nd   early release
March 16th  2nd trimester ends
March 22nd  report cards go home
March 23rd  No school/ teacher inservice 

In reading we are continuing to work with problem solving, sequencing the events, and summarizing as we read.  Please continue to read at home.  We are seeing much reading growth in these first grade friend friends.......AWESOME!

We are halfway through our math unit on addition, subtraction, and word problems.  We will continue working with fact fluency, word problems, and comparing numbers.  Once this unit is complete we begin Patterns and Functions.  Students will construct, describe, and extend repeating patterns.  They will also work with number sequence patterns.

For writing we are still working on opinion writing and using our collections for a while longer.  Once we are done with the collections we will be working on writing a review.  These writers are persuading and supporting their opinions with evidence.......big work for first graders! :)

Once we finish traveling through space we will start studying parts of plants and parts of animals.

Just a reminder that we are still playing outside at recess, so please continue to send proper winter attire.  It is also important to have shoes for inside of the classroom because boots are getting very muddy and wet with the melting snow.  Yeah melting snow!!

Thanks for your continued support.

We are 100 days smarter!