April 30, 2010 Actors &Writers Alive in the First Grade!

We had so much fun this week in Language Arts. Each reading group wrote their own scene. They far exceeded expectations. Its so fun to watch when they get into a project. Youll be seeing our finished work at the Spring Showcase.

Field Trips coming up . . . in May Our May 4th field trip to Flint is all set. Well be leaving by 9:00a.m. Tuesday morning. Were hoping for good weather. Look for the end of May field trip permission slip to come home on Monday. Some of our Topics of Study this Week In Math this week some children started double digit addition. Other children continued on addition and subtraction in the teens. We continue to move quickly through the material in our math books. In Language Arts this week all of the children read the fantasy story Little Bears Friend. The children wrote their own scenes and acted them out for their friends. We have quite a few budding actors and playwrights. They also did Cause and Effect tables. Many of the children read A Fly on

my Pie, Fried Fish and Apple Pie, Freddie and the Fly, Lets Fly, Kyles Attic , and The Bear Facts. Those stories focused the long vowel sounds/i /y/ ie/. Other children read the non-fiction story Art Around Us. They focused on present and past tense. They also continued to work on antonyms. All of the children listened to the poem Alone and made up a fingerplay to go along with the words. They also discussed that being alone can be a positive thing. In Spelling/Grammar we focused on when to use capital letters. (i.e. names, places, with I and at the beginning of a sentence) We also continue to focus synonyms and antonyms as well as practicing ABC order. In Weekly Reader this week we read animal poems. The children discussed the facts that make an animal a reptile, mammal, bird, fish or amphibian. Everyone likes to volunteer to read aloudtheyre so confident. In Science the children began to illustrate their planet using Kidpix. These will be going into their portfolios with their research. We continue to paper mache our planets and the sun. Its quite a major art project. Hopefully next week well be painting. For our Fun Friday craft we started making stars for our solar system. Boy do we love glitter! Thank You! Thank you Mrs. Drews, and Mrs. McNicol for helping in our classroom this week. We really appreciate you very much!