We will be finishing up Time and Calendar in math and next week we’ll begin Plane Shapes and Solid Figures.

Our Phonics book is getting pretty slim, we are contemplating working on 2 pages a day when time permits, they are excited to finish it up! We will be working on inflectional endings and digraphs.

Next week is the last story in our red reading book. But since our field trip is on Wednesday, we may spill into the following week.

Please remember to dress your child accordingly on Wednesday.  Our field trip to Lincoln Park Zoo is near the lake and their weather may be different than ours. Souvenir money is optional.  They have a very large gift shop, and prices range greatly.  Students need to bring a disposable lunch with a drink; no lunch boxes or glass please! We will be going into a workshop that will teach about animal habitats, then we will explore the zoo, have lunch, shop and return back to Grant Park at the end of the school day.

The end of the year is coming quickly!  We have several activities coming our way. There will be an assembly sometime in the near future. A “bicycle guy” will come and perform as a part of the recent fund raiser we did. Our class field trip was approved.  We will be going to Lincoln Park Zoo on Wed. May 15th.  During our visit we will participate in the Zoo Explorers Program and discover different animal habitats.  Permission slips and $1.oo are both due April 30th.  Our end of the year party is May 31st with outside activities planned, weather permitting.  Our class is also planning an ice cream party to clebrate students who read for Book-It.  We have no definite date yet.

We will be finishing up measurement in math and move on to time and calendar.

And of course I always encourge reading.  Read menus, signs, labels, stories to them, let them read stories to you or a family member.  They can read to you while you prepare dinner or fold laundry.  I’ve even told them to read to their cat or dog!

Enjoy the week end, the weather is supposed to be nice!

As the weather warms, remember to send socks to school if your child wears sandals.  Socks were supposed to go home over Spring break, but I see that not all did!  I also have a pair of clean socks in our lost and found; if you’re missing a pair let me know. If your child’s PE shoes are too small, they can wear gym shoes that are clean and fitting to their feet (no loose shoes)on PE days  for the rest of the school year.

We also have a variety of cough drops on my desk that I will be sending home.

In math we are working on measuring.  We had fun measuring classroom items with “nonstandard” units; yarn, paperclips. We will continue to work on measurement. I think the biggest challenge right now is that they put the end of the “measuring unit” at the end of the measured object to get an accurate answer.  Please continue working with math facts to 20, telling time and counting money at home.

We have been observing some insects and other bugs, both (once) real and plastic to compare and contrast their apperances. I did mention that if they find something interesting, they could put it in a bug jar (no glass please) and bring it in for us to look at.  Praying Mantis are fun to observe.

Our spelling words may be a little tricky this week; er,ir,ur.  They may need a little extra practice at home.

We will be finishing up with fractions this week, they have caught onto the concept quickly.

As the weather warms, remember to send in socks for PE on days that your child wears sandals.

Remember that we have a 1:55 dismissal on Wednesday.

Judging by the enthusiasm, it sounds as though we all had a good break.  I know I enjoyed the down time, too bad the weather didn’t cooperate and “act like spring”.

We are jumping feet first into fractions this week. It surprised me how little they knew about fractions this afternoon.  We will also continue to work on math strategies to 20 alongside the fractions. 

I’m anticipating a few more Book-Its to come in, so we can plan our ice cream party.  Although Book-It is over, please continue to read at home.  Baggy books will continue coming home until the end of the year. 

Book orders are due today, I’ll wait until tomorrow to send it…just in case.  Spring pics are tomorrow, only those with an envelope will have their picture taken.

This week we will be working on math facts to 20.  When we return from spring break we will add fractions to our math lessons.  Please continue to keep them on top of telling time and counting coins so they don’t forget.

Have a wonderful week off , hopefully the weather will start showing signs of spring!

The snow is melting and spring is right around the corner! Since the snow day gave us such a short week, we read a story from an old series which was a little easier with easier spelling words. We are back on track this week.  I didn’t resend the spelling words for this week, if you need them drop me a note.

This is our last month for Book-It. We will celebrate withan ice cream party in April.

The end of the grading period is this Friday, report cards go home 3/22.  March 22nd is also a 1:55 dimissal, which begins our spring break.  We will return 4/2.

This week our reading stories are about weather.  We will also keep track of the weather on a chart.  Tomorrow will be our monthly tornado drill and we’ve talked about the  importance of staying safe during extreme weather.  A “lockdown drill” is planned for this week, and we will discuss why we need to be safe at school, too.

Book-It will finish up in March. We still have a few first graders who have NOT turned in any Book-Its slips.  Those who have participated will celebrate with an ice cream party.  Our February form will go home today.

Next week is our Valentine’s Day party.  Please plan to send in cards to exchange with the other students.  A class list will go home at the end of the week.

Keep your Boxtops, labels, Ultra receipts and poptops coming in.

In math this week, we will be attempting to do 2 pages again.  We will be looking at number patterns; on a 100 chart, even/odd, ordinal numbers, counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s and begin adding two digit numbers without carrying. Memorizing math facts will be very helpful for this chapter.

Our reading story this week talks about recycling.  We will be recyling our snack wrapers, containers, etc. and continue until the end of the year. Some of you already recycle at home, if you do not you may send in your clean recylables with your first graders and we’ll put it out with the school’s. You’ll be amazed at how much room that stuff takes up in your trash! And remember, of course, that Belson’s is taking aluminum for the contest we have with the other schools.  You get the cash, we get the points.  They are very generous with prizes at the end of the year.

The first graders will be challenged a little more as they get closer to being a second grader.  They have done some “practice”  reading tests, where we did some of it together. This week they will begin reading it themselves and I’ll help individually with words they get stuck on. We have also began putting our spelling words in ABC order.  Last week was a doozy, they all began with s-good practice!  This week we have a new reading book and with that they now have 2-3 “vocab words” that will be on their spelling list.  They won’t have to spell them, but they need to read them and understand what they mean. These words are usually found on the reading test at the end of the week.

Please be sure to dress your child appropriately, they do go out for lunch recess, except when it’s extremely cold—like today!

STAY WARM..It’s going to be a cold week.