Friday Flyer 
Dear
Parents,
Thank you for attending conferences last
week. There is so much to celebrate in
regards to your child’s progress so far this year! We appreciate the home support for both
academics and behavior.
Last week in Writer’s Workshop we began
our unit on “Persuasive Writing”. We started by studying and exploring the
experts… authors of persuasive pieces.
Next we brainstormed a list of topics we feel passionate about, wrote a
whole class practice letter to the Kindergarteners persuading them to become
awesome readers, and then started composing our own pieces. These kiddos are good at persuading others…..:)
they use ALL the key words!
During Reader’s Workshop, our comprehension
strategy is Asking Questions Before, During, and After reading a story. Good readers are always asking questions
about what they are reading…and checking to be sure everything is making
sense! We have been practicing writing
out this concept several times at school, but it is always a good idea to
discuss this concept verbally when reading together.
Be sure to encourage your child to keep reading every
night at home.
During science we wrapped up our
“Sorting Things Out” unit by coming up with our own magnet experiments, performing
them, and sharing what we learned with the class. We also did science rotations through each of
our first grade classrooms where we investigated properties of water and
learned/experimented with “donut magnets.”
We will continue our “Weather Watchers” Unit as we
watch for signs of spring! We did “Fun
Friday” rotations and learned about the process of tapping sugar maple
trees. The tree outside our classroom
window that we have been studying all year just happens to be a sugar maple, so
we tapped it and Mrs. Putnam boiled down the sap to make syrup. We tasted our own homemade maple syrup in
class today, yum!!
In Math Workshop we continue number scrolling
(some have reached 2,000!), and we are completing our learning on 2-dimensional
and 3-dimensional shapes. Our highlight last
week was constructing our own 2-D shapes with toothpicks and marshmallows! We reviewed many math concepts this month as
well through some St. Patrick’s Day math stations. I also pre-assessed students on our third
trimester standards.
In social studies we learned about St. Patrick’s
Day through reading non-fiction books and we had our own little first grade
leprechauns deliver some “I feel lucky to know you” letters to adults in our
building this week.
The excitement for learning is certainly
blossoming in our classroom!
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Mason & Kelly Putnam
*
Reminder… Family Fun Night is tonight at
the High School. Come out and have
some yummy pizza and have fun playing games and listening to music. Tickets will now be available at the doorJ. Be sure to check out the TEACHER SILENT AUCTION TABLE!
The two of us have a bowling trip up for raffle.
* We were asked to send a
reminder note about school hot lunch:
