A few FYI's...

First Grade Phonics - We are learning about vowel consonant e syllables and vowel consonant e syllables with a suffix s.  (Ex. home, homes)

First Grade Math - This week we worked on  odds and evens, doubles, doubles plus one, doubles minus one, doubles plus two, and doubles minus two.  We are also attempting to learn how to play cribbage.  So...much...counting!  :)

Social Studies - We have learned 45 states!  We are so close to 50!  The kids love singing 50 Nifty and The 50 States that Rhyme.

Science - This week we started our organisms kit.  We have brainstormed about living things, talked about how plants and animals are alike and different, observed our four seeds using our senses and took notes about them, and we planted seeds.  (pea, sunflower, kidney bean, sunflower)  Our next task - building a terrarium!

Writing - April is National Poetry Month.  We learned about all different types of poems.  Then we wrote acrostic poems about spring, butterflies, sunshine, and flowers!  They turned out amazing!

Reading - Our word work focus is antonyms and synonyms.  They are rocking these centers!  They are such hard workers!

Religion - We have continued our talk about the Resurrection!  The kids made a really cute art project called Jesus is Risen!  I'll have to snap a picture.  Tomorrow we will be having Divine Chaplet at 2:40.

A few fun pics from the week -

ART

In art class we have been working on 2 different projects. One project is a drawing of a cat or dog on a rug. In this project we are learning to look for the basic shapes we see to help us draw an animal. We are learning about including spatial ideas, like adding a floor line, and showing the animal "on" the rug, the rug "under" the animal, the rug "on top" of the floor, and the wall "behind" the animal. We experimented with different effects, like, crayon resist, and scratching off oil crayon to make our animal look furry.

  We are also working on a still-life collage of fruit in a bowl sitting on a table. We are learning how to overlap items to create spatial effects. We've added spatial ideas like fruit "in the bowl" or "out of the bowl, and how to show fruit piled up "on top" of each other without looking like the fruit is floating in the air. This week we added thinking about how light casts shadows and creates highlights, and are adding these with pastels. This collage is a study for a future still-life painting. 

Each spring our school has an art show to showcase student artwork.

 St. Matthew's art show is scheduled for Thursday evening, May 12th. Artwork will remain on display in the gathering space through the weekend masses.

 Resurrection art show is scheduled for Thursday evening, May 19th. Artwork will remain on display in the gathering space through the weekend masses.

Have a great week. Mrs. Ihlenfeldt