We had a fantastic day at The Building For Kids.  Here are a ton of pictures.  Enjoy!

The kids worked so hard on their Mother's Day projects!  I hope you enjoyed their water fall books, Mom writings, and painted flower pots.  They were so excited to give their presents to their Moms!

*Tuesday, May 22nd - The Bookmobile is coming to school!  If your child would like to check out a book, they may bring their Brown County Library card.  The children will visit the bookmobile for a story.  They will also be talking to us about the summer reading program.

*Wednesday, May 23rd - Friendship Mass - All students are to be dropped off at Res.  They will be take the bus back to the St. Matthew Campus after mass.

*Friday, May 25th - Field Day - All students will spend the entire day at the Res Campus.  Team colors were sent home in an attachment in the newsletter.  

Weekly Spelling Lists -

Phonetic List - 2 syllable words with 2 closed syllables
upset
admit
pigpen
sunfish
laptop
napkin
himself
contest
insist
cobweb

High-Frequency List - Trick Words - Words 151-160
every
found
still
between
name
should
home
big
give
air

Math - The yellow group is working on subtraction stories up to 10.  The green group is continuing their work with comparison bars and comparing story problems.  The red and blue groups finished up chapter 7 with measuring.  Today they started the last chapter in the book!  They are working on two digit addition.  They are learning a few different methods on how to do this. 

Making animals out of pattern blocks

Reading - This week we continued to work on contraction caterpillars, tongue twisters, and fantastic facts.  This week we also finished our final running records of the year!  The students have grown SO MUCH as readers this year!  First grade reading growth is AMAZING!  

A super awesome story written during daily 5 - work on writing

Phonics - This week we finished up our unit on vowel consonant e and vowel consonant e with suffix s.  (We call this v-e)  Our next unit will introduce two syllable words with two closed syllables. 

Writing - In handwriting this week we are reviewing letters.  We have made it through the whole alphabet!  We always work on forming the letters correctly and putting the letters on the correct lines.  In writer's workshop we worked on a super secret project for a super special day coming up on Sunday.  I hope you love it!  <3

Religion - This week's chapter in Religion was about Jesus teaching us to love God.  Friday we will read out of our final Promise Paper of the year!

Social Studies - This kids have loved learning about the states and capitals.  We continue to sing our songs, work on USA puzzles, and read out of some pretty cool USA books.

Science - We observed the bess beetles and put them in our terrariums last Friday.  It was pretty awesome!  We learned that bess beetles are classified as insects because they have three body parts and six legs.  We made a venn diagram comparing and contrasting the pill bugs and the beetles.  Today we observed both our aquariums and our terrariums.  We talked about what changes we see in both since we originally put our organisms in them.  Some things have grown and some things have died.  We are now working on murals of both the aquarium and the terrarium.

Joah's Grandma - Miss Maggie - was with us when we were working with the bess beetles.

She was very brave in holding them.  She was great at helping the kids be brave, too!  :)

Look at how much our grass seed caterpillars have grown!

*Spring Concert - Monday, May 14th - The students are asked to dress up for the concert.  The concert begins at 6:00.  The students will report to their classrooms at 5:30.

*The Building For Kids field trip in on Wednesday, May 16th.  We will leave school around 8:30.  I do not have permission slips yet form Elliot, Guadalupe, or Mia.  The students must bring a cold lunch that day.  Please have everything in their lunch brown bag style - baggies, plastic silverware, etc.  Please no lunch boxes or tupperware.  The students may order a lunch from school if you wish.  Dylan, Brady, Suzi, and Gabriella have already signed up for this.  If you would like your child to have a cold lunch made by our school, please let me know.  

*Field Day - Friday, May 25th

Math - The yellow group is working on missing partners in story problems up to 10.  The green group is working on comparison bars.  Comparison bars are similar to math mountains.  They are used in comparison story problems.  The red and blue groups are working on 2D and 3D shapes.

A creation made out of 3D shapes

Science - We have been busy!  The guppies and snails have arrived.  They are now living in our aquariums.  We learned facts about both organisms.  For instance - guppy males are colorful and guppy females are bigger.  Guppies are vertebrates.  Snails lay eggs.  They are gastropods - which means stomach footed!  Today our new shipment arrived - pill bugs and bess beetles.  Today we had our pill bug lesson.  We learned that pill bugs have gills, not lungs.  They have 12-14 legs.  They molt.  The pill bugs are now living in our terrariums.  The next lesson will be about the bess beetles.

An aquarium

Working in our organisms book

Holding a pill bug

Holding a pill bug

Holding a pill bug

One of our volunteers, Mrs. Gordon, is making caterpillars with us.  Caterpillars out of grass seed!  We put soil and grass seed inside hosiery.  Then we divided it into sections so it looks like a caterpillar.  We are watching it grow!

The day we made the caterpillars

After a few days - the grass seed is starting to grow

One week - The grass is filling in

I bought a venus flytrap plant for our class.  It fits in well with our organisms.  :)

Reading - This week our word work center is contractions.  We have been busy making contraction caterpillars.  In writing two fun centers have been tongue twisters and fantastic facts.  We read a few tongue twister books.  Now we are writing out some of the tongue twisters on paper plate tongues!  In fantastic facts the students are looking through non-fiction books.  They choose four facts to write and illustrate.  The students are doing these activities, as well as read to self, read to someone, and listening while others are working in their guided reading groups.

We also got to watch a play during daily 5 reading groups.  One of our groups worked on a play.  It was a lot of work.  They started by reading the story in their group.  They had to create their puppets.  They had to practice, and practice, and practice reading their lines and using their puppets.  After all that hard work, the group put on a show!  It was called - Do You Live In A Nest?

Social Studies - We did it!  We have learned all fifty states and capitals!  We have a US puzzle on the Smart Board that we filled in as we were learning each state and capital.  We learned a fact or two about each state.  We know the song Fifty Nifty nearly by heart.  We're learning a new song - The 50 states that rhyme.

Religion - This week we finished our chapter - Jesus Show's God's Love.  Tomorrow we will read our Promise Paper about the weekly Gospel - which is actually also about God's love.  We'll also be learning about May being the month of Mary.

Writing - This week in writer's workshop we are finishing up some poems.  Some kids also worked out of their writer's workshop notebooks.  In handwriting this week we reviewed the letters Xx, Zz, and Kk.  We are almost to the end of our handwriting book!

Discovery Day - Last Friday we had Discovery Day.  Here are a few pictures of one of our sessions - boot camp!  :)

*Next week - Thursday, May 10th - Muffins For Moms

*Reminder - Please return permission slips for The Building For Kids.  

*Spring Concert - Monday, May 14th

*Field Day - Friday, May 25th