Spelling - Due to the short week, we will not have a spelling list this week.

Reading - Last week we continued to focus on synonyms and antonyms in word work.  This week and next week our word work focus is going to be r-controlled vowels.  (Bossy R)
In addition to daily five reading groups and centers we have been practicing our Wizard of Oz play.

Daily 5 Centers

A little preview of our Wizard of Oz play

The only dog costume I could find is my boys old Halloween costume of Scooby Doo.  Luke is not a fan - but wore it any way.  I'm still looking for something for him.  :)

Social Studies - I believe we are up to 39 states and capitals!  

Phonics - We are working on two syllable words with two closed syllables.

Writing - We continue to work in writer's workshop.  There have been so many books created!  This week we will also work a little on poetry.  We are going to work on a few different types of poems - acrostic, cinquain, and diamonte.  

Religion - We continue to focus on Lent - Pray, Fast, Give.  We will work on our Promise Paper about Easter this week.  We will watch our last Rice Bowl video this week.  This week Thursday our school will pray the Divine Mercy together.  Our new virtue card is responsibility.

Science - In science we talked about using our senses to observe.  We observed our four seeds - pumpkin, pea, kidney bean, and sunflower.  We took notes on all the seeds using our observing table.  We noted what we could see, smell, feel, and hear with the seeds. The next day we planted the seeds.  Each group planted one of the different types of seeds in their cups. After they planted, they wrote about their seed and they will be documenting by drawing how the seed is growing.  We call the planting journal their planting cards.  We built terrariums as well.  We went outside to collect leaves for one of the layers of the terrariums.  The layers are gravel, leaf litter, and soil.  Then we planted two woodland plants - moss and pine tree seedlings.

Talent Show - The talent show will be on Thursday afternoon at 1:15.   First grade will be performing 2 acts as a group.  They will be singing Fifty Nifty and dancing to The Kidz Bop Shuffle.

NCEA Convention - Every year NCEA (National Catholic Education Association) has a national convention.  This year it is in Chicago.  Since it is close, GRACE is having each school send representation.  Mrs. Anderson, Mrs. Schauer, Mrs. Parker, and myself will be representing Holy Cross.  The NCEA convention is April 23, 24, and 25.  The students will have a substitute for three days.  The first grade sub is going to be Mrs. Waterstradt.  I'm very familiar with Mrs. Waterstradt.  (I taught both of her children.)  The first graders will be in great hands!

The Building For Kids - The Building For Kids field trip has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 30th.

Have a blessed Holy Week!

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 131-140
place
well
such
here
take
why
help
put
different
away

Field Trip on April 11th - This Thursday, April 11th, we will be going to The Building For Kids in Appleton.  Thank you to Mrs. Schleis, Mrs. Rasmussen, and Mrs. DeFrank for chaperoning!  We will be gone most of the day - 8:30 until about 2:15.  Every student will need a cold lunch on Thursday.  Please make sure everything in the lunch is consumable - "a brown bag lunch".  Please pack the lunch in a brown bag, baggie, grocery store bag, etc.  All silverware should be plastic.  Please don't pack any tupperware or containers.  When we are finished with lunch everything the children bring should be able to be thrown out or recycled.

The field trip is very fun!  We will arrive at the museum around 9:30.  The students will be able to explore the museum until 10:30.  At 10:30 we are taking a class called Magnificent Matter.  It is awesome!  They will get to do many hands on science experiments.  Lunch will be from 11:30 - 12:00.  The will have from 12:00 - 1:30 to explore more of the museum.  We will depart around 1:30.  We will be back at Holy Cross around 2:15.

Reading - Our current word work focus is synonyms and antonyms.  Synonyms are words that mean the same thing.  Antonyms are words that mean the opposite.  Every day we work in all five daily 5 centers and we meet in guided reading groups.

Social Studies - We are up to 33 states!  The students love learning about the states, their capitals, and facts about each state!

Science - We just got our last Einstein kit of the year.  It is called organisms.  Organisms are living things.  Friday we did the first lesson - Sharing What We Know About Organisms.  We brainstormed a list of organisms, discussed how plants and animals are alike, and how plants and animals are different.  We ended the lesson by drawing an organism and writing what the organism is and what we think it needs.  This week we'll work on seeds - observing and describing seeds and planting seeds.

Religion - We are continuing with the virtue card kindness.  During Lent we have been working on our Take 5 every day.  This week we wrote in our journals about prayer.  We have been talking about Lent and watching videos from the Rice Bowl.  We keep talking about was to pray, fast, and give during Lent.  Our promise paper this week was a story about Jesus forgiving.

Journaling about prayer

Phonics - We are finishing up our vowel consonant e unit.  We are starting a unit on 2 syllable words that have 2 closed syllables.

Writing - We continue to work in writer's workshop.  April is poetry month.  We will be doing a small unit on writing poetry as well.

Math - All last week we worked on cribbage!  The students have done such a great job learning this game!  There is so much counting to do in cribbage!  This week we will get back to our regular lessons.  

Flat Stanley - We have now received information from all of our Stanleys!  Some Stanleys we got pictures and letters via email.  The students LOVE getting Stanley mail!  It has been such a fun project!  We have learned how to write letters, how to address letters, we've learned about the places our Stanleys have gone, we've learned geography by locating the Stanleys on maps, etc.  We have learned so much!  Thank you to your friends and families for helping us with this amazing project!

River Falls, Wisconsin

 River Falls, Wisconsin

 Santa Fe, New Mexico

Nashville, Tennessee
Calla's went to her grandma in Tennessee.  Her grandma took us on a virtual tour of Germany!

Phoenix, Arizona

 Rome, Italy

Our Flat Stanley maps

The Wizard of Oz - The students are so excited to work on this play!  We are practicing our lines right now.  The kindergarten is working with us too.  They are going to be flying monkeys, munchkins, and narrators.  They just got their parts on Friday.  This weekend I collected all sorts of goodies for costumes. :)  If you have anything that you think could help us out for costumes please send it in to school.  (We are mostly looking for something for Toto, munchkins, the tin man, and flying monkeys if you can think of anything.)  After we get good with our lines, we'll practice actions, using our props, wearing costumes, etc.  We'll let you know when we are ready to share our performance with you.

Talent Show - The talent show is going to be on Thursday, April 18th in the afternoon.  First grade is going to do two performances together as a class.  Since their Kidz Bop performance last year was such a hit, they will be performing another one this year - The Kidz Bop Shuffle.  They will also be singing The Fifty Nifty.  If your child signed up to do anything else, there will be auditions this week Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Thank you so much for all your hard work on the Holy Cross Auction!  What a fun night!

Have a great week!  :)

Spelling - We will not have a spelling list this week.  We are still working on the v-e unit in phonics.  It's a long unit.  :)

Phonics - We are working on vowel-consonant-e syllables.  That simply means words that have a vowel, a consonant, and then a silent e.  The silent e makes the vowel have the long sound.  Examples are kite, ape, rode, etc.

Here we are working on sentence frames and white boards in phonics

Math - In math we took a little break from the units this last week.  We are learning how to play cribbage.  There is a lot of counting in the game of cribbage!  The kids are catching on!  If you know how to play, ask your child to play with you.

Reading - We worked on homophones in word work.  Starting this week we will have a new word work focus - synonyms and antonyms.  While the students are working in centers, I meet with small guided reading groups every day.  As always, the centers are read to self, read to someone, listening, work on writing, and word work.

Religion - Our new virtue card is kindness.  We have been reading books about kindness as well as going through our kindness cards, our kindness prayer, and learning about saints.  This week we read the story of  The Prodigal Son out of our children's Bible - that was the Gospel story for the weekend.  We talked about forgiveness after discussing the Bible story.  Each day during Lent Mrs. Gast gives us a take 5 challenge.  This week one of our challenges was to say a decade of the rosary and pray for five minutes.  Another day we learned about the virtue of honesty.  We then took five minutes to color the word honesty.  Our class is loving the take 5 challenge!

Social Studies - We are up to 18 states and capitals.  The students are LOVING learning facts about each state!  They can sing Fifty Nifty like champs already!  We have also listened to two other songs about states and capitals - but I thing Fifty Nifty is their favorite.  We have lots of state books in our classroom that are being read a lot right now.  

Flat Stanley - We have heard back from 6 Stanleys so far.  The kids LOVE getting Stanley mail!  It has been awesome reading the stories that your families and friends have shared with us about their time with Stanley!

 Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin

 Tokyo, Japan

 Luxemburg, Wisconsin

Lompoc, California

Field Trip - We are going to The Building For Kids on April 11th.  We will be gone most of the day.  We are still in need of chaperones.  We need to have four chaperones - three plus me.  We have one for sure and one maybe.  Please let me know if you'd be willing to chaperone.  It is a really fun day!  I promise!  Thank you! :)

Have a great week!