Happy Monday! Well we are coming towards the finish line of First Grade and it will be a busy next few weeks. First and most important is our show "Commotion in the Ocean" on May 10th at 8:30a.m. with light refreshments to follow. This is a great showcase of what your children have learned and  can perform. We had our squid dissection with Mrs. Peck on Friday and our focus study this week is sea turtles. We learned so much about the squid. Make sure you ask your child. We also measured the lengths of different whales this week. My goodness that blue whale is 100 feet long. Congratulations to Kate for competing in her first swim meet and winning ribbons. She shared her ribbons at Town Meeting. A letter will be sent home this week about our project work. The students will be working on them some at home and mostly at school. Depending on what they want to do, they may need to bring in special supplies. I talked to them about different options and ideas.

Happy Tuesday! I hope you had a great long weekend. What a wonderful Celebrate the Arts day on Friday. I hope you enjoyed our performance. All week we celebrated and began our week at the Dali Museum, played the drums, watched a Rock Band, talked with an Opera Singer and made homemade pasta with a chef. A special thank-you to Gissella, Sofia's mom who shared her story of how she became a famous singer and songwriter with us. The chocolate covered strawberries were especially delicious. We had a great week learning all about dolphins. Next week we will be learning about whales. Every area of our curriculum centers around our study except for Math we are continuing reviewing throughout the remainder of the year. We are comparing whale lengths, so Math will be part of our learning this week. They are so big. Remember our vocabulary each week are new ocean words. Please encourage your child to write on all of the lines on Wednesday night. Three sentences are not enough for this time of the year. They need to challenge themselves. Have a great week. We will!

Happy Friday!  Too much to tell, to wait for Monday. We are beginning our Commotion in the Ocean projects and show rehearsals. I sent home the poems to memorize on Thursday. I will be sending home your child's speaking parts next week. Please send in a clean white T-shirt to school ASAP. They will begin decorating them soon. The next four weeks will be fast and furious. This week is Celebrate the Arts with our performance Friday at 11:00 followed by a picnic lunch. Please enjoy all of the Art displayed throughout then entire campus. All divisions participate in the Celebration all week. The Upper Division will be performing The Music Man Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. We are going to the Dali Museum on Monday. Out tour begins at 10:00 and we will return to school after for lunch. I would like to send a very warm thank-you to everyone for making Teacher Appreciation Week one of the best ever! The breakfasts were a wonderful surprise each morning and lunch was a delightful treat. I even got Godiva chocolates and Edible Arrangements apple slices dipped in chocolate delivered. Thank you again, I feel tremendously appreciated.
The pictures show quite a bit going on this week. Have your child use an empty egg carton for Math. They can label it with numbers and use pennies as game pieces. Depending on the digits the pennies land on, will determine what 3 digit numbers they can make. Have them practice how many flats, longs and cubes they need to go along with the number or which coins they need to show that amount. We also had our Writing Celebration for Our Craft of Revision Unit. Purple was everywhere. They worked on changing the story leads, endings, spelling, sequence or added where more detail was needed. Next week we are back to our non fiction All about books, with our focus being dolphins. Each week our focus will change. We are also reading out of our nonfiction dolphin books. Have a great week. We will!

Happy Monday! Congratulations to Emmitt for helping Sr. Zamoff with Monday Town Meeting. He spoke beautiful Spanish. We also had a busy Relay for Life week. Our chain was so long. Thank-you for sending in coins to build our chain. The Kick Off was great and the Relay was so much fun.

In Math, we are still making polygons. This time, we used straw parts and pipe cleaners. We also did floor math and practiced Fact Triangles, In and Out Box and Number Collections. Danny from the Middle Division came and helped us practice money and coin combinations.

 In Readers workshop, we are reviewing fluency and expression before we return to nonfiction ocean animal reading. In Writer's Workshop, we have completed our Craft of Revision Unit and our published pieces are in the hall later this week for preview. Please help your child with spelling. If they ask, please tell them the correct spelling. We are no longer relying on invented spelling. They now know enough sight words and vowel rules to determine appropriate or correct spelling. In Science, we are beginning our ocean unit. This week we be a general introduction and overview.
Have a great week. We will!

Happy Friday/Monday depending on when you are reading this post. I would like to remind everyone to wear purple everyday all week. We are celebrating our Relay for Life event on Friday. Please come, it is great fun for all and very purposeful. We celebrated and remembered Mrs. Weinman this week and planted a beautiful garden. I will be collecting donation envelopes as well as continuing the link project for one more week.
I am sending home the unit 7 checking progress in Math. Please use this assessment to know which areas your child needs to practice. Our pictures are all about Polygons. We made them from straight pretzel sticks and gumdrops. Ask your child about them.
In Social Studies, we are continuing our work with Florida. We labelled the state, discussed and learned about mantees and alligators. What a wonderful experience I had, swimming with the manatees in Crystal River. They are giant!
In Writer's Workshop we are revising, rereading and adding to our stories.
Have a great week. We Will!

ful.

Happy Monday! We enjoyed Reading Week. Our Character Day was great. We have been working on creating our Character Maps, with many different stories. We had guest readers share their Lion Fish storybook and finished the week with Oldie Goldie. The highlight was reading outside with the entire Lower School community on Tuesday, when we dropped everything in our schedules to just "Read". In Writer's Workshop, we have spent a great deal of time learning how to conference with partners. What do we say and how do we give constructive suggestions without hurting feelings.

Please join us on Monday with our dedication of the playground and planting our flower garden for Mrs. Weinman. Don't forget to bring in a potted plant for the ceremony.
In Math, we have begun learning about the attributes shapes have. We have certain language when we are talking about the shape like color, corners, sides, and size. On Friday, we have also begun learning about Polygons. There are rules for a shape to be classified a polygon. Ask your child about why a shape is classified as a polygon. We will be making polygons on Tuesday using straight pretzels and gumdrops.
In Social Studies, we have begun our unit on Florida. We have talked about how Florida is in the south and which bodies of water surround it. We have also identified it as a peninsula.
To get ready for our Relay for Life event we will all be wearing purple the week of April 1st. Keep sending in loose change our chain is really getting long.
Have a great week. We will!

I hope you had a great week off for Spring Break. Here are some pictures from Field Day and the Mini Mester with the Upper Division students. They taught us a lot of things. We had a blast!

Please don't forget Character Day is the Monday we return. Please come dressed as your character and bring in the book.