Miss Foster's Fabulous First Grade
April 2017
Dear Parents,
Happy Spring! It's hard to believe we are already into the 4th quarter and first grade will be coming to a close in a few short weeks. Here is what we have been working on and will continue to work on as we get ready for 2nd grade!
Reading:
We are honing in on some of our research skills as we try to find important information in both fiction and nonfiction books and giving evidence to back up our ideas about what is important. We are working on the comprehension skills of analyzing, critiquing and evaluating and determining importance. We are also working on building our reading fluency during small group reading time by noticing different types of punctuation (commas, question marks and exclamation points), learning what they mean, and applying them to our reading when reading aloud.
Writing:
This is an exciting quarter in writing for our fabulous first graders! We are just finishing up how-to writing. Next, the students will be self-selecting an animal to research and write an "All About" book on their animal. We will work hard during reading and writing to learn about all of the pieces of a nonfiction book. This will help the children attack some of the books they use to research their animals and will help them better understand some of the elements they will include in their own writing. We will also be doing some guided research on the laptops using websites like National Geographic Kids, Ducksters.com, and A-Z Animals.
Math:
We have been working a lot with groups of tens. We are practicing breaking numbers in the teens into two parts and noticing that 13 is the same as 10+3. We have also been working on equivalent number sentences such as 7+8=10+5. Breaking numbers up like this will help the students grasp the concept of place value, which we are just beginning to work on.
Next, we will be moving into adding and subtracting two digit numbers. We will begin this challenging concept by adding and subtracting 10 from a larger number and move towards more challenging problems.
Science and Social Studies:
We will briefly discuss Earth Day and ways we can help the planet on a daily basis as it approaches after Spring Break. We are also learning about living and nonliving things throughout the 4th quarter during science. When we return from Spring Break we will be planting different types of seeds including sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, kidney beans and pea seeds. We will learn how to take care of our plants as they begin to grow in the coming weeks. We will also be building both terrariums and aquariums and learning about the plants that live in different environments to help sustain the animals that live there. In a few weeks we will get some "class pets" that will live in the environments we have created.
ABL
We can't do ABL without the help of amazing parents, like you! Please consider signing up to volunteer by following this link: http://signup.com/go/keazjY
Summer Birthdays!
If so, and you would like to us to celebrate your child's special day at school, please contact me and we will set up a time in May or June to celebrate.
Volunteers
Tech Time
Gopher Sight Words
Meme Tales
This app allows children the opportunity to either have the story read aloud to them or for them to read it themselves.
Sushi Monster
Students need to work to combine pieces of sushi, which each have a number on them, to make the total at the top of the screen. As students advance the addition becomes more challenging by providing higher sums and offers multiplication.
Video of the Month
Mark Your Calendars!
April 12-17th - School Closed for Spring Break
April 18th - Book Orders Due! April book orders all went home with a free book coupon for each student, so don't forget to place your orders!
April 20th - Arts Festival 4-9pm. Come to school to see some wonderful music performances and to see all of the art work created by our students!
May 9th - No Place for Hate Day. If your child has a No Place for Hate shirt, he or she should wear it to school. If not, your child can wear yellow and black.
May 12th - Race for Education (raid date May 26th). We will be outside participating in this fun walk-a-thon for a great deal of our morning. Please send your child to school in comfortable clothes and sneakers. You should apply sunscreen before sending your child to school. Please have your child wear the shirt provided by the PTCA. It should be coming home soon.
May 25th - Field Trip to the Lehigh Valley Zoo. Please make sure your child has comfortable walking shoes for this day. I will send more information home about this day closer to the date. If you were chosen to be a chaperone, please make sure you send in your payment of $16.90 as soon as possible if you haven't done so already!
May 29th - Memorial Day/No School
June 1st-6th - Early Dismissal at 12:30
June 6th - Last Day of First Grade
Contact Miss Foster
Email: hfoster@boyertownasd.org
Website: http://www.boyertownasd.org/Domain/658
Location: 2547 Big Road, Gilbertsville, PA, United States
Phone: 610-473-1726