February Newsletter

Reading Workshop: We launched our new unit, Readers meet Characters and Series books by reading about Iris and Walter from the series and Mr. Putter and Tabby from the series.  We recorded our thoughts, wonderings and favorite parts on post-its and in our readers' notebook. 

We learned that Characters DRIVE the story by: 

showing emotion, 

taking us places, 

getting into trouble or having problem and then...

 fixing the problem or finding a solution.

Also, we are learning about characters from their friends. 

**Character in series books become our friends because we know them so well.***
Click link for series books at first grade's "Just Right Level"   First Grade Book Suggestions

Writer's Workshop, Our Writing Review unit is all about writing an opinion. The children are writing their opinions about the items in the collection they brought from home. But that is not all! Kids have opinions about a lot of things. They are honing their skills by writing about their favorite: food, sport, color,  pet, etc.  Did you know Opinion writing is like the cookie O.R.E.O.? Opinion writing involves much more than just stating an Opinion. Students must give Reasons for their opinion presented in an interesting and convincing manner with Examples.  The last sentence is a restate of their Opinion.  

Math: We finished Chapter 10 Weight. We learned that heavier items make the scale go down like a see-saw. We talked about which weighed more and how much more.  We started Chapter 11 Picture Graphs and Bar Graphs. We are practicing organizing our information or data and making tally and bar graphs. Next up will be Chapter 12: Number to 40. Being able to use and understand numbers up to 100 is a needed skill for second grade. We will talk about place value and use the place value chart. Questions we will ask students: 38 is how many tens and how many ones? 

Science: The students are finishing the Solids and Liquids in the Science lab with Mrs. Hwande.  They investigated the interactions between solids and liquids while describing, observing and recording the results of their experiments. Key words: viscous, transparent, translucent, opaque. rigid, flexible, smooth, rough. Finally, students read the Dr. Seuss book, Oobleck and then made oobleck. They found it is a third kind of liquid called plasma.

NEXT UP: Social Studies: Long Ago and Today. Please get baby pictures of your child together and send them to school. We will need 7 pictures: Baby, and then 1 from each year.  We will be creating a time line of their lives! 
We will be gluing these to a paper to make the time line.
Parent Teacher Conferences are March 19-22.   
All parents used www.signupgenius.com to make their date/time selection. 
You will be getting a reminder email a few days before the conference.  

Looking Ahead: 
March 16- Conference Prep- NO SCHOOL 
March 19-22 Conferences
March 23- 30- Spring Break
April 6- Early Release
April 12th- Field Trip to the Museum of Transportation
May 11th- Field Trip to the Magic House 
May 25th- Field Day
May 28th- No School Memorial Day
May 31st- Last day