This week with our Wonders program we will focus on the Essential Question of:  What inventions do you know about?  We will read and learn about various inventors and inventions. 
Our phonics will continue with more r-controlled vowels:  or, ore, oar
Our spelling words are:
born, corn, core, more, roar, soar
Our Sight Words are:  learn, sure - - with exposure to:  began, better, guess, right.
Our grammar focus will be adjectives that compare (er, est). 

We will be reviewing geometry (2D and 3D) and fractions.  We already know what ½ means…what about if we divide something into thirds or fourths? 
 
Earth Day 2019 is an event observed annually on April 22 (the first day of Spring Vacation). It is a day held to demonstrate and promote environmental awareness and calls for the protection of our planet. Earth Day is celebrated in more than 193 countries each year.   We will be focusing on the importance of this event with our writing, reading, and some fun projects.

Has your child told you anything about Mrs. Dana and SuperFlex?  SuperFlex is a Superhero who is able to manage all sorts of different social situations in an expected way.  He helps defeat The Unthinkables (cartoon characters that externalize particular problems children may have) when they try to take over children's brains and make them behave in unexpected ways.  We have learned about Rock Brain (he makes children get stuck on their own ideas) and Glassman (who causes us to over-react to small things).  We have learned some great strategies from Mrs. Dana to help us to overcome these two problem areas.  Ask your child to share this information and skills with you.
 
This week with our Wonders program we will focus on the Essential Question of:  What can you see in the sky?  We will be applying our prior knowledge (schema) of the night sky as we read many stories this week. 
 
Our phonics will continue with r-controlled vowels:  ir, er, or, ur.

Our spelling words are:
                 her, bird, fur, fern, dirt, work
Our Sight Words are:  climb, through - - with exposure to:  another, full, great, poor.
 
Our grammar focus will be adjectives with our writing focus on word choice.
 
With our Everyday Mathematics program we will continue learning about clocks - - telling time to the hour and half-hour, fractions, and adding/subtracting 10’s.  
 
We will be finishing up for Biomimicry investigation this week.  Using nature to help solve human problems, we have created unique adaptations that will help keep us warm, dry, and camouflaged.  Now comes the time to apply this knowledge when we will create Mystery Boxes.

This week in our Wonders program we will focus on the Essential Question of:  How can we classify and categorize things?  We sort and classify daily when we use criteria to move around the classroom.  For example:  If you are wearing the color blue...If you have shoe laces that are tied...If your first name starts with a vowel.  We will connect the concept of classifying with animals, as we continue our love of this subject matter.  Our phonics focus is “r-controlled vowels” with the spelling pattern of “ar”:
cart, barn, arm, art, yarn, harm
Our sight words are:  four, none – with exposure to:  large, only, put, round
 
Our grammar focus will be joining sentences with “and, but, or”, which will tie in perfectly with our writing focus of:  Sentence Fluency.  We will also focus on Character Traits and Point of View.
 
With our Everyday Mathematics program we will work more with clocks (digital and analog).  We will continue practicing addition/subtraction, place value (a favorite activity), and fractions. 
 
Has your child shared “biomimicry” with you?  We have already solved two human problems by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.  Using a turtle as a model, we had to design something to protect our head when riding a bicycle.  Using the burdock plant we have solved the problem of how to tie our shoes.  This week we will us a bear to help us survive the cold of Alaska, a whale to help us swim I cold water, and an octopus to help us learn about the importance of camouflage.  Stay tuned for these challenges.

If your child starts complaining about a sore throat - - there have been reports of Strep Throat in First Grade.

Yahoo!  Our class has earned extra Gym time with Ms. Baines.  Please have your child wear sneakers tomorrow (Friday) for this fun activity.

This week with our Wonders program we will focus on the Essential Question of:   How do people work with animals?  We will be reading and talking about different ways that people work with animals.  Do you remember hearing about Koko, the gorilla that learned sign language?  We will be reading the story, Koko and Penny.  Back in 1972 Penny Patterson starting working with Koko, helping Koko to learn over 1,000 words! 
 
Our phonics study for the week is Long Vowel Ee with the spelling pattern of y, ey.  Our spelling words are:
key, bumpy, puppy, funny, penny, sandy
Our Sight Words are:  wash, would – with exposure to:  found, hard, near, woman, would, write
 
During Writer’s Workshop we will continue to focus on the organization of our stories as well as word choice.
 
With our Everyday Mathematics program we will learn about “What’s My Rule”.  Information will be coming home this week.  What’s My Rule is another way to look at addition and subtraction – but with a rule that needs to be followed for each equation. 
 
Has your child told you about Biomimicry?  Using animals and their outstanding features your child designed the perfect bicycle helmet and Velcro shoes.  This week we will us a bear and a whale to help us solve human problems.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  Last Thursday and Friday we spent time planning and then creating a STEAM activity - -  the perfect Leprechaun Traps.  It was wonderful to see the cooperation between and among friends.  Teamwork was observed throughout both days.  Check out the pictures below!   We can’t wait to get into school on Monday morning to see if our traps were successful.
 
This week with our Wonders program we will focus on insects.  Our Essential Question is:  What insects do you know about?  How are they alike and different?  Our phonics focus will be the Long Vowel Ii with the spelling patterns of: i, y, igh, ie.  The spelling words are:
find, night, by, kind, right, pie
Our sight words are:  caught, listen - - with exposure to:  flew, know, laugh, were.
 
We have loved discovering so many interesting facts about animals with Wonders and Mystery Science.  Even our discoveries about vultures were fascinating!  I must admit I have never used “fascinating” and “vultures” in the same sentence...until now.  After reading our Wonders story, Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre, we discovered the importance of this bird to our ecosystem.  We found out that Vultures do not hunt live prey.  Instead, they act as scavengers feeding on the carcasses of dead animals.  They play an important role in nature, helping to prevent the spread of disease.  Ask your child to tell you how the warming air in the morning helps the vulture to soar.
 
This week’s Science exploration will teach us about biomimicry.  Biomimicry is solving human problems by mimicking plants and animals.  Our first investigation will involve using a turtle’s shell to help protect us.
 
Our writing will continue to focus on the organization of our stories.  We will revisit different ways to start our stories – to grab our reader’s interest right away.  Once we have grabbed their interest we are learning to put some great word choice into our stories. 
 
In math we will review fact triangles and the connection between addition and subtraction.  We will also be using addition strategies to help us with solving subtraction problems.
 
Just a reminder... Math Night is Tuesday night.  Come join me (and some of my wonderful colleagues) for a night of math games.   As your children know...a day without math is like a day without sunshine.
 
Thursday is World Down Syndrome Day.  World Down Syndrome Day is annually observed on March 21 to raise public awareness of Down syndrome, a congenital disorder caused by having an extra 21st chromosome (3 instead of 2).  At NBCS we will be showing our support by wearing crazy socks.  Join me on Thursday - I’ll be wearing one of my many crazy pairs of socks – have your child wear some also!
 

We have been doing extra cleaning of our desks with all the germs floating around the school.  As a result...we are out of Clorox Wipes.  We would love donations.  Thanks!!!

This week with our Wonders program we will focus on the Essential Question:  How do animals survive in nature?  We have loved discussing, reading, and writing about animals over the last several weeks.    Our Mystery Science investigations have fit in perfectly.
 
Our phonics focus is the Long Vowel Oo spelling patterns of:  o, oa, oe, ow.  Our spelling words are:
low, boat, no, row oat, toe
Sight Words:  over, more - - with exposure to:  find, food, start, warm
 
This Friday we will be doing a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) activity.  We will be building Leprechaun traps.  If you have any extra boxes (approximate size of large cereal box from Sam’s Club) we would love to have them.
 
We had such a great time at the Read-A-Thon last Friday.  We practice our reading all day, every day... all the time. Check out the pictures below.
 
If you haven’t returned the sheet with your child’s t-shirt size yet, please do ASAP so that I can place an order.