Hello, Parents! May and June are really, really busy months for us! Please refer to the list of dates at the right and mark your calendars now. Each activity or event will have additional information that you will receive, but be sure to save the date for those events you wish to attend. Of course, we are also still in full swing instructionally until the end of the year. We are so proud of our first grade students who have grown so much physically, socially, and academically during this school year. Thank you for your dedication and partnership in helping our children to be ready to learn each and every day!!! Sincerely, Your First Grade Team Mrs. Czarnopys, Miss Kim, Mrs. Luckenbaugh, Mrs. Monarch, Mrs. Mutiga, and Ms. Perera May 1 STEM Day Visitation from 1:15-2:15 pm 2 PTA Talent Show @ 7:00 pm in the Cafeteria 7 Construction Museums in our Classrooms 12 Cultural Arts Assembly @ 10:30 am 15 Choral and Band Concert @ 2:15 pm 22 Arts Night @ 7:00 pm 26 No School Memorial Day 28 Volunteer Breakfast @ 8:30-9:15 am in the M.C. 28 May Math Wristband Assembly @ 9:30 am 29 Field Trip to the M.C. Recycling Center June 2 Cultural Arts Assembly in the morning 11 June Math Wristband Assembly @ 9:30 am 11 First Grade Book Swap 12 Step-Up Day in the morning 12 First Grade Picnic Lunch @ noon 13 Q4 BEAR Awards Assembly in the morning 13 Last Day of School Students leave @ 1:00 pm 19 Final Report Cards will be mailed home. A Very Happy May Birthday to Please remember to send back your child s library book each week. Please also check your homes for any of Goshen s small guided reading books. We seem to be missing quite a few. Thank you for your help in this area! Kaleb Dawit May 5 Alyssa Ostrow May 8 Vikki Munuo May 11 Ashley Montoya Saravia May 12 Benjamin Haley May 17 Jenna Lu May 20 Sophia Harris May 21 Ellie Breeden May 23 Charlotte Eitemiller May 24 Katja Spasic May 24 Robel Kidane May 30
During the months of May and June, we will continue reading and comprehending both literary and nonfiction texts. As we focus on literary texts, we will be delving into story elements, locating key details, and discussing character experiences. We will also continue to focus on using all of our reading strategies and on building both our speaking and writing vocabularies. In writing, we will continue to write informational pieces about electricity and our reusable material constructions. Next, we will write and illustrate our own poems, after studying the various traits of poetry and the techniques poets use to make their poems interesting and appealing to their readers. Last, we will write nonfiction, procedural pieces about how to make or do something. Our focus for social studies will be on the natural, capital, and human resources needed to produce the various goods and services that are needed within a community. We will explore the attributes of various 2- dimensional and 3-dimensional geometric shapes in our world. Please encourage our children to search for these shapes in both our school and home environments. We will then be working with fractions. As the year draws to a close, we will connect fractions to telling time using both analog and digital clocks to the nearest hour and half hour. Please continue to have our children practice their basic math facts for addition and subtraction daily. This daily practice goes a long way as math facts are the foundation for all future learning in mathematics. Our students can log onto the Harcourt textbook website and practice facts in all four operations. The website is www.harcourtschool.com, and the password is andrews. In addition, this site has lots of practice problems, activities, and games for many different topics in math fractions, telling time, counting money, measurement, skip counting, estimation, graphing, and 2-D and 3-D geometry. Please feel free to allow our children to use any of these activities to practice their skills and strategies in mathematics. In science, we will continue to look at the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling to improve our environment. We will brainstorm and determine ways we can conserve our resources and protect our environment. Please continue to talk with our children about the importance of recycling and conserving our natural resources. We are always looking for guest readers. Children love when their parents or grandparents can come in and share one of their favorite books. Please consider signing up to guest read with your child s teacher by e-mailing or sending her a note indicating you are interested. 2
Donations for our Dollar Den are always appreciated, especially as we wind up the year and our inventory is depleting. These items can be store-bought at a local dollar store, Target, CVS, Wal-Mart, etc., but they can also be gently-used items, such as books, toys, and puzzles, from your homes. We also love free items, such as pencils, erasers, and rulers, from area businesses. McDonald s Happy Meal and carnival prizes make wonderful Dollar Den treasures, too! We could all use sharpened pencils, erasers, glue sticks, and tissues to replenish our classroom supplies. Our children should continue to read every night from their guided reading books as well as from just right books of their choice. Regular practice (15-20 minutes per night) is essential for the growth of their reading skills. This is also a part of our nightly homework. Students have been improving and receiving many wristbands for their work with basic facts. Please help our children practice their addition and subtraction facts for about 5-10 minutes every night. While our emphasis is on strategies and problem solving, our students still need to be able to recall facts quickly - meaning they can give the answer within 3 seconds. Flashcards are still the best way to do this. Check your child s white Goshen Grizzly folder every night, and then please return it to school every morning. A Very Happy June Birthday to June 4 Ryan Hall June 7 Allison Friedman June 7 Bruno Diwa June 8 Audrey Meadows June 8 Tejan Jennings June 23 Ezekiel Rivas Be sure that your child brings his/her book baggie with his/her guided reading books back to school every day. Don t forget to sign the top page of your child s completed homework packet and have your child return this page every Friday. Please place any money for your child s lunch account in a sealed envelope and write his/her full name and PIN on the front. Please return the blue permission slip and $3.00 fee for our field trip to the Montgomery County Recycling Center asap if you have not already done so. 3
From Our Specialists In Art, our first graders will review elements of art and principles of design using environmental observations. We will use paint to draw the outlines of insects on dark paper, and then use blended oil pastels to color in our insects. Next, we will begin a sleepover project where students will make paper weaves to represent sleeping bags and self-portraits to go above these weaves. This will then look as if they are tucked into their sleeping bags. Hope to see all of you at our Annual Art Show on Thursday, May 22 nd beginning at 7 pm! We also wish a very happy birthday to our special friends with SUMMER BIRTHDAYS! We will be thinking of you!!! In Physical Education, our first graders just finished learning how to kick a stationary ball. From now until the end of the year, they will learn how to strike with various body parts. Additionally, they will identify exercises and activities that lead to healthy lifestyles. In Information Literacy, our students are almost half-way through our last inquiry project for the year called Sharing Our Earth. This extended writing inquiry is connected to both social studies and science content. We have begun to build our background knowledge by examining a variety of resources about how humans produce and distribute goods and services and how these actions can help and/or harm our environment. We have had lively discussions on trash and landfills and ways we can produce less trash. Our students will also learn to explain the criteria they use for selecting both print and digital sources as they acquire new information. They will learn to use the navigational tools of on-line resources to locate information and graphic organizers to categorize their recorded information. We will then analyze this information to learn what makes a fact relevant and important. In Music, our first grade students will be reading and notating music and organizing musical ideas and sounds creatively. July 9 Gavin Job July 10 Abdul-Tauhid Hanidu July 12 Tahira Yousafzai July 14 Robert Huaman Cortez July 28 Geraldine Quintana July 29 Natalie Rivera July 30 Alex Wright August 1 Miguel Salazar August 6 Tatiana Sutton August 12 Devika Manu August 12 Steven Perez Diaz August 16 Jaylene Sutton August 17 Patrick Brodigan 4
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