End of the year reminders

Thank you to students and families who attended our St. Ann "Celebration of Learning" (spring concert) on Wednesday night. The students did a great job!

Remember:

*Thursday = Field Day
Students may wear their gym uniforms. (Please pray for good weather! We would love to be outside!)
Thursday folders will come home. Please check these. There is important information about summer assignments, a letter from me, and other important information. Thank you!

*Friday = 12:00 dismissal
Students may wear their gym uniforms.
Don't forget to pick up your child's report card after school.

This has been a great year! Let's finish up strong!

Positive Attitudes

We can't control the weather, and we wanted to keep the students safe, so the Kindergarten and First Grade teachers and I cancelled the field trip to the zoo. We know the students were disappointed (and we were too), so we tried to do our best to bring the zoo to our classroom.

We made brought in stuffed animals and made our own animal masks...

We watched a movie about animals and ate animal crackers...

Our secretary even treated us to pizza!

Overall, we had a pretty good day. The rain couldn't stop us from learning... or from having fun!

Thank you for being understanding. I returned the money to your children, so be sure to ask for it!

Dig In

Tuesday was a busy day for us. We started the morning with the morning work problems. Then we transitioned to Phonics, where we studied words with ou (examples: out, shout, loud) and ow (examples: cow, flower, tower).

During Reading, we really stretched our brains as we read Wumbers (Amy Krouse Rosenthal).

.

Wumbers = Words + Numbers

The students deciphered some words like cre8 (create), sh80 (shady), 2th (tooth), and 4give (forgive). Then a few students even made up some of their own. I love their creativity!

Then they spent some time Working on Writing, Reading to Self, and Reading with a Buddy while I met with some reading groups who started new books. They are moving up levels and really enjoying the books they are reading. It is a beautiful thing to see!

During Writing the students started transferring their biography facts from note cards to an outline. It was challenging, but they stuck with it, and they finished up their introduction paragraphs for their research reports.

We read about the church season of Easter and Jesus' rising from the dead in our Religion books before heading outside (a little early) to enjoy the fresh air for recess.

After lunch, we read from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and took a math quiz before starting Science.

First, we read a book about rocks and soil.

Then, we examined samples of soil.

Next, we completed a chart about attributes (properties) of soil.

We then discussed the three layers of soil: (1) bedrock (bottom), (2) subsoil (middle), and (3) topsoil (top). We labeled a diagram.

Finally, we made edible layers of soil.

Bedrock = marshmallows (bottom)

Subsoil = Cheerios (middle)

Topsoil = Cocoa Krispies (top)

We even added a gummy worm because worms live in the soil.

And VOILA! Our very own edible layers of soil. They each labeled their cup according to the different layers, and then we prayed grace before we were able to...

Dig in!

Yum!

The students packed up and went to Spanish... then it was time for announcements and dismissal... My, oh my, time flies when you're having fun...

More Photos from First Communion

Thank you to a parent who sent in more photos from First Communion. If you have any you would like to see up on this blog, please email me.

First Communion Photos

Greetings Parents, Students, and Friends,

Thank you for those who were part of (and those of you who were praying for) a beautiful First Communion Ceremony for our Saint Ann students.

I was unable to take pictures as I was walking around, making sure everyone was there and where they needed to be. I have good news in that Mrs. Ronk (our Spanish teacher) took a lot of photos and shared them with me on a website.

Here is the website where you can access the pictures too- please share it with your families and friends:

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=1d900631ab49e6d2&sid=0AaNWzZy1bsmb6o

If you have any photos that came out really well, please send them to me (foyleolu@gmail.com), and I will try to add them to this blog or the school website. Thank you!

Respect

We are working on being showing RESPECT to everyone we meet!

We met with our counselor on Wednesday and talked about how to be respectful and to whom we show respect. We have found it's easy to forget to be respectful toward the end of the year, but now we know, and we're going to try really hard to show respect.

Please reinforce this at home too. Thank you!

Stop and Check... and Cheese

Monitor and Clarify --> STOP!

Do you understand what you're reading?

Do you need to reread something? figure out a word's meaning? ask a question? make a prediction? visualize the story in your mind?

The second graders are asking themselves just that this month. They LOVE reading (in fact, I would call them "voracious readers"), and now we know good readers need to stop and check for understanding.

Why would we read a book if we don't understand it or remember it once we're finished? :)

Recently in Math, we learned about area- how much is covered in a shape? We set out to find the area using "1-inch tiles" (or in our case, Cheez-it crackers). We laid them out on the rectangles and counted up how many square tiles each rectangle's area measured.

Mmm! Math can be tasty sometimes!

Reading Strategies

April has come and gone (I can't believe it, can you?!), so we finished up our reading strategy of "Visualizing" this week. We read the story Peter and the Wolf on Monday. Then on Tuesday we discussed different musical instruments and listened to the story played by an orchestra as we pictured the characters and the plot in our minds.

In May we will focus on "Monitor and Clarify," which is all about making sure we understand what we are reading. So, in order to make sure we stop, we made our very own stop signs.

We also worked on learning new vocabulary, so we read about and discussed "bee words." We read a magazine, looked at other books as references, made a vocabulary honey comb, and even enjoyed some delicious honey comb cereal. (Yum!)

Speaking of bees, we'll be "busy as bees" in the coming month as we wind down the school year. Please make sure your child is completing his or her homework (including Spelling) every night. Thank you!