What have we been up to this month?

Language Arts

Over the past few weeks we've been doing a lot of fun activities during our literacy times. We've been able to be a bit more creative with writing about what we like to do when it rains, creating our spring forsythia vases and flowers to decorate our classroom.

We've learned a lot of new trick words over the past few weeks including as, has and this. Please watch your student's folder tomorrow for the newest trick word card for their ring - this.

We have also continued to read in our groups and are making wonderful progress with these books. If your student hasn't brought home a plastic reading bag with a new book for a few weeks, please let me know. Sometimes, the students leave their plastic bags in their larger yellow browsing bags and forget to take the books home to practice with you!

**Please note that we will NOT bring books home this week as it's right before April vacation. We will resume our book bags the week of April 28th.**

Today we completed our opinion writing unit by writing about which season is our favorite and why. We will continue to write nonfiction throughout the remainder of the year.

In Fundations, we've completed unit 3 and have just begun unit 4! This unit is very exciting as it begins to introduce digraphs to the students to help them begin tapping out ch, ck, sh, th, and wh. The students are really excited about tapping out new words like shop, chip and sock and applying it to their writing. I cannot wait to see what we do with these new sounds as we become more comfortable with the digraphs after vacation.

Math

We have completed chapter 12! We have been learning more about counting on and have added in counting back. Please make sure your student is using their fingers and counting on by putting the number in their head to find out the bigger number. These skills are very important to our math learning and helps students to become more flexible in their thinking as they work in addition and subtraction.

Science

We've finished our unit on Transportation! I'm so glad that each of you were able to join us last week during open house to see all of the wonderful things we've been learning in our science curriculum. It's difficult to send home activities during sink and float or when we learn about the three states of matter - solid, liquid and gas. The students so enjoyed their time making their transportation vehicles out of recycled materials, so a big THANK YOU to all of you for sending in those materials!

Important Notes

*No school 4/18 - Good Friday

*April Vacation 4/21-4/25

*Early Release on 5/9 at 1:15 - lunch will be served

*Please continue to send in boots with your student, especially if it's been raining, as the playground can become very muddy at times.

*Book bags will NOT be sent home this week 4/15-4/16 as we are getting ready for April Vacation!

*Enjoy your time off next week!