Last week we learned about the letter J. Students During the week we will hear several versions of Jack and The Beanstalk. This is a familiar story and it is fun to share elements of different versions with each other. The class also began to write "How To" papers in writer's workshop.  This week our letter was Y.  However, our language arts and science focus was on Earth Week.  We read many books about ecology which emphasized recycling, saving water, reusing materials, conserving energy, and protecting our environment.  Several activities and writing responses came from wonderful class discussions.  We also enjoyed a great play put on by our school's EcoClub about our namesake May Watts who led the way in environmental awareness.

Our main focus in math right now is subtraction. The class will learn some new games and work on their fluency on math subtraction facts 1-10. Fluent means they can solve subtraction equations without having to use fingers, objects, etc. But they also must be able to EXPLAIN what subtraction is. We will continue to focus on problem solving in math but will begin to solve more multiple step problems. When we work on multiple step problems we often try to solve them in small groups. Students work together and learn from each other's "math talk". Our goal is to help our students become problem solvers who understand there are multiple ways to solve a problem.


During these last few weeks we will be busy preparing for first grade. The students will be asked to read and write more independently and they will be expected to complete some more difficult tasks. At this time of year we really want to be sure that each child is using capital/lowercase letters appropriately in both their names and in their writing. Students should also have spaces between their words and be experimenting with punctuation. We hope all children will be reading at level C by the end of the year and that they begin to read and write the 1st grade sight words. As the year winds down, you will be getting some ideas for things you can do at home to help with the transition to first grade. In the meantime, you can be working through the jolly phonics spelling lists and the math homework sheets. As always, thanks for your support at home.

Enjoy the beautiful weekend!