I hope you all enjoyed the gorgeous weather this weekend.  We had a great week last week in 1-Bu.  On Monday, we had a special rainforest presentation, during which we got to see a few real animals from the rainforest.  On Tuesday, my sister, Margaret, came to read the students a story.  On Wednesday, we attended the third grade recorder concert.  And on Friday, we watched the 5th and 6th grade field day for a little bit.

This week will be just as busy for 1-Bu.  We've got Open House on Tuesday, a Walk-a-thon on Wednesday, a Discovery Lab lesson on Thursday, and hopefully a visit from Officer Marc at some point.

By now, I'm sure you're aware, but Open House is Tuesday, May 22nd, from 7pm-8pm.  Please make every effort to attend.  Come straight down to the classroom and you'll have plenty of time to see all of the work we've done recently.  The students are really looking forward to showing you around.

Along with all that, here's what we'll be working on in the classroom this week:

Reading : This week we're going to extend our inferencing skills to texts other than poetry.  We're going to talk about 'hunches.'  Hunches are when you just have an idea about what is going to happen, or what a character is really like.

Writing :  As we get closer to the poetry reading, we are going to work on using purposeful language to convey certain messages in our poetry.  Hopefully we'll have chosen the pieces we are going to read at the poetry reading by the end of this week.

Math : We are going to extend what we know about fractions this week.  We'll talk a little bit about equivalent fractions and comparing fractions.

Odds and Ends : Please keep in mind that there is no school this Friday, May 25th, nor next Monday or Tuesday, May 28th or 29th.  Happy Memorial Day!

See you on Tuesday night for Open House!

Here's a picture of my sister, Margaret, reading to 1-Bu:

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope that all of the 1-Bu mothers had a great weekend.

A 'Save the Date' went home in your child's folder last week.  If you missed it, the first grade poetry reading will take place during the afternoon on June 1st.  Please contact me if you have any further questions.

Thank you for all of the field trip forms that I have already gotten back.  If you haven't done so already, please make sure that you return the permission slip and payment by the middle of this week.  You'll receive more information about field trip specifics as we get closer.

Another thing coming up on the schedule is Open House, on Tuesday, May 22nd from 7pm-8pm.  Please make every effort to be there with your child, as it is a fabulous opportunity for your child to show off all of the work he/she has done recently.  It's a great evening, and the students love showing their families what goes on in 1-Bu.

Now that I've gotten those things out of the way, here is what we'll be working on this week:

Reading : You should've gotten a poem written by 1-Bu in your child's folder on Friday.  Were you able to infer what we had written about?  1-Bu has been practicing their inferring skills a lot recently.  This week, we're going to focus on narrowing in on the careful words that authors use which lead to our vivid visualizations and inferences.  Hopefully we'll be able to transfer some of that careful word choice over to our own writing.

Writing :  1-Bu did a fabulous job kicking off our poetry unit last week  The students have fallen in love with writing poems, and I often have a hard time getting them to stop writing them.  Now that we've gotten our creative juices flowing, we're going to spend some time this week working on our poetry-writing craft.  We'll spend some time discussing line breaks, word choice, and poems' structures/layouts.

Math : We're going to be focusing on number grids a lot this week, as we kick off unit 9.  Our goal is to become number grid pros, so that we can use number grids as effectively as possible.

Science : Last week, we started our study of the desert.  We discussed what places are considered deserts, and dispelled the common misconception that all deserts are sandy.  This week, we're going to turn our focus to animals that inhabit the desert.

Have a great week, and I look forward to seeing many of you at next week's Open House!

We had a great day celebrating Cinco de Mayo last Friday!  We did a few Mexican crafts and had a celebration.  Thanks to the class moms for putting together a special celebration for 1-Bu.  The students even made their own salsa!  There are some pictures from our fun day at the bottom of this post.

Here's what we'll be working on this week:

Reading : We will be expanding upon our visualization expertise to infer meanings of texts.  Often times authors don't explicitly state what they want the reader to understand, so we will be working on figuring out ways to infer meaning this week.  We'll be doing a lot of this work through poetry, as poets tend to do this frequently.

Writing :  We'll start writing our own poems this week!  We've studied lots of other poems and done a lot of work with descriptive writing, so hopefully it will all come together when the students craft their own poems. 

Also, keep your eyes open for our first grade poetry reading 'save the date,' which should be coming home in your child's folder one day this week.

Math : The students loved learning about fractions last week.  We'll continue with a little more work on equal shares and fractions, before we wrap up the end of this math unit on Friday.

Here are some pictures of 1-Bu when we celebrated Cinco de Mayo: