Friday, May 1, 2015

Notes:

I will be out of the classroom Monday, May 4th for a CESU district Lesson study.

Planting

Before vacation, Susan Adams and Trish Kargman came to talk to the kindergarten and 1-2 classes about the Deborah Rawson Community Garden Project.  On the Friday before vacation, our class planted tomatoes and cabbage seeds.  Over the next few weeks, we will thin the plants and  transplant them into larger containers and eventually to the garden! .  The harvested vegetables will be given to the food shelf for families in need.  This activity not only provides healthy food for those in need, but goes well with our next Science unit, Plants, and our Social Studies unit, Farms (wants and needs).

Science and Social Studies

(the final two units)

Next week we will begin our final two units of the year, Plants and Farming.  

Plants

The essential questions for Plants are:

1.	How does an organism change throughout its life cycle?
2.	How does light affect plant growth? Students will know... 1.  All organisms undergo stages of development that include being born, developing into adulthood, reproducing and dying. 2.  Plants need light energy to grow. 3.  The basic needs of organisms are food, water, air, and shelter.

Farming in Vermont

This unit focuses on the basic economic cycle of buy, produce, and sell through the study of farming in Vermont. Students will also explore the differences between wants and needs.

Essential Questions:
1.	What is the difference between wants and needs?
2.	Why do people work?
3.	How do farms help meet our wants and needs?
4.	How do people make decisions around spending and saving their money?
Basic Concepts:
1.	The basic economic cycle is buy, produce, and sell.
2.	Farmers support themselves and families by raising products for their use or for sale.
3.	Some products are sold to consumers or manufacturers.
4.	There are different types of farms.
5.	People make decisions about how to spend or save their money based on their wants and needs.

Writing

This week we began Opinion Writing!  Using our collections from home, we decided which was the best and gave lots of reasons to convince others why it is the best.  We then looked at other people's collections and chose a different best.  We wrote why we thought a different item in that person's collection was the best.  We are practicing stating our opinion and then giving lots of reasons why we think that.

  

This week we shared our Teaching Books with Mrs. Bloch's third and fourth graders!   Look for your child's published piece on Friday.  I am also sending home their other practice pieces.  Ask your child to read their pieces to you and show you some of the informational text features that they used to teach others about their topic!

Spelling

 First graders have been very lucky the past few weeks of spelling!  They have been "learning" skills that they have already been introduced to when second graders were reviewing them!  Second graders have been learning how to break words into syllables  and sounds to spell multi syllabic words.  We have been using the expression " Clap it and Tap it" to isolate the syllables and then to tap the sounds we hear in each syllable.  They have made great progress spelling multi syllabic words!  This week we are beginning long vowel patterns.

Reading

This week first graders read The Great Big Enormous Turnip.  Ask your child to tell you what happened in the story.  You can also ask your child what happened once the characters got the turnip up (they all sat down together to enjoy the turnip!).

Second graders read Molly the Brave and Me.  Ask your child to retell you the story.  You can also ask your child how Molly and Beth changed throughout the story (Molly started out as brave but then became scared and Beth started out as scared and became brave).

As a whole class we read Curious George Rides a Bike and listed character traits of George.