Dear Parents,                                                     May 9, 2011

I hope that you all enjoyed a wonderful Mother’s Day!

Our May Crowning was beautiful!  The children presented Our Mother with beautiful flowers, we all prayed the rosary and the first and second graders sang beautifully!

Our reading strategy this week is questioning.  Reading the title, looking at the pictures and stopping to ask oneself questions are strategies good readers use.  The comprehension skill that will help us with understanding a story is compare and contrast.  Understanding how events, characters, etc. are the same and how they are different leads us to a better understanding of the story.  Our phonics focus this week is on the vowel pairs, oi, oy as in boy or oil and aw, au as in saw or sauce.  We are also learning the suffixes –ful, -ly, and –y and our grammar focus is on using describing words.

We are continuing with money in math – working on counting, as well as, making equal amounts using different coins.  We should be ready for our chapter test early next week.  Please practice counting money at home, ordering by value and then counting.  Try trading in coins for different coins to make equal amounts.

In religion, we are learning about the gift of peace and are honoring our Blessed Mother by learning the rosary.

Science finds us learning how matter can change and we will finish up our study of American symbols this week in social studies.

Please remember to support our collection of non-perishable food to be delivered to the Food Bank by 5th grade.

Have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Manning