Dear Parents,                                             March 19, 2012

It is a brand new trimester and it is the last one before summer! Woo-hoo! We are beginning to prepare ourselves for second grade! I am adding a Writers Workshop to our morning routine. This will be a splendid time for us to challenge ourselves in our writing by looking at our word choices, topics, and expanding our sentences!

Our reading strategy this week is “evaluating”.  The comprehension skill that will help us in evaluating is topic, main idea, details, and summarizing.  After reading a selection, being able to identify the topic of the selection, the main ideas and the details will help us in evaluating whether we enjoyed the selection.  Our phonics focus this week is the /ou/ sound spelled with ou as in round or ow as in owl.  Our grammar focus this week is action words (verbs) in the present tense.  Our spelling words this week, are from unit 25.  These words review long vowels sounds with the CVCe pattern.

We are starting a new chapter in math and our focus will be on money. We will be talking about the value of coins and practice counting coins. We will still work on word problems on Mondays and will continue with math facts practice in the lab.

In religion, we are learning that, Jesus is the Good Shepherd and that, when we sin, we say we are sorry. We will continue to work on Acts of Kindness both at school and at home.

In Social Studies this week we will continue on our new unit – My World Near and Far – by discussing where in the world people live. In Science we will begin focusing on matter. In specifics, we will start with solids and liquids and eventually move on to gases. We will be discussing a lot of new vocabulary words this week!

Announcements:

• Special Assembly on Monday at 11:00am, to announce the winners for the Palmisano writing contest! Our fingers are triple crossed for one of our first grade finalists to win!
• Water sales continue on Tuesday and Thursday for $1.
• We will attend Stations of the Cross on Wednesday at 11:00.
• Rehearsal for the Talent Show will take place on Wednesday afternoon
• Wednesday is $1 free dress! (My goodness Wednesday is a busy day!)
• Friday is a noon dismissal day.
• It is All About…Jacob G. this week.  Congratulations!

Have a wonderful week.  If you have any questions or concerns please let me know.

Miss. Manning