Ellie has a baby brother!

Dear Parents:

First of all, I want to congratulate Ellie and her family on the birth of baby brother, Jake! I'm sure Ellie's dad is glad to have another "male" in the house!

What an amazing week we had last week celebrating the arts! Every day brought something new and special. It was good to see so many of you at the performance and picnic on Friday. Please enjoy the slide show of pictures at the end of the blog!

This week is special, too, as we are beginning our study of the ocean! The children are so excited. This will prove to be a lot of fun! Our learning will be evident in our first grade program, "Commotion in the Ocean" on May 13th, and then culminate with our field trip to the Florida Aquarium on May 26th.

Reading/Language Arts: Please read the homework calendar carefully as there are some changes now. The words that your child is bringing home on their word ring will also be the spelling words for the week. Each week the words will be vocabulary for the main sea creature that we will focus on that week. This week our main focus will be sea turtles. This week's words are hatch, turtle, sea, shell, creep, return, beak, eggs, endangered, and Florida. Please be sure to practice these words daily with your child. The children need to be able to read them, spell them, and know their meaning. This will help in their understanding when both reading and writing. When reading, we will continue to practice using the many reading strategies and comprehension strategies that we have been working on this year. We will also continue to work on alphabetical order, compound words, and contractions.

While we will be reading both fiction and non-fiction books during this unit, our main genre focus for both reading and writing will be on non-fiction. We will be learning about the features of non-fiction texts and learning how to find information in them.

The children will also be bringing home a book on the Green Sea Turtle in their reading folders this week. It is IMPERATIVE that everyone return their folder on Tuesday as Mrs. Densa's class will be using those books on Tuesday. We do not have any extra books! Please make sure that this assignment is complete and turned in by Tuesday. We will already be short a day because of the Monday holiday.

Writing Workshop: We are beginning our non-fiction writing unit! We will be using non-fiction mentor texts to help us with our non-fiction writing.

Math: We will continue to practice making change, naming fractional parts, adding and subtracting 10s, and take our unit 8 assessment.

Science: This week we will be focusing on sea turtles. We will be reading about them, writing about them, watching them, making sea turtles, and exploring their shells and bodies. We also have a research lab where we will be able to research lots of other interesting sea creatures.

Volunteers this week:

* Tuesday - Art - Cynthia Biondi(12:05)
* Thursday - Library Check-out -Julie Piper and Molly Camp - 2:05
* Friday - Mai Nguyen (9:00)
* Friday - Parent Reader - Molly Camp (2:15)

Other Important Reminders/Dates/Information:

If you have not sent in the new, clean, white t-shirt with your child, please do so now! We have a lot of work to do to get them ready!

Water Bottle Fundraiser for Make-a-Wish Foundation and in Honor of Jeff Norton: SADD in the high school is selling reusable water bottles in honor of Mr. Jeff Norton, our former Theater Director, for $5. Mr. Norton always thought we should be more environmentally friendly, and throwing away water bottles was one of his pet peeves.

Spirit Day Friday, April 29. Students and teachers may wear green and gold clothing.

First Grade Program: Commotion in the Ocean is Friday, May 13th at 8:30 a.m. Mark your calendars! You don't want to miss the best show at Shorecrest!

Splash Day May 18th with a rain make-up date of May 25th.

Field Trip to Florida Aquarium May 26th - Mark your calendars! Parents are welcome to join us! The Aquarium is offering that parents may attend by paying the student rate of $7.00. Parking will be $3.00 per car. Unfortunately, parents may not use Aquarium memberships for admission.

Have a great week!
Susan and Beth