Week of April 16, 2012

Dear Parents:

Last week we celebrated Abby's birthday! Then on Wednesday, Reid was honored as the first grade Citizen of the Month! Congratulations Reid!

This is Celebrate the Arts week! It will be filled with wonderful exposure to the arts! We began this morning with a special preview of Sound of Music at Town Meeting! How exciting to have our own Grace in it! On Wednesday morning, we have a special storyteller coming. Then on Thursday morning, we will be treated to some bluegrass music! We'll also be taking an Art Walk to view multiple art displays by members of our own Shorecrest community, including students, faculty, and parents. On Friday morning, the lower division will be filled with visiting artists. Our class will enjoy time with artist, Marc Levasseur and concert celloist, Grace Juliano. Then the students will be performing at 11:00 in the Quad. Come enjoy! At 12:00, we'll have our picnic lunch. All parents are invited for both the performances and then to stay for lunch. Parents will need to bring their own lunch whether or not your child is having the SAGE lunch. First graders are to wear GREEN shirts on Friday. They may wear jean bottoms or uniform bottoms.

In addition to all of the activities for Celebrate the Arts, we have a lot to keep us busy in the classroom!

ReadingWorkshop/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 on dolphins. Please be sure to practice the 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. In both reading and writing workshop our focus will be non-fiction. We will be reviewing the features of non-fiction texts and learning how to find information in them. The children will have the opportunity to read about dolphins and many other sea creatures. 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.

Writing Workshop:
We will be using non-fiction mentor texts to help us with our non-fiction writing. We'll finish up our How To books and begin to concentrate on writing All About books.

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

Science:
We are also beginning our study of the ocean this week! 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 11th. This week we will be focusing on dolphins. During the next several weeks, we will also have a research lab where the children will be able to research lots of other interesting sea creatures. We also begin our next project, which will be on a sea creature. In the next couple of weeks the children will choose a sea creature to research and report on. These will be individual projects. Most exciting during this unit is that we will again be doing some dissections with Mrs. Lisa Peck. On Friday, April 27, we will begin with the squid! Also, this Friday is Earth Day so we'll have some activities in the afternoon to celebrate our planet!

Volunteers this week:

* Tuesday - Art - Eva D'Agostino (12:05)
* Wednesday - Math Game - Susannah or Brian Malison (1:15)
* Thursday - Library Check-out - Kimberly Burke (12:05)
* Friday - Parent Reader - Kevin Williams or Marion O'Mullane (2:15)

Other Important Reminders/Dates/Information:

Celebrate the Arts is this week! Don't forget the Upper School production, The Sound of Music, has performances in the evenings Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If you have never been to one of our productions, you are missing out on incredible shows! Our very own Grace is one of the performers this year! Come support her!

First Grade Program: Commotion in the Ocean is Friday, May 11th at 8:30 a.m. Mark your calendars! You don't want to miss the best show at Shorecrest!

Field Trip to Florida Aquarium April 26th

Have a great week!
Susan