Update for the week of March 28th - April 1st

Dear Parents: I can’t believe that my two weeks of full time teaching are almost up. Working with your children has been an honor and a pleasure. They have kept me on my toes by asking some amazing questions. I have learned so much from them, and I hope that they have learned a lot too. This has been an exciting week and we look forward to celebrating It’s A Grand Day on Friday. Even if a grandparent won’t be able to make it, we will still have an Author’s Celebration to share our poetry books. On Monday, we had a great meeting with our 1st grade reading buddies and we hope to help them grow as readers in the future. It is a great way for us to revisit strategies that we use as readers. We also used our knowledge of mass and dry measurement to create a delicious trail mix (thanks for sending in the ingredients). On Thursday, we will have a science test. We will be doing a review in class tomorrow and they will come home with a study guide. We welcome grandparents in our room on Friday, April 1, at 12:30. Our Friday Gathering will begin at 1:30. If your child will be leaving early with their grandparent, they must let Mr. Hass or Mrs. Mayer know before leaving. Thank you for your cooperation on this. Have a great Spring Break and don’t forget to read every day! -Mrs. Mayer

Homework for March 21st - 25th

1. Read every night.
2. Weathering, erosion, and deposition illustration worksheet will go home on Tuesday. Due Friday, March 25th.
3. We will be studying measurement this week and part of our lesson will require dry ingredients to create trail mix. I will send each student home (on Monday) with a letter asking for one ingredient. Please send in the ingredient by Friday, March 25th. If ,for any reason you do not wish to participate please send in the lower portion of the letter back with your child. They will still be involved in the activity!**No nuts of any kind please**

Week of March 21st - 25th:

This week we will be taking a closer look at measurement, how to make change from a dollar, soil samples, land features, and continue our study into poetry. The students will begin working on poetry books and we are planning to have an author's celebration on Friday, April 1st (It's a Grand Day). More details will be sent out about that later! We will also begin an inquiry into fables, tall tales, folk tales, and fairy tales this week. We will look at their characteristics and generate a chart (as a class) to help us understand how they are different. It will be a great week and I look forward to growing and learning with the students every day.

A reminder: We will have MAP testing on Tuesday morning. Thursday morning we will be taking school pictures. Have a great week!

- Mrs.Mayer

Linear Measurement

We spent time last week exploring the concept of linear measurement. The kids began by measuring things around the room using their hands and fingers. After a discussion about the necessity of a common scale of measurement they went back out equipped with rulers. Each measurement began with an estimation of how big they thought each item would be. To help in creating fairly accurate estimates the kids used referents for various units of measurement: the width of two fingers is about an inch and the distance from their elbow to the end of their little finger is about a foot. They also found out the tiles on our floor are each one foot long and one foot wide. This really helped to measure distances on the floor.

Measurement is always a really fun, hands-on mathematical concept to explore. I suggest you look for ways to help your child do some measuring at home as well. Some ideas to get you started are:

Measuring room sizes with a tape measure
Tracking how tall they are on a chart or door frame
Let them help in the kitchen and measure some ingredients
Counting money together/Making change
Telling time and figuring out how much longer until...

Doing these type of things at home goes a long way in helping them to not only see how math is used each and every day but helps them to gain much needed experience with tools of measurement. No amount of work at school could ever take the place of the real work that happens at home.

Happy measuring!

Homework: March 14th - 18th

1. Read every night.
2. Post at least one poem on the class blog by Wednesday. (If you turned it in to Mrs. Mayer, she will post it for you.
3. Comment on at least two poems on the class blog by Sunday, March 20th.

Week of March 14th - 18th

It's going to be an exciting week! In both reading and writing this week, we will be talking a lot about poetry. Some of the parents joined us for Curriculum Night last week and got first hand experience in a poetry exercise that we participated in during our class time. By Wednesday we will each have at least one poem posted on our class blog and would like to encourage you to read through them. Feel free to leave a comment (instructions were given before, just make sure you put your name on it)! The students will be required to reply to two before Sunday, March 20th.
We finished up our unit in geometry and are moving into a new unit on measurement. We will begin this week by looking at linear measurement, starting tomorrow with a reading of a great book titled How Big Is A Foot? by Rolf Myller.

We will continue our study of Earth materials this week by further investigating different types of fossils and soils. On Friday, I will begin my two weeks of full time teaching. I am beginning on a Friday so that we can all be in the classroom for Friday, April 1st, to celebrate It's A Grand Day together. Hope you all have a great week!

- Mrs. Mayer

Student-Led Conference Schedule

Wednesday, March 16
7:30 Colby
7:55 Kayla
8:20 Jack
8:45 Harlie
9:10 Patton

Thursday, March 17
7:30 Jenna
7:55 Kirby
8:20 Madison

2:30 Rose
2:55 Skyler
3:20 Jillian
3:45 Atira
4:10
4:35 Roman

Monday, March 21
7:30 Derah
7:55 Daniel
8:20 Joseph
8:45
9:10

11:35
12:00 Reese
12:25
1:50 Calin
2:15 Edwin
2:40 Brandon
3:05 Maxwell

Rock Studies

This past week we started our exploration into rocks and minerals. We started, as usual, by considering all we knew and wondered about this study. Mrs. Mayer and I were surprised to find that the kids knew quite a bit already. Next, the kids looked through non-fiction books on rocks to find interesting information and to generate yet more questions they would like answered during this study.

After learning about the three different types of rock - ingneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic - we were lucky enough to enjoy a visit from Edwin's dad, Mr. Emmer. He brought in buckets and buckets of rocks as well as a variety of tools he uses in the field. Everyone really enjoyed learning more about how rocks are formed. The kids had so many questions that we actually went longer than expected and weren't able to get to everything that was planned. That's a nice problem to have! Mr. Emmer has been generous enough to offer to come back in over the coming weeks to do more with us.

Geometry: Week In Review

This past week, we generated great ideas for how to remember the difference between the three types of triangles: equilateral, isosceles, and scalene.

Some of the strategies that were suggested were:

Equilateral: Think of "equil" meaning "equal," or "the same," and think of lateral as a football term and know that it means to move to the "side." Thus, it would be "equal sides."

Isosceles: We thought of this as "Isososkis" and pictured a skier with their skis at an angle in the front, which would make a triangle with 2 congruent sides and one different. Or, picture an icicle or Hercules because he is tall.

Scalene: The first few letters are "sca" which makes us think of "scary," and it's just scary that no sides are the same in these triangles! Or, we can think of a scale at the grocery store and how it might lean when we put fruit in it.

Kirby helped us remember that "congruent" means the same size and shape because she thinks of "coconuts" and that helps her.

We are hoping that these strategies will help us on our Geometry test on Monday. We made study guides today in class and the kids each got one from Mr. Hass to make sure that they had everything that they needed to know. Next, we will begin talking about measurement.

Have a great weekend!

-Mrs. Mayer

Homework: Week of March 7th - 11th

1. Read each night.

2. On Monday, the students will be given a worksheet that will help them organize a list of rocks and minerals that they find in their home. It will go along with an inquiry into rock and minerals that we will be continuing this week. The completed worksheet will be due on Friday, March 11th.

Letter Writing

We've spent the past few days talking about letter writing. The kids have been hard at work writing letters to friends, family, authors, singers, athletes, and politicians. We stopped to reflect on all the reasons we had for writing these letters. They included:

Thanking someone
Making a request
Congratulating someone
Telling someone we miss them
Seeing how someone is doing
Saying hello
Letting someone know we are a fan
Catching someone up on all that we've been doing
Asking what someone has been doing lately
Sharing an opinion
Making a suggestions
Asking questions

That's quite a list. Today we talked about the need to stop and reread what we have written from time to time to make sure that it makes sense and has capital letters, endmarks, and correct spelling. This is really challenging for a good number of the kids.

We also shared out some of the creative closings we have been writing in our letters. The kids offered:

Miss you
Yours truly
Your #1 fan
Love
Pals forever
See ya
Your BFF
Your small head coach
Yeehaw
Your friend
From

Everyone really seems to be enjoying writing these letters. They can't wait to send them off in hopes of receiving replies. Before sealing them the kids will each select one of their favorite letters to photocopy for their writing portfolio.