Mrs. Chasse’s Class
Dear Parents,
I hope you enjoyed spring vacation. We’ve been happily back to routine and work here. First I have 3 Creative Homework presentations to share with you. Before vacation, Lillie shared about hermit crabs. She gave us many facts about them and brought in her pet hermit crab (& Nyx’s too) for us to see. Isaac Perry taught us about volcanoes and made a model which he had erupt right in the classroom! Pretty cool! Last week, Cooper shared about one of his interests, baseball cards. He showed us the parts on the card and what they mean. He has about 300 cards! Only 3 to go!
In our literacy time, we are focusing on retelling stories. Often we stop to discuss what has happened so far in a story, before we finish it. I have several poster templates we are filling as we discuss class read-alouds to focus our thinking around who, what, where & when, or character problems/solutions. We have also begun a Wondrous Words cup where we are saving words that we find interesting and are trying to use them during the week. So far our words have been:
We have also been studying the difference between non-fiction and fiction books. I have been sharing some of the distinct features of non-fiction writing. I also brought out my non-fiction collection for students to peruse. In the next week, your child will be selecting a non-fiction topic to research and prepare a small report about. We will be teaming up with 4th grade buddies to assist in the reading and rough draft work for this project. You will be invited to a performance (early June) in which these reports will be shared.
We are also working on a Reader’s Theater story to share at that June performance. Reader’s Theater is a presentation style in which the performers read a story from written text to an audience. As a class, we have selected a Robert Munsch story called ZOOM. We hope to find another story to share as well. I will be setting a date for this event before the next newsletter, so you can make arrangements to be here for our performance.
In writing we have been writing about something we really like or really don’t like. We have been creating webs, with the topic in the center and then adding the 5 senses to define the ways to describe the topic, then using this to guide the sentence writing. We also wrote thank you notes to Mara Pennell for the piggy banks and taking the time to teach Junior Achievement lessons to us.
Today in the yellow folder you will find a small spelling list. This is a list of words that children cannot sound out or “tap” to spell (we learn this in Fundations), but are tricky words that just need to be learned. We call them the “No Excuse” words. Attached to the list (green paper) is an activity you can use to help your child practice and learn to spell the words. We will have a spelling test on Thursday of this week for those words. There will be 2 more lists coming home for the next 2 weeks. Each time I will include an activity to use at home to assist in helping your child learn to spell the words.
In Math we will be starting a new unit this week. The letter for this unit, Bigger, Taller, Heavier, Smaller, is on the back of this newsletter. We will also delve deeper into comparing numbers (<,>,=), measuring with standard and non-standard tools, and continue to focus on addition and subtraction strategies.
In Balance and Motion, we have finished the balance section by balancing a pencil on its point on the end of a popsicle stick taped to our desks and building mobiles! Amazing stuff! We will begin to look at motion, specifically what spins, like twirlers and tops at the end of the week.
Please remember to return your Lifetouch Photos or money ASAP. Also, please take the time to read with your child and ensure they return to school their Ziploc bag of books and the string tie reading group books. The books are used by many other students in the school and your child won’t receive new books until the previous ones are returned.
It’s a busy season in 1st grade as we finish all of our learning goals before 2nd grade! YIKES!
Yours, Michelle Chasse’
