Friday, June 12th Newsletter

Reading Workshop

In our reading workshop we continued our exploration, and enjoyment of how a poet uses alliteration to entertain his/her reader and bring the poem to life.  For each poem read, we identified rhyming words and patterns and we highlighted examples of alliteration.  In addition, this week we also focused on our comprehension of each poem.  We used the following strategies to help us interpret each poem; first we identified unknown words, then we visualized the poem, next we made connections to the poem and finally, we shared what we believed the poet was expressing in the poem.  Speaking of sharing, conversations and small group discussions were an integral part of our comprehension work this week.  

Writing Workshop

Our enjoyment of figurative language continued in our writing workshop.  This week we used Jack Prelutsky’s poem, Bleezer’s Ice Cream to create our own alliteration-filled flavor.  We began with a chosen consonant, followed by brainstorming words, and specifically foods that began with this letter.  Our favorite part was choosing three words to name our fabulous flavor.  Our “crazy cones” were thoughtful and unique.

Math

This week in math we completed our final math unit of the year and our final “show what you know”. We then began activities to review each concept and computation taught this year.  Next week we will complete a mini-money math unit to prepare for second grade math.

Classroom News

There is one letter that is almost as busy as our first graders, vowel "e".  This week our Fundations was all about how adding an e to the end of a closed syllable word changes the middle vowel from short to long.

It is hard to believe that Thursday marked our ten days left until summer break.  To celebrate, we will pop a balloon each day to reveal a special activity.