Weekly Update, March 12 - 16

May the Luck O' The Irish Be With You!

Important Dates
* The Jump-A-Thon for Heart is this Friday, March 16. We will participate in the jump-a-thon in the afternoon.
* Spring Break is March 19 - 23. Kids - let's keep working hard until Spring Break!

This week in social studies and guided reading we are learning about springtime and St. Patrick's Day traditions. Today we learned about the phrase "In like a lion, out like a lamb," and how it is used to describe springtime. Today we focused on "in like a lion," and tomorrow we will focus on "out like a lamb." On Wednesday we will build a trap for a leprechaun. They are really looking forward to this! On Thursday we are learning about leprechauns. On Friday we will learn about symbols and traditions of St. Patrick's Day.

In writing we are working on strong beginnings and strong endings. This means no more "Once upon a time," or "The end!" Today we discussed "in like a lion," and how it is a strong beginning. The kids practiced rewriting boring beginnings to make them strong. They made paper plate lions to remind them to write strong beginnings. Tomorrow we will discuss how "out like a lamb" is a strong ending and the kids will rewrite boring endings to make them strong. They will make a paper plate lamb to remind them to write strong endings. On Wednesday the kids will use what they know about strong beginnings and endings to write a leprechaun adventure story. On Thursday the kids will write facts about St. Patrick's Day and make their own rainbow and gold coin necklace! On Friday the kids will write their page to our class book, "My Favorite Thing About St. Patrick's Day." We write a class book at the end of each unit. We have quite a collection of books! The kids are great authors and they are always proud to read their books.

In reading we are identifying strong beginnings and endings and discussing how they make the story more interesting.

The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. This week in making words we will review different word families. We are also learning about contractions.  We are also working on making words that begin with the dr/fl/sn/sp chunks.

The kids enjoyed our St. Patrick's Day centers! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened The Luckiest St. Patrick’s Day Ever and they wrote about when they feel lucky.
2. Social Studies - The kids played a fun dice game to create their own leprechaun!
3. Writing - The kids came up with an Irish name for themselves and for a leprechaun. They wrote a story about a leprechaun escaping!
4. Math - The kids colored and cut St. Patrick's Day dominoes and played the game.
5. Reading - The kids played Alpha-Bug-Soup, a game to help with sight word reading and spelling.

We finished all of our math assessments for the report card! This was a lot of work and I am so happy with how hard the kids worked! We are working on learning how to tell time to the half hour. Kids - be sure to show your parents what you know about telling time!

We have a fun activity planned for computers. If you’d like to see what we’ll do, check back on Friday for the blog posting called, “Computers, 3/16.”

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston