Weekly News (May 15-19)

Math
This week we practiced solving addition problems as we worked to solve our latest "mystery picture." We also spent some time reviewing patterns and learning about Name Collection Boxes like the one below. We also made number bracelets for the number 10 to help us learn which number pairs add to 10!

Literacy
Reading Workshop
This week we revisited the genre of literary nonfiction--books that look like fiction but really teach us facts about a topic. Using the book Whose House is This? by Elizabeth Gregoire, we learned how authors of literary nonfiction books use descriptive words and colorful illustrations to help us learn new facts about a topic.

I have also been working with students one-on-one to complete some end-of-year assessments including one final guided reading benchmark assessment. The growth the children have made as readers this year is amazing! They have become so engaged during independent reading time and continue to build their reading stamina each day!

Writing Workshop
The students have been diligently working on their animal research reports as they added information about what their animals eat as well as a few fun facts. They can't wait to share their reports with our 5th grade buddy class!

Science
This week we began to explore the world of plants. We talked about what we think we know about plants as well as what we want to learn. We also met our class plant--a philodendron that has been growing in our classroom all year. Click here to see how our plant has changed over the course of the year! We learned that plants need both light and water in order to grow. We also learned that plants soak up water and nutrients from the soil, and a plant's roots keep it from falling over. We even planted our own zinnia seeds in our classroom greenhouse, which have already started to bloom! This upcoming week we will spend some time investigating some of the plants in our courtyard!

Fall

Spring

Watching our seeds grow!

Getting Ready for First Grade!
What a great way to practice getting ready for first grade---eating lunch in the lunchroom! The class was thrilled to be able to eat lunch at school. We went over the hot lunch routine as well as some of the lunchroom rules. They did an outstanding job with the lunch routine, and they enjoyed every minute of it!

Click here to see more photos from the week!

Thanks for reading!