Dear Families,
It was wonderful seeing so many of you yesterday at our Author's Tea. I can't celebrate these amazing first and second grade authors enough! Not only did we get to share our reports with all of you but we also read them to the Kindergarteners on Tuesday.
On Monday we did our last seasonal daylight observations and then compared data to see what happened to the length of the days through the seasons as well as the position of the sun in our sky. Did your child show you his/her daylight journal and explain this to you?
We also began our last science unit on plant life. We read Bean by Barrie Watts to look at the life cycle of a bean plant. We also compared the bean plant life cycle to that of carrots. In one of our classroom gardens we planted green bean and carrot seeds to see how far into their growth cycle they'll get during our school year. We also talked about how plants make their own food in the process of photosynthesis. We learned a song about Chlorophyll to help us learn more about photosynthesis, too. During this plant unit we'll be doing some plant experiments, too. We started to learn the steps of the scientific method to help us with our experimentations and tests. Our first test as a class is to see if it's true that plants need water and sunlight to grow. We planted 3 green bean seeds in soil: 1 gets only water (no sunlight), 1 gets only sunlight (no water), and 1 gets both (this is the control plant). Every day we look to see if there has been any change.
Most of our read alouds now are related to our science topics. We've finished up reading about different body systems and are diving head first into plant life. Along with Bean we've also read Plant Secrets by Emily Goodman, Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel, and A Tree Is a Plant by Clyde Robert Bulla.
Honi came on Friday and we did a 4Winds class on clouds. Coincidentally we read a book Cloudette earlier this week--a fictional book about a little cloud who dreamed big and found out she could do things other clouds and people had always said were impossible for such a small cloud. We've had a science filled week! Hopefully next week we'll get our hands dirty in the garden, too!
In book buddy groups the exciting activity this week was choosing plays. Each group will be working together on short plays. Next week during literacy they'll choose parts and do "table readings" to work on reading fluency for their lines. Keep your eyes peeled for notes coming home about needs for costumes, too!
Thanks for another great week. Enjoy the long weekend!
Dates to Remember:
Monday May 25 - Memorial Day (NO SCHOOL)
Thursday May 28 - Book Orders Due
Friday May 29 - 1st graders to U-32 9:15-1:00
Friday June 5 - K-1-2 End of Year Celebration @ Wrightsville Beach 11:30-3:30
Thursday June 11 - 1/2 T Plays 1:30-2:15
Thursday June 11 - All School Meeting 2:30-3:15
Friday June 12 - K-6 Field Day @ Wrightsville 9:30-3:30
Wednesday June 17 - Last Day of School - 1/2 day dismissal at 12:30
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