March 23-27

Lots of important dates. I am giving out dates for the rest of the year. Ahhhh!

April 14th: Field Trip to Davidson United Methodist Church for an organ demonstration

April 30th: Artist Play (in the gym) combined with the gallery crawl (in our classroom afterward)
        Hopefully we will get lines out ASAP.

May 5th: Our last visit to the Laurel's Nursing Home

May 12th: We will be going on a field trip to Hiddenite for gym mining!

June 2nd: End of Year Party (in our classroom)

Thematic Centers:

This week we studied Picasso. He painted using rose colors and blue colors. He also started practicing art at the age of 12! His paintings like the one above were very interesting and not symmetrical at all. We rotated through 4 centers.

1.  Illustrate How to Find a Picasso

2. Roll a dice and draw a Picasso styled face...by using the dice, it will tell you which piece of the face you draw next.

3. Use a step by step drawing guide to illustrate your own style of a Picasso self portrait. 

4. Paint a picture about a time you were sad using different shades of blue. This represents Picasso's blue period where he painted many sad things.

Reader's Workshop:

We have been working in our handwriting books each day! Everyone received their leveled book to work on reading goals and each child worked very hard on their passion project as well. This week we discussed how to take dash facts and turn them into sentences. This is a lot harder than it sounds! We also discussed editing and how it does not mean your writing is not good, it simply means we are making it even better! We are adding capitol letters, punctuation, making complete sentences etc. We are still reviewing the different types of writing that children can do (poems, non fiction, fiction, how to etc.) and using it for passion projects and just for fun.

Phonogram review this week: ou (has 4 sounds like in the words our, fourth, tour and famous), aw (like in the word saw), au (like in the word saucer), s has 2 sounds (like in the words sent and as), ow has 2 sounds (like in the words snow and ow), a has 3 sounds (like in the words bat, make and wasp), ch has 3 sounds (like in the words child, character and chef), ea has 3 sounds (like in the words beat, bread and break), and ay has 1 sound (like in the word say).

Math Workshop:

This week we learned a new game called Space Bingo. There are 3 steps to this game.

1. Roll two dice numbered 7-12.

2. Add the 2 numbers and record in equation format.

3. Take the sum of the two numbers and place a marker on your BINGO board if you have that number on your board. The first person to get 5 in a row wins. 

*For children who needed a challenge we used higher numbers and we also had them do subtraction and addition.

We also started learning about fractions. We learned about whole, half, fourths and quarters. We just introduced this and started using this vocabulary. We will dive deeper into this next week!

**We are now starting to type all the bare books and we would love if it we could get parent volunteers every day for recess. If one parent volunteers everyday, Mrs. Skaggs can stay in and type away and the parent volunteer can come out with Mrs. Schultz. That would be a huge help!

Have a great week and weekend!

Hugs, 

Mrs. Schultz

March 16th-March 20th

Lots of important dates. I am giving out dates for the rest of the year. Ahhhh!

March 24th: We will be traveling to the high school again this year to see the 5th grade Opera.

April 14th: Field Trip to Davidson United Methodist Church for an organ demonstration

April 30th: Artist Play (in the gym) combined with the gallery crawl (in our classroom afterward)
        Hopefully we will get lines out next week!

May 5th: Our last visit to the Laurel's Nursing Home

May 12th: We will be going on a field trip to Hiddenite for gym mining!

June 2nd: End of Year Party (in our classroom)

What a week we have had! The leprechaun came and DESTROYED our classroom. He left gold coins, glitter and paint on everything. Math night was so fun. Thanks to everyone who came!

Math Workshop:

This week we kept the same tubs as last week. We are still reviewing time and place value. For children who have master the tens and ones place, we have moved on to the hundreds place. We are working on building numbers with the base ten blocks (tens and ones) and also looking at the number already built and stating what number it is. Everyone is really doing well with place value so far. Examples of questions we have been asking...

1. How many tens and how many ones in the number 26? How do you know?
2. Can you build the number 49 using base ten blocks?
3. Which number is bigger, 32 or 23? Why?
4. Looking at this number that is already built with base ten blocks, what number is it? How do you know?

Reader's Workshop:

This week we have really spent our time and energy working on passion projects. We have been sitting down with each child to create dash facts about their topic. Once we got quick facts down, we brainstormed about different things they could do. We discussed couplet poems, acrostic poems, non fiction writing pieces, fiction stories about the topic, labeling a picture, a list of rules (for sports, playing minecraft etc.) Each child needs 10 things to put in their passion project so we need to get busy! If you still have not sent in your supplies, please do so quickly! Once we get everyone started, we should be good to go as far as the writing pieces. It is getting everyone started that's taking a little while! We were able to get through all leveled books with everyone but we decided not to do word sorts.

Word study phonogram rules are actually the same as last week! The words this week are: bacon, live/live (with the i making different sounds), alive, heat, box, three, if, stand, come and wing.

Thematic Centers:

This week we studied Degas. We learned that he really enjoyed painting dancers, especially ballerinas! We rotated through 4 main centers:
1. Sculpt a ballerina out of pipe cleaners and tin foil. These are turning out really neat!
2. Make a dancer out of construction paper. These are hanging and they are turning out so cool!
3. Degas word search
4. Illustrate the book "How to spot a Degas."

Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

March 9th-13th

Hello families! What a beautiful week we have had. We have been rushing to get to recess each day as the energy is through the roof with all this pretty weather. ;)

Several Announcements:

-Scholastic orders due tomorrow! Remember that everything is done online now.
-Hot lunch session four orders are due MARCH 17TH!
-Bring your leprechaun traps next week on Saint Patrick's Day! Hope we catch him this year.
-Bare Book passion project materials are due tomorrow! I know there is a lot going on, so do your best but please do not worry if it is not 100% together by tomorrow morning.
-Math Night March 18th...please come join us! Math is one of our favorite times of the day so we would love for you to come see how it's done.
-Mark your calendars for April 30th. We will be having a performance that day! Time TBD. The first grade team is still working out all the kinks for details, but just know this is the date. The time will most likely be 11:00, but stay tuned!

Thematic Centers:

We have been finishing Renoir as there are several kids who are still working on their projects but we have also started studying Matisse. These artists are too cool! Matisse has some beautiful pieces. We also learned that he met Picasso! We cannot wait for everyone to come in and see all of our artwork. Sorry to make you wait! We rotated through 4 centers:

1. Create a replica of Matisse's famous Goldfish painting. We used plastic wrap to help create the illusion of a fish bowl.
2. Create a flower vase using paint, tissue paper and regular paper for the background if you choose. Make sure to divide your paper into the floor and ceiling and use different patterns on the left side of the paper and the right. Just as Matisse often did!
3. Create your own version of the "Dancing Ladies" painting using the template that is given to you.
4. Complete a Matisse word search learning about different vocabulary words related to Matisse!

Reader's Workshop:

We have been learning about non fiction text and different features of this type of reading and writing. We have compared and contrasted non fiction versus fiction, practiced labeling Mrs. Schultz and we even read a non fiction book and got to sticky note the important facts. We are really enjoying learning about the many features non fiction books offer! We will also continue this next week. We are working on handwriting without tears books each day as well! Our letter formations and pencil grips continue to improve.

Our word study words this week are: ask, let, then, gas, read, for, yes, door, now and lot. Word study phonogram review and rules are: ea has three sounds (like in the word beat, bread, break), ing has one sound (like in the word sing), oo has two sounds (like in the word food and book), ow has two sounds (like in the word plow and snow), or has one sound (like in the word torn), the has two sounds (th unvoiced like in the word think and th voiced like in the word than), o has four sounds (like in the words got, go, to, love), ou has four sounds (like in the words our, fourth, tour and famous) and ee has one sound (like in the word tree).

We have really been more conscious of working in our day books too! We have been gluing fun songs and poems in each day so that we have a neat collection at the end of the year.

Math Workshop:

We have been reviewing time to the hour and half hour. We also started working with place value. Right now we are working with tens and ones. For children that need a challenge we have been working with the hundreds place and thousands place. We played three new games this week. We played a place value matching game where you matched the number to the base ten blocks. We also played Star War. You draw two numbers and arrange them to make the biggest number. The person with the highest number gets to keep all four cards. The winner ends up with the entire deck! We also played a place value adding game where you were adding tens and ones that were in the shapes of marshmallows. Yum!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

March 2-6

Hello families!

We have two pictures above. The top picture is in front of our play background and the bottom is of everyone wearing their scarves they made. We finally got those finished!

We finally had a "normal week." Yahoo!

We said goodbye to the heroes unit and hello to our artist unit.

Thematic Centers:

**We have an art gallery coming up (date and time TBA) so we will be keeping most of the artwork that we make here. This week we will have made 3 pieces of art and we are keeping all of them here to display. Do not be alarmed if centers are not coming home. :)

We are studying Renior. We learned that he first started out by painting porcelain plates. He also enjoyed using pastel colors when painting people at parties and having fun conversation. We rotated through 4 centers:
1. Illustrate your "How to Spot a Renior" book
2. Paint a paper plate in the style of Renior
3. Water color pencil paint a famous Renior painting of people having a fun conversation and add speech bubbles
4. Water color paint a picture of a watering can and flowers from his famous "Girl with the Watering Can" picture.

Readers Workshop:

This week we worked on making inferences while we were reading. Inferences are made when you use what you already know to make a guess about something that is happening. It was really cool when we read a book without words because we had to infer what was happening. WE made a chart of what we could infer versus what we already knew. We also worked on our handwriting without tears lessons. Thanks to Ms. Courtney for helping us get those done! ;) We are really noticing a big difference in pencil grip and letter formation. We were able to each get a leveled book and finish a word sort. Word study words this week are: bread, child, star, day, wall, milk, hair, shot, floor and land.

We reviewed these phonograms. These are great to review at home! ee, c, ea, ng, ar, ay, ai and oo.

Math Workshop:

This week we reviewed 10 more and 10 less as well as addition and subtraction. We also officially introduced time to the hour and half hour. We learned how to write time in the digital form and how it compares to the regular ole clock. Everyone is doing really well with this! We played 3 new time games and were pulled for teacher table to perfect our skills. We played a matching time game. You had to match the digital clock to the regular clock. We also played a different matching game where you had to match a story problem to the clock. Then you had to put everything in order. FInally we played a game where it gives you a blank clock and you race your friend to add the arrows onto that clock after drawing a card that gives you a time. It is so hard to explain some of these games, so if you ever do not understand one come in for a better explanation!

I apologize for not sending out a sign up genius for this week. It completely slipped my mind! We will get back to volunteers next week. Oopsies!

**Please remember to wear tennis shoes! We really do not want anyone getting hurt and we all want to follow the school rules. Thanks for your help with this!

Have a great week and weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz