April 11th-22nd

K-5 Dance Party

Earth day fun! We learned all about soil. Who lives in the soil, erosion, why we need soil and more!

Hello families!

Thank you for your patience with everything that has been going on the last two weeks. It has been crazy! We have had an elementary school dance party, high school drama, Earth Day, the Raptor Center trip and National Poem in Your Pocket Day. We have had about half the class sleeping each day at rest time this week. Everyone is worn out from all the fun. The raptor center was a blast! We observed many different species of raptors, saw 2 owls up close, got to pet a rat named Cheddar and went on a hike where we got to see many raptors who were once hurt and have been rehabilitated. If anyone has the opportunity to go with the family, go for it! You won't regret it.

Thematic unit:

We are learning all about the ocean! The layers of the ocean, sea animals, sand, climate and the different oceans all over the world are just a few things we are studying. We have completed many centers and will continue to do so over the next few weeks!

1. Fishy Math Game: Roll two dice and add the numbers. Mark that number on your game board. The first person at your table to mark off 8 different numbers wins.
2. Sand Dough: Mix corn starch, cream of tartar, sand and warm water together to make sand dough. We learned how the animals that live on the sand are different than the animals that live in the sea.
3. Practice play lines!!
4. Use an old CD and turn it into a fish after examining real pictures of fish.
5. Create your own sea creature using the tracers we have and decorate it any way you want! Create your own sentence describing your sea creature. **Tracing, cutting and writing are skills we have been working on and this was a neat activity to see how much growth everyone has made.**
6. Learn about the puffer fish and how it scares predators away. Use "spiky" balls and roll them in paint. Roll that paint covered balls on paper to create the puffer fish! Add eyes, a mouth and fins.

**We have been keeping ocean artwork at school! So that is why there has not been as much coming home in folders.

Math Workshop:

We studied place value again as this is a very hard concept and played "listen and count." Everyone closes their eyes. Listen for the "knocking" sound on the table. Open your eyes when the knocking stops and build that number. State how many tens and how many ones are in your number.

We also started story problems this week! Example: Mrs. Schultz has 12 lollipops on her table. Ms. Alicia ate 5 of them. How many does Mrs. Schultz have left? These are difficult but we are doing both addition and subtraction story problems.

Reader's Workshop:

Last week we learned the word "said" and this week we learned the word "they." We did sight word books for both! Last week we learned about CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) and how to look for these while reading. Examples are: dog, cat, put, run, mat, jet. We also got our brand new leveled readers and did a lot of reading individually and as a group! Don't forget, these go home Tuesday or Wednesday and need to come back to school FRIDAY.

Writer's Workshop:

This month's theme is still "author's as mentors." We are still discussing how to use the author's that we have studied in our own writing.

Announcements:

**Please continue to practice play lines!
**We need as many helpers as we can get for the walking tour field trip next week. We walk from school to the Davidson police department, fire station and post office. We cannot do this safely unless we have help! So please sign up. :)
**We also have not had a Sci Fri volunteer in a while, so join us for that too!
**WE DO HAVE SCHOOL APRIL 28TH. This was originally a workday but we have to make it up due to the snow. We have our walking tour trip this day now!
**No school April 29th.

Happy weekend,
Mrs. Schultz