Feeling the Love!

Thank you WES PTO and 1M families for showing your appreciation for the staff and faculty at WES this week.  The flowers, cards, gift certificates, goodies, and especially the kind words mean a lot to me.

Math: Geometry and Time

First graders began a new unit in math this week focused on geometry and time. Unit learning goals include reasoning with shapesa nd their attributes, partitioning shapes into equal pieces, and telling time to the hour and half hour. The current series of lessons requires students to identify the defining attributes (number of straight sides and vertices) of triangles, rectangles, and squares, and distinguish them from non-defining attributes (color, orientation, size). They will also compose shapes from smaller shapes to deepen their understanding of two- and three-dimensional shapes. The spatial reasoning here builds a foundation for understanding future mathematical concepts such as symmetry, congruence, fraction, area, and volume. 

Literacy

Our field trip to VINS wraps up our informational reading and writing about birds. Next week we  begin our final module in Literacy that focuses on answering the question: How do characters in stories help care for birds?  Students will read a variety of texts about characters who help birds. This will help them build the skills they will need for comparing texts. Through structured discussions and writing in response to text, students will compare and contrast the birds’ experiences to find similarities and differences between them using evidence from the text to support their conclusions.

                                         

Next week in word study, students will learn to add the suffixes -s, -ed and -ing to non-changing base words, including two-syllable words with closed and vowel-consonant-e syllables.  Heart words for this unit include: work, word, write, being, their, first, look, good, new.

May is Assessment Month!

                        

Although the weather can be challenging some days, we feel fortunate to be
accessing outdoor recess regularly after lunch and are trying to provide many

opportunities for students to reap the benefits of outdoor learning and fun this spring.  

As you know, active bodies support active minds!  With an understanding that

busy schedules and a late sunset can make an early bedtime more difficult,

we would like to encourage you to make sure that your child is getting enough sleep

each night. In addition to potentially great weather, May also brings an intense

period of student assessment in reading (DIBELS: Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills ) and mathematics (Forefront). It is particularly

important that your child comes to school on time and rested for the remaining few weeks

of school in order to be able to effectively absorb new material as well as demonstrate an

understanding of previously learned concepts. Thank you!

Speaking of Which...

VINS Field Trip Coming Soon!

On Friday, May 16th, first grade will be traveling by bus to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee, linking an amazing local resource with our in class learning. Our EL unit is entitled “Growing as Researchers: Birds Amazing Bodies.”  The program at VINS will include a live raptor program and learning about bird adaptations. Permission slips for this learning adventure will be in Thursday folders next week. Please sign and return the permission slip as soon as possible. There is also a spot on the form to indicate whether or not your child will need a school bag lunch (PBJ) or will be bringing a bag lunch from home. 

Literacy: Informational Reading and Writing and Multisyllabic Words

We have moved into a new unit in Literacy with a focus on Writing to show our research: building expertise about bird's bodies.  Students will study a specific bird to learn about how the key parts help it survive in its habitat.  Within expert groups, students use the National Geographic kids text:  First Big Book of Birds for Little Kids to answer the unit guiding question: How do specific birds use their body parts to survive.  

Unit 12 shifts our word study focus from sounds to syllables. Students are being taught to read and spell two-syllable words with closed syllables (napkin, public) , including compound words (catnap, backpack). Heart words for this unit include: people, month, little, been, own, want, Mr. Mrs.