First Quarter Is Over Already!

This week we wrapped up first quarter (can you believe it?!) with a story called Winners Never Quit.  It is an autobiography written by Mia Hamm, a famous U.S. women's soccer player.  We introduced the skill of making predictions, and we talked about how we use what we know about a story plus what we know about real life to make predictions about what will happen next in a story.  The kids did really well with this!  Our high-frequency words for the week were brother, caught, cheer, learn, lose, and straight.  Robust vocabulary words were agile, spectator, competitive, and worthwhile.  These were difficult words for the kids because many of them had not heard of any of the words before.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly many of the kids are picking up on the words, what they mean, and how to use them correctly in sentences.  We are developing such grown up vocabularies!  Our grammar skill for the week was nouns.  We mostly focused on identifying nouns as people, places, animals, and things, but we did touch on singular and plural as well.  We finished up our letter writing unit.

Next week will mark the beginning of second quarter.  We will read Gus and Grandpa and the Two-Wheeled Bike.  We will continue to work on predictions.  High-frequency words for next week will be coming, curve, idea, knee, laughed, million, and world.  It's a longer list next week, but I am feeling confident that the kids will have no problems.  Robust vocabulary words for next week will be romp, defeated, jubilant, and master.  We will continue with nouns.  Our big focus for next week will be distinguishing between singular and plural nouns, and using the correct endings (-s or -es) for plural nouns.  We will begin a writing unit on narrative stories, and this will be our primary focus throughout second quarter (though we will continue to practice writing friendly letters and journaling as well).  Spelling words for next week have the long a sound (spelled ai and ay).  Words are:
pay, mail, paint, day, rain, stay, sail, way, train, tray, means, old, any, same, tell

Conferences are quickly approaching.  Several parents have not yet signed up for a conference time.  On Tuesday, I sent home a form to request a day/time for those parents who did not sign up at Fee Collection Day or Open House.  If you have not yet returned that form, please do so by Monday.  Parents who have not returned the form by Monday will be assigned whatever time slots I have left open.  Reminders will go home for all parents next Monday listing your day/time.

I would like to welcome a new student to our classroom.  Tyler joined our class last Friday.  He comes from Erie, Pennsylvania.  The students have done an outstanding job making him feel welcome.  He is a wonderful addition to our class and a great role model for other students!

Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - library
Tuesday - music
Wednesday - computer
Thursday - art
Friday - music

Enjoy your weekend!