21 May Classroom Update

Hello Room 211 Families!

The countdown is on!  Summer is just around the corner but we are all still working hard in school each day.  Last week, we sent home some learning materials we didn’t quite get to in class as we wrapped up our Baby Animals unit.  Feel free to save those tasks for a rainy day or recycle if you choose to do so.  Our final theme of the school year is, “Let’s Make Music.”  We will continue to strengthen our counting, cardinality, and algebraic thinking in math as well as daily reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills with familiar, routine activities that students are learning to complete independently.

In literacy:

• Students are working to build their phonemic and phonological awareness skills daily.  In small groups, students practice rhyming and segmenting syllables.   These activities are done orally and can easily be practiced at home on a regular basis.

Rhyming ideas include:

• Did you ever see a bee climbing a _____?  (Idea: tree)
• Did you ever see a rock wearing a _____?  (Idea: sock)
• Did you ever see a dog talking to a _____?  (Idea: frog)

Syllable segmentation ideas include:

1. Say the two parts, and clap for each part.

• Popcorn:  Pop    corn
• Tuesday:  Tues    day

2. Say the three parts, and clap for each part.

• December:   De    cem    ber
• Applesauce:  Ap   ple    sauce

In math:

• First grade students are working to compose and decompose (join and separate) amounts up to 10.  At home, you can place varying amounts of small items up to 10 on the whole space on a work mat shown below.  Then, ask your child to move an amount from the whole space to each part space.  They can count and tell you how many are in each part.  After, rejoin the parts and count the whole.  This is a great way to also strengthen your child’s subitizing skills (the ability to recognize an amount of objects without having to count with 1:1 correspondence).  You can also model an addition number sentence.  For example, if the whole was equal to 8 and each part was 4, you could model 4 + 4 = ___ and have your child write or select an answer.

• Kindergarteners are also hard at work with their math!  We are continuing to explore and identify shapes as well as sort based on size, shape, and color.  At home, look for and name shapes you see.  For example, the door is a rectangle and the window is a circle.  Do you have square plates or circle plates?  You can also cut out shapes and make simple designs.  For example, a triangle roof above a square house with a circle sun in the sky.  A quick internet search will provide a lot of ideas using Tangrams, too!

In our social emotional lessons:

• We have been identifying faces that show different emotions as well as finding things that make us happy and smile!  As you can see by the photos that were recently posted, there were a lot of us in class who were happy with bubbles!

Please look for information regarding the following upcoming events from your child’s general education teacher:

• First Grade: Vocal Music Concert (May 24^th)
• First Grade:  Seattle Aquarium Field Trip (May 30^th)
• Book Fair (May 31^st – June 2^nd)
• Kindergarten: Vocal Music Concert (June 7^th)
• Field Day (June 9^th)

Here’s to a great end to our year together!

Thanks so much,

Jaime