High-Frequency Words ♥ www.starfall.com ♥ www.studyisland.com♥
Arbor Day-Mrs. Dowiak plants a pussy willow tree with the students. The potted tree was placed on the playground where the students can watch it grow.
Visit our photo gallery for more pictures
MAY NEWSLETTER
2012
Every May the EarlyChildhood Centercarries on the yearly tradition of honoring Mary in the schoolyard each morning. The children gather at the statue of Mary under the dogwood tree to offer prayers and songs. Students from each class may bring in flowers on their designated day. On Tuesday, May 8th students in Kindergarten B may bring in flowers.
Our religion lessons this month will end the unit, God Knows My Feelings. The children learned that God has given them their feelings. We focused on the feelings of happiness, sadness, anger and fear. The purpose of these lessons was to help the children recognize and accept their feelings. We discussed appropriate responses when one experiences these feelings. Our next lessons will about prayer and how it is a way of talking to God. They will also become aware that members of God’s family come together at church to celebrate and worship together.
In language arts we will start the theme “Jobs People Do.” The children always enjoy the engaging books, poems and songs with each theme. Resources with the theme include multiple copies of decodable books. These decodable books provide practice with decoding words and reading the high-frequency words. They are making great progress with their reading and writing skills. The new high-frequency words for this theme are: are, they, she, good. See the link to the high-frequency words.
In math we began our lessons on addition and subtraction. The students will use a variety of activities, such as inventing stories and using manipulatives, to learn the meaning of addition and subtraction and to model addition and subtraction facts. Addition and subtraction facts through ten will be covered. The students will become familiar with the plus, minus and equals symbols along with addition and subtraction sentences. Some of our addition lessons will have the children exploring the functions of the calculator. They will be introduced to the calculator to find sums.
Over the past few weeks we have used our computer classes to work on a second edition of a class book, “ABC and Us.” The first edition of “ABC and Us” was made in September and it was based on the alphabet book, ABC and You. In the first edition each child wrote the first letter of his or her name and a sentence with their name. They completed their page by making a drawing of themselves. Presently, the second edition is in progress. For this edition the students are using their computer skills to make their page. They are typing in the text and drawing with the tools in Microsoft Paint. We hope to finish it soon.
We are looking forward to learning all about sea animals on our trip to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden on Tuesday, May 10th. We have many books about sea animals in our classroom library that the children will be exploring before our trip to the aquarium. We will not have snack in school the day of the trip and the students should wear their gym uniforms. Please make sure their lunches are packed in bags with their names on the outside.
You may know that Mrs. Wolfram has not been with us since March. She is on a family medical leave of absence. She hopes to return in the middle of May. Until then, we are fortunate to have Mrs. Dowiak with us.
The end of the school year will be here before we know it. It is such a joy to see how much each child has grown and progressed. Even with the end in sight, the last weeks will be filled with lots of learning and fun. We have a busy month ahead of us!
Unity
I dreamed I stood in a studio
and watched two sculptors there.
The clay they used
was a young child’s mind
and they fashioned it with care.
One was a teacher
and the tools she used
were books and music and art.
One was a parent
with a guiding hand
and a gentle, loving heart.
And when at last
their work was done,
they were proud of what they had wrought.
For the things they had worked
into the child
could never be sold or bought.
And each agreed
she would have failed
if she had worked alone
for behind the parent
stood the school
and behind the teacher
stood the home.
By Ray A. Lingenfelter