It is almostApril!!!

Mrs. Merrills First Grade

~NEWSLETTER~
ART CENTER TRIP!!! We get to go to the Quincy ART
CENTER on Monday, April 13th if you want to meet us
there!!! WE are leaving at 8:45 and will load the bus to
return at 10:45 that morning! A note will come home about
the exhibits we will be studying and the amazing art project
your children will get to create!
MYSTERY READERS!!! We ARE SOOOO SUPER fortunate to
have Mystery Readers! Books are our FAAAAVORITE and we
greatly appreciate any and all mystery readers who want to
come share the best present with us A GREAT BOOK!
We havent had a MYSTERY READER in a while. If anyone
wants to be a mystery reader, PLEASE EMAIL ME the date and
time that works best for you (usually we do this on Friday but WE
ARE FLEXIBLE!) Also, you can send us 5 clues so we can read one each
day leading up to the magical moment of the mystery reader! Thanks!
Email clues and dates to alisonlewis27@yahoo.com
KINDERGARTEN ROUND UP IS COMING SOONfor those of you
with incoming kindergartners!!!!!!!!! Its April 10th from 9:3010:45!
BIKE HELMETS~ First Graders are fortunate to receive FREE
Bike Helmets to keep us safe!!! This is a priceless present that
comes to us soon on April 8th!

FRIDAY, APRIL 17TH IS SPECIAL PERSON DAY!!!

Mark your calendars for this super special event! 1st
grade celebrates this day.and an invitation will be
coming home soon with more information including the time. Students
can invite any special person they wish.grandparents, moms, dads,
aunts, uncles, etc.! It should be a special time to remember~! Guests
come to our room for a performance and activities, and then shop at the
SPRING Book Fair (Its buy oneget one free!) in the gym and receive a
snack in the cafeteria! Hip! Hip!
We are shopping at the Buy One Get One Free Spring
Book FAIR soon! Its during the Special Person Day Week
of April 13th and we will shop during our gym classI will
let you know the date when I do! We HEART books.
SPRING PARENT INSTITUTE: MATH NIGHT: This event is
Tuesday, April 14th with math activities planned for children and
parents at school from 6:30-7:30! Enjoy!
AG RETURNS TO THE CLASSROOM FORA LESSON ON PLANT
BOTANY!!! It will be Friday, April 24th from 9:45-10:30
MR. BENTLEY FROM LEGACY MARTIAL ARTS IS COMING TO
MADISON April 28th and 29th to teach kids valuable life lessons on
respect, focus, and goals!
WHAT ARE WE LEARNING ABOUT?
I cant believe your children are almost in second
grade! We only have a little time left in school!
AAAH!!

IN SCIENCE CONTENT WORKSHOPWe have started learning about

WEATHER! We learned about why weather is important~ for pilots,
farmers, travelers, athletes, schools, sailors, and more! We also wrote
what we wondered about the weather, did a closed word sort on
seasons, and charted what we learned about CLOUDS! We just started
CLOSE READING with informational pictures- A new Common Core
related concept of closely reading an informational picture (in younger
grades), articles, or books and charting what we notice. We need
evidence from the picture to prove what we learnedHow do you know
that? You wouldnt BELIEVE the amazing amount of information we
are learning from closely studying severe weather pictures! We have a
close reading chart of information learned by studying pictures of a
tornado, lightning, flood, hurricane, and blizzard.
During this study on Weather, we will do a QAR (Question Answer
Response) on the book, WILD WEATHER, learn WEATHER WORDS
(vocabulary) from Gail Gibbons, and raindrops, and wind. Soon, the kids
will go outside with a parent volunteer to watch clouds for Science!
This week we are working in wild weather teams on T.V. SEVERE
WEATHER REPORTS!!! Each team has chosen their topic: tsunami,
tornado, hurricane, thunderstorm, or blizzard. They are
exploring informational books and writing webs as well as
note cards with facts to read to the class during their
T.V. SEVERE WEATHER REPORTThey will also design
scenery/a backdrop on butcher paper for their severe
weather report broadcast! Lastly, the teams will present
their severe weather reports to the class!
Our last and final unit in first grade is PLANTS! We
will start planting after Easter during April and continue
all the way through May until the end of first grade! We
cant wait to have parent and grandparent volunteers help
us with planting!!! First grade gets to plant Rye Grass,
Brassica Seeds, and wheat! WE observe the plants over

time, drawing and writing our observationswe even get to mow our
lawns with the grass! We will have lots of fun discovering, planting, and
exploring plants and seeds with science experiments, kingdoms, and
writing activities!
IN MATH WORKSHOP We have finished working in Unit 8
on Mental Arithmetic, Money, and Fractions. Children took the
Unit test and congrats to all MATH AWARD winners and to
everyone for being clever mathematicians! The next unit we will start
after Easter is Unit 9 on Place Value and Fractions. Both Unit 8 and
Unit 9 tests will be recorded on the Math Assessment Wall.
Lets be fast, mental math thinkers! Keep solving addition facts
quickly on www.xtramath.org and practice math concepts at home that
were maybe tricky for your child on the 3rd Quarter Math Assessment
and report card. Money is VERY tricky for many, and this time they
only had to count pennies, nickels, and dimes for the report card. Next
time, quarters will be mixed in, too (which is what weve been working
on, but is a VERY complicated concept for some.) Also, it seemed that
many struggled with subtraction number stories~ knowing how many
someone started with and how many they now have after SOME were
added..whats the difference? How many were added?
We have been solving many number story problems like this (with a
missing addend) when we use our CALENDAR MATH COMPUTER
PROGRAM on ActivInspire. The First Grade is using this FANTASTIC
way to warm up our math minds daily with a calendar full of important
concepts to practice daily. There are pages we shine from the
computer on the Elmo screen with.
1. A morning message to edit
2. Number grid puzzles
3. Making the number of days weve been in school with base 10
blocks

4. 10 frames 6+___=10 (This NEEDS to be mastered, fast, and

fluent and is tricky still for some)
5. Comparing numbers using greater than and less than from a
single digit, to a double digit, to triple digit numbers
6. Even or odd
7. Whats 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, and 10 less from a number on the
number grid
8. Clocks
9. Make the days date in money
10. Spin a number and make that number in coins with money
11. Name collection boxes
12. Dominos: part, part, whole
13. Whats my rule problems
14. Fact triangles: fact families
15. A story problem/ number story to solve
16. An actual digital calendar

IN WRITING WORKSHOP During Writers Workshop your writers

have been working on REVISION! Revision means we look at our
writing again in a new way.This unit in Writers Workshop takes HARD
WORK Writers now have their first 3 books they chose to celebrate
(publish) at our first 3 Writing Celebrations! Now, we are making
these stories EVEN BETTER!!! We act like kings and queens (wearing
Revision crowns and bracelets of spirit, love, pride, etc.) WE use tools~
red pens to show how we have changed our writing and strips of paper
to add details and revisions. We fancy up our writing with amazing
language (similes and metaphors) and REALLY learn to REVISE! We
have charted revision ideas..
1. Re read your writing
2. Add details
3. Add dialogue

4. Add similes and metaphors

5. Add strong verbs, adjectives, and nouns
6. Use transition words
7. Make your opening and ending STRONGER
8. Add deep true feelings in your heart
9. Add interesting illustration techniques or speech bubbles
10.
Soon we will learn the SECRET OF GREAT
WRITING.SHOW, DONT TELL!!!
During writing time, we need to be WRITING some writers think its
recess workshop or talking workshop, nope. Its WRITERS WORKSHOP
and we all have our own goals to push ourselves and do our very best
showing the world how clever we are!
Our next Writing Unit in April will bewriting INFORMATIONAL
ALL ABOUT NONFICTION CHAPTER BOOKS!!! We will take the
information we learned from our Melvin Berger Author Study to help us
now write in this new, exciting genre!
IN READERS WORKSHOP
WE have finished our Author Study on Melvin Berger and learned
all the informational features we noticed in his books. Ask your
children to show you the hand motions for table of contents, real
pictures, index, glossary, fun facts, did you know box, headings,
boldface words and more. They should know them and how they help us
as readers of informational books! During independent reading, your all
last week your children were READING Melvin Berger informational
books and making concept webs of facts they learned!
IN April we star our last Author Study on Kevin Henkes. WE will
also have a short genre study on poetrycant wait!!!!

SNACK BASKET: Every child receives a snack every day and

we are getting a little low. PLEASE SEND A BOX OF SNACKS
each month if you can~ we have 25 kids in our class. Thanks so
much!
BOOK ORDER~ The book order is due April 15 if you are
interested! Thank you for all your ordering~ Feel
free to order online for convenience! We use the
bonus points to order more GREAT books for our
classroom! Each year teachers receive money for their
classroom and EVERY year I use every single dollar
on.BOOKS!!!! Hip Hip Hurray!!! Thanks again for everything you do for
your first graders!
The parent helpers have REALLY worked hard to give children the
opportunity to type and blog about their favorite books on our blog
thank YOU!!!! We are sooooo fortunate, grateful, and appreciative for
all you do to help make our learning a blast!
They truly are amazing!!! ~Mrs. Merrill
P.S. SAVE THE DATE: FRIDAY, MAY 8TH IS OUR
MOTHERS DAY TEA PARTY AT 2:00!! We WOULD
LOVE TO CELEBRATE AND HONOR YOU!!! More
info and a formal invitation will be coming home
soon!!! Pinkies up, people!