Learning To Go Mr. Avery's Class on the Web 

 We had an amazing time at Floral Goes Green! We posted the environmental study we conducted over the past few weeks for all to learn from, and we learned from our peers’ informative and engaging displays as well. We also were treated to a presentation on the Asian longhorn beetle, and a visit for first-graders from local beekeeper Barbara McPhee. She taught us about the life cycle, behavior, and importance of honeybees to our local environment.

            

You’re invited! Our Spring Concert/End-of-Year Celebration will be held Wednesday, June 11, 9:30-10:15 in our Cafeteria. Similar to our Winter bash, we will be performing on the stage for family and friends, and we will remain after for photo opportunities and congratulations!

There are just two more weeks of math homework, ending June 5. The pages will come home in the regular homework packet like normal, and each assignment is dated. We will also have two more weeks of math fact quizzes, so keep on practicing and let’s see how high we can fly before the end! Reading and spelling homework will continue for 3 weeks, ending June 13. Instruction and assessment over the next weeks will focus on practicing, extending, and testing skills found on our report card.

Here are some more gems from our work with poetry this year. Notice how each poet conveys feeling with a combination of imagery and metaphor:

• My Cat

My cat shivered on

the white table.

Nervous because he

knows the shot

will hurt. I was

worried he would

cry. When the

shot was over…

he rubbed up

to me. I

hope I don’t

have to do

that again.

by Andrew Milani

• Rollerblading

the most

exciting thing

flashing lights

all sorts of colors

flying stars on the floor

digging both feet

push off

suddenly I go flying

past all strangers.

by Gino Evangelous

• When I Got A Fracture

When I got a fracture

my feelings were heavy

and my stomach was

a stone

with a broken hand

like a swing

my hand

surrounded with

a thick layer

I was lonely and hurt

and feeling

lost in the desert.

by Karthik Yeddula

• Softball

Softball is the best

Standing on home plate

gripping on the bat

Suddenly

the pitcher shoots the ball

right into my bat

getting closer

I swung the bat hard

it flew so far that

no one could catch it

I ran

first base

second base

there was more time

I slid

I reached

home plate!

by Julia Harasim

Five weeks to go!

You’re invited! Our Spring Concert/End-of-Year Celebration will be held Wednesday, June 11, 9:30-10:15 in our Cafeteria. Similar to our Winter bash, we will be performing on the stage for family and friends, and we will remain after for photo opportunities and congratulations!

This Friday our school will be hosting Floral Goes Green, an annual event intended to raise environmental awareness for kids and families. There will be presentations by guests and community members throughout the day for students. In addition, every classroom will post project-based learning displays they have been working on.

The learning focus in our class has been on examining the importance of trees and shade in our local environment. Students are learning about the scientific process as we develop questions to test; design experiments to test them; collect data (temperature readings in and out of school); analyze the data to understand what it means; draw conclusions; and make inferences and recommendations based on our findings.

This week we will use our data collected outside to understand temperature differences in sun and shade. Last week we also took readings of temperatures in an enclosed area (box with clear plastic top) to give us schema for learning about the greenhouse effect, which we will explore further this week. We will also learn to use scientific tools (electric temperature probes, data collection software, and building models) to help us learn about the potential for shade as an energy-saving coolant. Our findings will be displayed in the hallways alongside the many other projects explored by our schoolmates.

          

There is room for more volunteers to help us set up (Thurs. after school) and clean up (Friday after school) for Floral Goes Green. If you can help, simply return the blue form sent home last week (I have copies if you need another).

This week we will compete the Everyday Math homework packet. New homework pages (not from the packet) will continue to be assigned each night and will come home pre-dated for the next three weeks, however, to continue the practice and extension of math skills.

Our work with poetry has culminated in an anthology of student poems! We will be sharing (and analyzing) poems with each other this week, after which time each student will bring home their own copy of the collection. They are all awesome! Here are a few: note the use of imagery, metaphor, and expressive word choice that conveys emotion!

•  Cute Wolves

Wolves are like

fluffy white

dandelions.

Their fur

looks like snow

in your hands.

They bark

like dogs

singing Christmas carols.

by Macy Kent

• Playing Soccer

Kids lined up like

soldiers

waiting for a signal.

Whistle screeched.

Suddenly, shoes stomped

clouds of dust crawled

around the field.

The ball slapped my chest.

I kicked it and

it shot in the goal like

a bullet.

by Syed

• Going to El Salvador

In the pitch dark

night he woke me up

carried me to the car

drove the car in the dark until

the lights flashed around the

airport

to show us the way.

by Aleah Rodriguez

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you moms enjoyed a day where you were the star!

We had a fun and informative time engaging in the Artemas Ward presentation by Marcia and Jim Smith. We learned about Ward’s contributions to Colonial New England as the first general of the Continental Army, and about life long ago for boys and girls!

 We are now practicing all of the CAFE reading strategies taught this year independently and in group reading. At this point, your first-grader should be able to ask questions and look for answers in a text; predict what will happen next (to a character or in the upcoming text of a nonfiction book); infer the meanings of words or character decisions; make connections to what they’re reading (e.g. what they already know about something) and explain how that helps them understand; monitor their own reading and use fix-up strategies when they encounter unknown words; retell books/sections of a text; and tell you the main idea of what they’ve read. At home, try asking questions about homework books or other books read based on the above strategies to keep kids thinking while they read. Here are some tips for teachers; they work equally well at home! http://www.reading-tutors.com/tips/TH_Tips_CompStrat.pdf

We continue to learn ELA skills this week as we focus on what verbs are and where they occur in sentences. If you’re looking for games to play around all things academic for young kids, ABCya.com is a fun choice: http://www.abcya.com/nouns_and_verbs.htm

 Having finished Unit 9 in math, it’s time for a review of all skills from the past year that are expected to be mastered by Everyday Math (EDM). Unit 10 is a 3-week unit that pushes kids to recall information and skill work, and to extend their learning. In addition to EDM, our district has expectations of skills for mastery based on the standards, and we will be working to secure those skills next. You can find those skills on our report card at: http://schools.shrewsbury-ma.gov/egov/docs/1321971418_901275.pdf

We are starting a scientific study of shade as it affects temperature and our local habitat in preparation for Floral Goes Green on May 23. This week we will take temperature readings in sun and shade both outside the school and inside, to begin to compare and contrast and make inferences about the value of shade (and therefore the need for trees), and to learn more about the greenhouse effect.

You’re invited! Our Spring Concert/End-of-Year Celebration will be held Wednesday, June 11, 9:30-10:15 in our Cafeteria. Similar to our Winter bash, we will be performing on the stage for family and friends, and we will remain after for photo opportunities and congratulations!

There is room for more volunteers to help us set up (Thurs. after school) and clean up (Friday after school)  for Floral Goes Green. If you can help, simply return the blue form sent home last week (I have copies if you need another).

You’re invited! Our Spring Concert/End-of-Year Celebration will be held Wednesday, June 11, 9:30-10:15 in our Cafeteria. Similar to our Winter bash, we will be performing on the stage for family and friends, and we will remain after for photo opportunities and congratulations!

 

There is room for more volunteers to help us set up (Thurs. after school) and clean up (Friday after school)  for Floral Goes Green. If you can help, simply return the blue form sent home last week (I have copies if you need another).

Our next school-wide All School Read happens this month (see Week 23 from February for our last one) and is based on the book The Invisible Boy (Ludwig, 2013). The book tells the tale of a young boy who is overlooked by classmates and becomes marginalized until a new student arrives who takes notice of him. Inherent in the meaning of the story is that it takes assertion to include everyone in a group, and that the group isn’t complete until everyone is included. We will read, speak, role play, and write about how it feels to be left out and to be included, and what we can do/say to help make it happen. We will acknowledge our work together with the other grade 1 and grade 2 classes at this Friday’s School Meeting in the gym.

Also this week, first grades are to be treated by a visit from local hero and famous American, Artemas Ward (a.k.a. local historian Jim Smith). We will learn about life long ago and character traits of this famous American from Colonial times. Big Thanks to the PTO for funding this enriching program! More about Ward’s life and times, including a virtual tour (though I encourage you to take a visit there someday): http://www.wardhouse.harvard.edu

Math this week will look a little different! Unit 9 is ending, and so is our learning of new material in grade 1 (Unit 10 is a review of concepts taught all year). Instead of starting a new unit, we will be taking time this week to revisit patterns in number (especially using multiples of ten to help us count, add, and subtract); fractions of a shape and fractions of a set (e.g. 1/2 of 8 = 4); factors of 10; and telling time to the 1/4 hour. Math homework this week will be 4 separate pages related to this content (already dated), instead of pages from the homework packet.

Our science work gets more and more exciting! Having learned about plant life cycles, we are moving on to lessons on living creatures and their life cycles. We received larvae (I haven’t told the students what they will become yet) for study and created habitats for them based on their need for food, air, water, and shelter. Each student will be making observations with his/her own larva and noting changes in its life cycle. Accompanying these scientific observations will be lessons on insect life cycles, molting, and more. Ask your child to describe for you how his/her creature looks, what it does, and what changes occur with time.