There's Still Time

 It seems like summer is just around the corner and school will be over soon, but there's still time...time to learn new things, time to play, time to enjoy being together. We will be using all our last days for that purpose.

There's also still time to try out new seating groups and special incentives for our last days. Tomorrow, students will be grouped into three large color groups of eight. Each group will have a chance at earning the privilege contained in a balloon at the end of the day if they finish the day with ten points. We hope the whole class ends on ten!

In Bible this week, we'll send our weekly story home, but in class we'll take a few days to focus on the meaning of each phrase in the Lord's Prayer. Our class knows the prayer by heart now, because we say it at every chapel. What we often don't know is what it really means and how to relate it to our daily lives. We'll work on gaining a clearer understanding and keep this prayer close to our hearts.

In reading and writing this week, we'll learn how to make a word into it's plural form and spell it correctly. We will apply this learning in our dictation words and sentences. Students will study and act out various shades of verbs, understanding subtle differences in meaning. We will review some of our more difficult red words, taking a pre-test on Monday and then retesting on Friday after lots of practice.  Students who know all the words on Monday get to be game leaders and have more free choices. We will all finish up writing our informational piece about Bess Beetle facts. 

Math is extra fun right now as we take on the challenging concepts of using coins to make equations. Using dimes and pennies helps us with place value. We'll be diving into addition and subtraction where students find a missing group. Students are finding they need to carefully reread their equations and ask themselves if it makes sense, and if not, fix it! This is very similar to the practice of carefully rereading their sentences in writing and editing them if they do not make sense. 

We'll cover a social studies standard about understanding a timeline by making a timeline of a school day. Students will relate the passage of time to growth in living things and the changes in seasons.

Our class is actively working on several end of the year projects in writing, music and art to prepare for graduation. In art this week we'll be painting pictures of our school to go on the covers of our diplomas. 

This week our class will have a first grade Move Up experience. On Wednesday, after afternoon chapel, grades K-7 will move up to the next grade to find out more about their new teacher and the things they'll be learning next year. Students who will be new to BL may join  and everyone will get the chance to meet them. On Thursday, kindergarten will be hosting a brief 'move-up' experience for our morning and afternoon pre-k friends.

We're excited for the fun week ahead!

Mrs. Luoma