First News

continue to build and work on this at home by having your child read EVERY NIGHT!

Homework
April homework is due Thursday May 3rd.

BE Respectful, BE Responsible, BE Fair-Minded

Mrs. Brinkman jody.brinkman@thompsonschools.org 679-9531 Mrs. Saya janelle.saya@thompsonschools.org 679-9530 Mrs. Workman- melissa.workman@thompsonschool.org 679-9548

Remember to be reading for 20 minutes every night and to also complete at least 10 activities on the back! Lets get 100% participation this month!

MATH
We are working on a multitude of math skills, including fact fluency, story problem solving, telling time and counting with coins.

Reading
We have been continuing our work with nonfiction texts, learning how various non-fiction features help us to understand the text.The first graders continue to KNOCK OUR SOCKS OFF with their great reading! We also continue to work on practicing our fluency and comprehension! Be sure to

WRITING
We are learning the art of persuasive writing, which is writing that expresses your opinion and encourages your reader to come around to your point of view. In order to write persuasively, writers must support their position with a lot of reasons and details that

will WOW their readers.

The persuasive

doorsteps.

We are going to ask our

writing we will be doing will require the students to draw on their paragraph writing skills, as well as their ability to use new and interesting words. our You can look forward to
th

community to donate non-perishable food items, which we will donate to a food pantry which distributes these items to needy families. The permission slip for this activity will be coming home Monday, April 16th. Look for evidence of learning from this project at

seeing some of this persuasive writing on

MUSEUM NIGHT, Friday, May 4 .

STAR OF THE WEEK

Mrs. Saya- Tyler Comeau Mrs. Brinkman- Courtney Dumont Mrs. Workman- Yvonne Aste

MUSEUM NIGHT!

Final projects for Reduce, Reuse, Recycle unit

On Wednesday, we sent home information about the final project for our unit! Remember, the sky is the limit for how your child wants to express his/her learning. The letters we sent home are attached with this news letter. These projects are due Wednesday, May 2nd, and they will be displayed at

Social Studies
We are fortunate to have a wonderful volunteer from Junior Achievement coming in to all of our classrooms to teach our first graders about communities. This week, the focus

was on how we can help at home and within our community. This ties nicely in with our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle unit. Along with our Cans for Cash, we will be engaging in a second service learning project. We are going to do a neighborhood clean up walk, and as we are doing that, we are going to drop decorated paper grocery bags off on

MUSEUM NIGHT!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS April 16th: Permission slips for neighborhood service learning project come home. April 23rd: Neighborhood clean-up and bag delivery 12:30-2:30

April 20th: Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast- 7:30-8:30 am April 30th and May 1st: NO SCHOOL! These are our literacy assessment days. Your child has been assigned a block of time to come in to show us his/her awesome reading skills! May 2nd: Museum Night projects DUE!!! May 4th:

GOLDEN GLOBES
As the end of the year is quickly approaching, we are hoping to end with GREAT behavior! We have changed our Golden Globe system a little bit. As a class we reviewed being RESPECTFUL, RESPONSIBLE and FAIRMINDED. We talked about what that looks like and sounds like throughout our school. We came up with different rewards as you earn Golden Globes. Each Friday we will count our Golden Globes and receive our reward. The students are responsible for keeping track and saving ALL Golden Globes. Here are the rewards we came up with 10- Treasure Box 20- 15 minutes of computer/Ipod time 30- Gum 40- Show and Tell 50- 5 minute massage from the teacher 60- Sit on fit ball or special chair 70- Sit by 1st grade friend at lunch 80- Lunch with ANY Ponderosa friend 90- Lunch with a teacher 100Fancy lunch with your choice;

MUSEUM NIGHT!!!!

CANS FOR CASH!!!!!

Our Cans for Cash bin is looking a little bare. Lets put Ponderosa on the map and raise a truckload of money to support a charity, cause or country still to be determined. If you have cans you are saving, please CRUSH THEM and then send them into school in a garbage bag. Thanks so much! LETS GO PANDAS!!!

teacher, Mr. Caro or parent The kids are SUPER excited and motivated to have great behavior to earn all of these rewards! We appreciate your support and encouragement at home!!!