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Happy Friday 1-1 Families! We made it through the busy week before spring break. Here is a look at what the students have been busy doing this week.

Reading 

To continue with the penguin theme, this week's close reading lessons focused on the "Tacky The Penguin Books" by Helen Lester. We were able to read Tacky the Penguin, Tacky and the Emperor, and Tacky and the Winter Games. To begin with the close reading, the students engaged in conversation about the books and discussed what kind of penguin Tacky is. Students used this information to compare and contrast Tacky with his very different companions from the stories. The children also explored what it means to summarize a story. Students completed a graphic organizer in small groups about what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of one of the Tacky stories. The next day, students used the information they documented in small groups to independently write a summary of the story.


Writing

Students had the very challenging task this week of beginning to write a nonfiction book about penguins. Students used Post-It notes from when they gathered information and started by organizing the sticky notes by category. Students arranged the Post-It notes by deciding if the information was about habitat, babies, what penguins look or sound like, interesting facts, and new vocabulary words. Once the information was organized, students had the opportunity to begin writing. Our penguin non fiction books include a decorative cover, a table of contents, writing with headings that correlate with the topic, and a glossary. Students have worked very hard and we are proud to display our hard work int he hallway.

Math

Math Unit 7 was a very short one that we were able to complete before spring break. Math concepts this week focused on three dimensional shapes and symmetry. Students were able to compare three dimensional shapes to real life objects as well as make hearts of symmetry. Students completed the unit by reviewing for the assessment and completing the assessment on Thursday.

Other 

Ola was our Star Student this week. She did a great job sharing some new information with us. We learned some new things about Ola, like her favorite toy is Lego Friends and her favorite food is pizza. Mine too, Ola!

We were also very lucky to have Ola's mom come in to be our Royal Reader this week. She read some great books to the class about spring. Great books to read, with spring just starting. We can only hope the weather will not take a turn for the worst.

To celebrate our hard work during our Penguin Unit, students dressed in all black and white like a penguin. We also got to do some fun penguin themed activities and watch a movie.

I hope everyone has a wonderful spring break!