Friday, May 11, 2012

End of year approaching fast!

So much is happening in the next few weeks! We have been practicing our play, E-I-E-I-Oops! The kids are very excited! The songs are short and easy to learn, so it's going very well! I think we've made our final adjustments to the parts and so your child will bring home a slip of paper next week with his/her assigned part and costume suggestions. No worries, though! The costumes are easy: all animals will wear jeans and a colored shirt. Chicks will wear yellow shirts, pigs will wear pink shirts and sheep will wear white shirts. We're making headbands here at school for each animal. The farmer parts should wear denim overalls, jeans, or skirts and plaid shirts. Maybe a straw hat? They'll look great! We plan to have dress rehearsal during the day with an evening performance for families on June 7th at 6:00 in the gym! If your child will NOT be able to attend the evening performance, please let me know! We have set dates for end of the year events! Move Up Day (where students visit their assigned class for the following year) is scheduled for June 8th. June 11th we'll have our annual field day! That morning students will participate in a variety of events like balloon toss, tug-o-war, and the water slide. For lunch we'll have our school picnic with a concert on the green to follow. June 13th is the last day of school! Our last math unit is well under way and students are learning about Farms! The math topics are area and perimeter, but in an informal way. While children buy fencing for their animals, they are actually calculating the perimeter of their field. We don't use the words perimeter and area, but when the children are formally taught about area and perimeter, they will have a deeper understanding! And they're also learning to count money! The farmhouse they bought this week cost $30 which was easy to calculate using ten dollar bills. However, the silo cost $27 and the goats cost $8 each. Each time they buy something for their farm, they have to "pay" using the Farm Bucks they cut out on the first day. They even pay for land! They really want to buy everything TODAY, but we'll finish the year with this unit! We are assessing students for the very last time this year! We'll have a reading level by the end of the month and each child will take the end of year math assessment before the end of May. I also have to give them an end-of-year spelling assessment as well. This information helps us with placement and also with forming instructional groupings for the beginning of the following year. Please let me know if you have any questions!