Dear Families,

Well...we are finally here! The last few weeks of school! The year has flown by and I can’t believe it is all about to come to a very BUSY end! The last weeks of school are packed full of activities for your children. Please read below for important updates and over to the side for dates/times about end of the year information. Thank you for all that you have done to support your students and myself throughout the year. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Jen Avery
Jennifer.Avery@centerville.k12.oh.us

End of the Year Information

Word Study

Formal word study will continue for a few more weeks. After this, there will be no more word study homework. We will do a final assessment to see our overall growth and review and practice will be completed here in the classroom.

Math

We are approaching the end of the Everyday math program. I will work to develop math lessons that touch on areas where students could use some extra review. Homework will be sent home at the teacher’s discretion. Look for reviews of making change, time, and problem solving to come!

Reading
I will continue to meet with and instruct guided reading groups through the end of the year! Yeah!!! I will also be using this instructional time to assess each student individually to provide their second grade teachers with an accurate baseline for beginning of the year assessments and instruction next year. Please be sure they are reading every night!

Everyone in our class is a reader. It is extremely important that as we send these young readers off on their own, we remind them that if something doesn’t make sense, they need to reread. Reading aloud each night (maybe not a whole book as our texts are long) is still imperative for reading success. Don’t forget to get to the library and read all summer long!

Science
Wow! Your children have been working with the Purple Neighborhood to research what attracts the Eastern Bluebird. After finding out what kinds of plants they like to eat, we will begin planting some of these bushes, plants, and trees this week, with Mrs. Paice, our Naturalist. Thanks to our PTO for helping us fund this field study!

Healthy Me

We have been learning about being healthy.  So far we have learned about germs and our school nurse stopped in and taught us about Scrubby Bear and his pledge to wash your hands.  The students observed live germs growing in a petry dish for a week.  We were all disgusted and vowed to wash our hands often!  We have also been learning about exercise, sleep, and going to the doctor in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  The students participated in a Fitness Challenge here at PVN last week.  They trained and showed off their abilities and raised money for PVN and for a wonderful charity!  Over the next few weeks, we will learn more about healthy eating.  We will discuss the food pyramid as well making healthy snacks and eating well-balanced meals.  We will also have Dr. Dan the dentist in to visit us this week and discuss the importance of dental health.  On Feb 17th, the green team and the blue team will participate in a "health fair" where students will rotate through 5 different stations about being healthy!

Fire Station Field Trip

Here is the shared writing our class wrote after getting back from the Fire Station.

Fire Station Trip

Today we learned fire drills are important.  We should do them at home and at school.  We learned to call 911 in an emergency.  We learned what a frie house looks like.  We learned that fire houses have kitchens and bedrooms like a regular house.  We learned that an emergency is when someone is hurt or it is dangerous.  We also learned how firefighters put on their clothes.  Firetrucks can hold 25 bathtubs of water!

Recycling at PVN

The Green neighborhood is responsible for the recycling program at PVN. Next week, we will begin collecting the recyclable materials that will be added to the special recycling dumpster at school. We've been preparing our classmates by inviting a staff member from the Montgomery County Waste Department, and the mascot, Kirby the Cardinal, to talk about recyclable materials. They also talked to the students about ways to reduce their trash and reuse items in new ways. After studying ways to respect our Earth for the past few weeks, we visited the Purple neighborhood and presented our procedures for recycling at PVN. The kids are so proud that they are making a difference at our school by being good citizens to our Earth.

Math Practice

Your children have been working on using tools in Math, to help them solve problems. We have been using the number grid for counting, finding patterns, playing math games, and solving number stories. We have also been using clocks and calendars as tools we use to help us measure time. Next time your child asks you what time it is, or what time something is going to be happening, please consider having them practice using a clock and telling you the time to the hour. This past week we also started using coins to count by ones and fives. Please continue to practice counting by fives to help this skill develop from memory. Real-life application by counting collections of nickels would be great practice!

Reading Strategies

Over the past few weeks, I have introduced strategies to use when the children come to “Tricky Words”, words they don’t recognize right away while they are reading. So far, we’ve learned:
• Look at the pictures
• Look and say the beginning sound
• Think...does that make sense?

Please help me reinforce these strategies when you are reading with your child at home, as well.