Mrs. Von Busch’s May Newsletter We had a great time at the Louisville Zoo!! Thanks again to the many parents who came with us. The students and I also enjoyed sharing our morning with all the moms at Muffins with Mom. I hope enjoyed Wednesday and their Mother’s day on Sunday. With the end of school approaching quickly, there is still lots to do and lots going on. Reminder: If you haven’t turned in your field trip permission slip for Connor Prairie please do so immediately. There has been a slight change in that trip. We are no longer riding on a school bus but are riding on a COACH bus. Yeah, we’ll have air conditioning and a bathroom!!!!! Reminder: No Extended day following the Connor Prairie Field Trip. Reminder: Last day of school is May 30^th . Please drop kids off in the morning as normal. The Awards ceremony will start at 8:30. Our school day ends at the end of the Awards ceremony. There is no extended day as well. Language We are continuing with our theme in our Houghton Mifflin reading program called Our Earth. Our phonics focus will be on deleting and substituting phonemes and continuing our work on adding endings such as ed and ing. Our comprehension focus will revisit the skill of drawing conclusions from stories. The week will begin with the story of Paul Bunyan. I will explain that readers use what they know from real life to help draw conclusions in a story. This helps them understand a story better. Our featured story is Johnny Appleseed. Although we read this story earlier in the year, we will be reading a different version of the story. The author, Patricia Demuth, uses descriptive words that will provide us with more details. This will allow us to practice describing the character of a story. In writing, we will begin to write our advice to the incoming first graders. We will begin by webbing their first grade experiences. We will talk about things they liked, disliked, things they could do and things they couldn’t do. I feel that this writing will allow them to view themselves as one of the older ones and the Kindergarteners will enjoy reading them. Homework packets are due on Friday. (Next to the last homework packet) Spelling test: We will begin the end the assessment on spelling by giving brief test daily. Our goal is to retest all of the word wall words by the end of next week. Since this is over a hundred words we will begin with the easier words and move to the more challenging words. You may review the words but don’t feel the need to study the words. No more Spelling pretest, or new words or new chunk. Math: Monday: Addition and subtraction of 2-digit numbers Tuesday: Expanding our knowledge of fractions Wednesday: Comparing fractions Thursday: Continuing comparison of fractions Friday: Unit 9 assessment Sat. May 17^th Walden Auction Mon May 26^th Memorial Day / No school Wed May 28^th Conner Prairie Thurs. May 29^th LS Pizza and Ice Cream Social Fri. May 30^th LS Awards 8:30 to 9:30ish