P.S. 179 Kensington

September – Responsible

October – Safe

November – Helpful

December – Giving

January – Kind

February – Respectful

March – Trustworthy

April – Confident

May – Noble

Current Month:

May Literacy Theme will be working on informational texts about life cycles. Life cycles are a set of events or actions that happen again and again in the same order. Students will be able to further explore informational text features to gather facts for their life cycle writing pieces. They will be working in pairs or groups to write about a topic. They will include an introduction, the stages of the life cycle their topic topic follows, and conclusion. We will follow the writing process: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing. In addition testing will continue of student's reading and writing levels. Remember to practice reading and writing at home to prepare for these assessments.

Anchor Texts: The Life Cycle of an Apple Tree & How a Seed Grows

Past Month:

September Literacy Theme was be good reading and writing habits, as well as an introduction to fiction story elements. 

October Literacy Theme will be Narrative reading and writing. We will recall events using sequencing words (First, Next, Then, Finally) and describe story elements (Characters, setting, beginning, middle, and ending details).

November Literacy Theme will be informational/nonfiction reading and writing. We will write about different informational topics and use text features (table of contents, index, glossary, headings, keywords, photos, captions, and labeled diagrams).

Anchor Text: Elephants and their Calves (Supporting Text: What To Do With a Tail Like This?)

December & January Literacy Theme will be reading fiction again.  We will be working on persuasive  and opinion writing. We will be using the OREO strategy: Opinion- Tell you how feel about the topic, Reasons- Give reasons to support your opinion, Example- give details and examples to support your opinion, and Restate Opinion.

Anchor Texts: A Fine, Fine School and Recess Queen

February Literacy Theme will be reading informative/explanatory texts. In their writing students will compare and contrast their school lives and the school experience of a child from our Anchor texts. We will learn about students from different countries and various cultures. Students will need to provide facts and details from the text to support their writing.

Anchor Texts: It's Back to School We Go! and Going to School

March Literacy Theme will continue reading realistic fiction and informative/explanatory texts. In writing we will focus on the writing process: 1. Prewriting: Brainstorming and Planning. 2. Drafting: Writing in sentences "Sloppy copy." 3. Revising: Improving our writing with good beginnings, strong vocabulary, and a good conclusion. 4. Editing: Correcting punctuation, spelling, capitalization and grammar. 5. Publishing: Time to share our work.

Anchor Texts: It's Back to School We Go! and Going to School

Extension Texts: Children Just Like Me

April Literacy Theme will be focusing on poetry and realistic fiction. We are celebrating Poem in your Pocket Day April 19th. For our realistic fiction and narrative writing we will discuss the process of making choices. In narrative writing we will learn how to use dialogue, strong characters, setting, and plot.

Anchor Texts: My Rows and Piles of Coins & Lemonade in Winter

Extension Texts: Variety of Poetry

Current Month:

May Math Theme will be focusing on representing data in picture graphs, bar graphs, and tally charts. Students will be able to use charts and graphs to answer questions about how many objects, addition, subtraction, and greater than/less than. This is a chapter that uses skills we have learned already which will be great practice for their end of year math assessments. Remember to review and practice time, measurement, addition, subtraction, greater than/less than, and counting by ones and tens to help your child in their tests.

Math Vocabulary: bar graph, picture graph, tally chart, tally mark (Remember draw 4 lines and the 5th line goes across the 4 lines to represent a group of 5)

Past Month:

September Math theme was number value and addition and subtraction without regrouping to 20. 

October we will be continuing with addition without regrouping up to 20. To add we will use strategies such as drawing circles to represent the addends, making a bar model, and using counters to add. 

Math Vocabulary: add, order, addend, plus, bar model.

November Math theme we will focus on addition up to 20 using strategies such as turn around facts, counting on, doubles, doubles plus one, doubles minus one, ten frame, and making a ten. Also we will start adding with 3 addends and changing the order of the addends. 

Math Vocabulary: Counting on, doubles, doubles plus ones, doubles minus one, and make a ten.

December & January Math theme will be addition and subtraction vocabulary and strategies to solve problems and build fact families within 20. Math strategies: Make a bar model, make a model, fact families, and related facts.

Math Vocabulary: add, addend, addition sentence, difference, related facts, subtract, subtraction sentence, sum

February Math Theme will be focusing on counting, drawing, and representing numbers with 1, 2, and 3 digits. We will review counting by ones and learn how to count by fives and tens. Students will learn the importance of place value.

Math Vocabulary: digits, ones, tens, hundred, and place value

March Math Theme will continue learning the importance of place value by adding and subtracting within 100. We will add and subtract 2 digit numbers by using strategies such as making a model, counting on, related fact families and counting by tens and ones.

Math Vocabulary: addend, sum, difference, digits, ones, tens, hundred, and place value

April Math Theme will be focusing on measurement and time. Students will be able to order objects by length and compare the lengths of 2 objects. They will be able to express the length of objects using standard and nonstandard units of measurement. Also they will tell time to the hour and half hour.

Math Vocabulary: measure, time, longest, shortest, hour hand, minute hand, half hour, hour