First Grade Newsletter May News PS 147 The Isaac Remsen School 325 Bushwick Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11206   At PS 147, we are stepping up to greater things. First Grade Newsletter Reading/ELA In May we will continue our unit on Meeting Characters and Learning Lessons: A Study of Story Elements. In this unit we will be reading books in series and getting to know the characters better. In this unit we will be talking about story elements such as; characters, setting, problem, and solution. Students will talk about sequence of events and learn to retell a story in their own words. Students will also learn more about their characters by thinking about how their characters act and about the lessons that the characters have learned. In shared reading, we will be reading Junie B. Jones series books and talking about the characters in this series. We will be talking about all the ways we can learn more about the characters and how we can use words, pictures, and our prior knowledge to help us understand what is going on in the book. We will also use this series to write about our reading.   Social Studies/Science In the month of May we will continue to learn about the people in our communities and the jobs they have. We will be talking about the roles and responsibilities of people in the community. In science, students will continue working within the hydroponic lab. We will continue to plant and harvest the vegetables in the lab. We will continue to learn about the properties of matter. We will also learn about the life cycle of butterflies by getting butterflies for our classroom so that we can observe the growth and then release them into nature! JDLP Social Studies/Science In social studies, we will continue to learn about the people in our communities and the jobs they have in Japanese. In science, we will continue to learn about the properties of matter. We will also learn about the life cycle of butterflies. Writing In writing, we will be starting our unit, From Scenes to Series: Writing Fiction. In this unit we will be writing realistic fiction series books. In this unit we will learn how to create a character. We will be discussing how the character that we create will decide what adventures he or she takes. Then we will be writing the different adventures our character goes on. We will practice using everything we learned about bringing our characters to life and language conventions in writing our series!

Math Word Study Important Dates Reminders: In math, first graders will be completing Chapter 10 on representing data. In this chapter, students have been learning about bar graphs, picture graphs and tally charts. Students will practice comparing data. We will be collecting data and creating graphs as well. We will be learning how to use the graphs to answer questions about the information given and collected. Students will also begin Chapter 11 on three-dimensional geometry. Students will learn how to identify and describe three-dimensional shapes. Students will also learn how to combine shapes to make new shapes. Students will build new shapes, take apart shapes, and learn about the surfaces of these shapes.   Word Study We will be doing a variety of activities during word study. We will be practicing our letters and letter sounds to build a strong phonetic (letter-sound) foundation. We will also learn how to spell words by using all that we know about letter sounds. We will continue to practice writing sight words and learn new vocabulary words. We will engage in activities such as writing words in ABC order and writing words in sentences. Important Dates Trip to Children’s Museum: May 5th *Class 1-102 Only Trip to Japan Society: May 8th *Class 1-102 Only Final Parent Teacher Conference: Expectations for 2017-2018: May 17th Memorial Day: May 29th No School ! Character Education Assembly: Self-Control: May 30th at 9A.M. Parent Workshop: Preparing for the next grade: how to support your child’s learning over the summer: May 30th @ 2:30- 3P.M. Parents in the Classroom:May 31st – Painting Fireworks for Memorial Day!   Reminders:  Please remember to complete homework every night.  Your child should be reading every night for at least 20 minutes.  Please sign your child’s reading log and behavior chart every night.  Please come to school every day on time.  Our school collects “box tops for education.” Please send in any you collect.  If you wish for your child to eat breakfast in school, please be here by 7:15A.M.