Happy Month of April

A very big thank you for making Teacher Appreciation Day a special one for me. I loved the flowers, cards, cookies, gift cards and door. It really warmed my heart. A big treat last week was having lunch delivered each day by the parents. How thoughtful and yummy!! I am so lucky to be a part of the Shorecrest family and in the lives of your children.

Happy month of April. We will be going on two trips this month - the Dali on Tuesday, April 10th and The Museum of Fine Arts on April 25th. Celebrate the Arts week takes place April 16-20. A big highlight will be on Friday, April 18th, with the Artist in Residence - Teach In and the musical performance by our children at 11:00am that follows with a picnic lunch.

My daughter Grace will be performing in the Upper School production of The Sound of Music on April 19, 20, and 21st. This was my favorite musical as a child and so I can't wait to see it all come together. The students and teachers have been rehearsing since January and you are in for a treat.

Second Grade will visit the Dali Museum on Tuesday, April 10th. We will be leaving school at 10:30am and having lunch at the museum. You are welcome to meet us there if you would like. The cost is 18.25. We will be having lunch outside the museum and our tour is at 12:00.

There will be no Current Events this week. Current Events will begin next Tuesday. Please check out the calendar in your child's Take Home Folder to see when your child is scheduled to present. Our Parent Reader this week is Mrs. Leary.

Other Dates to Remember:
* April 22 - Earth Day (we will be doing various activities on the 24th on April)
* April 23 - No school
* May 10th - Field Trip to MOSI

Here is what else is happening in our classroom this week.

Language Arts
* Phonics - o/a(o), ough
* Spelling - fought, hallway, football, thoughtful, ballpark, salt, talked, sidewalk, always, walrus, Africa, talked, always, heavy, animals, half, animals
* Reading - Addie Meets Max by Joan Robins
* Reading Workshop - The characters in the stories we read go through good times and bad times
* Fluency - Phrasing
* Vocabulary - limped, zoomed, maple, nonsense
* Grammar - Helping words
* Writing Workshop - Writing to a prompt
* Handwriting - Review Lower Case Letters

Mathematics - Unit 7
* Multiplication number stories
* Practice repeated doubling and halving
* Develop readiness for division and exploring area and patterns
* Measure the length to the nearest centimeter and to the nearest inch
* Middle Value (Median) of a set of data

Social Studies - Africa
* An introduction to Africa
* Students choose an African animal that they will research over the month of April and present in the form of a visual aid. This week the students will choose the animal they would like to find out more about and decide how they will present information about this animal.

Science - Silly Celery
We have finished our unit on The Growth of Plant and this week we will do some other fun experiments including Silly Celery.
How does celery drink? Plants have tiny tubes inside them that they use to move water up into their leaves. The celery turns colors when the colored water moves up these tubes. This is called capillary action