UST poetry week is March 5th - March 9th. We have a lot planned to celebrate poetry with UST students!
Pick a poem, memorize it, recite it, and earn a raffle ticket!
To celebrate poetry throughout the week of March 5th, students are encouraged to memorize a poem at home and recite the poem to their class. All participating students will earn a raffle ticket for a chance to win a great prize!!! If your child is participating, please send a copy of the poem(s) to school so his/her teacher can check that the poem has been memorized.
Monday, March 5th - Funny Poem
(Pick a funny poem, memorize it, and recite it! = 1 raffle ticket)
Tuesday, March 6th - Rhyme Poem
(Pick a rhyming poem, memorize it, and recite it! = 1 raffle ticket)
Wednesday, March 7th - Haiku Poem
(Pick a haiku poem, memorize it, and recite it! = 1 raffle ticket)
*Grade K-2: Memorized funny and rhyming poems must be at least 6 lines or more
*Grade 3-6: Memorized funny and rhyming poems must be at least 10 lines or more
Poetry Slam Information
Each student is preparing a poem in his/her classroom to lead up to poetry week. On Wednesday, March 7th G1A students will present their poems to their class and the teacher will pick students to participate in UST's poetry slam.
Grades 1-3 will have two students from each class perform at the Poetry Slam.
Friday, March 9th - Poetry Slam Event
Thank you for helping make this event exciting and memorable for your child and UST!
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Wednesday, March 7th - Cosmo Planetarium Starlit Journey Show (Objects in the Sky Science Unit)
*LOCATION, SHOW, AND TIME FOR THIS FIELD TRIP HAVE BEEN CHANGED!*
Field Trip Cost: ¥300 per child
We will leave UST at noon and return to school at 2:00 PM.
*If you already sent money to school for the scheduled field trip on March 7th, I will return 150¥ to your child.
Friday, March 23rd - Miraikan / Special Exhibit "Move into the wild life" (Animal Science Unit)
Student Admission/Parking Fee/Highway Fee: ¥1500 per child
*More information about this field trip (time, what to bring, etc.) will be emailed next week.
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Mid-Year Review
This week we reviewed Math concepts that were taught in Math chapters 1-9. Students completed a Mid-Year Benchmark assessment. Next week we will begin a new chapter about weight.
Readers Meet the Characters in Our Books
This week our class reviewed the reading strategies we learned to help us read new, tricky words in books because some tricky words will help us get to know the characters better. We also learned that readers get to know characters by rereading and paying attention to everything that has happened to the character throughout the book.
Acrostic Poems - Poetry Slam
We spent this week preparing for the poetry slam. To get started, we talked about what we learned when the poet visited our classroom last month. We read examples of Acrostic poems and learned that Acrostic poems can be about different topics (seasons, weather, places, animals, people, things) and do not have to rhyme. Students followed the writing process to publish their own Acrostic poem. They picked an animal and wrote information about the animal they chose. Each student wrote a draft, revised, edited, and published their piece of writing. Students will illustrate their poem next week.
Your child brought home a folder that includes a letter, his/her published Acrostic poem, and the rubric that will be used for the poetry slam event. Students need to practice presenting their published poem to an audience (body/facial movement, vocal strength/emotion, fluency). Our class competition is Wednesday, March 7th.
During Science this week our class focused on rocks and soils as important natural resources.
Science Vocabulary
Natural Resource: something from nature that people use
Rock: hard nonliving object from the ground
Soil: top layer of Earth that is made up of small pieces of rock and once-living things
We learned about the properties of rocks and soil.
Rocks: color, shape, size
Soil: color, texture
Students participated in a Science investigation and observed rocks. We discussed that the purpose of our investigation was to observe rocks to find out how rocks can be alike and different. Students shared that when we observe rocks, we can talk about the color, shape, and sizes, then sort the rocks based on these properties.
Next week our class will explore how soils differ.
*Thank you for sending rocks to school to help our Science investigation! If your child brought special rocks to school, I will send these home next week.
This week students were introduced to our new Social Studies chapter titled Traditions We Share and learned about their grade 1 pen pals! Each student started a letter to send to his/her pen pal next week. I am excited for our class to participate in this activity! Our G1A students will learn how children around the world are alike and different from them. For G1 students who are from America, this will be a great opportunity for them to share how Japan is different from/similar to where they lived in the U.S.A.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Have a wonderful weekend!
- Ms. Allison