Important Dates !

As we are winding down the school year the month of May will be very busy!  Here is an updated list of events for our campus and classroom that you will want to put on your calendar!

Friday May 2nd - 1st Grade Battle of the Books competition

Tues.  May 6th - Teachers & Nurses Appreciation Day

Friday May 9th - Mother's Day Celebration in our classroom ( 12:30-1:30 )

Tues. May 13th - ALL money and raffle tickets are due for limo rides

Thurs. May 15th - Limo rides

Mon. May 19th - 1st grade Bowling trip

Mon. May 26th - Memorial Day ( NO SCHOOL )

Wed. May 28th - 1st grade Author's Tea & Miss Poole's classroom awards

Fri. May 30th - Kindergarten graduation & 1st grade Park Day

That is all I have for now! If you have any questions about any of these dates or events please e-mail me at kpoole@ashdownschools.org or call the office at (870) 898-3711.

Thank you!

-Miss Poole

Panther Pride!

This past Friday afternoon four boys from our classroom joined the rest of our 1st grade gentleman's club at the last Ashdown Panther home baseball game!

The 1st grade ladies and gentleman's clubs are not something that every school has! They meet every other Friday and learn about different life skills such as respect, good manners, sportsmanship, hard work ethics, and much more! Many times they even have guest speakers. Some of the special people that have visited with with them are the cheerleading squad, the football, basketball, and baseball teams along with their coaches! These are all influential people that our first grade students look up to daily and admire!

We are very thankful for Mrs. Cross who makes all of this possible! She does a great job of teaching our kids the importance of school pride and we appreciate the opportunities that she provides for our children!

How We Help the Earth!

In honor of Earth day we spent much of last week discussing ways that we can help our planet. We read many informational books that taught us all about recycling. We also enjoyed a Fancy Nancy story that told us how we can "be green" every day! On Friday the students listed 5 ways that they could help the Earth at their own home and then illustrated their writing!

Below I have posted some photos of ways that we help in our classroom everyday! We recycle all of our paper in our black recycle bin! Also, each week we have a new "line ender" and their job is to turn off the lights and shut the door each time we leave the room! Even the little things that we do daily can help!

Educational Eggs and Bunnymallows!

The week before Easter I added some Easter baskets to the Word Work and Math centers. The baskets were filled with educational Easters eggs. The students had to find a top half of an egg that matched a bottom half. For example: at the word center some eggs had 2 words on top such as, can not and the students had to find the bottom half that had the contraction can't on it! At the Math center there were many different types of eggs. On some eggs they had to add numbers together and find the other half that had the answer, some eggs had number words on them, and some had subtraction problems. This eggcellent activity has kept the students very engaged while at those centers!

Last Thursday we did some fun Math and Science activities with bunnymallows! First, the students their bunnies by color and recorded which color they had the most and the least of. Then, they used their 5 senses and wrote down what they thought their bunnymallow felt like, looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and sounded like. Next, they used their bunnymallows to create a graph! After that they recorded their predictions about what they thought would happen to a bunnymallow after we.. Put it in water, left if out of the bag for a few days, microwaved it, and froze it! If you are curious about the results of our experiments ask your child what ended up happening to those poor bunnymallows! :)

1st to 100 point club!

Congratulations to Brylyne Fields for being the first from our class to make it to the 100 point AR club! Each book she reads is only worth half of a point with a few of the books being worth one whole point which means she has read a tremendous amount of words and books! This a huge goal that she has reached and we are very proud of her! Their reward in our classroom for getting 100 points is that they get to be teacher of the day! Brylyne got to help me do many "teacher" things in our classroom after she reached 100 points. We even called her Mrs. Fields all day! Today she is our principal for the day! She is doing a wonderful job taking care of business for Mrs. York! Anxious to see who will be next to 100 points from our class!

Techie Kids!

Recently we spent some time in groups learning all about how to use our technology appropriately! The kids did amazing! Some of them already knew exactly what to do and did a great job of helping others in their group! They visited different search engines and practiced searching for their animals on these sites. They also learned how to find images of their animal on google search, what a URL is, and how to highlight words! These are all things that they will need to be familiar with to help them be prepared for the PARCC test that they will take in 3rd grade!

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER !!

Test day number one is in the books and we just have two more to go! The kids did wonderful today! They worked so hard, took their time, and did their very best.. Which they know is what I ask and expect of them-their personal best! I was so proud to be their teacher today and impressed with how long they sat and were so still and quiet! They were amazing! We have worked so hard in class all year and I explained to them that this is their big chance to show off and show what they know!

I greatly appreciate your help as parents/guardians in making sure that all students were at school on time this morning and ready to rock that test! Please continue to make sure they get plenty of rest and a good breakfast!

I sent 3 new book orders home today that are due Thursday April 17th! We are out of school on Friday April 18th!

Reports cards go out this Thursday April 3rd and will need to be signed and returned the following day!

Since we are testing the majority of this week we have no spelling words and no spelling test on Friday! Our normal routine will resume in full force next Monday!

Battle of the Books tryouts are this Friday at 12:30 in the cafeteria! If you have a child trying out you can come watch!

Have a great week!

-Miss Poole