First Grade

 

Dear First Grade Families,

Here is a look at what we are learning this week:

Reading: Building Good Reading Habits
Students will begin our Reader's Workshop learning strategies to help them become successful readers. We will start our unit by learning how to read pictures and use the pictures to help us make predictions about the stories that we are reading and the words that are on the page. Students will learn strategies for decoding words. We will focus on reading through the entire word, and then asking ourselves the questions: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? Students will be learning that good readers do something at the end of a book. They can reread, retell the story, or share their favorite part of the story. Finally students will be creating reading goals. These goals may include reading more fluently, reading more sight words, or reading more books.
During phonics we will continue to review letter sounds. Our focus during phonics mini-lessons will be on short vowels. Students will spend time during centers engaging in phonics activities and games practicing these short vowels.
Thank you for practicing sight words at home with your children!

Writing:
Students will be writting Personal Narratives in their first unit of study. Students will become familar with writing procedures and will be working on building their stamina for writing.
Students will begin writing their stories by orally telling the story to their writing partner. They will plan the story across their fingers. After this step they will make a quick sketch for the beginning, middle and and of their story. Finally, they will use these scaffolds to write their narratives. 
Students will create small moment stories and use questions to elaborate and add details to their story.
Students will use mentor texts to study author's crafts while writing narratives.

Math: Subtraction Concepts
Students will be subtracting numbers within 10. Students will use manipulatives and pictures as tools to find the difference of these numbers. They will also learn how to use bar models and number lines to solve for unknowns. In addition students will be introduced to the Identity Property of Addition (5-0=5). Students will also be solving word problems throughout the unit. We will be guiding them to understand that key words such as away are clues that tell us to create subtraction number sentences. Some children will experience difficulty transitioning from addition to subtraction. Please let me know if your children are struggling with this while doing their homework.

Religion:
In our next unit of study we will learn about the Holy Family. First we will learn how to share the Good News of the Son of God. We will learn about Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and our Holy Mother. We will be working on the Sign of the Cross.

Social Studies
Students will explore families. We we use this unit to stengthen our comparison skills and identiy similarites and differences between families. We will also use this unit to explore time. We will be creating timelines and students will be interviewing grandparents or an older relative. We will explore how family life has changed over time.

Communication is very important. I will be updating this website once a week.  This will be an important site for you to look at, as it will be the place where I post important reminders, content information that we are learning about, homework, and pictures of our class. I will also send home a weekly newsletter that outlines what we will be doing and homework assignments for the week. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns as we start this adventure together.  I can be reached at Jennifer.Cellura@dor.org.

Important Dates:
10/20: Barrett's Birthday
10/27: Walkathon
10/31: Halloween Party (1-2pm)
10/31: Max's Birthday
11/1: All Saint's Mass (8:30)
11/1: Parent Teacher Conferences
11/2: Parent Teacher Conferences
11/12: No School

Thank you for sharing your children with me this year!
Jen Cellura