December Already!

Happy December! It's hard to believe that the holidays are here. This is an incredibly busy, but FUN month in 1st grade! We will spend the next two weeks taking our end of semester tests and seeing how much our brains are GROWING! It's so important your scholar is here everyday!

This week we are learning about...

FAST Phonics: We are learning about complex fronts (blends)- sp, sk, sc, st, gr, tr. We learned that we can segments words with complex fronts when we want to spell them and blend the sounds together when we want to read them.

Writing: We are working on writing informational books that teach our readers. Ask your scholar what they are on expert on and what they are teaching their readers about.

Reading: We are learning all about non-fiction texts and how questioning can help us understand what we read.

Math: We are learning about number bonds and number stories, building up our fluency from number bonds from 1-10.

We travelled on a time machine back to the first Thanksgiving last week :) You can share in our journey through the pictures below. Have a wonderful week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving 1st grade families! It is such a privilege to partner with you in your child's education. Thank you for sharing your amazing scholars with me!

I will be out of the classroom on Monday for some family events, but will be back Tuesday. We don't have homework this week so you can fully enjoy your vacation with your scholar. Make sure you're still reading over break though :)

Remember our holiday music program is coming up on Thursday, December 5 from 6pm-7pm. It's going to be a fantastic performance so please make every effort to attend! Attendance is also included in your scholar's grade, so it's important that your child is there, plus it will be a great show :)

Enjoy your holidays with friends and family!

So Much To Be Thankful For

1st Grade Updates

It's going to be another great week in 1st grade. This week we are thinking a lot about WHY we are in school and how the goals we set in 1st grade help us achieve our dreams later on. Ask your scholars how they helped their brains grow at school.

FAST Phonics: We are continuing to work with the hungry rule to  learn about long consonant spellings. We know that when a word has one syllable (one tap word) with a short vowel sound in the middle, we use the long consonant spelling. Ex: cuff, will

Writing: We are writing informational books that can TEACH our readers. It's so exciting to be non-fiction authors writing about topics we are experts about.

Reading: We are starting our non-fiction unit this week and learning all about books that are written to teach us. Our reading and writing workshops work together so well and will help your scholars learn how to make strong connections between reading and writing.

Math: We are continuing to practice addition and subtraction strategies this week. We are working on determining the best strategies to use and defending our decisions with logical reasons.

Thank you so much for your support! As always, if you have ANY questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at any time. Have a fantastic week!

Happy November!

We had SO much fun in 1st grade this past week :)

We celebrated Halloween by dressing up, and spending the day doing autumn crafts and eating delicious (and sugary!) treats.

On Friday, we had a pumpkin taste test. We tasted pumpkin pie, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin puree, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin butter. YUM! Pumpkin ice cream was our class favorite :)

I will be at a conference Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I will miss our scholars SO much, but will be learning new things to bring back to our classroom next Monday. As always, please feel free to contact me with ANY questions or concerns. Have a wonderful week!

Another Exciting Week of Learning!

Whew! What an exciting week full of great learning opportunities. We had SO much fun at the pumpkin patch getting an opportunity to see what we've been learning about in science first hand.

Next week we will be celebrating fall with a celebration on Thursday. Your scholar can come to school in costume as we celebrate. Please make sure your scholar's costume is appropriate for school- no masks or fake blood please. I'm looking forward to celebrating as a team :)

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch

Picking the perfect pumpkins

100%!!

A HUGE shout out to all of our amazing 1st grade families for helping our team reach our goal of having 100% family participation during parent teacher conferences! It was so great to talk with each one of you about your scholar's work thus far in 1st grade and to work together to plan how we can continue to help your scholar grow and achieve. THANK YOU!!!!!

This Friday we are going to the pumpkin patch! Make sure your child's permission slip and $6 are turned in by Monday, October 21. On Friday, make sure your child has a comfy pair of walking shoes on and a jacket if the weather looks chilly.

Spirit Week was so much fun! It was exciting to see our scholars excited about reading and eagerly sharing their enthusiasm with those around them.

Pajama Day!

                                                                        

Dress Up Day!

                                                                     

Crazy Hat Day!

Busy Week Ahead!

Whew! This week is FULL of fun things so make sure to check your scholar's FALCON folder everyday for updates.

Spirit Week:

We are celebrating all things reading this week with a different theme each day.

Monday- Curl up with a good book and wear your pajamas to school

Tuesday- Dress up for success and wear your nice clothes to school

Wednesday- We are crazy about reading! Wear your crazy socks to school

Thursday- Hats off to reading! Wear a hat to school

Friday- NO SCHOOL

Book Fair: 

We have SO many amazing books for sale at our book fair this week. Your scholar can preview the book fair on Tuesday and you can shop during Parent Teacher Conferences on Wednesday and Thursday.

Parent Teacher Conferences:

Parent Teacher Conferences are Wednesday and Thursday! Our goal is 100% family participation! Check your child's FALCON folder for your scheduled time.

No School Friday:

There is no school Friday for teacher professional development.

Our Reading Picnic at Loose Park

We are SO lucky to have volunteer readers come read to us every Thursday from Lead to Read!

Happy Fall!

Happy October, 1st grade families!

We have SO many exciting events coming up with month. Make sure you're checking our website and your child's FALCON folder frequently so you can stay up to date.

Parent Advisory Committee: October 7 (Monday)
Please make every effort to attend the October PAC meeting to contribute your ideas on ways we can make HLA better. If you attend your child will receive a FREE dress down day ticket.

Parent Teacher Conferences: October 16-17 (Wednesday/Thursday)
We will have early dismissal at 12pm Wednesday and Thursday to enable us to meet with families from 2pm-8pm. Please look for conference sign up sheets coming home this week. We are working for 100% family participation! 1st grade WON the competition last month so let's keep up this winning streak and bring home the victory again. Your child will also receive a Pizza Street coupon if you are in attendance.

No School: October 18 (Friday)
Teachers will be in professional development this Friday and students will not have classes.

Pumpkin Patch! October 25 (Friday)
We are going to the Pumpkin Patch and enjoying some hands-on learning opportunities. As always, field trips are a PRIVILEGE so remind your child that their choices at school determine if they can attend.

As always, please feel free to contact me with ANY questions or concerns. Have a wonderful week!

Time Flies When You're Learning Lots

It is hard to believe that the end of first quarter is right around the corner. Wow! We are continuing to work hard to get smart in 1st grade. This week we are working on...

FAST Phonics:
We are learning about ph, kn, wr. This week we are introducing the concept of "best and rest" spellings. Your scholars have been soaring with our consonant teams and will continue working on reading and spelling new syllables and words.

Writing:
Ask your scholars about the ways we learned to help our characters come alive in our stories. This week we are using authors of some of our favorite books as mentors to help us write stories our readers will LOVE reading.

Reading:
This is our final week working on fix up strategies. Your scholars have been practicing persisting when they see tricky words and using strategies to tackle these words instead of giving up.

Math:
We are working on building up our number sense and learning about two digit numbers. We are practicing making and breaking down two digit numbers using base 10 blocks.

Hope you have a wonderful week! As always, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Happy Fall!

I'm looking forward to another great week of learning! This fall weather has me craving pumpkins, apples, and crunchy leaves and I'm looking forward to learning about all of these things with your scholars in the upcoming month!

This week we are learning about...

Phonics: We are learning about consonant teams this week. We are practicing reading and spelling sounds and syllables containing ch, th, sh, wh, qu, and ng. Whew! These consonant teams are helping us read some tricky words and allow us to read harder and harder stories.

Writing: Our authors are continuing to make their stories come alive by learning ways to unfreeze our characters. This week we are learning to show our readers how are character think and feel. We are hard at work creating stories that our readers want to read and can't put down.

Reading: We are continuing to work on fix up strategies we can use when we get stuck on tricky words. We are also continuing to meet daily in small groups and reading some great books together with our teammates.

Math: We are working on becoming critical thinkers and looking at multiple solutions to problems. This week we will spend time making our own graphs based on questions that are meaningful to us. We will then ask teammates around our school our questions, and make a tally chart to record their answers. We will graph our information on a bar graph to organize our thinking.

We have our first field trip this week! We are going to the library, then having a reading picnic at Loose Park, followed by a trip to the Reading Reptile children's book store for a workshop. It promises to be a fun filled day. Remember, field trips are a PRIVILEGE and are earned by excellent choices at school.

Have a fantastic week and as always, please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns :)

We are 25 days smarter!

It's hard to believe that this Monday, we've been in 1st grade for 25 days! Wow! This past week was full of excitement with some special visitors to our classroom. We've been learning about different jobs we can grow up to do and we've had visits from a web app designer, a nutritionist, and this week... a graphic designer! Our scholars are great at asking questions to learn more about these occupations. We learned how the choices we make in 1st grade can help our brains grow so one day we can do these amazing jobs.

This week we also had the privilege of meeting one of our favorite authors, Bridget Heos who wrote, "Mustache Baby." We all donned mustaches and waited in anxious anticipation for her visit. She talked to our 1st grade authors about the writing process and how she thinks up ideas. We also got to hear a sneak peak of her next book and we give it two thumbs way up. Our authors were excited to put her ideas into practice in their own books.

School pictures are coming up on Tuesday, September 17. Your scholar can dress up for pictures. Order forms were sent home, please let me know if you need another copy.

We also have a field trip coming up on Friday, September 27! We are taking a tour of the Plaza library, having a book picnic at Loose Park, and visiting the Reading Reptile bookstore for a tour and workshop. Whew! It promises to be an exciting day of learning!

Have a wonderful week!

Scholars listening to one of our favorite authors!

Our Brains Are Growing!

We've had a great start to the school year! Your scholars have made coming to school a joy. We have Family Information Night Monday, September 9 from 5-8. Please make every effort to join us! We will be talking about your scholar's beginning of the year data and looking at ways we can partner to maximize your child's learning. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Welcome to 1st Grade!

I absolutely love the first day of school and all the excitement that fills this special time in 1st grade! I'm so honored to have the privilege to partner with you in your scholar's education this year. Please check our website frequently so you can be up to date with all the happenings in our classroom this year!

This Week We’re Learning About…

Reading: We are starting our first reading unit learning about what excellent readers look like and sound like. We are practicing building our reading stamina by working hard to read our independent reading goal of 25 minutes. We are also spending time learning our routines and procedures during reading so that we can spend our time learning and helping our brains grow! This week we’ll take our beginning of the year reading assessments so that our reading lessons are tailored to our individual needs.

Writing: We are AUTHORS! Our first unit of writing is all about writing narratives about our own personal stories. This week we are learning about the routines and procedures of writing workshop and beginning to flex our writing muscles as we work on our first pieces.

Math: Our first unit is all about numbers and how we can use numbers to solve everyday problems. We will practice using 100s charts, number lines, and ten frames to make numbers and solve number problems.

Word Study: We are learning the routines for our new phonics program this week and reviewing our short vowel sounds from kindergarten.

I am SO excited to start this new school year with your scholars and look forward to all of the learning (and fun!) we will share together this year! You can look for this weekly newsletter every Monday for our week at a glance and any important updates about our classroom.

Homework starts this week and it’s important that you and your scholar are taking time to review the concepts we learned at school. I will go over the homework assignment at school with your scholar before dismissal so the expectation is your scholar completes his/her work as independently as possible. If any challenges arise, please let me know and we can troubleshoot and find a solution together. The completed homework packet is due every FRIDAY. Thank you in advance for your help and support!

Please also check for your child’s behavior report card each night. This will come home in the FALCON folder and will need to be signed and returned to school the next day. This is a great way for you to see your child’s choices at school for the day and follow up with them at home. 

Have a wonderful week!

Ms. Berg :)