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Mrs. Brewer’s
First Grade News
#37 5-19-23
What’s Going On In First Grade?
I can’t believe that we are down to just a few more days of our school year. The kids worked so hard this year and made great gains. I am very proud of them and you all should be also. Look out Second Grade, here they come!
Next week we will get the final preparations done for our plays. We will need to start memorizing and practicing. We will be performing for Mrs. Ross’ class on Friday.
Snacks:
We have eaten up a lot of our snacks and the selection is slim. So if you can send some snacks for our last few days, we would appreciate it.
Word Wall Words:
errand better try early laughter never
Spelling Words:
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday today early never
*no spelling test this week
Looking Ahead:
May 26 and 30 - 2:00 dismissal
May 30 - Play Day at the Park
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A Day in First Grade
The primary school years for your child will be the most important years of his/her schooling. During the primary years children are forming their attitudes toward learning. Study skills are being developed and educational building blocks that they will use for the rest of their lives are being put in place.
We would like to take this opportunity to share with you how your child spends his/her day. Following is a list of the major skills that will be taught in each area.
Language Arts
Reading
First Graders will be reading from a literacy-based reader. This reader incorporates several components of Language Arts. Stories will be read in class from the reader and students will work through six workbooks that correspond to the reader and provide practice in various skill areas related to Language Arts. Many concepts including reading strategies, phonics/decoding, journal writing, and exploring story elements will be covered during this learning block. First Grade students will also be assigned homework in reading class. This homework in the form of a “baggie book” which will be sent home to read and have a parent slip signed. Students will practice reading sight words (usually about 6 words) in class and will be bring home a list of words to practice during the week. Sight words are very important in developing your child’s fluency in reading.
Phonics
In first grade phonics will be incorporated as a part of our reading series. Students will practice beginning and ending sounds, long and short vowel sounds, digraphs, and blends. Students will earn a separate phonics grade from reading, but the skills that the students learn will correspond to the reading series.
English
We will study sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.
Spelling
At the beginning of the year we will learn to identify and form lower case and capital letters correctly. Spelling Word Tests will begin in September and Sentence Dictation Tests will begin a few weeks later. The spelling words for the next week will be on the weekly newsletter that is sent home on Friday.
Handwriting
We use the Zaner-Bloser Method of handwriting. In handwriting, we will continue to work on making lower case and capital letters correctly and will emphasize correct spacing.
Other Subject Areas
Math
We are using the "Go Math" program, which aligns the math program through the twelfth grade. It is a comprehensive, success-oriented program that enables all children to develop a solid foundation in the language and basic concepts of all areas mathematics. We will learn addition and subtraction facts to 20, Metrics and Standard Measurement, money, time, simple fractions, graphs, simple Algebra, and Geometry.
Science
First graders will study life science, earth science, and physical science. In the life science unit we will study about living and non-living things, plants and plant parts and animals. In the earth science unit we will study about the sky, weather, seasons, and Earth’s resources. In the physical science unit we will study about matter, force, and motion. We will also cover several areas of science outside of the textbook through units we do in the classroom.
Social Studies
We will discuss our country, our country’s capital, patriotism, the flag, states, special Americans, careers, communities, as well as many other topics through a combination of textbook and class themes.
Heath
We will study the emotions we all have, methods of staying safe, and good health habits during several class units.
Your child will take part in other classes and activities. Physical Education classes are 15 minutes each day. We will have music, computer lab and library. There is a short recess after lunch and another longer recess in the afternoon.
