Children
enter first grade with varying abilities in reading. I will be grouping
the students according to their abilities to work on the strategies
they need for continued success. Some of the characteristics of early
readers include:
-
Relying on the repeating structure of a book,
-
Needing to point to the words to help track easy text,
-
Using some sight words as anchor words,
-
Using the first letter sound and pictures for unknown words,
-
Enjoying reading the same stories over and over again,
-
Needing to be read to often, and
-
Talking about the pictures and story.
Strategies that your young reader should be using to figure out an unknown word include:
-
Check the picture.
-
Get my mouth ready.
-
Think about the story.
-
S-t-r-e-t-c-h the word.
-
Read on and go back to the tricky part.
-
Look for small words.
Always
remember, reading should be fun! So, laugh and enjoy some great books
with your child. Let them see you reading for your own pleasure or
knowledge as well, whether it’s a magazine, newspaper, cook book or
novel, etc.
This
year I will be using the “Writer’s Workshop” approach to teach writing.
Each day, our workshop will begin with a “mini-lesson” which will teach
a new or review a previously introduced writing skill. Then the
children will have time to create their own pieces of writing. The
workshop ends when we all gather to “share” what we have worked on
during the independent writing time. First graders at this stage of
writing development being to use words they already know how to spell
(Word Wall Words). We also learn how to “stretch” words and write the
letters of the sounds we hear. During the first few months of school, we
will be working on “small moment” stories. These stories come from the
children’s own experiences. Periodically, we will bring a collection of
stories home to proudly share with you.
Our
many topics in math include counting to 100 and identifying 1 more and 1
less. We will continue to review the basic shapes and identify them in
the world around us. We will sort the shapes and other objects and
describe the “rule” used to sort them. We will collect data to create
graphs. Finally we will begin our study of addition with the use of
manipulatives and pictures to create number sentences.
In
science, we will learn that living things need air, water, and food to
survive. We will compare animals with humans and discuss how each
obtains their needs in different ways based on their special body parts.
This
marking period we will be developing an understanding of local
community workers as well as laws in the community. We will also include
the importance of the rights and responsibilities to one another in our
classroom. It is important for your child to know his/her phone number,
street address, town, state, zip code and country.