First Grade Newsletter
Week of 9/18-9/22
Have a great week!
Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!
Hispanic Heritage Month is from September 15-October 15th!
We are looking for tissue paper donations for our classrooms as part of our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration! We would love to be able to create piñatas in class as part of our month long celebration but we need your help!
Please Note that next week (9/25-9/29) is our fall break and there is no school.
Conference week is 10/16-10/20. ASP will be open for individuals that need students to attend due to conference week having shortened school days.
Please remember to send your students with a water bottle, and tennis shoes every day! We do a lot of running and playing and we want to make sure your student is prepared.
Please note the dress code section at the bottom of this newsletter.
Please also remember to send headphones with your child as part of the supply list. Headphones should go over your child's ears and plug into the computer. It is very important that all students have headphones as we use them daily in the classroom!
From Our Beloved School Nurse and Counselor
Kindergarten and First grade go to the restroom as a class multiple times a day, however accidents happen, in the case of it, we want your student to feel prepared and comfortable.
Meet the Team
Ms. Kuranda
Mrs. Gonzalez-Soto
Mrs. Sanchez
Mrs. Sato
Ms. Reed: EIP Support
Mrs. Rakestraw: ESOL Support
Inside Our Classrooms:
What we learned this past week:
Reading: We continued with our unit "Me on a Map" focusing specifically on continents and oceans.
Phonics: In phonics we moved onto the FLSZ rule and -all, -ull, and -oll. The FLSZ rule is any word with a short vowel sound ending in l,f,s,z we double the final letter. We will be practicing blending, segmenting sounds, and writing.
Writing: We continued working on informational writing. Students will practice and explore informational text and how they can be used to to assist in writing. We continued our deep dive into the parts of informational writing focusing on details, transitions, and conclusions.
Math: Using our framework task and supporting resources and background knowledge, students began looking into measurement. Students measured and compared quantities, lengths and numbers.
Social Studies: Students took a closer look into the parts of our earth including continents, oceans, countries, and states.
Vocabulary Words for the Week:
Continent: A continuous expanse of land
Except: Not including
Chunk: something that was broken off of something else
Continent: 7 large areas of land on Earth
Atlas: a book containing maps
Globe: a ball shaped map of the world
Land: solid part of Earth’s surface
What we will learn this week:
Phonics: In phonics we are moving onto digraphs. Digraphs are two letters that make one sound. We will be focusing on -ck and -sh this week.
Writing: We will continue working on informational writing. Students will be completing a research project. Students will have the opportunity to pick an animal, conduct their own research, and create an informational writing piece on the animal, where the animal lives, and what the animal eats. This research project will pull in our geography unit and preview information for our upcoming unit on plants and animals.
Math: In math students will be working on addition and subtraction within word problems. Students will the information from our previous weeks to solve word problems, wrapping up the final week of our first unit in math.
Social Studies: Students will identify their city, county, state, country, and continent.
Vocabulary Words for the Week:
Cover: When something covers another thing
Ocean: a vast area of salt water that covers the earth
Water: a liquid in rivers, oceans, and lakes
How to Help at Home:
Continue to focus on building positive evening routines such as: reading together, talking about your day, and going to bed on time.
Have students create groups of tens and practice counting by tens and ones up to 120.
Have students start at any number between 0-120 and count on, students should be able to fluently start counting from any point by 1s and 10s.
Practice word problems at home, how do we pull out information from word problems to figure out if we are adding or subtracting.
Practice handwriting at home and spelling high frequency words such as: said, ask, you, their, who, was, have, and
Make sure you and your student are going over homework and practicing concepts within the packets given out on Mondays. The homework packets represent skills that we will be working on during the week. While we are not grading homework, it is important that your student is completing the homework on their own/ with your help. This is a great time for siblings to work together, have your first graders older sibling assist them to also reinforce concepts.
From Our Wonderful Support Teachers!
Mrs. Rakestraw: ESOL
Parents: Please review the ESOL Newsletter below
English Link: https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/parent-reading-tips-all-ages-english.pdf
Spanish Link: https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/cc_tips_spanish.pdf
Ms. Reed: EIP
What is EIP?
The Early Intervention Program (EIP) is one of Georgia's educational reform initiatives to improve student learning and academic success. The primary goal of this program is to offer immediate assistance and additional instruction to help students succeed academically in the areas of reading and mathematics. A student's EIP status is determined on a number of factors depending on what grade the student is entering.
Learners who qualify as EIP will have letters sent home this week. Parents should read the letter, sign, and return it to school indicating that they are aware of their child's EIP status.
For more information please use the QR code to visit www.gadoe.org.
How to help at Home from DLI:
DLI families:
Please keep practicing counting 1-120 forwards and backwards(1 by 1 and 10 by 10), letters name and sounds. I sent a hundred chart and a syllable sheet for them to practice every day.
Please practice the syllables each night to ensure that your students are
Check out: Arbol ABC at arbolabc.com
Upcoming Events
Coming up:
9/20: Fall Picture Day
9/25-9/29: FALL BREAK
10/6: Coffee with the Principal
10/12: PTA Math Night
10/16-10/20: Book Fair
10/16-10/20: Conference Week
10/23-10/27: Red Ribbon Week
Uniform Reminder
Reminder that all students should be wearing tennis shoes every day.