Growing in God's Love: Up, Up and Away in First Grade!

We have had a fantastic few weeks getting to know one another in Room 109 and learning our classroom rules, expectations, and routines. It was also lovely seeing many parents at Meet the Teacher Night, and I hope everyone is taking advantage of my website to view our Week at a Glance and Daily Homework. The Week at a Glance tells what skills the students are to master within each subject area. The Daily Homework section is helpful if your child comes home and can't find or can't remember what the homework for the day was. I hope this will be a valuable resource for you!

Our literature the first two weeks of school included themes related to back-to-school, school rules, friendship, and social behaviors. If you are interested in purchasing any of this literature, here are the titles of our favorites: First Day Jitters, The Night Before First Grade, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Froggy Goes to School, My Mouth is a Volcano, Personal Space Camp, Chrysanthemum, Peanut Butter & Cupcake, You Get What You Get, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? and If You Take a Mouse to School.

We kicked of Social Studies with an in-depth look at Pledge of Allegiance. We learned the vocabulary behind "big words" such as pledge, allegiance, nation, liberty, justice and indivisible. We also sequenced the Pledge with a cut and paste activity, making a correctly colored flag as the final result. We know that there are 13 stripes on the flag, beginning and ending with red, representing the first 13 states of our nation. We know that there are 50 stars, each representing the 50 states of America, and the blue representing the night sky.

We are mastering our Guided Reading centers and daily academic routines. We have learned all 4 word work stations, phonics, write the room, spelling (pyramid words, texting words - more to come!) and our Spelling City website, Listening Lab, and the Invisible Teacher (ask your child about that!). In the upcoming weeks we will add Independent Library and Just Right Books, poetry center (currently whole group), decoding strategies and fluency practice. We have "launched" rocket math as well. There are currently two groups: one group who is ready to begin mastering math facts and another group who will work on mastering writing their numerals fluently and accurately before moving on to addition mastery. They're doing GREAT, and I look forward to seeing their progress. I've sent home an informational sheet about Rocket Math on golden paper. This pertains to practicing and mastering addition facts.

Today we had our first classroom store. On these days, the students get their treasure chests and count the number of golden tickets they earned. Each ticket is worth $0.01, and tickets are used as currency for the store. We utilize calculators during this time to add totals and subtract differences. There are so many amazing skills being learned and practiced during our store times! I hope your child can tell you all about the items they purchased, their cost, and their hopes and dreams for the next special purchase they want to earn!

Remember that tomorrow is St. Mary School's Jingle Jubilee Pancake Breakfast in the lunchroom. Come on out and enjoy good food and community while supporting a great cause - our amazing sc school! Mark your calendars for Friday, September 21st - no school (teacher in-service day). Field trip forms for Goebbert's Farm came home this week (bright orange paper). Please return the bottom portion as soon as possible. Do NOT send money; your FACTS account will be billed. If you would like to be a chaperone for our trip, please sign up here.

Enjoy some photos from our first few weeks...

Painting treasure chests to "Build the Kingdom of God" through our good choices