Please keep this handbook to use as
a reference throughout the year. We
feel many of your possible questions have been answered in this handbook.
If you have a question that has not been answered in this handbook, please
feel free to call for any additional information you may need.
Thank you for the trust you have placed in us by letting us be a part of your child’s learning.
Sincerely,
The First Grade Teachers:
Alane Reinert
Chrissy Greif
Nellie Hill
1.
Look
over your first grader’s Homework Folder/Notebook daily.
A.
Check over math homework
and help your child understand errors and/or expand on the lesson.
B.
Practice spelling lists
and vocabulary lists.
C.
Listen to your child read
any reading material included in the Homework Folder/Notebook.
D.
Check to see if any informative
notes from the teacher have been added to the homework folder.
2.
Help
your first grader remember to return the Homework Folder/Notebook to
school each morning.
3.
Remind
your first grader to get his/her water bottle from the
freezer
and take it to school each day.
4.
If
your child is not eating breakfast
at school, check to besure s/he has eaten at home.
5.
Check
the special class schedule to see if your child needs P.E. shoes.
6.
Check
to be sure your child has packed his/her book bag with items that need to
be returned to school (Homework Folder/Notebook, notes, breakfast or lunch
money, library books).
7.
Check
to see if your child has appropriate outerwear for recess (sweater,
jacket, coat, mittens, boots, or extra shoes).
8.
Remind your child where
s/he is supposed to go when school is dismissed.
9.
Remind
your child to pay attention and always do the best s/he can.
10. Give your first grader a kiss and/or a hug and tell him/her you love them.
The
folder/notebook that your child will bring home each evening will be filled with
homework assignments from math and reading.
Reading assignments include tradebooks, poems, booklets, the
Houghton-Mifflin Student Text, etc. It
is very helpful to your child if you will read and read and re-read the
“new” and some of the “old” reading material every night.
The folder/notebook will also contain informational notes for parents.
It is very important for you to consult the folder/notebook daily.
It is very important for the folder/notebook to return to school each
morning.
USD 273 has adopted a Wellness Policy. Healthy treats include the following: fruits, vegetables, cheese, yogurt, pudding, breakfast bars, cereal mixes, baked chips, pretzels, graham crackers, fig newtons, and reduced fat crackers. Please avoid treats with NUTS and BANANAS (due to allergies).
We
understand that children do become ill. Children
with illness need to rest and recover so they can return to school as soon as
possible.
It is
extremely important for your child to be in school.
The first grade teachers plan many learning activities that your child
can benefit from only if s/he is in class. These
activities are experiences that we have as a class.
We cannot put them on paper and send them home for your child to
experience.
In the
event that your child is going to be gone for more than a few days, we can
arrange for some “assignments” to keep your child writing and reading while
s/he is not in school.
Some
children have birthdays during vacation times and want to celebrate with their
friends at school. For summer
birthdays, we suggest you might want to celebrate on the child’s half
birthday. If a child’s
birthday is July 20, then his half birthday would be six months from the
birthdate, January 20. It is not
necessary to celebrate summer birthdays, but you may if you choose.
The
children will participate in writing experiences involving all subject areas.
They will have opportunities to share their writing with others.
We teachers feel a sense of responsibility for “correctness” in the
compositions the children create. The
level of “correctness” that we expect varies with each child’s
developmental level. We provide
an environment that supports the writing process.
There are WORD WALLS and other words hanging all around the room for the
children to use for spelling support. There
are personalized dictionaries for each child’s use.
Children are encouraged to use what they know about words to try to spell
a word. The teachers use the
attempts as an opportunity to provide instruction as they work individually with
children to spell the word “the way you would find it in a book”.
Writing is also an opportunity for the children to apply what we are
learning in phonics. Daily skill
lessons will help with idea development, story organization, developing
beginnings and endings, etc. The
activities and experiences you provide at home will be a good place for students
to get ideas about which to write.
We
will be teaching the Zaner-Bloser Handwriting method.
Much
of our learning in math takes place in experiences that are created from a real
need that exists in our classroom. First
graders will learn to count by ones, twos, fives, and tens.
They will learn to count pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and mixed
groups of those coins. First graders
learn to tell time, understand place value, write fractions, measure and weigh,
read a calendar, read graphs, add, and subtract.
A great deal of time and effort will go into learning number facts.
Our math program is a very hands-on program that results in the children
understanding mathematical concepts and being able to apply them.
During
math class, the children will usually participate in a hands-on activity.
After the hands-on activity, we will apply what we have learned to
“paper work” that we will usually do together as a whole class project.
On most days, the children will have homework assignments to do to
reinforce the math lesson they completed with the whole class.
The math homework will be placed in the Homework Folder.
At the first of the year, your child may need help with reading the
problems on the homework page. Please
assist with the reading if necessary. Encourage
your child to attempt to complete the problems on his/her own. When your child
has completed the homework, please take a few minutes to go over the assignment
with him/her and then sign your name on the bottom of the paper so we will know
you have looked over the assignment with your child.
Please make sure your child returns the finished math homework to the
Homework Folder so it can make the return trip to school..
In
the years we have spent supporting children and parents in the process of
learning to read, we have come to believe that there is NOT ONE METHOD for
teaching children to read; rather there are several competencies that must be
developed in order for a child to become a good reader.
Those competencies are listed below.
1.
A good
reader will have a sight vocabulary consisting of words most frequently
used in print. This sight vocabulary
will develop throughout the school year. Sight
vocabularies will develop at different rates for different children.
2.
A good
reader will have developed the ability to use his/her knowledge of the sounds
that are represented by printed letters (phonics).
(“Does it look right?”)
3.
A good
reader will use his/her understanding of the way words in our language fit
together in a predictable way. (“Does
it sound right?”)
4.
A good
reader will keep in mind that what s/he is attempting to read should make
sense. (“Does it make
sense?”)
5.
A good
reader will finely tune the competencies listed in 1 through 4 so that they will
all work together in a simultaneous meshing of information which allows
the reader to understand the printed word.