First Grade Weekly Update February 5th-9th
Weekly Syllabus: February 5th-9th, 2024
Reminders
We have our field trip to the Oakland Zoo on Tuesday, February 6th. Students can wear jeans and their uniform shirt. They also need to bring a lunch.
Enrichment Classes Newsletter Link Link to Newsletter
Religion
Chapter 10 Signs of God’s Love. Students will explore how we can be lights in the world, discover the Sacraments and the effects of the Sacrament of Baptism, and how they can be a light in the world with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Language Arts
Unit 9 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Decode irregular n’t contractions, read a story with irregular n’t contractions, decode words with er and est endings, recognize and spell words with irregular n’t contractions, and form irregular contractions.
Spelling Words: can’t, won’t, don’t, boy, girl, two, four, about, over, and before
Reading: Read memory words fluently, read and discuss grade level literary and informational text, understand character, plot, and draw conclusions, and discuss text structure-sequence of events.
Writing: Add to and revise Personal Narratives.
Mathematics
Number Corner February: The arrival of the tenth decade, the 100th day of school, makes February an exciting month. Both the Days in School and Number Line workouts pay tribute to this special number. The Computational Fluency workout brings focus on multiple addends, and students use a variety of efficient strategies to compose groups flexibly. In addition to the numeration work, students name and describe pairs of two-dimensional shapes shown on the Calendar Grid markers and determine whether or not the shapes in each pair are congruent.
Bridges Unit 4 Module 1: Module 1 works to familiarize students with the number line as a mathematical model and an operational tool. Students use a life-sized number line to locate and identify numbers, and to begin to model addition and subtraction problems. Later they play a game in which they help a frog jump along a number line. In addition to helping students develop confidence with the number line as a computational tool, the activity helps deepen their understanding about the relationship between addition and subtraction.
Science
We will be focusing on the NGSS Science Standard: Structure, Function, and Information Processing
Students will:
1-LS1-1. Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs
1-LS1-2. Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.
1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
First Grade Weekly Update January 29th-February 2nd
Weekly Syllabus: January 29th-February 2nd, 2024
Reminders
Catholic Schools’ Week kicks off with Mass and Open House on Sunday, January 28th. Mass will be from 9-10 and Open House if from 10-11:30. We hope to see you there.
Some of the fun activities we will be doing during the week are as follows:
Monday, Jan. 29th-Celebrate Community-we will be writing thank you notes to our postal workers. Those will be going home for you to put in your mailboxes for them.
Tuesday, Jan. 30th–Celebrate Students-Students will get free dress and we will watch a movie and have a treat
Wednesday, Jan. 31st-Celebrate SPN Families-we will be presenting our culture projects.
Thursday, Feb. 1st-Celebrate Academic Excellence-we will have our Oratorical Fest in the church from 1:00-2:00. Congratulations to our participants Sadie Weesner, Sirvon Toner, and Eva Libby
All are welcome to attend.
Friday, Feb. 2nd-Celebrate Faculty & Staff -Faculty & Staff will enjoy a nice brunch together. It is also a noon dismissal day with no Share & Care.
Religion
We will continue with Chapter 9 The Church Celebrates Jesus. Students will explore how families celebrate Jesus, learn about the church year and Advent, learn about the seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter, decide ways to celebrate Jesus all year long, and pray a prayer to praise God.
Language Arts
Unit 9 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Contractions with n’t, read a decodable story with contractions, recognize and spell memory words (boy, girl, two, four, about, over, and before), use sequence words to explain the order of events, and form compound words.
Spelling Words: isn’t, didn’t, hasn’t, hadn’t, aren’t, wasn’t, weren’t, haven’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated reading of a story, read with expression, read and discuss a grade level literary text, discuss beginning-middle-end, read memory words fluently, understand characters feelings and traits, identify key details, main topic, and author’s purpose, and understand and use compound words.
Writing: Personal Narrative
Mathematics
February Number Corner: The arrival of the tenth decade, the 100th day of school, makes February an exciting month. Both the Days in School and Number Line workouts pay tribute to this special number. The Computational Fluency workout brings focus on multiple addends, and students use a variety of efficient strategies to compose groups flexibly. In addition to the numeration work, students name and describe pairs of two-dimensional shapes shown on the Calendar Grid markers and determine whether or not the shapes in each pair are congruent.
Bridges Unit 3 Module 4: Module 4 uses Unifix cubes throughout. Students have opportunities in the first two sessions to write addition expressions and compare equations within the range of 0 to 120. Later in the module, students engage in activities that highlight the “difference model” of subtraction. The final session encourages students to explore part-part-whole relationships to develop and solve subtraction equations in which the subtrahend is missing.
Science
We will be focusing on the NGSS Science Standard: Structure, Function, and Information Processing
Students will:
1-LS1-1. Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs
1-LS1-2. Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.
1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
First Grade Weekly Update January 22nd-26th
Weekly Syllabus: January 22nd-26th, 2024
Reminders
Monday, January 22nd – Students need to be ready to recite their Oratorical reading. We will be choosing students at random, so everyone needs to be ready on Monday. They may not be presenting on Monday, but they do need to be ready. We will have presentations all week.
Tuesday, January 23rd is January birthday free dress.
Wednesday, January 24th is a noon dismissal for faculty and staff professional development.
Thursday, January 25th is our spirit day. The first grade class theme is sports.
Religion
Chapter 9 The Church Celebrates Jesus. Students will explore how families celebrate Jesus, learn about the church year and Advent, learn about the seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter, decide ways to celebrate Jesus all year long, and pray a prayer to praise God.
Language Arts
Unit 8 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Decode CVVC words with ue and ie, decode CVVC words with ing and ed endings, read an informational text, recognize and spell memory words, recognize and understand dialogue punctuation, and identify speakers in a play.
Spelling Words: blue, tie, heat, keep, would, could, some, one, new, and were
Reading: Read and discuss grade level literary text, understand characters and connect ideas using cause and effect, discuss plot structure, identify the topic of an informational text, understand and use homophones, and determine the meaning of key vocab words.
Writing: Generate ideas for a debate, choose a side for the debate, use a web to plan a debate, discuss a briefly record ideas for the debate, complete a debate plan using opinions and reasons, review and practice good speaking skills for a debate, review good listening skills, and debate and respond to each side.
Mathematics
January Number Corner begins, and students find familiar routines infused with fresh elements. Calendar Grid markers feature single equations and story problems with missing addends, minuends, or subtrahends, and students tell math stories to match the equations and use various strategies to solve for the unknown parts. They return to collecting coins in Calendar Collector and record their collection on a graph. They also learn to use known facts to solve related facts of 1 more or 1 less. Finally, they meet a favorite frog’s little sister and join her in skipping across the number line by 5s as they come within a decade of reaching the 100th day of school.
Bridges Unit 3 Module 3: Putting together “10 and some more” to make the numbers from 11 to 20 is the core work of this module. Students build place-value understandings and use the Make Ten strategy to become more efficient at solving addition combinations to 20. The first session introduces the concepts of 10s and 1s and the idea that they can be put together to make a teen number. In the three sessions that follow, students learn the Fifty or Bust! game, in which they build and add collections of numbers between 10 and 20, trying to get to 50 without going over. They write equations for their collections as well.
First Grade Weekly Update December 18th-22nd
Weekly Syllabus: December 18th-22nd, 2023
Reminders
Sunday, December 15th is the third Sunday of Advent. We light the pink candle which represents joy. It is called the “Shepard’s Candle,” and is pink because rose is a liturgical color for joy. We light this candle to remind us of the joy that the world experienced at the birth of Jesus.
We have a short week this week. We have school from Monday-Wednesday this week. Monday and Tuesday are regular days with a 3:10 dismissal. Wednesday will be a 12:00 dismissal NO AFTER CARE.
Check out what is happening in our enrichment classes!
Nov/December Enrichment Newsletter
Have a blessed Christmas Break. We hope that you enjoy time with family and friends. Be safe and we will see you in the new year!
Classes Resume Thursday, January 4th.
Religion
We continue to focus on Advent this month.
Language Arts
We will be working on other projects this week.
Mathematics
Number Corner
The workouts for December continue to focus on many of the concepts introduced in November. Students complete their collection of 24 hours and learn how each day is divided into two equal parts, a.m. and p.m. They expand their exploration of doubles and halves to include numbers to 20 and become even more familiar with counting patterns as they work with the fifties and sixties and place value. The Calendar Grid features familiar items and a growing pattern of three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms.
The focus for Bridges Unit 3 Module 1: Module 1 focuses on single-digit number facts. Each of the three Work Place activities introduced is designed to encourage facility with number fact families, including doubles relationships. The number rack is used strategically throughout as a tool to model addition story problems. It also plays an important role in helping students conceptualize the difference between even and odd numbers and understand how knowing the nature of even and odd numbers can help solve addition problems.
First Grade Weekly Update November 13th-17th
Weekly Syllabus: November 13th-17th, 2023
Reminders
Tuesday, November 14th is November birthday free dress.
Wednesday, November 15th is a noon dismissal day for Faculty and Staff Profession Development.
Friday, November 17th report cards go home.
Monday, November 20th-Friday, November 24th is our Thanksgiving Break. We will return to school on Monday, November 27th.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Religion
We will continue Chapter 6 Jesus Shares God’s Love-Students will explore how we share God’s love with others, discover the ways Jesus showed his love for us and that Jesus was raised from the dead and gave us all new life, and that we are all called to share God’s love with others as Jesus did.
Language Arts
Unit 5 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Identify base words with ing and ed endings, recognize ing and ed spelling patterns, introduce Memory Words (there, from, be, we, on, to), understand and use adjectives, and understand and identify time-of-action verbs with ing and ed endings.
Spelling Words: helping, helped, asking, asked, hugging, hugged, shopping, shopped, grinning, and grinned-the rule here is that when the root word has a short vowel and two consonants after it, just add the ending (helping). When the root word has a short vowel and one consonant after it, you need to double the consonant before adding the ending (hugging).
Reading: Understand and describe characters and events, make and confirm predictions, compare and contrast characters, identify character traits, connect ideas of cause and effect, retell key details, and understand and use Words to Know (wonder, curious, discover, and imagine)
Writing: Describe how an object looks and feels
Mathematics
Focus for November Number Corner: This month’s workouts delve into fractions and telling time. Students discover a pattern of friendly animals chomping snacks into wholes, halves, and fourths in the Calendar Grid, and the focus on fractions carries over to Calendar Collector. There, telling time is introduced to the hour and students use fractions of a circle to consider whole and half on an analog clock. November includes the 50th day of school and students use the hundreds grid to discover that they are halfway to the 100th day of school.
We continue with Bridges Unit 2 Module 3 students will be continuing developing adding and subtraction strategies, particularly doubling, counting on, and counting back to solve combinations within 12. Students work with the number rack and then learn games in which they add, subtract, and record their results on graphs. Students who are still counting by 1s to add and subtract are encouraged to count on and count back instead, and those who have moved beyond counting by 1s are encouraged to develop strategies that make use of well-known facts to solve less familiar combinations.
First Grade Weekly Update December 11th-15th
Weekly Syllabus: December 11th-15th, 2023
Reminders
Tuesday, December 12th is December Birthday Free Dress.
Sunday, December 6th is the Second Sunday of Advent. We light the second purple candle which represents peace and preparation. It is called the “Bethlehem Candle” as a reminder of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. We also reflect on our lives and work on becoming better-versions-of-ourselves in preparation for Jesus’ coming.
Religion
We continue with Advent. The Second Sunday of Advent focuses on Peace.
Language Arts
Unit 6 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Identify short and long vowel sounds, decode CVCe words, read a decodable story, decode difficult words from an informational text, and read and spell memory words (said, only, you, out, of, and here)
Spelling words: game, same, ride, side, said, only, you, out, of, and here
Reading: Read dialogue with expression, read and discuss grade level literary text, listen to and read informational text, read and discuss grade level informational text, make predictions, understand author’s purpose, discuss picture-text relationships, understand and use the suffixes -ness and less
Writing: Informational Paragraph
Mathematics
Number Corner
The workouts for December continue to focus on many of the concepts introduced in November. Students complete their collection of 24 hours and learn how each day is divided into two equal parts, a.m. and p.m. They expand their exploration of doubles and halves to include numbers to 20 and become even more familiar with counting patterns as they work with the fifties and sixties and place value. The Calendar Grid features familiar items and a growing pattern of three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms.
The focus for Bridges Unit 3 Module 1: Module 1 focuses on single-digit number facts. Each of the three Work Place activities introduced is designed to encourage facility with number fact families, including doubles relationships. The number rack is used strategically throughout as a tool to model addition story problems. It also plays an important role in helping students conceptualize the difference between even and odd numbers and understand how knowing the nature of even and odd numbers can help solve addition problems.
Science
We will begin our science unit on Space Systems: Patterns and Cycles.
These are some of our main topics for this unit.
- – We can observe the motion of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky.
- – We can predict the motion of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky.
- – We can describe the motion of the sun, moon, and stars in the sky.
First Grade Weekly Update November 27th-December 1st
Weekly Syllabus: November 27th-December 1st,2023
Reminders
Thursday is School Spirit Day-Pajama Day
Sunday, December 3rd is the first day of Advent.
Religion
We will finish Chapter 6 Jesus Shares God’s Love-Students will explore how we share God’s love with others, discover the ways Jesus showed his love for us and that Jesus was raised from the dead and gave us all new life, and that we are all called to share God’s love with others as Jesus did.
We will also be focusing on Advent this month. The candles of the Advent wreath symbolize hope, peace, joy, and love. The first candle is purple and symbolizes hope.
Language Arts
Unit 5 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Read and decode words with ing and ed endings, decode words from an informational text, use and spell Memory Words (there, from, be, we, on, and to), encode verbs with final ck adding ing and ed, understand and use adjectives, and use conjunctions or and and.
Spelling Words: flipping, flipped, stepping, stepped, there, from, be, to, we, and or
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated readings of a story, read words with endings accurately, read and discuss grade level informational text, describe problem and solution, cause and effect, and characters, determine the meaning of key vocabulary words and phrases (yapped, zigged, zagged, yuck, and track), and use words to know (wonder, curious, discover, and imagine).
Writing: Brainstorm to generate adjectives, write descriptive details, write a description of a creature, use descriptions to identify creatures, record sensory details about a place, and draw and write a description of a place.
Mathematics
Number Corner
The workouts for December continue to focus on many of the concepts introduced in November. Students complete their collection of 24 hours and learn how each day is divided into two equal parts, a.m. and p.m. They expand their exploration of doubles and halves to include numbers to 20 and become even more familiar with counting patterns as they work with the fifties and sixties and place value. The Calendar Grid features familiar items and a growing pattern of three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms.
The focus for Bridges Unit 2 Module 4 is on counting by 5s and 10s to become more efficient at counting amounts larger than 10. Three of the sessions use five-armed sea stars as a context for counting and students work together to make a quilt that exemplifies the counting by 5s pattern in the variety of ways. Making the quilt blocks also involves some work with shapes and fractional pieces. The last two sessions introduce games that feature pennies, nickels, and dimes-another good context for counting by 5s and 10s, as well as reinforcing the counting on strategy. The games also give students practice counting collections of coins and comparing two-digit numbers.
First Grade Weekly Update November 6th-10th
Weekly Syllabus: November 6th-10th, 2023
Reminders
Tuesday, November 7th is our Chipotle fundraiser from 5:00-7:00.
Friday November 10th is Veteran’s Day. No School.
Religion
We will begin Chapter 6 Jesus Shares God’s Love-Students will explore how we share God’s love with others, discover the ways Jesus showed his love for us and that Jesus was raised from the dead and gave us all new life, and that we are all called to share God’s love with others as Jesus did.
Language Arts
Unit 4 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Associate the ed sound with t and d, review ed ending for verbs, review nouns and verbs, review vowels and consonants, and read and discuss informational text.
Spelling words: yelled, smelled, jumped, bumped, look, your, the, was, are, and for
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated reading of a story, observe punctuation and read expressively, compare and contrast texts, know key vocabulary words (yanked, fist, clinched, unclenched, and interesting), understand and use the prefix un, and identify main topic of informational text.
Writing: Personal Narrative
Mathematics
Focus for November Number Corner: This month’s workouts delve into fractions and telling time. Students discover a pattern of friendly animals chomping snacks into wholes, halves, and fourths in the Calendar Grid, and the focus on fractions carries over to Calendar Collector. There, telling time is introduced to the hour and students use fractions of a circle to consider whole and half on an analog clock. November includes the 50th day of school and students use the hundreds grid to discover that they are halfway to the 100th day of school.
We continue with Bridges Unit 2 Module 3 students will be continuing developing adding and subtraction strategies, particularly doubling, counting on, and counting back to solve combinations within 12. Students work with the number rack and then learn games in which they add, subtract, and record their results on graphs. Students who are still counting by 1s to add and subtract are encouraged to count on and count back instead, and those who have moved beyond counting by 1s are encouraged to develop strategies that make use of well-known facts to solve less familiar combinations.
First Grade Weekly Update October 30th-November 3rd
Weekly Syllabus: October 30th-November 3rd, 2023
Reminders
We will celebrate Halloween on Monday, October 31st. The parade will begin at 8:15.
Students may wear their costumes, but are not allowed to bring weapons, wear masks (other than the ones required) and need to be dressed appropriately (when in doubt, please refer to the handbook for free dress guidelines).
Religion
We will continue with Unit 2 We Believe Part Two. In our first unit chapter, Chapter 5 Mary, the Mother of Jesus, students will explore how courage helps us live as disciples of Jesus, discover what the Bible tells us about Mary, discover that Mary had great trust in God, and learn that psalms are prayers in the Bible and pray a psalm together.
Language Arts
Unit 4 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Identify final er sound, encode er words, recognize er and ed spelling patterns, introduce and spell Memory Words (look, your, the, was, are, and for), and understand and use passed tense verbs.
Spelling words: after, never, better, winter, summer, rested, twisted, planted, printed, and acted
Reading: Read and discuss grade level literary text, understand characters, text structure, and sequence, listen to and read complex informational text, understand Words to Know (project, interesting, and constructed)
Writing: Discuss narrative writing, select a topic for narrative writing, plan a personal narrative, write a story based on a plan, and edit
Mathematics
Focus for October Number Corner: Ten is the magic number for October, the tenth month of the year. Students compose and decompose the number 10, practice instantly seeing quantities on ten-frames, and learn about “leaps of ten” on the number line. The Calendar Grid features sets of fall pictures to inspire math stories and during the Calendar Collector workout, students collect and count patterns blocks and make a composite shape picture.
Bridges Unit 2 Module 2-This module maintains a focus on addition and subtraction strategies and emphasizes solving for an unknown. Students use and make double flap cards to discover the relationship between addition and subtraction, to further explore the commutative property, and to learn to solve for an unknown in any position. They generate equation fact families and story problems. The idea that the equal sign describes a relationship between two quantities that have the same value, rather than indicating “the answer,” is reinforced.
First Grade Weekly Update October 23rd-27th
Weekly Syllabus: October 23rd-27th, 2023
Reminders
All are invited to our special session called Setting Up Students for Success in School on October 26, 2023 6:30 pm-7:30 pm.
Religion
We will begin Unit 2 We Believe Part Two. In our first unit chapter, Chapter 5 Mary, the Mother of Jesus, students will explore how courage helps us live as disciples of Jesus, discover what the Bible tells us about Mary, discover that Mary had great trust in God, and learn that psalms are prayers in the Bible and pray a psalm together.
Language Arts
Unit 3 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Identify final le sound, read decodable stories with ng and le, read and decode words from informational text, recognize and spell memory words (do, have, show, how, me, and a), understand and use antonyms, and rhyming words.
Spelling Words: bubble, little, candle, pickle, do, have, show, how, me, and a
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated readings of a story, read with natural phrasing, read and discuss grade level literary text, understand plot, problem, and solution, match story events to pictures, and understand and use antonyms.
Writing: Opinion Writing about seasons.
Mathematics
Focus for October Number Corner: Ten is the magic number for October, the tenth month of the year. Students compose and decompose the number 10, practice instantly seeing quantities on ten-frames, and learn about “leaps of ten” on the number line. The Calendar Grid features sets of fall pictures to inspire math stories and during the Calendar Collector workout, students collect and count patterns blocks and make a composite shape picture.
Bridges
We will begin Unit 2 Module 1 Counting, Comparing & Adding With Dominoes. Module 1 focuses on developing counting and addition skills, using dominoes as a springboard. Students learn games in which they match the dots on dominoes, count or add the dots on the two halves of a dominoes, and write equations and inequality statements for the amounts. They also share and discuss addition strategies beyond counting by 1s, such as counting on, combining small groups, and working from known facts to those less familiar. Two new Work Places are introduced.