Welcome to first grade! 
We are Going Green! Growing Strong!  Learning "Tree"mendous new things all year long!
 
I  want to take this time to announce that our classes have the privilege of hosting interns from UNF. Ms. Amy Toole and Ms. Jennifer Garcia will be joining us beginning on January 7th and will be with us everyday through the month of April. They are learning how to be  teachers and have completed all required coursework at the university and will be sharing the teaching responsibilities in our classroom. I am very excited to have them with us as I know your child will be too!!

Third 9 Week Grading Period
We are now entering most rigorous part of the first grade school year.  Many new and more challenging skills are introduced this is the time of year.   In addition, we continue to raise our expectations for student progress and behavior as we prepare our students for success in 2^nd grade.    Students will be held more accountable for their actions, given more responsibility for their own learning and will be expected to participate in more independent activities.    Daily homework, including Spelling and Reading at Home, are more important now than ever.  Please make sure you are reviewing your child’s homework with them everyday.  Homework is intended to reinforce skills and concepts taught in the classroom; and when not given the proper attention, homework loses its effectiveness.

Here’s what we will be working on during January / February in Language Arts—

Reader’s Workshop:  We will continue to focus on comprehension strategies such as compare and contrast, cause and effect, main idea, summarizing and retelling. Also, DRA reading assessments are being conducted between now and February 22nd.  In order for your child to be on target to meet our end of the year reading benchmark of level “I”, they should be reading at Levels E or higher by this point in time.  

Writer’s Workshop:  We are finishing up our study of Functional Writing and will begin a unit on Persuasive Writing the week of January 18^th.  

Skills Block:  We will begin our study of long vowel sounds.   With this comes more challenging Spelling lists each week and more practice needed at home.  We will also continue working on capitalization and punctuation and writing complete sentences, as well as, verbs and adjectives.  We will learn about contractions, antonyms and word endings as well.   In addition, your child should be reading the first 150 sight words with ease and confidence by this point in the year—progressing to the higher reading levels depends greatly on their ability to read these common words. Be sure to visit Mrs. Rice's website for information on Math, Science and Social Studies.



Please be sure to check your child's Daily Folder each night. 
Remove any items in the "keep at home" pocket,  attend to any items in the "return to school" pocket and sign the daily behavior report. 
The Daily Folder is our primary means of school to home communication
and should come to school every day!

  You should expect your child to have homework each night, Monday - Thursday.   Homework will consist of one written assignment either Language arts or Math, a Spelling assignment and 15 minutes of reading.     All homework assignments are due the next school day after they are assigned.  Late assignments will be accepted but will not receive full credit.    Nightly reading should be recorded on the "Reading Log" in your child's Daily folder. Students should be logging their own books.