April 2025 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for April:
Reading: We will continue to focus on building our fluency so that our reading sounds smooth (not as choppy). This is something that students can practice at home with their homework books as well. Encourage them to re-read sentences to make them sound smooth and fluent. We are also learning about how we should pause for punctuation, and use expression for exclamation marks! Students will also become word detectives as we explore videos that encourage them to look closely and pay special attention to the words they are reading.
Writing: The children really enjoyed our Non-Fiction unit in March! We will soon be moving on to Persuasive Writing. In this unit, students will review the difference between a fact and an opinion. They will learn how they can share their opinion on something and support that opinion with convincing reasons. They will write reviews on some of their favourite things (books, restaurants, toys, etc).
Math: We will continue our work on Addition with sums to 20 (using a variety of strategies and tools), and we will continue to practice our mental math strategies. We will soon be introducing subtraction and talking about the connection between addition and subtraction. We will start by subtracting with smaller numbers (to 12) and then build on our knowledge by increasing those numbers to 20. During daily math warm ups, we will continue to practice our counting skills by 1’s within 100 (forward and backwards), as well as skip counting by 2’s to 20 and by 5’s and 10’s to 100.
Health: We will continue our focus on safety and responsibility (as outlined in our health curriculum). We will continue to discuss fire safety behaviours, how to seek emergency help using 911, and how to be safe around animals.
Fundations: We will continue our work in Unit 9 for one more week. Then we will start Unit 10.
In Unit 10, we will be working with closed syllables that have five sounds. These are words that usually have a blend (two consonants each with their own sound) at the beginning of the word and a blend at the end of the word. Ex: slump (sl is a blend and mp is a blend).
We will also learn how to add the suffix -ed and the suffix -ing to these five sound words.
We will learn the new vowel teams: oa, oe, ow, oo, ou, ue, ew, aw, au. In grade one, vowel teams are introduced for reference when students are reading. They will be learned in more depth for both reading and writing in grade two.
Trick words for this unit are: any, many, how, now, down, out, about, our
This unit will be three weeks long.
Sight words:
Our words for the month of April will be:
March 31-April 4th: grow, toe, boat, goes
April 7th - 10th: played, looked, shouted, cried
April 15th-17th: because, friend, other, another
April 22nd-26th: none, nothing, blew, soon
April 28-May 2nd: I’m, can’t, don’t, didn’t
March 2025 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for March:
Everyone has been working hard so far in March! We will take a little break after this week for March Break, and then we will get right back at it with lots of exciting things to accomplish in March!
Reading: We will continue to explore Non-Fiction texts and their features (captions, headings, labels, zoom in pictures, table of contents, glossary, index, maps). We will also be focusing on building our fluency so that our reading sounds smoother (not as choppy). Students will become word detectives as we explore videos that encourage them to look closely and pay special attention to the words they are reading.
Writing: The children have really enjoyed our Non-Fiction unit! We have written an information book about the four seasons, and are now working on an animal report. The students have chosen a favourite animal to teach their readers about. Once that is completed, the children will close out our Non-Fiction unit by writing an information piece about a topic of their choice (sport, person, etc). We will move on to Persuasive Writing in April.
Math: We will continue our work on Addition with sums to 20 (using a variety of strategies and tools), and we will continue to practice our mental math strategies (make 10, doubles, counting on from the bigger number, etc). At the end of the month, we will move into subtraction. We will start with numbers to 12 and then build on our knowledge by increasing those numbers to 20. During daily math warm ups, we will continue to practice our counting skills by 1’s within 100 (forward and backwards), as well as skip counting by 2’s to 20 and by 5’s and 10’s to 100. We will count orally, as well as count objects in groups of 2, 5, and 10.
Health: This month, our focus will be on safety and responsibility (as outlined in our health curriculum). We will be discussing fire safety behaviours, how to seek emergency help using 911, and how to be safe around animals.
Fundations Unit 8 and 9: At the end of this week, we will be testing for Unit 8 and then starting Unit 9 after March Break.
Here is some info on these units:
Unit 8- Consonant blends (find the vowel in the word and look before and after it to find the consonant blend. The consonants blend together and you hear both sounds. (Example: flip, must. We mark blends by underlining each consonant.)
Digraph blends (find the vowel in the word and look before and after it to find the digraph consonant blend. They blend together and you hear both sounds. (Example: shred, munch. We mark by underlining the digraph and underlining the consonant).
We will also learn the R-controlled vowel sounds /er/ /ir/ /ur/, /or/, /ar/ to help us decode/read words that have R-controlled vowels (examples: over, her, shirt, surf, short, star).
Unit 9- We will learn the term closed syllables. A closed-syllable word has only one vowel, and the vowel is ‘closed in’; it is immediately followed by a consonant(s) or a digraph. Example: bat, bath, rush, sip. In closed-syllable words, the vowel says its’ short vowel sound. We mark closed syllable words by underlining the word, writing ‘c’ under it, and marking the short vowel sound with the short vowel symbol . We will also learn vowel team sounds to help us decode/read words with vowel teams. Example: each, sweet, say, wait, boat.
Sight words:
March 3rd-7th: Review “ee” and “ea” words
March 10th-14th: any, many, our, about
March 24th-28th: night, light, sight, right
January 2025 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for January:
We had a great start to 2025! January will be a fun outdoor month with having snow outside on the playgrounds and we hope to get out on the sleds at some point. In the classroom, we will continue to be busy learning new goals and celebrating each student’s accomplishments.
Reading: We will be reading and exploring the difference between Fiction and Non-Fiction texts. We will be doing Story Maps (where we identify Story Elements: Setting, Characters, Order of Events, Problem, and Solution) with some class read-alouds. One of the Fiction books we will be reading is, “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. We will do a variety of fun activities to accompany this story. We will do Non-Fiction read-alouds and learn a lot of new facts about various topics. Also, we will continue working in small groups geared towards group skills during guided reading. We will continue building our reading strategies to support our decoding and comprehension skills. We will continue to build our reading fluency by reading in phrases.
Writing: We will continue working on Procedural Writing. In this unit, we will teach our readers step-by-step instructions on how to do something or how to make something. Then, we will move into writing Non-Fiction (choosing a topic we know a lot about and teaching our readers facts about the topic). We have a variety of writing ideas planned (such as: choosing an animal and describing what it looks like, its’ habitat, its’ diet, etc; writing about the seasons, writing about a friend/family member, etc).
Math: We will work on counting by 1’s within 0-50 forward and backward.
We will work on counting by 1’s up to 100 by the end of the month, forward and backward, beginning at any given number.
We will work on counting by 1’s within 0-100 forward and backward.
We will continue strengthening our skip counting by 2’s from 0-20 and by 5’s and 10’s from 0-100. We will count orally, as well as count objects in groups of 2, 5, and 10.
We will begin Addition with facts to 12 using a variety of strategies (first understanding part-part/whole, learning addition vocabulary and equality, adding using pictures, adding using manipulatives, adding with zero, adding using a number line, adding using the count on strategy (start at the bigger number and count on the smaller number), turn around facts (flip the addend does not change the sum), facts that make 10 and adding using doubles.
Science: We are tracking the weather in our January Weather page. The kids are having a lot of fun checking the weather each day and recording whether it is cloudy, snowy, sunny, or partly sunny skies. At the end of the month, we will add up how many days it snowed, rained or was a sunny day.
Fundations Unit 6:
We will be continuing Unit 6 of our Fundations program. In this unit, we introduced the concept of a base word and a suffix. We worked with the suffix -s only. We taught that when the -s is added to a word, it sometimes says the /s/ sound as in ‘shops’ or it sometimes says /z/ as in ‘bugs’. We teach that the suffix -s gets added to make a word plural (more than one) and also for action words (runs).
Sight words:
Week 1 - her, after, other, over (words ending in the R-controlled /er/ sound)
Week 2 - why, by, my, try, very (y as a vowel. When /y/ is at the end of a one-syllable word, it makes the long /i/ sound; in two- syllable words, it makes the long /e/ sound.
Week 3 - put, two, too, also
Week 4 - about, our, how, now (words with vowel teams /ou/ and /ow/ sound)
December 2024 Learning Goals
Here’s on overview of our learning goals for December:
December will be a busy, but FUN month! There will be lots going on with our chicks hatching, preparing for our Christmas concert, and the rest of the joy that goes along with the holiday season. That being said, there will still be lots of learning happening.
Reading: We will introduce the Reading Strategy “Base word Bat” to use when decoding new words. We use this strategy if a word has a suffix (s, ed, ing). We cover the suffix with our finger, and read/decode the base word, then add the suffix to read the whole word. For example (runs→run-runs, played→play-played, looking→look-looking). We will work in Literacy Centres to practice our sight/trick/heart words and Fundations skills. Also, we will be working in small groups geared towards group skills during guided reading. For read-alouds, we will read books that have lots of descriptive text, such as books written by the author, Barbara Reid, and talk about how authors use lots of describing words to give lots of detail so readers can paint pictures in their heads/minds of the story.
Writing: We will finish up our Small Moments unit of study. Then, we will introduce Procedural Writing. In this unit, we will teach our readers step by step instructions on how to do something or how to make something. We will introduce “transition words” (for example: first, next, then, finally) to help with writing step by step. We will do some fun writing pieces, such as: How to decorate a tree, How to wrap a present, How to build a snowman, How to make hot chocolate, etc.
Math: We will work on counting by 1’s within 0-50 forward and backward. Also, we will work on skip counting by 2’s from 0-20 and by 5’s and 10’s from 0-100.
Fundations Unit 6:
Unit 6: In this unit, we will introduce the concept of a base word and a suffix. We will work with the suffix -s only. We will teach that when the -s is added to a word, it sometimes says the /s/ sound as in ‘shops’ or it sometimes says /z/ as in ‘bugs’. We will teach that the suffix -s gets added to make a word plural (more than one) and also for action words (runs). We mark these words with a line under the word to show the base word and circle the suffix. For example :
Sight words:
Week 1 - were, saw, away
Week 2 - came, make, home, five (Magic e rule- when ‘e’ shows up at the end of the word, we already learned it is silent, but now we will learn that sometimes it is ‘magic’ and it gives all of its power to the other vowel and makes the other vowel say its long vowel sound.)
Week 3 - Review
November 2024 Learning Goals
Here’s on overview of our learning goals for November:
November is always a quick month as we head into Remembrance Day, the PEI Teachers’ Convention, and Parent-Teacher Conferences! We have lots of learning to pack into a short amount of time.
Reading: We will continue to master the reading strategies taught so far this year, as well as work in literacy centres to practice our heart words and Fundations skills. We will be working in small groups geared towards group skills during guided reading as well. Assessments aimed at evaluating decoding skills, heart word recognition and transferring these skills into reading will begin in November to prepare for learning reports.
Writing: This month we will begin our Small Moments unit of study. In this unit students will tell true stories from their own lives. We will practice generating an idea, planning our writing sequentially, bringing our characters to life, and editing and revising.
Math: We will continue to solidify our understanding of the teen numbers 11-19 and representing these numbers in a variety of ways, counting forwards and backwards within 20, and subitizing (recognizing numbers at a glance) and practice counting a set (one at a time, moving items/crossing off, last # said is how many in all).
Fundations Units 2 and 3:
Unit 4: We will teach the bonus letter rule for letters -ff, -ss, and -ll. At the end of a one syllable word with a short vowel that ends in f, s, or l, you double that letter. We will also teach the glued sound -all.
Unit 5: We will introduce the glued sounds -am (-am, ham, am) and -an (-an, fan, an).
Sight words:
Week 1 - you, your, there, where
Week 2 - Review: I, was, into
Week 3 - they, one, said
Week 4 - from, have, do, does
Week 5 - who, what, when, why
October 2024
Here’s on overview of our learning goals for October:
We have a fun and busy October planned in grade 1! We have 2 field trips planned which will be fun and educational. Also, we will discuss what we are thankful for as we get closer to Thanksgiving. Then, at the end of October, there is halloween! We know this is a fun time for the kids and we will keep you posted for the school’s plan in regards to dressing up. Please note that there is no school the day after Halloween this year, November 1st, as it is a PD day.
Reading: We will continue to build our reading stamina and build reading strategies to support decoding new words. The strategies we will focus on are: Pointing Porcupine (point under the first letter of each word as we read); Tapping Turtle and Blending Bear (use our fingers to tap the individual sounds in consonant/vowel/consonant words and blend them together to read the word)’ and Heart Words (we will continue practicing our weekly sight words in a variety of ways in our literacy centers. The sight words all have a ‘hard’ part that we have to know by ‘heart’). We will be working in small groups geared towards group skills during guided reading as well.
Writing: This month, we will continue to develop independent work skills. We will make some class books together with Fall as a theme and practice/review writing sentences.
Math: We will be working on the teen numbers 11-19 and representing these numbers in a variety of ways, counting forwards and backwards within 20, and subitizing (recognizing numbers at a glance) and practice counting a set (one at a time, moving items/crossing off, last # said is how many in all).
Fundations Units 2 and 3:
Unit 2: We will teach/review how to tap and blend consonant/vowel/consonant (CVC) words to read and spell. For example: sat (s-a-t)
Unit 3: We will teach the digraph sounds (letters that ‘stick together’ to form one sound (wh, ch, sh, th and ck). Even though they are two letters, they form one sound.
Sight words:
Week 1 - come, here, his, of
Week 2 - see, little, play, was
Week 3 - as/has, we/he/she/be/me
Week 4 - or/for, down, want, out
Week 5 - you, your, there, where
September 2024
Here’s on overview of our learning goals for September:
September is a big month in grade one! We will spend a lot of time getting to know each other, building relationships, learning expectations and rules, and reviewing academic skills learned in kindergarten. There are a lot of differences between kindergarten and grade one. We will be sure to include a lot of opportunities to play and learn in a variety of ways.
Reading: We will be exploring books, reviewing words and establishing readers’ workshop routines. Later this month, we will begin guided reading and strategy groups as well.
Writing: This month, we will work to establish Writer’s Workshop and independent work skills. We will make some class books together and practice/review writing sentences.
Math: We will be reviewing numbers 1-20, counting forwards and backwards, subitizing (recognizing numbers at a glance), and representing these numbers in a variety of ways.
Fundations Unit 1: This unit is a review of letter sounds (vowels and consonants) and letter formation.
Sight words:
Week 1 - like, I, the, a
Week 2 - go, to, went, can
Week 3 - my, is, look, and