Monthly Learning Goals

February 2024

February 2024 Learning Goals

Here's an overview of our learning goals for February

Reading: This month we will be exploring non-fiction texts. We will begin by exploring text features and immersing ourselves in non-fiction. We will learn how to read and learn from these types of texts. 

Writing: Our writing lessons will echo our reading lessons. We will learn from mentor texts as we navigate non-fiction writing. The children will become teachers as they write to teach their reader all about their topic. We will be writing about animals, people, and the seasons. We will integrate different text features into our writing (headings, table of contents, ‘zoom in’ pictures, labelling, etc.) 

Fundations: We will be working in unit 8. In this unit,the children will learn about consonant blends. We’ll begin with 2 letter blends. A blend is two consonants that are found before or after a vowel. Each letter makes their own sound but go together quickly. 

Sight Words:

Feb 5-9: could, would, should, some

Feb 12-16: Contractions - I’m, can’t, don’t, didn’t

Feb 19-23 : each, between, three, sleep

Feb 26- March 1: -ight words: night, light, right, sight

Math: We will be learning addition in February and March. We will learn lots of different strategies, or ways to add, so the kids can be flexible with their thinking and find the strategies that work best for them and also adapt their thinking based on the problems they’re working on. We will explore lots of different strategies for adding. These include adding 0, adding 1 or 2 more, adding with pictures, adding with number lines, using part-part-whole, doubles, doubles +1, and friends of 10 (number combinations that make 10). 

Humanities/ Special Activities: We will continue to integrate our outcomes about the five senses and materials and objects as we explore fiction and nonfiction reading and writing. 

We will also be celebrating Valentine's Day on Wednesday, February 14th. We will have a little class celebration where we will pass out valentines and enjoy some treats. The teachers are working together to come up with some fun activities to celebrate Valentine's Day as well! 

February 21st we will be celebrating our 100th day of school! We’ll do lots of activities with the number 100 on this day and the children are all invited to dress up like they’re 100 years old on this day.

November - December 2023

Here's an overview of our learning goals for November & December

Reading: We will be focusing on using re-reading to support our reading. We will learn to re-read the text for fluency and expression. We'll also learn to re-read when we get to a tricky part so we can think about what would make sense, sound right AND look right. We will also be learning about vowels. We need to be flexible with vowels and discriminate between when to use short vowel and long vowel sounds. 

Writing: We will be finishing up our unit on Small moments and celebrating all our hard work. We are going to learn about two types of writing over the next two months. We'll explore procedural writing and descriptive writing. For procedural writing, we'll write the steps of how to do something. We'll include words like "first", "next", "then," and "finally". In descriptive writing, we'll learn to use our senses and descriptive words to support our writing. We'll learn to write so our reader can make a picture in their mind. These two genres will be a lot of fun! 

Fundations: We are currently working on unit 4, which is all about 'bonus letters'. We're learning that if there's an  /f/,/l/, or /s/  at the end of a one syllable word, after a short vowel, we double the consonant. We also learned about the 'glued' sound /all/. Unit 5 will explore the 'glued sounds' /am/ and /an/. 

Sight Words:

Nov 13-17: Review

Nov 20-23: do, does, one, there

Nov 27- Dec 1: who, what, when, why

Dec 4-8: were, saw, away

Dec 11-15: Magic E words: came, make, five, home

Dec 18-22: Review 

Math: We will be covering several outcomes as we lead-up to the holidays! We'll integrate these outcomes into fun games and activities. We will learn about skip counting and practice counting by 2s to 20 and 10s to 100. We'll be working with numbers to 30 and discussing before, after, counting forwards and backwards, and counting between two given numbers. We'll also explore patterning and estimating. In the New Year, we will be doing addition and subtraction. To prepare for this, we will be learning about equality and practicing part-part-whole (breaking sets into two parts and recording the numbers).

Humanities: We'll be learning about the change of season from fall to winter. We will also continue learning about our feelings, different kinds of art, and using technology to integrate the skills we've been learning in class. December is a great month to learn about kindness as well! 

October 2023

Here’s on overview of our learning goals for October:

Reading: We will continue working on our reading stamina for independent reading. We will begin partnership reading and working with/learning from our peers as we grow as readers.  Later this month, we will explore some strategies to support our reading (such as crisp 1:1 pointing, 'tapping out' unknown words, recognizing sight words, and using the pictures to support our reading. 

Writing: This month we will work to establish writers' workshop. Over the next couple of weeks we will be discussing adding more detail to pictures to help tell the story. Later this month, we will explore personal narrative writing. We always write in our journals on the first day of the school week to recap some favorite parts of our weekend. Throughout the month, we will be working on writing 1-2 (or more!) complete sentences with appropriate spacing and punctuation at the end of our sentence. 

Fundations: We started Unit 2 in Fundations last week. This unit reviews 'tapping', or segmenting, consonant-vowel-consonant words. We learn to tap these words for reading and writing! In Unit 3, we will explore digraphs (two letters that go together to make 1 new sound): sh, ch, wh, th, ck. 

Sight Words: Over this month, we will be practicing quick recall of the words: 

my, is, look, and, 

come, here, is, of, 

as/has, to/into, they, said

Math: Over the next couple of weeks, we will continue reviewing and solidifying numbers 1-10. Later this month, we will move to teen numbers. We will learn about numbers 11-20 and represent these numbers in different ways. We will count forwards and backwards from 0-20 as well. 

Humanities: We will discuss the changing seasons and look for signs of fall. We will continue to build relationships in our classroom. We will be exploring the Zones of Regulation and working on our Growth Mindset. We will practice using our usernames and passwords to login to the school Chrome Books and practice some math and literacy games! 

Learning Goals for September

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 1-10, 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:

September 18th - 22nd - like, I, the, a

September 25th-29th- go, to, went, can

October 2nd-6th- my, is, look, and