Happy April! I hope the kids enjoyed their March break and Easter break, and that parents got to enjoy it, too. Let’s hope that April brings us more sunshine and less snow. We are ready for spring! On that note, please keep in mind that as the temperatures warm up, the amount of mud increases on the playground! It would be helpful if your child continued to wear snow pants or splash pants until things dry up. Also, please make sure that they have a change of clothes (including socks) in their backpack. Thanks!

Here's an overview of our learning goals for April:

Science: We will continue to touch on our Daily and Seasonal Changes unit as we are now in a new season and investigate the changes happening outside! We will be celebrating Earth Day later in the month (we will discuss caring for the environment and ways to recycle). Near the end of April, we will start to learn about the Characteristics and Needs of Living Things. We will support this learning through a hands-on approach- we will be watching caterpillars go through their lifecycle in our classroom! Our larvas are set to arrive near the end of April. 

Reading: To support Word Solving/Decoding, we are working on being “Word Solving Ninjas/Word Detectives”. We will review the following concepts/rules to look for in words when breaking longer words into known parts:

• Sneaky/Magic ‘e’

• Vowel teams (When two vowels go walking, the first one talks and says its’ long vowel sound)

• R-controlled vowels (ar,or,ir/er/ur)

• Suffixes ‘ed’, ‘s’ and ‘ing’

• Word families
  
  

We will also be doing a mini-unit on Fluency, where the children will practice proper phrasing in their reading, and will make sure they don’t sound like robots. :) 

Writing: We will be working on Persuasive Writing this month! Students will learn how to support their opinions in their writing, and they will write some persuasive pieces (wanting a pet, toy,etc) and writing reviews of favourite things (books, movies, toys, restaurants, etc). We will also be doing some mini-lessons and practice with correct end punctuation and uppercase letters where needed. 

Math: Subtraction to 20

We have spent a lot of time solidifying the Addition Strategies, and students are becoming more confident with these skills. We will now be moving into Subtraction (sums to 12), and will then work toward larger numbers (sums to 20). 

At home, you could continue to practice skip counting with your child (by 2’s to 20, by 5’s and 10’s to 100). Students can also practice counting backwards between two given numbers (up to 100). These are skills that we work on all year in grade one!

Fundations:  Before the break, we wrapped up Unit 9, which is Closed Syllables.

Closed Syllables:

• Can only have one vowel. The vowel sound is short.

• The vowel is followed by one or more consonants (to close it in).

Students were also introduced to vowel teams during this unit (ay, ai, ee, ea, ey, oi, oy).

This month, we will work on Unit 10. Students will learn how to blend and segment up to five sounds in a closed syllable. We will be adding suffixes ‘ed’, ‘s’, and ‘ing’. Students are reminded to tap the baseword, spell it/read it, then add the suffix. More combinations with vowels and their sounds will be introduced. These new sounds will be the focus of some of our weekly sight words. /oa/, /oe/, /ow/, /ou/, /oo/, /ue/, /ew/, /au/, /aw/.

Sight words: 

These are the sight words that we will focus on each week in class:

April 2nd-5th: grow, boat, toe, goes  *sound of /ow/, /oa/, /oe/*

April 8th-12th: because, crawl, blew, soon   *sounds of /au/, /aw/ & /ew/, /oo/* 

April 15th-18th: played, looked, shouted, cried   */ed/ makes sounds /d/, /t/,/id/*

April 22nd-26th: many, any, cry, fly   *y is a vowel at the end of words /e/ & /i/*

April 29th-May 2nd: afternoon, sometimes, anyway, anyone *compound words*

Important Dates to Remember in April 

April 1st - No School (holiday)

April 19th - No School (PD day)

Here's an overview of our learning goals for March:

Reading: This month we will continue to explore non-fiction texts and compare them to fiction texts. We will learn about the different text features that we might see in these books and what the purpose of those text features might be.

Writing: We will continue our non-fiction writing. We have now written about animals, people, and sports. We will wrap up our writing on the four seasons, and will move into more choice with our non-fiction writing. Students will get to choose a topic that they are experts on and that interests them. After March Break, we will be starting into our Persuasive Writing unit. 

Fundations: We will continue working in Unit 9. In this unit, students learn the concept of a closed syllable. A closed syllable ends in a consonant and has one short vowel. Students will also learn many vowel teams this unit. 

Sight Words:

Mar 4-8: say, today, rain, wait

March 10-13: boy, toy, join, point

March 18-21: night, light, sight, right

Math: We will continue our work with addition by moving up to larger numbers (Addition with sums to 20). We will learn mental math strategies for solving addition problems (including “Make 10”, Doubles, and Counting on). We will also continue our daily practice of skip counting and counting forwards and backwards with numbers 1-100. After March Break, we will start our learning on Subtraction. 

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 readers 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, labeling, 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 its 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.

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 readers 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, labeling, 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 its 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.

Here's an overview of our learning goals for January:

Reading: This month we will be exploring the characteristics of fiction and non-fiction texts. We will begin by exploring text features of fiction stories, and complete some story mapping (identify characters, setting, problems, solution). Then we will move into non-fiction texts and explore their text features. We will begin to identify fiction vs. non-fiction. 

Writing: Our writing lessons will echo our writing lessons. As we learn about fiction and story mapping, we will create some of our own fiction writing. We will spend some time exploring the book, “The Mitten” by Jan Brett and complete some writing activities related to this text. We will then move into non-fiction writing. This is always an exciting unit because the children will become teachers! If we know 5 thing about a topic, we consider ourselves “experts” on that topic and write to teach the things we know. We might write ‘all about’ books to teach about people, animals, sports, the options are endless! We’ll learn to incorporate the text features we see in non-fiction texts into our own writing. 

Fundations: We will be working in unit 7. In this unit,the children will learn many new glued sounds (groups of letters where the individual sound of each letter cannot be clearly heard). “NG” and “NK” are two examples of glued sounds. In Unit 7, the children will learn the following new glued sounds: ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, and unk. Later in the month, we will begin unit 8 which continues working with short vowels, but introduces consonant blends (two letters that go together and each make their own sound). 

Sight Words:

Jan. 15-19: put, two, away, day

Jan. 22-26: very, also, too, by

Jan. 29-Feb 2: about, our, how, now

Math: We’ll be continuing to count in a variety of ways from 1-100. We’ll be counting forwards and backwards between two given numbers and skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. We will explore equality and begin addition. We’ll be focusing on addition with sums to 12. We’ll explore the fundamentals of addition as well as a variety of strategies we can use to think about adding. 

Humanities: We'll be integrating our outcomes about the five senses and materials and objects as we explore fiction and nonfiction reading and writing. 

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! 

Here’s an 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 continue to write some book responses and write an "All About Me" book so we can learn more about each other. 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 sentences. 

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 log in to the school Chromebooks and practice some math and literacy games! 

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. 

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 and letter formation.

Sight words

Week 1: September 18th - 22nd - like, I, the, a

Week 2: September 25th - 29th - go, to, went, can