May 2026 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for May:
It is hard to believe we are in the second last month of Grade 1! This month will be very exciting, with our chicks hatching on May 11th. Our chicks will live in a brooder pen in our classroom until May 15th, when they will be picked up by the farmers that work for Agriculture in the Classroom. Later on this month we will be onto our next project - caterpillars!
Reading: We will continue to work on developing reading fluency by focusing on accuracy, pace and expression. Students will consolidate the skills they’ve learned in our literacy instruction this year to become fluent and flexible readers.
Writing: This month, we will be introducing opinion writing. Students will practice stating their opinion and backing it up with facts. We will explore this genre of writing through read-alouds, structured writing activities, and writing reviews of our favourite things.
Math: We will continue to work on subtraction over the next month. We’ll continue to master our subtraction strategies as well as extend student learning by practicing mixed operations, fact families and story problems. We will also begin to practice using mental math strategies. Later in the month, we will begin to explore measurement concepts such as area, mass and volume using non-standard units of measurement.
Health: We are continuing our new Kids in the Know personal safety education program. An information packet will be sent home in your child’s homework folder outlining this program. Lessons will include the following topics:
Feelings
Safe grown-ups to go to for help
Boundaries - how to be safe
Keep Secrets and Speak Secrets (this lessons includes naming body parts)
The Buddy System
Trust Your Instincts
What to do When Lost
Fundations Unit 11 & 12:
In Unit 11, students will learn about a new syllable type, vowel-consonant-e. This is a concept that they have been introduced to (we often call it “magic e”), and they will now get three weeks to practice it and extend their learning in Fundations. With “vowel-consonant-e”, the “e” at the end of the word is silent, but it changes the sound of the vowel in the word to the long vowel sound. For example: If we add an “e” to the word “hop”, it becomes “hope”. Students will learn the keywords and practice the long vowel sounds for each vowel.
In Unit 12, students will begin working with multisyllabic words. They will practice reading and writing words with more than one syllable. Students will learn to make words that have two closed syllables (ie: consist) and words that have one closed syllable and one v-e syllable (ie: inspire). If a word has 2 vowels that are separated by consonants, we need to divide the word into syllables. Students will practice identifying where to divide these words (ie: catnip = cat nip ).
Sight words: Beginning later this month, we will review previously taught concepts in a variety of words rather than having a particular set of sight words.
May 4th - 8th: afternoon, anyway, anyone, sometimes (compound words)
May 11th - 15th: R-controlled vowels
May 19th - 22nd: Vowel teams - long a (ai, ay)
May 25th - 29th: Vowel teams - long e (ea, ee)
April 2026 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for April:
We have an exciting month in grade one! We are participating in the Egg to Chick program through Agriculture in the Classroom. On April 20th, our eggs will be delivered to our classrooms. We will be caring for our eggs and learning about their life cycle. We will ‘candle’ the eggs to watch their development inside their eggs (we can see them moving and even see their eyes through their shells)! After three weeks, our chicks will hatch in their incubators. When they’re ready, we’ll move them to a pen in our classroom where we can observe and interact with them for one week before they are picked up on May 15th! This will be a very fun and educational learning experience!
Reading: We will continue to work on developing reading fluency by focusing on accuracy, pace and expression.
Writing: This month, we will be wrapping up our non-fiction writing unit. The children will be choosing their own topic and writing to teach about their topic. Next, we will explore opinion writing and review writing. Students will learn to express their opinion and back it up with 3 or more reasons. We’ll also learn to agree or disagree in polite and thoughtful ways.
Math: We started subtraction this month and will continue to work on subtraction over the next month. We’ll explore a variety of strategies for subtraction with answers between 0-20 including:
Subtracting zero
Subtracting all
Subtracting with: pictures, number lines, 10 frames
Using part-part-whole
Using doubles to subtract
Once we’ve solidified our understanding of subtraction, we will begin mixed operations. We’ll explore fact families using both addition and subtraction, mixed operations, and story problems.
Health: We are beginning our new Kids in the Know personal safety education program. An information packet will be sent home in your child’s homework folder outlining this program. Lessons will include the following topics:
Feelings
Safe grown-ups to go to for help
Boundaries - how to be safe
Keep Secrets and Speak Secrets (this lessons includes naming body parts)
The Buddy System
Trust Your Instincts
What to do When Lost
Fundations Unit 10 & 11:
In Unit 10, we will work on 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. The word "slump" is an example. The sl is a blend and the mp is a blend. We will be adding the suffixes s, ed, and ing to these five sound words as well. We will also continue working on vowel teams using the Vowel Teams poster: oa, oe, ow, ou, oo, ue, ew, au, and aw. Vowel teams are introduced for reference when students are reading throughout the day.
In Unit 11, students will learn about a new syllable type, vowel-consonant-e. This is a concept that they have been introduced to (we often call it “magic e”), and they will now get three weeks to practice it and extend their learning in Fundations. With “vowel-consonant-e”, the “e” at the end of the word is silent, but it changes the sound of the vowel in the word to the long vowel sound. For example: If we add an “e” to the word “hop”, it becomes “hope”. Students will learn the keywords and practice the long vowel sounds for each vowel.
Sight words:
March 30-April 2nd: grow, toe, boat, goes
April 7th - 9th: played, looked, shouted, cried
April 13th-17th: because, friend, other, another
April 20th-24th: none, nothing, blew, soon
April 27-May 1st: I’m, can’t, don’t, didn’t
March 2026 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 been writing an information book about the four seasons, and next we will work on an animal report. The students will choose 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 that they are experts in (sport, person, place, creature, 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 in written form, and will 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 9 & 10: When we get back from March Break, we will be testing for Unit 9. Here is some info on these units:
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. Words with vowel teams are not closed syllable words; they are open syllable words because there is more than one vowel, and the vowel says its' long vowel sound.
In Unit 10 we will work on 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. The word "slump" is an example. The sl is a blend and the mp is a blend. We will be adding the suffixes s, ed, and ing to these five sound words as well. We will also continue working on vowel teams using the Vowel Teams poster: oa, oe, ow, ou, oo, ue, ew, au, and aw. Vowel teams are introduced for reference when students are reading throughout the day. The students will learn spelling strategies for these vowel teams when they are in grade 2.
Trick words/Sight words:
March 2-5: Review r-controlled vowels
March 9th-13th: any, many, our, about
March 23rd-27th: night, light, sight, right
March 30th-April 2nd: grow, toe, boat, goes
January/February 2026 Learning Goals
Here’s an overview of our learning goals for January/February:
We had a great start to 2026! We spent the first week of January getting back into classroom routines/expectations. January has been a fun outdoor month so far, with snow on the playgrounds. We plan to get outside on our school sleds at least once or twice over the next 2 months. In the classroom, we will continue to be busy learning new goals and celebrating each student’s accomplishments. Later in February, we will be busy assessing students as we prepare for our end-of-term report cards and parent-teacher interviews in March. Here is an overview of what we have been working on academically and what we will continue working on in February.
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. We will do Non-Fiction read-alouds and learn a lot of new facts about various topics. We will discuss their text features. Examples of text features are: Headings, table of contents, glossary, labelling, etc). 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, noticing punctuation, and matching our expression.
Writing: We recently finished up Small Moment writing in January, and now we are moving on to 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 0-100 forward and backward, beginning at any given number.
We started our Addition unit. In January we will focus on 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.
In February, we will extend our knowledge of addition with facts to 18 using the strategies listed above.
For continued practice, 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.
Science: We are tracking the weather in our January Weather booklets. The kids are having a lot of fun checking the weather each day and recording the temperature with and without the windchill; and whether it is cloudy, snowy, rainy, 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. We will do this again for the month of February.
Fundations:
Unit 7: (3 weeks in total). In Unit 7, students are learning EIGHT new glued sounds! Wow! There will be four new glued sounds ending with “ng” (ang, ing, ong, ung) and four ending with “nk” (ank, ink, onk, unk).
In Week 1, we learned the “ng” glued sounds.
In Week 2, we will learn the “nk” glued sounds.
In Week 3, we will add the suffix -s to these words.
Unit 8: (2 weeks total). In unit 8, students will learn:
Consonant blends (find the vowel in the word and look before and after it to find the consonant blend. The consonants blend, 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: (2 weeks total). In unit 9, students will learn:
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.
Trick words/Sight words:
January:
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)
February:
Week 1 - would, could, should, some
Week 2 - her, over, number (/er/ R-controlled vowel sound)
Week 3 - each, between, three, sleep (/ee/, /ea/ vowel team sounds. The first vowel says its’ long vowel sound.)
Week 4 - say, today, rain, wait (/ay/, /ai/ vowel team sounds. The first vowel says its’ long vowel sound.)
November 2025 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 sight/trick/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, sight/trick/heart word recognition and transferring these skills into reading have begun 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 work on counting skills: counting forwards and backwards within 30, we will learn skip counting by 2’s from 0-20, and skip counting by 10's from 0-100. We will also discuss equality and inequality when comparing numbers and discuss which number is more/less when comparing two numbers. We will work on identifying the number that is 1 more/2 more, 1 less/2 less with numbers up to 20. We will continue to solidify our understanding of the teen numbers 11-19 and represent numbers to 20 in a variety of ways. We will continue practicing subitizing (recognizing numbers at a glance).
Fundations Units 4 and 5:
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 - do, all
Week 2 - they, one, said, are
Week 3 - Review Week
Week 4 - from, have, does
October 2025
Here’s on overview of our learning goals for October:
We have a fun and busy October planned in grade 1! We have two field trips planned which will be fun and educational. As we get closer to Thanksgiving, we will discuss what we are thankful for and learn about gratitude and appreciation. At the end of October, there is Halloween! So nice that it lands on a Friday this year! We know this is a fun time for the kids and we will keep you posted with the school’s plan in regards to dressing up and our plans for celebrating in the grade one hallway!
Please note that there is no school Friday, October 10th-PD day, and Monday, October 13th-Thanksgiving.
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). We will be encouraging and practicing reading CVC words quickly, as opposed to tapping, once the kids are ready. Reading these words will build automaticity which in turn increases reading fluency.
Read it Rabbit (re-read the sentence after they decode new words so their voice sounds smooth and fluent, just like talking).
We will continue to emphasize quick recall of Trick Words/Sight Words/Heart Words (we will continue practicing our weekly sight words in a variety of ways in our literacy centers and morning messages). The sight words all have a ‘hard’ part in which the letters have an irregular sound 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 encourage the students to sound out words on their own to spell new words. We will make some class books together with Fall as a theme and practice/review writing sentences. We will also complete “All About Me” books where they will share things about themselves (family, friends, etc).
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, subitizing (recognizing numbers to 10 at a glance), and practice counting skills (counting a set by one at a time, moving items/crossing off, last number said is how many in all; as well as using the count on strategy to count sets/when subitizing).
Fundations Units 2, 3 and 4:
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.
Unit 4 :We will teach the ff, ll, ss bonus letter rule. At the end of a one-syllable word, if the word has a short vowel sound and is immediately followed by an f, l, or s, at the end, then you double that consonant. Examples: miss, hill, puff. However; if the letter a is followed by double l , it does not have the expected short vowel sound. We will teach all as a glued sound. We mark words with the glued sound all by drawing a box around all. Example: ball, mall, fall
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 2025
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, building stamina for reading 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. On Mondays, we always write in our journals and write in detail about what we did over the weekend.
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.
Humanities: Zones of Regulation. Our feelings/emotions can be categorized into 4 colored zones: Green Zone- calm, ready to learn, happy; Yellow Zone- nervous, anxious, silly; Blue Zone- sad, tired, shy, slow moving; Red Zone- angry, frustrated, losing control. We will discuss these zones, learn to recognize and name our feelings and which zone they belong to, and strategies we can use to get our bodies back to the Green Zone. We will, also, learn about building positive friendships/peer relationships.
Fundations Unit 1: This unit is a review of letter sounds (vowels and consonants) and letter formation.
Sight words/Trick Words:
Week 1 - like, I, the, a
Week 2 - go, to, went, can
Week 3 - my, is, look, and