Nikee Booton First Grade - Weekly Updates

In SEL this week, We are excited to share that we will be starting a new book series in class called Ninja Life Hacks!

Each book in this engaging series focuses on a different character trait or emotion—helping our students learn how to manage big feelings, build confidence, practice kindness, and grow essential life skills. Through these fun stories and relatable characters, students will discover positive ways to handle everyday challenges and develop the best version of themselves.

We look forward to sharing these wonderful lessons with your child!

UFLI Phonics Focus

In UFLI Lessons 39a and 39b, students focus on mastering the Short U vowel sound (/ŭ/ as in up, sun, and bug). Throughout these lessons, students practice blending and segmenting consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words containing short U, building their spelling (encoding) skills with target words, reading decodable texts to improve reading fluency and automaticity, and writing complete dictated sentences using short U words alongside familiar high-frequency words.

UFLI Overview

In first grade, we use UFLI Foundations for our phonics lessons. Each lesson follows a consistent structure to support our kiddos as they grow into confident readers.

Here’s what a typical UFLI lesson looks like:

🔄 Review – Practice previously learned sounds, letters, and words.
✨ New Skill – Introduce a new sound-spelling pattern.
📖 Word Reading – Blend sounds together to read new words.
♥️Words- We will get a set of sight words/heart words each week. These are words that do not follow a spelling pattern so we have to know them by heart 🙂
📝 Spelling & Dictation – Practice writing words and sentences with the new pattern.
📚 Connected Text – Read sentences or short passages to apply the new skill in context.

This routine helps build confidence and gives every kiddo the tools they need to become strong, successful readers! I will also be updating our classroom website each week with our current UFLI focus, so we are all on the same page and you can have meaningful conversations with your kiddo at home. 😊

Wonders Unit 2 Week 2

Big Idea

“OUR COMMUNITY: What makes a community?”

Essential Question

What buildings do you know? What are they made of?

Genre

Fantasy

Story with imaginary elements such as talking animals
Often include magical creatures
Often includes medieval elements such as a castle, knights and spells

Reading Skill

Make and Confirm Predictions a guess (based on text clues and pictures) about what may happen next

Characters: people or animals

Setting: when and where the story takes place

Events: important things that happen in the beginning, middle, and end

Captions: Explain what a picture is about

Main Story: The Pigs, the Wolf, and the Mud

Genre: Fantasy

Paired Read: Homes Around the World

Genre: Informational Text

Vocabulary

Shelter
Materials
Collapsed
Furious
refused

I CAN!

I can create an organized plan and write complete, combined sentences from it!

Write From The Beginning

We will continue work on level two of observational comment writing! SAME as level one, but now we are doing connected sentences where we connect 2 ideas in one sentence using the word and as well as using pronouns to create more varied sentences.

Pictures below :)

Day 1: Brainstorm as a whole class and create the circle map, tree map, and sentences. ALL WHOLE GROUP!

Day 2: Kiddos get the tree map to make their sentences on their own!

Day 3: Kiddos get the completed circle map and a tree map with only connecting words, and they do the rest!

🧠 Plan – Use a Thinking Map (like a circle map, tree map, or flow map) to organize ideas before writing.
💭Organize- We will organize our Thinking Map to help us write sentences… “If I can think it, I can say it and if I can say it I can write it!”
✍️ Write – Turn ideas from the map into sentences and begin writing a story or informational piece.
✅ Edit – Check spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
🔄 Revise – Add more detail, change or move words, and make the writing clearer.
🌟 Publish & Share – Create a final piece of writing and celebrate! Publishing will not happen each week but you will know when it does 🙂

Through this structure, kiddos learn that writing is a process and that their ideas are valuable. Over time, they will grow from writing a single sentence to multiple sentences with varied beginnings. I will provide more information each week as we grow through writing 🙂

This Week’s Focus

Envision Math Topic 3: Addition Facts to 20 (Use Strategies)

Topic 3 Parent Letter

I CAN!

Strategies: I can use strategies like doubles, near doubles, and making a 10 to add within 20.

Number Line: I can use an open number line to count on to add.

Explanation: I can explain my strategy and check if other people's math reasoning makes sense.

Vocabulary

Count On: A counting strategy where you start with the larger number and count forward to add (e.g., to solve 8+3, start at 8 and count up: "9, 10, 11").
Doubles Fact: An addition problem where both numbers being added (addends) are the exact same (e.g., 6+6=12 or 7+7=14).
Near Doubles / Doubles Plus 1 / Doubles Plus 2: An addition strategy for solving facts where the addends are close in value by using a known doubles fact (e.g., to solve 6+7, think of 6+6=12, then add 1 more to get 13).
Make 10: A mental math strategy where you break apart one addend to make 10 first, making the remaining addition easier (e.g., to solve 8+5, take 2 from 5 to turn 8 into 10, leaving 10+3=13).
Number Line / Open Number Line: A visual tool showing numbers in order from left to right, used to model jumps forward when adding.
Sum: The answer to an addition problem (e.g., in 9+4=13, 13 is the sum).
Addend: Any of the numbers that are added together to find a sum (e.g., in 8+5=13, 8 and 5 are the addends).

Make Ten to Add Video Explanation

Current Focus

First Grade is Going Nuts for Maps!

Get ready to explore! In Social Studies, our first graders are diving into an exciting, hands-on Project-Based Learning (PBL) unit focused on mapping.

To put our mapping skills to the test, our class will be hiding a special "nut" somewhere outside on the school grounds. Students will create their own detailed maps featuring key landmarks, symbols, and simple directions. Once our maps are complete, we will challenge other first-grade classrooms to use our map keys and clues to go on a treasure hunt and find the hidden nut!

Skills We Will Cover

Map & Globe Basics: Understanding that maps and globes are flat and round representations of Earth or specific areas.

Directions: Identifying and using basic cardinal directions (North, South, East, West) to locate places or objects.

Map Keys & Symbols: Reading a map key (legend) to recognize standard symbols for features like rivers, mountains, roads, and buildings.

How You Can Help at Home:

Explore Map Elements: Ask your kiddo about features like a map key, compass rose, or landmarks when looking at simple maps together.
Map Your Space: Practice drawing a simple "treasure map" of a room in your house or your backyard, hiding a toy for a family member to find!

Important Dates:

October 6: Lego Club After School

October 7: Kidstage after school

October 8: Coding and Robotics after school

October 9: Chess before school

Octover 12-16: No School Fall Break!

Specials This Week

🎶 We have Music with Miss Ringenberg all week 🎶

🚌Bus Schedule This Week🚌

Bus 231 is running

Bus 232 is running

Bus 233 is running

Bus 235 is running

Bust 240 is running

TTE Weekly Email