1st Grade

Room 235

Burroughs Community School

First Grade is a year of exceptional growth for your students! They will develop their foundational reading skills, critical thinking skills and foundational mathematical number sense skills. We will explore our community and learn to ask questions about our surroundings. We will develop our social-emotional skills and learn that we can do difficult, challenging tasks! Check out our end of year goals that will guide my planning and instruction for literacy and mathematics.

Math: End of Year Goals

Numbers, Operations and Algebra

Students will be able to count, compare, and represent numbers up to 120, with an emphasis on groups of ten's and one's.
Students will use a variety of models and strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems in real world and mathematical contexts.
- Students will use number sentences to represent and solve mathematical problems
- Students will create real world situations corresponding to number sentences
Students will recognize and create patterns and learn rules to describe patterns.

Geometry

Students will describe the characteristics of basic shapes
Students will use basic shapes to compose and decompose other objects in various contexts.
Students will use basic concepts of measurement in real world and mathematical situations involving length, time and money.

Literacy: End of Year Goals

Literature and Comprehension:

Students will be able to ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Students will be able to retell stories, describe characters and setting using key vocabulary.
Students will be able to explain major differences between books that tell stories and books that give information.

Foundational Skills:

Students will demonstrate and understanding spoken words, syllables and sounds (this is called "Phonological Awareness"
Students will know all letter names and one-to-one letter-sound correspondences for all consonants and vowels -- both long and short sounds.
Students will know the spelling-sound correspondences and how to properly decode consonant digraphs, initial and final consonant blends, and vowel digraphs.
Students will learn how to decode one and two syllable words and read these words fluently in a passage.
Students will recognize and read irregular words in context, often called "high frequency words".

Students will use these all these foundational skills to become accurate and fluent readers who comprehend what they read!

My name is Joyce Lasser and this is my 19th year teaching at Burroughs Community School. I am originally from New York and although I consider myself a midwesterner after living here for many years, I still have a touch of that eastern accent. I taught four years in the Bronx right after receiving my Bachelors Degree from Cornell University and my Master's degrees from New York University. My first teaching job was at a school in North Minneapolis where I taught for sixteen years. I worked very hard to be a stable, loving person in their lives and received a great deal of satisfaction, knowing that I had positively impacted their development. During that time , I began the difficult process of obtaining my National Board Certification. I spent a year writing a collection of essays which covered different areas of teaching, as well as reflecting on myself as a teacher, and video taping many lessons. This journey ended with a very rigorous exam. Four months later when I received the letter that began with the words "We are very pleased to tell you" of course I was thrilled. I teach my children from the first day in first grade that we never stop learning and that is the philosophy I always have for myself. Years later a parent nominated me to be a candidate for the "Teacher of the Year" Competition and I say with much pride that after arduous preparation, I became a semi-finalist.

I have three wonderful children and five beautiful grandchildren, all of them twelve years old and younger. My daughter, and son and their families live in Minneapolis and my oldest son lives in Santa Monica with his twelve year old child. We all make it a priority to have the entire family together at least four times a year. I'd say I'm a lucky grandma!

My nineteen years at Burroughs have been magical. Each year, I am proud to say that my students, their parents and I become a family, all working together to reach common goals. People often ask me why I don't retire. It is those relationships that I have formed over the years that have a special place in my heart and give me the energy to keep on going.

When I reflect on my philosophy of teaching, I am immediately reminded of a book that I read many years ago, All I Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten. The following consist of some knowledge I have accrued after teaching first grade for many years:

I learned that when you teach children to create, they create, when you teach children to listen, they listen and when you teacher children to accept differences in others, they accept.

I learned that when you set clear expectations and insist that children behave, they will.

I learned that when you teach children to reach for the stars, they understand it's within reach.

I learned that when you engage children in creative, challenging projects, learning reaches new heights and everlasting memories are made.

I learned that the phrase "one size fits all" does not have a place in the classroom and for all children to succeed, learning has to be differentiated.

I learned that when parents are my partners in the education process, everyone benefits.

So there it is...a snapshot of Joyce Lasser. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about me.

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