Show And Tell schedule:

First Friday of each month :   Henry, Lucas S, Ava, Lucas C., Connor

Second Friday of each month:  Derek, McKayla, Nadia, Luca,     

Third Friday of each month:  Skylar, James, Arianna, Liliana, Taylor   

Fourth Friday of each month: Jordan, Molly, Nicholas, Jaxon, Amelia  

Fifth Friday of any month:  Various C.E.S. adults     

Questions about lunch accounts, codes, etc:

e-mail: tmcnay@compass-usa.com 

Frequently Used sites:

Quizhub 

EPIC

READINGIQ

Mystery Science

Brainpop/BrainpopJr.

FlipGriid

PebbleGo

GenerationGenious

LaLilo

GragTangMath

StarFallReflexMath

SpellingCity

KidsDiscover

Seesaw - at school

Seesaw - at home learning

eSpark

Readworks

tumblebooks

XtraMath

Scholastic

Time for Kids

What are Choice Boards

Choice Boards enhance student motivation and engagement in the classroom while using differentiated instruction to promote learning.

Why use Choice Boards in the Classroom?

It is best to give students plenty of opportunities to practice and master the concepts taught in class. However, structuring such activities is no easy task, as teachers need to take into consideration the need for differentiated instruction and varied learning styles; all while ensuring that it is both interesting and challenging for the students. Choice Boards can help promote learning, as well as stimulate student motivation and engagement.

What are Choice Boards?

Choice boards are graphic organizers that comprise of different amounts of squares. Each square is an activity. The activities help students learn or practice a primary concept, while allowing them a choice. Students can be instructed to choose one or more of these activities to complete. They can progress from one activity to another either in an organized or random order.

Benefits of using Choice Boards

Choice Boards provide students with the power to choose “how” to learn a particular subject or concept. This freedom encourages them to be more responsible, accountable and independent in their learning. It also allows them to work on the activities at their own pace. The boards are useful for teachers as it enables them to identify and use student interests and preferences to stimulate active learning and student engagement. 

Gr. 1 Social Studies Standards:

​Grade 1: Social Studies Practices

A. Gathering, Interpreting, and Using Evidence

1. Develop questions about his/her family.

2. Recognize different forms of evidence used to make meaning in social studies (including sources such as art and photographs, artifacts, oral histories, maps, and graphs).

3. Identify the creator and/or author of different forms of evidence.

4. Identify opinions of others.

5. Create an understanding of the past by using primary and secondary sources.

B. Chronological Reasoning and Causation 1. Retell a real-life family event in sequential order. 2. Understand the concept of time measurements, including days, weeks, months, and years. 3. Identify causes and effects, using examples from his/her family life. 4. Identify change over time in his/her family. 5. Identify events of the past, present, and future in his/her family life. 6. Recognize and identify patterns of continuity in his/her family.

C. Comparison and Contextualization 1. Identify similarities and differences between neighborhoods. 2. Identify similarities and/or differences between him/her and others, with detail. 3. Describe an event in his/her family. 4. Understand the concepts of geography, economics, and history that apply to his/her family.

D. Geographic Reasoning 1. Ask geographic questions about where places are located and why they are located there, using geographic representations, such as maps and models. Describe where places are in relation to each other. 2. Identify human activities and human-made features; identify natural events or physical features. 3. Describe how environment affects his/her and other people’s activities. 4. Identify a pattern and a process. 5. Describe how human activities alter places.

E. Economics and Economic Systems 1. Explain how scarcity affects choices made by families and communities, and identify costs and benefits associated with these choices. 2. Distinguish between a consumer and a producer and their relationship to goods and services. 3. Explain how people earn money and other ways that people receive money.

F. Civic Participation 1. Demonstrate respect for the rights of others in discussions, regardless of whether one agrees with the other viewpoints. 2. Participate in activities that focus on a classroom or school issue or problem. 3. Identify different political systems. 4. Identify the role of the individual in classroom and school participation. 5. Show respect in issues involving differences and conflict; participate in the resolution of differences and conflict. 6. Identify situations in which social actions are required. 7. Identify the president of the United States and the school principal and their leadership responsibilities. 8. Identify rights and responsibilities within the classroom and school.

Gr. 1 Science Standards: NGSS

5 Key Reading Elements

phonemic awareness; : word awareness, syllable awareness, within syllable awareness, phonemes

phonics

vocabulary

comprehension

fluency

Reading Strategies

Decode

Monitor

Self Correct

Predict

Infer

Summarize

Academic Skills

Motivation

Time Management

Concentration

Organization

Prioritization

Levels of Knowledge

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

Early Readers:

Specific Reading Encouragement

Texts they CAN read

Texts they WANT to read

Uninterrupted blocks of time to read and re-read

To learn to read with fluency

A reading model

To develop 'thoughtful literacy'

Specific phonics instruction

To be supported before reading

Exposure to a variety of text genre

Text Genre

Adventure 

Epic 

Fable 

Fairy tale 

Fantasy 

Folk tale 

Historical fiction 

Horror 

Humor and satire 

Legend 

Mystery 

Myth 

Poetry 

Realistic fiction 

Science fiction 

Autobiography 

Biography 

Memoir 

Diary or journal 

Travel book 

Atlas

Textbook 

Reference  

FLUENCY:  http://www.fabulousfirstgrade.50megs.com/dra.html

What is fluency?  (from above site)

Fluency is the ability to read, speak, or write easily, smoothly and with expression. In reading, fluency skills are the ability to see the "big picture" rather than reading word for word. Reading fluency is often associated with smooth and even-paced reading. 

Fluent readers can immediately recognize text or frequent clusters of letters. They have a good sight word vocabulary and can see phrases as whole thoughts and not individual words. 

If a reader struggles over these common letter patterns, their reading becomes choppy.  Students lose the ability to comprehend when they are struggling over words.  Their energy and focus is often spent on just figuring out the word and not understanding the text in front of them. To help these children, we want to identify why they are having difficulty decoding words and include interventions in their daily instruction.

Fluent readers read aloud almost effortlessly and with varied expressions. They sound natural and unrehearsed. Fluent readers are reading and comprehending simultaneously.  

Fluency develops over time with practice.  Young readers inevitably will sound choppy as they are just beginning to understand how language works and how to break the text into natural sounding chunks.  With time and many opportunities to practice reading, young readers develop these skills. Young readers also need to hear stories being read aloud.  Modeling fluent reading by reading aloud is most beneficial. 

 Sight Words/ SNAP Words

Sight words, also known as high-frequency words, are the most common words in our written language are often difficult to decode phonetically because they don’t follow the rules of phonics.    In our new series, you will frequently hear them called "Snap Words". Because of this, they must be memorized.  However, sight words must be memorized in order for your child to become a fluent reader.  There are a few popular lists of sight words that individual researchers have found beneficial, including the Dolch List and the Fry List.  Don’t become overwhelmed when looking at this list…just start working on a few words at a time when you feel your child is ready.

As you’ve probably noticed, there is no “magic formula” for teaching your child how to read.    After all, every child learns differently!    Don’t rush and don’t stress!  While it’s important to take advantage of the prime-learning time, it’s even more important to let your kid be a kid!

• Read to your child every day! 

• Ask your child questions before, during, and after reading.

• Let your child see you reading.

• Look for letters while out and about and in the environment around you.

• When teaching letters and letter sounds, incorporate as many senses as possible.

• Read a variety of books and make a game out of guessing the genre.

• Have fun rhyming!

• Work on letter sounds and manipulating them within words (phonemic awareness)

• Encourage your child to sound out short words (consonant, vowel, consonant).

• Practice memorizing a few sight words each day.

• Most of all, have fun together!
  
  
  Phonemic Awareness and Phonics
  “Phonemes” are the smallest sounds in the English language .  These sounds are made up of consonants, short vowels, long vowels, and digraphs.  ”Phonemic Awareness” consists of learning those sounds and how to manipulate them within a word.  Digraphs are unique sounds comprised of individual letters such as /th/, /sh/, /ch/, etc.
  
  “Phonics” includes learning how to spell those sounds and the various rules that the English language follows.  Phonics is an important components of reading/spelling, but it should never be the main focus.  Again, we are looking to balance  literacy  with reading comprehension as the end result.  Learning the rules of phonics is simply a tool that helps a child learn to decode and spell. 
  
  
    Decoding
  Decoding is often referred to as “sounding it out.”  This is an important element in teaching your child to read, but it certainly isn’t the most important.  Once your child knows the sounds each letter makes (which is taught in real, meaningful situations), he/she is ready to begin putting words together.  When looking at a short word, encourage her to say each individual sound /b/, /a/, /t/,  and then put them together “bat”.
  
  As children decode words with more frequency, they will become more proficient at automatically identifying that word.  Sometimes this task is tedious, though, so it’s important to find creative ways to make it fun. 
  
  
    Classify the Genre 

• Once your child is around 5 and can recognize the difference between real and make-believe, I would suggest starting to help your child understand various genres of books during your reading time together.  This might seem complicated, but it’s really not.  There are around 5 different genres of children’s books that I would encourage you to point out to your little one.  Of course you can use the term “type” rather than “genre” if that is easier to remember.

• Nonfiction (real stories or facts about animals, places, people, etc)
  
  

• Fantasy (make-believe, can’t happen in real life because of magic, talking animals, etc)
  
  

• Realistic Fiction (a made-up story, but it could technically happen in real life because the characters and situations are believable)

• Alphabet Books 

• Song Books

• When children classify a book into a certain genre, they have to first summarize the book in their head and recall details.  Then they have to use that information to decide which type of genre that particular books fits into.  Finally, your child will be recalling details from other books in the same genre, making connections between the two.  This simple activity that might take 5-10 seconds of your time after reading a book but it certainly packs a punch of thought and processing in that young brain! 

• Also, it’s important to note that not all books will fit into one of these genres, especially books that are considered “phonics readers.”  I would suggest that you do this exercise only with high-quality children’s literature, not with books that are attempting to get your child to “sound-out” on their own.  Most picture books found in children’s libraries will fit into one of these genres.

• Remember, our goal is for our children to learn to comprehend what they’re reading…otherwise reading will honestly do them little good.  When we encourage our children to think about and process the book we’ve just read together, we are inadvertently modeling what we hope they’ll one day do independently!

•  Word Families

• To put it simply, word families are words that rhyme.  Teaching children word families is a phonemic awareness activity that helps children see patterns in reading.  This is an important skill because it allows children to begin “reading” by grouping sets of letters within a word.  The first part of a word is called the onset and the last part of the word is conveniently called the rime.  Word families share a similar “rime” as the onset changes. 

• Once your child recognizes the word “mop”, he’ll then have an advantage to reading all of the other words that have the same rime (top, pop, stop, cop, hop) because only one letter is changing.  Plus, recognizing rhyming words is a great language skill in and of itself!

 Incorporate multiple domains of development Children learn best when multiple senses or areas of development are included.  That’s why hands-on learning produces longer retention and more meaningful application.  Once your child has shown an interest in letters and you have already begun to utilize natural settings for identifying those letters, begin implementing activities that incorporate as many senses as possible.  Keep in mind that learning letter names isn’t nearly as important as learning their sounds! 

There are a plethora of ways to incorporate multiple domains of development in regards to letter recognition and early-reading skills.  Alphabet crafts allow your child to learn the shape of a letter along with an association of the sound it makes all the while utilizing fine motor skills in the process of cutting, gluing, and creating!   Playing games that involve gross motor skills (like tossing beanbags on the appropriate letter) are also wonderful ways to include movement.  Of course, every child loves songs and rhymes!  Take an inventory of your child’s strengths and areas of interest and target activities to fit them!

 The information shared below is general information that is beneficial for children of all ages, whether your child is ready to read or not. Don’t implement all of these strategies at once, nor should you expect your child to be able to do everything right away.  It is a process and this information is simply for you to implement when you feel your child is ready.  

  Read to your child

Teaching your child to read is truly a process that begins at infancy.  Not only is this a special bonding time for the two of you, it instills in her a love for books. Enjoyment while reading is one of the single greatest predictors of reading success in school-age children. If children don’t learn from an early age to enjoy reading, it will most likely hinder their ability sometime down the road.

How much you read to your child is completely up to you and your family, but aim to read at least 3-4 books a day, even while your child is very young. As she gets a little older and can sit for longer stretches of time, make it a family goal to read together for at least 20-minutes each day.

Here are a few suggestions for the types of books to read to your child. But by all means, read whatever your child responds to and enjoys!

• Birth-1 Year: Lullabies, Board Books (with real pictures), Cloth Books (with various textures), Song Books

• 1 Year-3 Years: Rhyming Books, Song Books, Short-Story Board Books

• 3 Years-6 Years: Alphabet Books, Song Books, Picture Books, Rhyming Books
  
    Ask questions
  
  Asking questions while reading to your child is not only great for encouraging your child to interact with the book, but it is also extremely effective in developing his ability to comprehend what he is reading. You see, if our main objective in “reading” is getting our child to “sound out” words, we have missed the boat entirely. Even children who can decode words and “read” with great fluency still might not be able to comprehend what they are reading. If a child can’t comprehend what he is reading, there really is no point to reading at all!
  
  Once your child is about 2 or 3-years of age, begin asking questions before, during, and after reading the book. Show your child the cover of the book and ask him what he thinks it is going to be about (predicting). While reading, ask him what he thinks is going to happen or why he thinks a character made a particular choice (inferring). If a character is depicting a strong emotion, identify that emotion and ask your child if he has ever felt that way (connecting). At the end of the book, ask if his prediction(s) came true. Afterwards, ask him to tell you what he remembered happening in the book (summarizing).
  
  Modifying each of these techniques during read-alouds to meet the developmental stage of your child is a great way to promote and increase reading comprehension!
  
   
  Be a good (reading) example
  Even if your child is fascinated with books from an early age, her fascination will quickly dwindle if she does not see reading modeled in her home. If you are not an avid reader yourself, make a conscious effort to let your children see you reading for at least a few minutes each day! Read a magazine, a cookbook, a novel, ...it’s up to you! But show your child that reading is something that even adults need to do. If you have a son, share this article with your husband. Sons need to see their fathers read, especially since it is not something that young energetic boys are naturally prone to doing.
  
  As parents, we can sometimes get wrapped up with what exactly our children should be doing to be successful. But we often forget that children often learn by example. Grab a book and take a load off…for your child’s sake, of course!
  
  
    Identify letters in natural settings  

 “Environmental print” and includes all of the print we are surrounded by–fast food signs, labels, traffic signs, clothing, magazines, etc.

Often times, we want to force our children to learn letter names by a certain age.  We buy flashcards or DVDs claiming to teach our children their letters. .  Allow your kid to be a kid and take advantage of the “teachable moments” as they come along!  Children’s minds are like sponges and are certainly capable of memorizing the alphabet from drilling, but that’s not the most effective method that will produce the best long-term results. Your child will be curious about the print he sees around him and will ask questions.  That’s your chance to jump in with a practical application that actually has real meaning and significance to your child.

As found on: http://blog.maketaketeach.com/four-types-of-reading-assessments/

• Edited for our purposes in first grade

Focus on Independent Skills:

September life skill focus: wearing a mask properly, social distancing, 

October life skill focus:  maintaining eye contact when speaking to/with someone

November life skill focus: Address/ Phone number

December life skill focus: independent shoe tying

January life skill focus: Accepting/ Offering apologies. When accepting an apology, stay away from "that's okay" or "that's alright" because it wasn't okay or alright. It is possible it was an accident but, that's why the person is apologizing. Consider saying "I accept your apology" or "I do not accept your apology because___". When offering an apology look the person you are speaking to in the eye and say " I am sorry for ____". It helps the other person know that you understand what happened and why they were upset. 

February life skill focus:  Desk responsibilities - organizational strategies

March life skill focus: strategies when speaking with others

April life skill focus:

May life skill focus:

June life skill focus:  Reflecting on personal growth