Grade 1

Sunday, May 17

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

Our first graders have been working so hard on their coral reef creature projects, and have been learning really cool facts about their animals! We are very excited and can’t wait for them to share their learning!

As we approach our last 2 weeks of distance learning, we wanted to let you know that we are truly grateful for all of your support and hard work throughout this time. It wouldn’t have been possible without you! We are also extremely proud of our children for being so flexible and resilient during this time of unexpected change. You are all AMAZING!

Here are a few notes and reminders for the week:

• Please complete the iReady Diagnostic for both math and reading by Monday, May 18th

• Mr. G, will be hosting another online parent forum. This is a wonderful opportunity to connect and share with other parents. This Google Meets session will be on Tuesday, May 19th from 3:00-3:45 pm, please use this to join: https://meet.google.com/eze-xtvz-eyd

Some questions to think about before the meeting include:

-What are your top 3 challenges?

-What are the top 3 things that have worked for you at home?

-How do you motivate your children to engage in the enrichment activities provided by the teachers?

-What are 2 things you do for yourself to cope, and keep your sanity?

• Please see the attached PDF schedule to pick up your child’s school belongings and return any leveled readers that your child may have borrowed from our classroom. There are specific days and times depending on the grade level of your children, and last name.

• This week for our Coral Reef Creature Project, your child can work on making a poster, model (play doh, painting, shoe box diorama, paper creation, Lego, etc.), video, finish/publish their “All About Book”, or anything to showcase their learning about their coral reef creature. It will be totally left up to your child! When you pick up your child’s personal belongings this week, please look for a bag that says “Author’s Celebration Snack.” We know it may be tempting to eat, but make sure that your child saves the snack and brings it to our google meets author celebration so we can all enjoy the treats together while we celebrate everyone’s hard work! Author’s Celebration Schedule:

C12 Thursday, May 28th at 9:15-9:45am

C5, C6, C11 Thursday, May 28th at 10:00-10:30am.

• This week will be the last week for the choice board activities. A schedule for the last week of school with special events will follow.

• Please visit the Waialae Distance Learning site for updates from our School Counselors and the Learning Commons.

Thank you,

Grade 1 Teachers

Sunday, May 10

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

Happy Mother’s Day!! We appreciate you not only today, but everyday for all your hard work, dedication, and support. May your day be filled with lots of love!

iReady Diagnostic:

This week we will begin implementing the Diagnostic tests for reading and math on iReady. We will be introducing each diagnostic test in our Fundations and Math review sessions. After the introduction to the diagnostic test, the children will spend the remainder of the time working on their diagnostic test. If your child is unable to attend the introduction sessions, your child may go on independently to begin the diagnostic tests starting on Monday, May 11th. Please complete the math and reading diagnostic by Monday, May 18th.

• Please see the attached pdf below with further details explaining the iReady Diagnostic #3.

Here are a few notes and reminders for the week:

• Mr. G, will be hosting another online parent forum. This is a wonderful opportunity to connect and share with other parents. This Zoom session will be on Tuesday, May 12th from 3:00-3:45 pm, please use this to join: https://meet.google.com/eze-xtvz-eyd

Some questions to think about before the meeting include:

-What are your top 3 challenges?

-What are the top 3 things that have worked for you at home?

-How do you motivate your children to engage in the enrichment activities provided by the teachers?

-What are 2 things you do for yourself to cope, and keep your sanity?

• On Thursday, May 14th from 3:30 - 4:30 pm we will host an online session on Tips for Reading with your First Grader, please use this link to join: meet.google.com/rtg-ufrk-grq

• This week for our Coral Reef Creature Project we will be working on answering questions #4, revising and editing our work, creating our table of contents, and front cover. Pre-recorded lessons are posted in your child’s Seesaw activity: Coral Reef Creature Project.

• Please visit the Waialae Distance Learning site for updates from our School Counselors and the Learning Commons.

Thank you,

Grade 1 Teachers

Sunday, May 3

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

Mahalo for the feedback that you have provided us through our second Family Feedback Online Survey. If you haven’t been able to fill out the survey, you can still fill it out here! Based on your feedback:

• We will be putting together an online parent session on Tips for Reading with your First Grader. Date and Time for this session will be announced soon.

• We have reached out to our lower school counselor, Mr. G, to help organize an online parent session to address the areas of Helping Kids Cope with Emotions and Setting Routines and Schedules. This Zoom session will be on Tuesday, May 5th @3:00-3:45 pm, please use this link here to join.

Meeting ID: 775 4344 0947 Password: 6dHPms

Here are a few notes and reminders for the week:

• This week we will be having a special guest presentation from Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii! They will be teaching us all about the ocean plastics problem and how we can protect the coral reef!

-The presentation for C11 and C12 will be on Monday, 5/4 from 9-9:30 am. You can join the meeting with this link.

-The presentation for C5 and C6 will be on Tuesday, 5/5 from 9-9:30 am. You can join the meeting with this link.

• This week for our Coral Reef Creature Project we will be working on answering questions #2 and #3. If you haven’t gotten a chance to start, it’s not too late. Pre-recorded lessons are posted in your child’s Seesaw activity: Coral Reef Creature Project.

• Please review the attached pdf below with your child about online meeting etiquette and expectations. The pdf title says "Zoom" but is applicable for any online platform.

• Mahalo to the Aunty Allison (Owen’s mom) and her family for delivering our thank you notes to the doctors and nurses. Below are pictures of their delivery.

Thank you,

Grade 1 Teachers

Please visit the Waialae Distance Learning site for updates from our School Counselors and the Learning Commons.

Sunday, April 12

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

Thank you so much for all the feedback you’ve provided us through the Family Feedback Online Survey. 75% of families have completed the survey. If you haven’t been able to fill out the survey, you can still fill it out here!

Based on your feedback:

• We added links to the choice board. Each activity title or website name will link to the site where the activity can be completed. Links should be active in the pdf sent through your email. To access the links in Seesaw, click on the image template, then press on the “View Original” button. This should take you to a pdf with active links.

• Many families were interested in having their child participate in our Seesaw Classroom Blog to stay connected with their peers. Teachers are working on setting up their blogs, and plan to post student work (for those who gave permission through the online survey) on Friday, April 17th.

• We will be doing weekly video chat check-ins. Each teacher has sent email instructions for their classes’ video check-ins last week Thursday. Please refer back to that email for more detailed information including a video chat permission form and link to sign your child up. Only those who have done both will be sent an email invitation for the meeting. Mahalo!

• First grade teachers, student teachers, and special guests will be doing a daily Morning Greeting and Read Aloud. Links for the daily Morning Greeting will be posted on Seesaw each morning.

• We are attaching additional activities that families can print out if you are looking for more paper/pencil work for your child to do over the course of the upcoming weeks. Again, these are optional and are just another resource of enrichment activities that are offline. You do not need to upload completed work to Seesaw.

• We are attaching a “New student sample schedule” if you feel this would be helpful for your family.

We will continue to send out the following week's video check-in information and sign up on Friday.

Weekly newsletters and choice boards will be sent on Sunday. All activities will be posted on Seesaw on Monday.

Mahalo,

Grade 1 Teachers

Please see the attached newsletter from our School Counselors and visit the Waialae Distance Learning site for updates from the Learning Commons.

Extra Writing Activities

Extra Fundations Practice

Lockdown Journal

Extra Math Activities

Extra Reading Activities

Sunday, April 5

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

We hope the first week of enrichment activities went well. Thank you to all the families for your flexibility and patience in troubleshooting the different platforms we are working with. Please continue to reach out to us if you need any additional support.

To help us plan for future activities, we have created a Family Feedback Survey for you to give us some feedback on how this first week of online enrichment went for you! Please fill out the Family Feedback Survey by Tuesday April 7th.

Important Notes:

• Our weekly newsletter and choice board will be sent out on Sundays to give families time to prepare the choice boards and needed materials for your child.

• All Seesaw activities will be posted on Monday. Please do not feel that your child must complete the activities all at one time. The children have the entire week to complete activities.

• At the end of the week, a weekly reflection activity will be sent out on Seesaw. Please have your child reflect on their week and post their response.

• Encourage your child to post a daily picture or video of something they’ve done to Seesaw, and their teachers can leave comments! We look forward to seeing all the great things they are doing at home!

• Please reach out to us if you are in need of a digital device, or Wifi connection to access our distance learning enrichment activities. We will work with you to coordinate getting a device for your family.

Mahalo,

Grade 1 Teachers

Please visit the Waialae Distance Learning Site for updates from the learning commons and also see the attached newsletters from our School Counselors.

Monday, March 30

Aloha First Grade Families,

Here is your child’s first week of optional enrichment activities to do while they are at home! These activities will be on a choice board that will include a variety of things your child can do to keep active, explore their passions, practice activities from special subject classes (Hawaiiana, Music, P.E., and Art), and help them continue to keep some of their school routines of engaging in reading, writing and math.

The choice board is attached and will be sent to your child through Seesaw, so please make sure that you’ve set up your Seesaw Home Learning Account. Instructions on how to set up your child’s account along with your child’s login code, was emailed to you on Friday. We’ve also included a sample schedule if you feel this would be helpful. The sample schedule includes the same activities as the choice board, so feel free to use whichever one works best for your family.

Directions to get started:

1. Log in to your Seesaw Home Learning account.

2. Click on the Activities tab to view the choice board for this week’s enrichment activities.

3. You may choose a few activities to do each day. You can view the choice board on SeeSaw, or if you have access to a printer, you may print out a hard copy for yourself.

4. As you complete each activity, take a picture of your work/creations, or ask a family member to take a picture of you doing any of the activities.

5. Post 1 picture a day to Seesaw and make sure to click on the record button to record an explanation or caption of what you did. This way your teachers will be able to see and hear all about the exciting work you are doing at home! Teachers will be able to leave you comments, and stay connected with you!

6. At the end of the week, take a picture of your printed choice board, and upload it to your Seesaw account. If you didn’t print out the choice board, use Seesaw to highlight the activities you’ve completed on the choice board.

Passion Project/Exploration: For these activities, please see the attached PDF to find ideas of things you can do! There are links to food activities, virtual field trips, art activities, nature activities and more!

Virtual Learning Commons- The link sent out in a previous email wasn;t linking so hopefully this one works!

Please remember that these are OPTIONAL enrichment activities that you can do, but are not required to do. Have fun, be safe, and we look forward to seeing all the exciting things you are doing!

Thursday, March 26

Aloha Grade 1 Families,

We hope you are all doing well and are staying safe during this unpredictable and challenging time. We wanted to reach out to you as a First Grade Team to let you all know that we have been working remotely to make sure our first graders are engaged during the time we are away from school. As a team, we understand that families are adjusting and may not be able to participate in all activities. During this time, please put your family first! The health, safety and happiness of your child is more important than their academic work.

Teachers will provide optional enrichment activities. On Monday, March 30th, we will send out a sample schedule and choice board/bingo menu of activities your student can do at home. We will try to make the activities things that your child can do independently, however they may need parent support to get started. As we begin offering these online enrichment opportunities - please be patient and flexible. This is new to us as teachers as well! Many of us have families with small children at home and we are all learning how to balance everything. We are all in this together!

We will email the choice board and sample schedule on Monday, March 30th. Students will have the full week to complete the activities. Students can post a picture of their work on Seesaw.

Teachers will be sending students individual login information for online resources (Seesaw Home, Epic, Reading A-Z, iReady). Look for those emails by Friday evening. This way you can set up logins at your convenience, it may be easier to set them up now so your student is ready to go for enrichment week!

Due to school closures, all field trips have been canceled. For updates and information about school closures, schedules and services please visit the Wai’alae Covid-19 Updates Website.

Thank you for all your care and support during this challenging time.

Me ke aloha,

Grade 1

Specials, MLL, Counselors, and Learning Commons Announcements