Teachers: & Miss Gonzalez
Welcome to first grade! There are many wonderful events students will get to participate in this year. Students will be going on planned field trips and participating in various service projects throughout the year. There are numerous wonderful academic opportunities for students, and some include the Science Fair, and building stronger independent work habits. As a result, students will have more independent work in first grade than they had in kindergarten. We have high academic expectations, but we also have fun while learning. School begins at 7:45 with prayer in Cargill Hall, and tardies and absences will be logged in the system. We have recess daily to promote exercise and free play with classmates. Our Friday Letter can be found on the Saint Mary Catholic School website. Grades can be checked regularly on Family Portal.
- Students have more independent work in first grade than they had in kindergarten.
- There are higher expectations for student behavior and individual responsibilities of students.
- Classes begin at 8:00 am.
- Tardies and absences will be marked if your child is not on time, as they have missed crucial academic work.
- Students are working on whole group, small group, carpet time, and independent learning.
- Students are working on appropriate responses to correction of behavior.
- Students are working on manners and how to be a good friend.
- A homework packet is sent home weekly throughout the entire year.
- Students are expected to read 15 minutes nightly as part of their homework.
- Homework will be turned in but not for a grade.
- We are continuing to learn to read in first grade.
- We focus on improving reading comprehension and fluency.
- Students create AR products before taking AR tests. AR products very according to the child’s needs. These are done in class.
- Starting at the second semester, a quarterly test grade will be taken for students’ achievement of their AR goal and AR test average.
- We begin book clubs when the child is ready. We will read chapter books in the club.
- Students build vocabulary and comprehension skills.
- Students continuously use and improve their writing process.
- Students will continuously improve writing complete sentences with a capital letter and a punctuation at the end.
- We continue to learn print lettering throughout the year.
- Students start to build a foundation of English grammar. We work on Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.
- Students are encouraged to have a solid foundation of their addition and subtraction before entering first grade.
- We focus on building fluency with addition and subtraction problems in multiple ways Mathletics, Minute tests, games, small group instruction.
- We focus on problem solving with addition and subtraction, with money, and with geometric shapes.
- Word problems are introduced along with word problem solving skills.