Please sit at your child’s seat. Please write your hopes and dreams for your child in first grade. Please take a minute to look through the books your.

• Please sit at your child’s seat.

• Please write your hopes and dreams for your child in first grade.

• Please take a minute to look through the books your child will use this year in first grade!

• Please begin looking through your child’s packet. Feel free to begin filling out the forms. They do not need to be turned in tonight.

Mission Statement

Sunny Hills is a community of life-long

learners who are committed to

academic and social growth and who celebrate each

student’s unique strengths.

First Grade

• Introduction

• Expectations

• Overview of the First Grade Curriculum

• Extras

• Sign up to volunteer in the classroom

• Sign up for parent/teacher conferences

Expectations: What you can expect from me

•I will strive to meet the academic, personal, and practical goals of each individual student.

•Weekly newsletters

•Open communication and a willingness to resolve any academic, behavior, and/or social challenges your child may experience

•Firm, fair, and consistent discipline

•Regular checking of emails/phone messages with timely responses (3 days).

•To foster a caring and encouraging environment for your child, where learning is applicable, challenging, engaging, and fun.

Expectations: What I will expect of your child:

•To come to school on time, ready to actively participate

•To exhibit good learning behaviors

•To take personal responsibility

•To develop independent problem solving skills

•To follow our class rules: Show Respect, Make Good Choices, Solve Problems

•To try his/her best

Expectations: What I will expect of you:

•To read with your child everyday

•To review the story with your child-having him/her recall the important events of the story

•To read the newsletters and discuss the events with your child

•To know your child’s weekly schedule

•Share with your child your expectations for his/her academic performance and behavior in school

•Support your child in becoming a responsible first grader

•Check your child’s folder daily

Thursday Daily Schedule8:30 Morning Work

8:45 Calendar/ Bathroom break9:00 Reading/Contracts10:15 Writing/Grammar/Word Work10:35 Recess11:00 Lunch11:20 Math12:15 Bathroom break12:20 Music12:50 Snack / Story1:05 Science/Art/Social Studies/Health1:00 Recess2:00 Writing Workshop2:30 Clean up2:53 Dismissal

ReadingThe Students will:

Read independently daily

Read to someone daily

Listen to someone read daily

Respond to reading daily

Read

Think

Discuss

The Teacher will:Guided reading groups (fiction and non-fiction) level & strategy

Shared reading

Read aloud

Reading Strategies

Assess reading to monitor progress and growth

Reading Year at a GlancePhonics:

Early Literacy Concepts

Phonological Awareness

Phonemic Awareness

Short vowels

Long vowels

Blending sounds

High Frequency Words

Spelling Patterns

Word Meaning

Word Structure

Comprehension Skills:

RetellingSequencingStory ElementsVocabularyMaking ConnectionsQuestioningPredictingVisualizingFinding EvidenceText FeaturesPoint of ViewCompare & Contrast

Reading Curriculum

Making Meaning- Strategies that Build Comprehension and Community– NEW

Fountas and Pinnell- Letters, Words, & How They Work- NEW

•Follow pacing of grammar, phonics, vocabulary, writing. •Spelling: Linked with Phonics, High Frequency Words, Embedded in writing.

Writer’s Workshop: Write, Revise, Edit, and Publish

•More directed writing: narrative, descriptive, short stories, poems, non-fiction, procedural.

MathEveryday Mathematics •Realistic approach to problem solving•Practice through games•Spiral curriculum

Emphasis is on these content strands:• -Number and numeration• -Operations and Computation• -Data and Chance• -Measurement and reference frames• -Geometry• -Patterns, Functions, and Algebra

Science•Classifying Plants and Animals•Sun, Moon, & Stars•Magnets & Motion•Habitats

•Inquiry, systems, and application skills are embedded in the science curriculum.

National GeographicScience Companion

Social Studies• Home and school rules - Rights and responsibilities (Citizenship)

• Families Near and Far

• Map and globe skills

• Families and Groups Meet Needs

•Exploring Where and Why

Health•Being Safe: School, Home, Outside

•Poison Labels & Germs

•Nutrition

•Emotions: Knowing your feelings

•Heart & Teeth

•Environmental Health

•Harcourt Health & Fitness

Technology

•Materials & Equipment

•Basic operations and concepts

•Word processing & curriculum related software.

•Web page navigating

•Technology ethics

• Monday PE• Tuesday Music• Wednesday PE• Thursday Library• Friday Music

• Please turn in library books on Wednesdays.

• Please wear appropriate P.E. clothes and shoes.

• Classroom Website: www.connect/sylverst.com

• BrainPop Jr. www.brainpopjr.com• Everyday Math www.everydaymathonline.com• Scholastic Bookclubs www.scholastic.com/bookclubs• Starfall www.starfall.com

A NEW – K-5 Science Curriculum adoption to ensure our students meet state requirements and experience the wonder of science from their first day in school. Working together with the PTSA's, $438,000 was raised to ensure every grade level would have an engaging, comprehensive curriculum that was aligned with state standards.

Leveled Bookroom to Support Literacy Curriculum – Classrooms are filled with children of all abilities and learning styles. The new Leveled Reading Rooms at our elementary schools provide teachers with ‘just right’ reading materials for every child –whether struggling, at grade level or advanced.  The new curriculum is the foundation of the District’s elementary literacy goal of ensuring all students not only ‘learn to read,’ but can ‘read to learn’ by the 3rd grade. 

Updated Library Media Collection to Enhance Instruction – To upgrade the library of media collection of DVD's to provide supplemental instruction tools for the teachers and students it supports. (2011-2012 / $1,000)

District Wide Visual Arts Lessons K-5 – Lesson plans for grades K-5, integrated with ISD Curriculum and aligned to WA State “Arts Framework” for Teachers and Art Docents. (2010-2011 / $7,500)

GLAD – a ‘best practices’ professional development program that helps teachers reach students of every learning style and help them excel. Sunny Hills has 12 GLAD trained teachers.

• PTA and ISF (Issaquah Schools Foundation)• Birthdays• Changes in schedules• Absences• Discipline Policy• Homework• Contact Information:

[email protected]• Volunteers