Our First Grade Team:  Ms. Natalie Sloboth, Ms. Olivia McDaniel, Ms. Desma Trescott

Welcome to 1st Grade!

Hello Families!

We are so excited to welcome you and your child to 1st Grade! Teaching 1st Grade is so much fun because we get to see such incredible growth and development in students' learning and abilities throughout the school year. The year will be jam packed with loads of new learning and continued development of Kindergarten skills; it will be busy but it will be so fun! 

In 1st Grade we will cover the following instructional areas: Phonics, Literacy (including Writing), Math, Social Studies, Science and SEL. Below we have listed out the main academic standards and areas that we will be covering all year long and the curriculum programs we use in our classrooms. If you are ever looking for more detailed information on standards for 1st Grade in Colorado, you can always visit the CDE website: Office of Standards and Instructional Support | CDE. 

Phonics

We will use the Fundations curriculum program to teach phonics this year. As we progress through the year, we will keep you updated on what units and topics we are currently working on. Generally, each unit will focus around the following skill sets and will build upon the foundational skills your child learned in Kindergarten:

• Recognize the name, identify the sound, and write, all uppercase and lowercase letters, including vowels, as well as consonant digraphs, blends, and vowel teams.  

• Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.

• Read and spell the first 100 high-frequency words, including irregular words. We refer to these as “Trick Words.” Additionally, read and spell words with a variety of spelling patterns including, CVC, CCVC, CVCe and compound words as well as words with various suffixes (-s, -es, -ed, -ing).

• Use correct spelling conventions such as punctuation, capitalization and spaces between words. 

At the start of each new unit in Fundations, we will send home a newsletter detailing what specific topics we will be covering over the course of that unit. 

Math

We will use the Bridges math curriculum to teach math this year. In our monthly 1st Grade newsletters we will include details about what specific topics we are focusing on that month. In first grade our major learning will focus around addition and subtraction, place value, and shapes. Within that students will do the following throughout the year:

• Add and subtract with numbers up to 20, including solving story problems. We will use drawings, words, numbers, and mental math to solve those problems.

• Count to 120 and learn about place value (ones, tens, hundreds).

• Identify, sort, and draw shapes.

• Fit shapes together to make other shapes, solve puzzles, and talk about fractions.

• Practice basic measurement and compare length and size of objects.

• Tell and write time to the hour and half-hour.

Literacy

We will use HMH Into Reading curriculum for our literacy instruction this year. This is a new program that we started using last year for the first time and we will continue to use it throughout this year. HMH is the same curriculum we use for writing and that instruction is included in our daily literacy block. We will include what unit and skills we are working on in HMH each month in our monthly newsletter as well. Our literacy instruction will address the following skill sets this year:

• Communicate using verbal and nonverbal language to express and receive information and use multiple strategies to develop and expand oral communication.

• Apply foundational reading strategies to fluently read and comprehend literary texts and informational texts. 

• Write a variety of pieces including opinion writing, informative/explanatory writing, and narrative writing with a clearly stated topic, related details, and a sense of closure. 

• Use appropriate grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. 

• Participate in shared research and inquiry projects, writing, recalling, or gathering information to answer questions. 

If you ever have any questions or would like further information regarding your child’s learning throughout the year, please contact your child’s teacher directly. As we mentioned above, our monthly newsletter will always include details about our current learning so that you know what exactly your kiddo is learning as the year goes on. 

The 1st Grade team is so excited for an incredible year ahead and we cannot wait to see what amazing things your 1st Grader accomplishes this year! 

Thank you,

The 1st Grade Team

Natalie Sloboth, Desma Trescott, Olivia McDaniel