Establishing a Good Routine in First Grade

As the weeks progress in first grade, we are striving to provide a warm, positive environment with great structure to our school day. This past week our class worked on establishing a routine with phonics instruction. We use a multi-sensory approach to teach simple sound/symbol relationships and progress logically to more complex concepts. Each week we present the children with lessons that use their visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning pathways. The children really seem to enjoy this success-oriented, direct instruction and we feel it leads to a balanced overall reading program. 

The first graders also seem to love math this year. They have been busy counting pennies, singing "The Money Song", identifying a number between two numbers, graphing a picture on a pictograph, dividing a solid in half, and even eating half an apple! They are eager to participate and explain what strategy they used to arrive at a particular answer. Between the mimio (white board) and manipulatives (geoboards, linking cubes, dot cubes, etc.), the children are focused ready to learn!

In social studies, the first graders continue to explore their community and what it means to be a good citizen. They are working on the concept of where they are in the world with regard to their city, state, and country. Likewise, they are learning to identify the leaders in our city, state, and country. The children will be ready for their first social studies assessment by the end of this coming week.

Our spelling words for this upcoming week are:

1. log
2. dot
3. top
4. hot
5. ox
6. lot
7. do
8. is
9. to
10. see