First Grade Weekly Update February 24th-28th
Weekly Syllabus: February 24th-28th, 2025
Reminders
Full Week!
Sunday, March 2nd is our Family Mass at St. Philip Neri Church @ 9:00 hosted by the 1st and 2nd grade classes. All are welcome to attend.
Religion
Virtue of the month: Perseverance-perseverance falls under the category of Fortitude.
Perseverance means taking the steps necessary to carry out objectives in spite of difficulties. Keep going and don’t give up.
Saints associated with perseverance are St. Peter the Apostle, St Maria Venegas de la Torre, and St. Monica.
Chapter 10 Signs of God’s Love. Students will explore how we can be lights in the world for others, discover the Sacraments and the effect of the Sacraments of Baptism, and decide how we can a light in the world with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Language Arts
Unit 11 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Decode/encode and recognize spelling patterns for contractions with pronouns, decode homophones (it’s its, their there, you’re your), and recognize and spell memory words (their, now, always, because, and been).
Spelling Words: I’m, he’s, she’s, it’s, we’re, you’re, I’ll, he’ll, she’ll, and you’ll
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated reading of a story, read a story with appropriate volume, read and discuss a grade-level literary and informational text, identify the lessons a story teaches, recognize problem and solution, and identify the main topic and key details of a literary and informational text.
Writing: Answer questions about a text using story evidence.
Author Study: Ezra Jack Keats
Mathematics
February Number Corner: The arrival of the tenth decade, the 100th day of school, makes February an exciting month. Both the Days in School and Number Line workouts pay tribute to this special number. The Computational Fluency workout brings focus on multiple addends, and students use a variety of efficient strategies to compose groups flexibly. In addition to the numeration work, students name and describe pairs of two-dimensional shapes shown on the Calendar Grid markers and determine whether or not the shapes in each pair are congruent.
We will begin Bridges Unit 5 Module 1: Module 1 focuses completely on two‑dimensional shapes, particularly those found in the pat‑ tern blocks (triangles, trapezoids, squares, hexagons, and rhombuses), plus rectangles. The work with shapes includes comparing, distinguishing defining attributes from non-defining, and developing problem-solving strategies. Students use pattern blocks to create composite shapes and solve puzzles, and practice drawing the shapes each day.
First Grade Weekly Update February 17th-21st
Weekly Syllabus: February 17th-21st, 2025
Reminders
Monday, February 17th is a holiday in honor of Presidents’ Day. No School.
Tuesday, February 18th is February birthday free dress.
Religion
Virtue of the month: Perseverance-perseverance falls under the category of Fortitude.
Perseverance means taking the steps necessary to carry out objectives in spite of difficulties. Keep going and don’t give up.
Saints associated with perseverance are St. Peter the Apostle, St Maria Venegas de la Torre, and St. Monica.
We continue with Chapter 9 The Church Celebrates Jesus. Students will explore how families celebrate Jesus, learn about the church year and Advent, learn about the seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter, decide ways to celebrate Jesus all year long, and pray a prayer to praise God.
Language Arts
Unit 10 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Changing y to i before adding -er and -est endings, practice adding -er and -est endings to -y words, guide practice with comparative and superlative adjectives, review spelling patterns: ai, ay for /ā/.
Spelling Words: say, may, play, happier, happiest, down, too, work, many, and first
Reading: Guide fluency practice for the Superkids Short, Review Unit 10 Words to Know, identify sequence of events in a literary text, discuss characters in a literary text, identify picture-text relationships in an informational text, discuss the author’s purpose for writing either a literary or informational text.
Writing: Explanatory Writing: Revising a how-to text by adding details
Author Study: Ezra Jack Keats
February Number Corner: The arrival of the tenth decade, the 100th day of school, makes February an exciting month. Both the Days in School and Number Line workouts pay tribute to this special number. The Computational Fluency workout brings focus on multiple addends, and students use a variety of efficient strategies to compose groups flexibly. In addition to the numeration work, students name and describe pairs of two-dimensional shapes shown on the Calendar Grid markers and determine whether or not the shapes in each pair are congruent.
We will begin Bridges Unit 5 Module 1: Module 1 focuses completely on two‑dimensional shapes, particularly those found in the pat‑ tern blocks (triangles, trapezoids, squares, hexagons, and rhombuses), plus rectangles. The work with shapes includes comparing, distinguishing defining attributes from non-defining, and developing problem-solving strategies. Students use pattern blocks to create composite shapes and solve puzzles, and practice drawing the shapes each day.
First Grade Weekly Update February 10th-14th
Weekly Syllabus: February 10th-14th, 2025
Reminders
Valentine’s Day will be celebrated on Friday, February 14th. Students can bring in their Valentines to pass out to their classmates.
Friday, February 14th is also a half day. Noon dismissal and no school on Monday, February 17th in honor of Presidents’ Day. No Share and Care today.
Religion
Virtue of the month: Perseverance-perseverance falls under the category of Fortitude.
Perseverance means taking the steps necessary to carry out objectives in spite of difficulties. Keep going and don’t give up.
Saints associated with perseverance are St. Peter the Apostle, St Maria Venegas de la Torre, and St. Monica.
Chapter 9 The Church Celebrates Jesus. Students will explore how families celebrate Jesus, learn about the church year and Advent, learn about the seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter, decide ways to celebrate Jesus all year long, and pray a prayer to praise God.
Language Arts
Unit 10 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Associate y with /ī/, associate y with /ē/, distinguish between y/ī/ and y/ē/, associate ay with /ā/, Memory Words (down, too, work, many, and first), and -y as an ending for adjectives.
Spelling Words: by, fly, cry, try, belly, jelly, smelly, bunny, funny, and sunny
Reading: Fluency practice with a literary text, Words to Know (produce, plenty. disturb), identify sequence of events, identify setting, recognize text features, make predictions, understand main idea and key details, and draw conclusions.
Writing: Explanatory Writing: How to…
Author Study: Ezra Jack Keats
Mathematics
February Number Corner: The arrival of the tenth decade, the 100th day of school, makes February an exciting month. Both the Days in School and Number Line workouts pay tribute to this special number. The Computational Fluency workout brings focus on multiple addends, and students use a variety of efficient strategies to compose groups flexibly. In addition to the numeration work, students name and describe pairs of two-dimensional shapes shown on the Calendar Grid markers and determine whether or not the shapes in each pair are congruent.
Bridges Unit 4 Module 3: The third module continues to develop students’ conceptual understanding of our number system through explorations with open and closed number lines. In particular, it focuses on skip-jumps along the number line in multiples of 5 and 10. Students have fun guiding frogs that hop over stones and lily pads, racing along number lines both forward and backward in distances of 1, 5, and 10, and develop confidence adding and subtracting in multiples of 5 and 10 both on and off the decade.
First Grade Weekly Update January 20th-24th
Weekly Syllabus: January 20th-24th, 2025
Reminders
Monday, January 20th No school in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
Tuesday, January 21st Students need to be ready to recite their Oratorical reading. We will be choosing students at random, so everyone needs to be ready on Tuesday. They may not be presenting on Tuesday, but they do need to be ready. We will have presentations all week.
Tuesday, January 21st is January birthday free dress.
Wednesday, January 22nd is a noon dismissal for faculty and staff professional development and Spirit Day-Pajama Day.
Religion
Chapter 8 The Church. Students will learn: how we live as members of the Church family, how the church helps us live as followers of Jesus, how people who help us live as followers of Jesus, how to show reverence for God and service to others, and to praise and thank God for the Saints.
Language Arts
Unit 8 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Decode CVVC words with ue and ie, decode CVVC words with ing and ed endings, read an informational text, recognize and spell memory words, recognize and understand dialogue punctuation, and identify speakers in a play.
Spelling Words: blue, tie, heat, keep, would, could, some, one, new, and were
Reading: Read and discuss grade level literary text, understand characters and connect ideas using cause and effect, discuss plot structure, identify the topic of an informational text, understand and use homophones, and determine the meaning of key vocab words.
Writing: Generate ideas for a debate, choose a side for the debate, use a web to plan a debate, discuss a briefly record ideas for the debate, complete a debate plan using opinions and reasons, review and practice good speaking skills for a debate, review good listening skills, and debate and respond to each side.
Author Study: Laura Numeroff
Mathematics
January Number Corner begins, and students find familiar routines infused with fresh elements. Calendar Grid markers feature single equations and story problems with missing addends, minuends, or subtrahends, and students tell math stories to match the equations and use various strategies to solve for the unknown parts. They return to collecting coins in Calendar Collector and record their collection on a graph. They also learn to use known facts to solve related facts of 1 more or 1 less. Finally, they meet a favorite frog’s little sister and join her in skipping across the number line by 5s as they come within a decade of reaching the 100th day of school.
Bridges Unit 4 Module 2: In Module 2, students work on the number line as they continue to develop a rich sense of numbers and number relationships. This engaging module challenges students’ reasoning abilities as they work to determine the value of empty number boxes placed strategically on the open number line. Students help frogs move across stones on a number line in jumps that include multiples of 5 and 10, tell stories about the frogs’ actions, and record equations to match.
First Grade Weekly Update January 13th-17th
Weekly Syllabus: January 13th-17th, 2025
Reminders
Thursday, January 16th– 8th grade jeans day fundraiser.
Friday, January 17th – No School-Elementary Staff Day
Religion
Chapter 7 The Holy Spirit, Our Helper-Students will explore how the Holy Spirit is our special teacher, discover how the Holy Spirit helps and teaches us and helps us, and how to make good choices with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Language Arts
Unit 8 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Decode CVVC words with ai, oa, ea, and ee, read a decodable story with CVVC words, recognize CVVC spelling patterns for ai, oa, ea, and ee, encode CVVC words with ai, oa, ea, and ee, use describing words to compare and contrast settings, complete sentences using memory words, understand and use adjectives and feeling words, and review exclamation points.
Spelling Words: mail, nail, tail, rain, train, boat, coat, float, load, and road
Reading: Develop fluency reading with repeated readings of a story, read a story with appropriate rate, understand and discuss setting, problem, and solution, listen to and discuss a complex informational text, identify main topic and retell key details, identify steps in a process, and connect text to self.
Writing: Form and support opinions, discuss opinions, generate shared lists of topics, plan an opinion paragraph, discuss opinion paragraphs, write an opinion paragraph, and complete opinion paragraph.
Author Study: Laura Numeroff
Mathematics
January Number Corner begins, and students find familiar routines infused with fresh elements. Calendar Grid markers feature single equations and story problems with missing addends, minuends, or subtrahends, and students tell math stories to match the equations and use various strategies to solve for the unknown parts. They return to collecting coins in Calendar Collector and record their collection on a graph. They also learn to use known facts to solve related facts of 1 more or 1 less. Finally, they meet a favorite frog’s little sister and join her in skipping across the number line by 5s as they come within a decade of reaching the 100th day of school.
Bridges Unit 4 Module 1: Module 1 works to familiarize students with the number line as a mathematical model and an operational tool. Students use a life-sized number line to locate and identify numbers, and to begin to model addition and subtraction problems. Later they play a game in which they help a frog jump along a number line. In addition to helping students develop confidence with the number line as a computational tool, the activity helps deepen their understanding about the relationship between addition and subtraction.
First Grade Weekly Update January 6th-10th
Weekly Syllabus: January 6th-10th, 2025
Reminders
Welcome back and happy new year! I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing break.
Religion
Chapter 7 The Holy Spirit, Our Helper-Students will explore how the Holy Spirit is our special teacher, discover how the Holy Spirit helps and teaches us and helps us, and how to make good choices with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Language Arts
Unit 7 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Decode CVCe words with ing and ed endings, recognize spelling patterns for CVCe words with ing and ed endings, read a decodable story with CVCe words with endings, understand how to use interjections and abbreviations.
Spelling Words: baking, baked, smiling, smiled, oh, any, day, good very, and want
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated readings of a story, read and discuss a grade level literary text, understand and discuss characters, make predictions, connect events: cause and effect, make predictions, discuss plot structure (beginning, middle, and end), discuss and record sequence of events, and develop vocabulary.
Writing: Discuss the parts of a friendly letter, discuss ideas for a friendly letter, and write and edit a friendly letter.
Author Study: Laura Numeroff
Mathematics
January Number Corner begins, and students find familiar routines infused with fresh elements. Calendar Grid markers feature single equations and story problems with missing addends, minuends, or subtrahends, and students tell math stories to match the equations and use various strategies to solve for the unknown parts. They return to collecting coins in Calendar Collector and record their collection on a graph. They also learn to use known facts to solve related facts of 1 more or 1 less. Finally, they meet a favorite frog’s little sister and join her in skipping across the number line by 5s as they come within a decade of reaching the 100th day of school.
The focus for Bridges Unit 3 Module 4: Module 4 uses Unifix cubes throughout. Students have opportunities in the first two sessions to write addition expressions and compare equations within the range of 0 to 120. Later in the module, students engage in activities that highlight the “difference model” of subtraction. The final session encourages students to explore part-part-whole relationships to develop and solve subtraction equations in which the subtrahend is missing.
First Grade Weely Update December 23-January 3
Weekly Syllabus: December 23rd-January 3rd, 2024
Mrs. Ratto and I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Enjoy the break with your friends and families.
There is no homework over the break, but be sure to keep reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Classes resume January 6th.
See you in the new year!
First Grade Weekly Update December 9th-13th
Weekly Syllabus: December 9th-13th, 2024
Reminders
Tuesday, December 10th is December Birthday Free Dress.
Sunday, December 8th is the Second Sunday of Advent. We light the second purple candle which represents peace and preparation. It is called the “Bethlehem Candle” as a reminder of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. We also reflect on our lives and work on becoming better-versions-of-ourselves in preparation for Jesus’ coming.
Religion
We continue with Advent. The Second Sunday of Advent focuses on Peace.
Language Arts
Unit 6 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Identify short and long vowel sounds, decode CVCe words, read a decodable story, decode difficult words from an informational text, and read and spell memory words (said, only, you, out, of, and here)
Spelling words: game, same, ride, side, said, only, you, out, of, and here
Reading: Read dialogue with expression, read and discuss grade level literary text, listen to and read informational text, read and discuss grade level informational text, make predictions, understand author’s purpose, discuss picture-text relationships, understand and use the suffixes -ness and less
Writing: Informational Paragraph
Author Study: Jan Brett
Mathematics
Number Corner
The workouts for December continue to focus on many of the concepts introduced in November. Students complete their collection of 24 hours and learn how each day is divided into two equal parts, a.m. and p.m. They expand their exploration of doubles and halves to include numbers to 20 and become even more familiar with counting patterns as they work with the fifties and sixties and place value. The Calendar Grid features familiar items and a growing pattern of three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms.
The focus for Bridges Unit 3 Module 2: In Module 2, the focus is again on addition and subtraction facts. The number rack is used to help students recognize number combinations (primarily to 10), subitize (recognize subsets within a given quantity), find the sum of two numbers, and compare two numbers to find the difference between them. This module introduces two Work Place activities, each designed to develop student confidence with number combinations in the range of 0 to 10. Session 4 provides a short written checkpoint assessment.
First Grade Weekly Update November 18th-22nd
Weekly Syllabus: November 18th-22nd, 2024
Reminders
Monday, November 18th-Saint Reports are due
Tuesday, November 19th Free Dress for everyone and Pizza Lunch
Wednesday, November 19th is November Birthday Free Dress
Wednesday, November 20th is a noon dismissal for Professional Development
Thanksgiving Break is the week of November 25th-29th. School resumes on Monday, December 2nd.
In the homework folder there is an activity for the Advent Season. We will begin to put the ornaments on our tree on the hallway bulletin board starting on the 1st. You can begin thinking about and filling in your ornaments during the Thanksgiving break. This is meant to be done for all of Advent. You do not need to fill in all of the ornaments in one weekend.
Sunday, December 1st is the first day of Advent.
Religion
We will finish Chapter 6 Jesus Shares God’s Love-Students will explore how we share God’s love with others, discover the ways Jesus showed his love for us and that Jesus was raised from the dead and gave us all new life, and that we are all called to share God’s love with others as Jesus did.
Language Arts
Unit 5 Lessons 6-10
Word Work: Read and decode words with ing and ed endings, decode words from an informational text, use and spell Memory Words (there, from, be, we, on, and to), encode verbs with final ck adding ing and ed, understand and use adjectives, and use conjunctions or and and.
Spelling Words: flipping, flipped, stepping, stepped, there, from, be, to, we, and or
Reading: Develop fluent reading with repeated readings of a story, read words with endings accurately, read and discuss grade level informational text, describe problem and solution, cause and effect, and characters, determine the meaning of key vocabulary words and phrases (yapped, zigged, zagged, yuck, and track), and use words to know (wonder, curious, discover, and imagine).
Writing: Brainstorm to generate adjectives, write descriptive details, write a description of a creature, use descriptions to identify creatures, record sensory details about a place, and draw and write a description of a place.
Mathematics
Number Corner
The workouts for December continue to focus on many of the concepts introduced in November. Students complete their collection of 24 hours and learn how each day is divided into two equal parts, a.m. and p.m. They expand their exploration of doubles and halves to include numbers to 20 and become even more familiar with counting patterns as they work with the fifties and sixties and place value. The Calendar Grid features familiar items and a growing pattern of three-dimensional shapes such as cylinders, spheres, cubes, and rectangular prisms.
The focus for Bridges Unit 3 Module 1: Module 1 focuses on single-digit number facts. Each of the three Work Place activities introduced is designed to encourage facility with number fact families, including doubles relationships. The number rack is used strategically throughout as a tool to model addition story problems. It also plays an important role in helping students conceptualize the difference between even and odd numbers and understand how knowing the nature of even and odd numbers can help solve addition problems.
First Grade Weekly Update November 11th-15th
Weekly Syllabus: November 11th-15th, 2024
Reminders
Please donate to the Annual Fund if you are able to
Saint Reports are due on Friday, November 15th
Monday, November 11th no school-Veterans’ Day Holiday
Friday, November 15th is Minions and Friends Spirit Day
Religion
We will continue Chapter 5 Mary, the Mother of Jesus-Students will explore how courage helps us live as disciples of Jesus, discover what the Bible tells us about Mary, discover that Mary had great trust in God, learn that Mary is our mother, and learn that the psalms are prayers in the Bible.
Language Arts
Unit 5 Lessons 1-5
Word Work: Identify base words with ing and ed endings, recognize ing and ed spelling patterns, introduce Memory Words (there, from, be, we, on, to), understand and use adjectives, and understand and identify time-of-action verbs with ing and ed endings.
Spelling Words: helping, helped, asking, asked, hugging, hugged, shopping, shopped, grinning, and grinned-the rule here is that when the root word has a short vowel and two consonants after it, just add the ending (helping). When the root word has a short vowel and one consonant after it, you need to double the consonant before adding the ending (hugging).
Reading: Understand and describe characters and events, make and confirm predictions, compare and contrast characters, identify character traits, connect ideas of cause and effect, retell key details, and understand and use Words to Know (wonder, curious, discover, and imagine)
Writing: Describe how an object looks and feels
Mathematics
Focus for November Number Corner: This month’s workouts delve into fractions and telling time. Students discover a pattern of friendly animals chomping snacks into wholes, halves, and fourths in the Calendar Grid, and the focus on fractions carries over to Calendar Collector. There, telling time is introduced to the hour and students use fractions of a circle to consider whole and half on an analog clock. November includes the 50th day of school and students use the hundreds grid to discover that they are halfway to the 100th day of school.
We continue with Bridges Unit 2 Module 4-The focus for Bridges Unit 2 Module 4 is on counting by 5s and 10s to become more efficient at counting amounts larger than 10. Three of the sessions use five-armed sea stars as a context for counting and students work together to make a quilt that exemplifies the counting by 5s pattern in the variety of ways. Making the quilt blocks also involves some work with shapes and fractional pieces. The last two sessions introduce games that feature pennies, nickels, and dimes-another good context for counting by 5s and 10s, as well as reinforcing the counting on strategy. The games also give students practice counting collections of coins and comparing two-digit numbers.