Welcome!

"We are all pieces of  a puzzle. Everybody's input & their journeys & where they have been help to put that puzzle together." - Melody Thornton

Book of the Month!

Our book of the month for this September is... 

Pete The Cat and His Magic Sunglasses By Kimberly Dean & James Dean 

Dear First Grade Families, 

Welcome to First Grade! I am so excited to be your teacher this school year! We are going to have such an awesome school year together! I have been planning so many exciting activities for us to do together this school year, such as writting narratives, rockin' rhymes, and reading awesome books!

First grade is a year to take risks, discover new ideas, and make new friends. As we prepare for an exciting and fun packed year together, I want to stress my classroom goal, which is that every student is made for greatness. Every learner is different and I plan to make it my priority to help each student succeed! It is important to know that our classroom is a safe environment, where all students will have the opportunity to be a vital part of our classroom community!

 This school year, your child will be developing their reading and writing skills based off of the New York State Common Core Curriculum. If you have any questions or concerns about your child or anything that will be taking place in our classroom this year, please feel free to contact me via email or phone call. It is my hope that your child will explore new information this upcoming school year and will create ever lasting memories in our classroom setting. I am looking forward to a year filled with lots of laughs, new friends, and exciting activities!

Can't wait to meet you!

Love, 

Ms. Halpern 

Essential Question and Big Ideas we will be focusing on this year!

Below are some essential questions and big ideas that we will be learning about this year!

Essential Questions 

- How can I write for different purposes?

- How can I learn to spell words I don’t know?

- Why is it important to understand what we read?

- Why is it important to retell details of non-fiction text?

Big Ideas

- Students will understand that writing narratives involves different purposes

- Students will understand that knowledge of letter sounds and relationships will help them become better readers and writers

- Students will understand that good readers read with accuracy and expression 

- Students will understand that students use details in the text to identify the main topic of the story

School Suplies List 

• 2 Notebook
• Colored Pencils
• Crayons
• Pencils
• Erasers
• 2 Folder

Family Support Inside and Outside of the Classroom

• The classroom setting is an integral part of each child’s learning experience. It is my hope as a teacher to make sure that all families are involved in their child’s learning experience. Learning does not only take place inside the classroom, but can also take place outside of the classroom. In order for this to occur, I have included some recommendations that I encourage all of our first grade families to look at in order to become involved in your first graders learning experience!
• Some ways I like to encourage families to work with their students' includes…

                      > Keeping up with assignments on our class website

                      > Being involved in our class community 

                              - I invite all families to feel free to come into our classroom setting. Whether it is volunteering to attend a class trip or simply coming into class to read a story, all are welcomed to be apart of our class community! 

                      > Monitoring work being completed inside and outside of the classroom 

                               - It is important that your child continues working on their reading and writing even when they are outside of the classroom. Ways that this could be done include monitoring your child’s reading log or even monitoring your child’s writing journals. All students are asked to be reading two books from their "Amazon Shopping Carts." In the beginning of each week, students are asked to pick ten books that they are allowed to keep in their shopping carts and read, until the very end of each week. If your child is reading a book separately at home, please have your child include this book in their log also. Logs will be given out to all students in class!