January, 2010                         

Dear First Grade Families,
Happy New Year!  Thank you for your support and generous holiday gifts.  Your gestures of gratitude were greatly appreciated.
We are looking forward to some new and exciting learning adventures during this part of the year and we want you to be a part of our learning.
In English, we will be exploring the continent of Antarctica by reading, writing, and representing all the things that we are learning about.  You can help by asking your first graders questions about what they are learning and you may want to pose some “I wonder… questions” yourself.  At the same time, in Spanish class, we will be exploring the climate, geography and plants and animals from the Rainforest.
The students in both classrooms will be exposed to reading different genres such as folktales, nonfiction texts, poetry, and letters. The students will be learning about the craft of letter writing.  You can support this by providing envelopes, stationary, stamps and the addresses of some willing friends and relatives that will write back to them.  If you have any extra supplies, we can add them to our “Letter Writing Station” at school.
In Spanish, we are doing author studies around Jan Brett and making connections between literacy and art.  In English we will be publishing the creative stories your first graders have written.

The students will begin a curriculum called, Discovering Justice through which they will learn about how rules have been made and changed throughout the years.  In English they will learn about the Underground Railroad and heroes such as Harriett Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Ruby Bridges.  They will read books about treating others kindly and develop strategies for recognizing, dealing with, and solving bullying situations.  They will be acting out scenarios as well as creating puppet shows to help empower them to understand and help others.
In math, they will be sorting, classifying, and analyzing collections of objects and information gained from surveys.  You can help by letting your first graders count, sort and classify objects at home such as, coins, buttons, beans, silverware, keys etc.  They will be collecting data from graphs with questions such as, Would you rather explore the deep sea or outer space? You can help by posting a question for family members and visitors to your home.  We will also be implementing the Ultimate Math Club with your help. Be on the lookout for an invitation to contribute a real life math problem for us to solve.  The 100th day will also be celebrated sometime in February.  As a part of this celebration you will be asked to help your first grader collect and create a collection of 100 items.
If you have any time, ideas, or contributions to the themes we will be learning about, feel free to contact us. We look forward to all the learning that lies ahead this year. We continue to appreciate all your support.

            Sincerely,
The First Grade Team,
Amy Moylan, María Castro, Chris Baer, and Elba Santiago