ABC's of First Grade

Attendance: Daily attendance and being on time is very important to your child's growth and learning this year. Our school day starts at 8:30am with Crew. This is an important community building time for each student to be seen and heard. Please support your child in arrive on time. If you know your child is staying home sick or not coming to school, please call this number and send me an email: (303) 387-7002

Birthdays: During our school year we know how special birthdays are! On or near the day of your child's birthday we will take a few minutes out of our day to celebrate his/her special day. Your child will get a special birthday crown and pencil. Your child may also pick a special book from home to bring in on their birthday to read during our snack & story time that day. Please remember that Fox Creek is a healthy school and we do no celebrate with food items/treats. If you need help distributing birthday invitations I am happy to help either pass out to the whole class or put into backpacks of individual students.

Communication: Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. I check my email each day before school starts at 7:45am, during specials at 2:00pm, and after dismissal at 3:45pm. I am always available for phone conversations and/or in-person meetings. I look forward to partnering with you this year. My email is: eredmond@dcsdk12.org

Dismissal: Please share with me at Back to School night how your child will be going home each day after dismissal. If your child's dismissal will change or be different than the usual please contact me or the office and let us know if they will be dismissing at the blacktop, carline, BASE or bus. At dismissal, my teammates take students to the bus & carline and I walk all blacktop friends outside.

Expeditionary Learning: Fox Creek builds a culture on respect, responsibility, courage and kindness where students and adults are committed to quality work & citizenship. School structures and traditions such as Crew, community meetings, celebrations of learning and service learning ensure that every child is known and cared for & celebrated. Students are staff are supported to do better work and be better people than they thought possible.

Field Trips: We will take multiple field trips in first grade to meet our grand-friends and Lincoln Meadows Senior Living Center, to the Back Country to visit our bird experts, and to the outdoors to observe. I will communicate dates and volunteer opportunities in advance I hope you are able to join us on one of our many adventures.

Growth: First grade is a big year of growth academically and socially. I will work to continually share updates about your child's academics and social emotional learning throughout the year. Please see my weekly emails, monthly blog posts, and any other communication to stay updated.

Homework: Please see the page on the blog about "At Home Practice" for specifics. We believe that after a full day of learning, students should come home to spend some quality time with family and play. As first graders are becoming independent readers and thinkers, one of the most important aspects of at home practice will be 20 minutes of reading and thinking about books. Practicing sight words is one helpful way to build fluency and support students in reading grade level texts. Throughout the year, there will be individual projects shared about in our weekly emails that may need additional parental support. 

Independence: Gradually throughout the year, I will be sharing ideas of how to provide more opportunities for your child to show independence both at home and at school. At the beginning of the year, we will need to work together to guide and model for our students how to be responsible for their own items and what is expected. After students have a clear understanding, we can start to provide more opportunities for students to take ownership from being responsible for their Thursday Folder, packing their own snack, cleaning up after themselves, and learning to tie their shoes.

Jackets: Every day we will go outside even in cold temperatures. Please send your child with a jacket and appropriate clothing for our ever-changing Colorado weather.

Kindness: "One act of kindness can change the world" Our Habits of Character are a driving force in our Crew lessons and daily life in school. We will practice showing compassion for others along with the other habits of character: respect, courage, contribution, integrity, perseverance, and collaboration.

Lunch: You can add money to your child's account via School Bucks or you can send them in with cash or check. There is a snack bar for students purchase extra snack items (fruit snacks, cookies, cliff bar, etc.) which cost an extra $1. If you do not want your child purchasing these extra items you can opt out through their account.

Math: As a mathematicians, we use the thinking process when solving problems (think, draw, talk, revise). We use the enVision curriculum, which aligns with our k-6 programs. Topics covered include: fluently add/subtract with 20, word problems, adding 3 addends, determine if an equation is true/false, analyze and represent data, measurement with time and length, geometry (shapes and attribute) adding two 2 digit numbers without regrouping.

No Nuts: We are a peanut free classroom. Please send your child with a peanut free and healthy snack. Your child is welcome to have peanut products in the lunchroom.

Open Communication: I am looking forward to partnering with you this year. Please know I am alwys open and available to partner with you on the phone, email, and/or in-person. If there is ever anything that is going on (either home or at school) that you feel is important for me to know, I would greatly appreciate you contacting me so I can best support you and your child.

Prepared: Please support your child be helping them be prepared for the school day. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast promotes optimum learning. Research says that children at this age need up to 10 or more hours of sleep per night- so please make sure your child gets a good nights rest. Your child can begin lining up on the blacktop at 8:15am. Please do not drop them off earlier as there is no adult supervision before then. We ask that all students do not play on the play structure before school the same reason. School start 8:30am. 

Questions or Concerns: I am looking forward to partnering with you this year. Please know that you can always reach out to me via email with any questions, concerns, or comments. You know your child best and together we can support your child and help them to have a wonderful 1st grade year!

Reading: 1st grade is a big year of growth for our developing readers! It is important that we are supporting them throughout the year with decoding strategies and thinking strategies. It is important that students are reading for meaning vs. word calling. This means that after reading, they should be able to talk and think about what they read. In school, we will be using mentor texts to guide our discussions and passion for reading. We will also be teaching decoding strategies to solve unknown words. You can support your reader by reading with them and to them, practicing sight words, and doing iReady. 

• Decoding Strategies: What to do when you don't know a word
• Look at the picture
• Say the beginning sound
• Slide through the word
• Look for known chunks in the word
• Reread
• What makes sense
• Comprehension Strategies: How to understand what you've read
• Predicting, questioning, inferring, determining importance, synthesis

Snacks: Each day we will have a snack time in the afternoon to support our growth and brains when learning. It is helpful if you pack your child's snack separate from their lunch box. Please send in healthy snacks (fruit, vegetables, granola-bars- peanut free). Please do not send in sugary items (rice crispy treats, cookies, etc.) or any items that require a spoon (unless you provide it). Children will need to bring a pop-top water bottle to drink throughout the day.

Thursday Folders: A folder will be sent home on a weekly basis each Thursday which will contain classroom information, specific homework assignments, school wide information and an individual weekly notes. Please be sure to send the folder back the following Monday.

Understand: Let's seek to understand each other and our first grade learners throughout the year. If there is something you are worried about, not understanding, or want more information on let's work together "to seek to understand" the full situation together. As your child's parent you play an important role in their first grade year and my hopes are that we can work together to support your child.

Volunteering: There will be many opportunities to volunteer in our classroom throughout the year from regular reading group, Thursday folders, fieldwork trips, and special events at school. Please share your interest in volunteering either at school or at home with clerical projects at Back to School Night.

Writing: 1st grade is a big year for our writers! Our goal is for students to write 5 or more complete sentences on a single topic/story by the end of the year. We use mentor texts as well as first grade exemplars to inspire our writing growth. We will focus on conversations of a complete sentence, spelling strategies, adding details, strong leads and ending & types of writing. Students will write a variety of genres throughout the year: personal narrative, opinion, letters, poems, informational texts.

eXcited: I am so excited to be your child's teachers this year!

Year: First grade is a wonderful year of growth, joy, exploration, and collaboration. My hopes is this is a wonderful year that your child will remember fondly. Please remember you can always contact me.

Zzzz's: First graders need lots of sleep. Research states that children this age need an average 9-11 hour of sleep a night. Please support your child with getting enough sleep each night.