Some things that are soon to come:

Valentine's/Friendship Day party-Thursday, February 12th

President's Day-No school-Monday, February 16th

First Grade Field Trip-Boyce Thompson Arboretum-Tuesday, April 14th

Liberty Wildlife Presentation- Spring

Classroom Needs

As the flu season approaches, we are in need of some antibacterial wipes for our weekly desk cleaning.

In addition to furniture cleaning wipes, we would welcome some hand wipes as well.  I prefer the moisturized wipes instead of the hand sanitizer. Wal Mart "Equate" brand is the most inexpensive.

Finally, we will be planting seeds throughout the year.  We need CLEAR 10oz. or larger  plastic drinking cups for our seedlings.

THANKS SO MUCH!

Our Current Learning Goals

     We are becoming "word masters", immersing ourselves in our weekly word families!  Each week we use our letter cards to do word work, making and breaking words, adding inflectional endings, and practicing with our partners.  Each Friday, we take a sentence dictation "check up" to see which words we have mastered and which words are still tricky for us.

In Reading we are practicing "tricky word" strategies.  When we encounter a tricky word, we read on to the end of the sentence, and then come back, say the beginning sound, and try a word that matches and makes sense.

  In Math, we are become expert problem solvers.  We are learning strategies for solving "story" problems, using words, numbers, and pictures to show our thinking.  We share our ideas with each other and try new strategies that we learn from our classmates.

   We are reading and researching information about famous Americans.  In January we learned many interesting facts about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement.  Currently, we are "traveling" back in history to learn about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

During the next several weeks, we will be learning map reading skills that will help us as we prepare for our April field trip as well as our many spring break and summer break family road trips!

LINKS FOR YOUR CHILDREN!

Snowflake Bentley

Mount Vernon Virtual Tour

Spelling

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Honey Bees

Homework Information

HOMEWORK REMINDER

Yellow Take-Home folders need to come to school each day.  District homework guidelines suggest first grade homework three days a week for 15 to 20 minutes a day.  I consider homework to be a team effort.  I assign the task and give a stamp or sticker for a completed task.  The student completes the task.  The parent checks the task and INITIALS the box for that day.  PLEASE initial the box and take that opportunity to praise your child!

Spelling Check-up Celebration!  I am so proud of how well students are doing on their sentence dictation tests!  Thank-you for all of your help at home with drill and practice.  We will move on to more difficult words as they master these High Frequency/High utility words that are such an important part of our daily writing.  The lists shown in our links match the weekly story from our Trophies series, and represent common word families.  They are generally phonetically regular and predictable patterns.

First Grade Fall Book Drive!

We collected 1,000 books to donate to schools and libraries!

MEET MRS. SUTHERLAND

Welcome to First Grade!  I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself.  I earned B.Sc. in Elementary and Special Education  at Northern Arizona University.  I worked as an instructional assistant in special education prior to teaching fifth grade in the Mesa School District.  When our three daughters were born, I took a leave of absence to stay home and be a full time mom.!  During that time I was actively involved at their elementary school serving as an officer on the PTO board, and coordinating the Art Masterpiece Program.  As my children grew up I decided to re-enter the teaching profession.  I am in my eighteenth year teaching first grade at Mariposa.

I am a certified CLIP specialist, having received my training at ASU.  I received my SEI endorsement, as well as my student teacher mentoring endorsement from ASU.  I also have my Early Childhood Endorsement, and "Highly Qualified" status as per "No child left behind" requirements.

Link to email