FIRST GRADE NEWS
STEP UP DAY
Dear Families,
Hi! We are very excited to be your child’s first grade teachers! We’re going to have lots of fun. We have many great themes in grade one. Some of them include: friends, sound/light, traditions, space, rainforest/environmental issues, rivers and oceans. We also read many different types of genre and do author studies. A few of the authors we focus on are: Kevin Henkes, Robert Munsch, Tracy West, E.B. White and Iza Trapani.
First graders are asked to purchase items to add to our communal supplies. These items can usually be found on sale extremely cheap towards the end of summer. The items we would like each child to bring to open house are: Clorox wipes, glue sticks, Crayola markers, Crayola crayons, one bottle of Elmer's glue, one box of Ticonderoga pencils (pre-sharpened), one box of plain brown bandaids, one watercolor paint set (the eight circle kind), a highlighter, tissues and a one inch three ringed binder (labeled with your child’s name). We greatly appreciate your help with these things that we will put to good use throughout the entire school year.
Students should also have a backpack each day for school. We will provide a plastic VCS folder. We will use the folders to send homework and notes home. We check the folders each morning so it’s a great way to send notes to school. It would also be helpful to keep a plastic reusable bag in the front pocket of your child’s backpack. This helps when there are projects to bring home.
Parents always ask what they can do at home to get their child ready for the next year. First and foremost, have fun! Make memories! Take advantage of your child’s sweet, young age and go exploring. Time moves too quickly. If you still want to do things, we’ve attached the sight word list we use, the Intro the Everyday Math letter, math activities, and literacy activities.
We are willing to be penpals with your child. Ms. Kimball’s addresses are: lkimball@veaziecs.org and 28 Edgewood Drive Brewer, ME 04412. Mrs. Allen’s addresses are: aallen@veaziecs.org and 891 Mann Hill Road Holden ME 04429. This is a great time to talk about there being two first grade rooms next year. You will find out which room your child will be in sometime in August. We need to wait and see if we have any move ins/outs. Please know that we plan on doing lots of things together so your children will get the same experience in a smaller setting.
We will both have a first grade blog that everything is posted on: vcslk1@blogspot.com & https://firstgradefunwithmrsallen.blogspot.com/ .It also has lots of pictures and curriculum information on it. Feel free to check it out! Also, we use a website called portaportal, www.portaportal.com. It houses all of the websites we use in grade one. The password is vcs2. Feel free to check that out as well.
Have a great summer! We look forward to working with you and your child this upcoming school year!
Sincerely,
Laurie Kimball
Ashley Allen
