First Grade Teacher

Stephanie Naranjo

First grade is a very important year in a child’s life.  It is part of the foundation upon which everything else is built.  One of our main goals in first grade is to develop strong organizational and listening skills.  We will also strive to acquire excellent reading and writing skills.  This strong background helps us in all other areas of our curriculum, such as science, social studies and even math.  Reading is the key to success and parents can play a very important role in this developing process.  Encouragement and displaying one’s own love of reading will set the tone for the year.  Our day is a constant motivation to do our best at work as well as play.

Reading – We will do small group guided reading , as well as use our reading series for large group instruction.  We will work on phonics, comprehension, and other strategies and skills necessary to decode and read fluently.

Math – Through many hands on activities first graders learn addition and subtraction facts through 20, place value and number patterns, problem solving, money concepts, telling time, 2-3 dimensional figures, and 2 digit addition and subtraction.

Language – Everyday we write in our journals.  We will also write short stories, and learn about the parts of speech that help us make good sentences.

Religion – We learn that Jesus is God’s greatest gift to us, that we are followers of Jesus, that we belong to the church through Baptism and that the Mass is a special meal that Jesus shared with his followers.

Spelling – We begin with a review of beginning and ending sounds.  We learn to spell short and long vowel words and use phonetic skills to use spelling in our daily work.

Handwriting – We learn the D’Nealian printing method which helps with the transition into cursive writing in second grade.

Social Studies – First graders learn about our family at home and at school, working together in a community, celebrating American heroes, caring for the earth, and learning how to be good citizens.

Science – In science we learn about kinds of living things, earth’s land and water, keeping fit and healthy, magnets, and weather and seasons.