* Note anything underlined in the table above or in the notes below is a clickable link for your convenience *
Key to Abbreviations:
GP- The Gospel Project- Home Edition
TB- Singapore Math Textbook
WB- Singapore Math Workbook
EP- Singapore Math Extra Practice
MM- Mental Math (see appendix in HIG)
AAS- All About Spelling teacher manual (click here to print any missing phonogram cards)
FLL- First Language Lessons
SF- Sounds First Phonemic Awareness Program (click here and scroll down to Grade 1)
OPG- The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading (click here to print OPG sight words)
SotW- Story of the World
G&B/A- The Good and The Beautiful, Arthropods
G&B/MB- The Good and The Beautiful, Marine Biology
Coming Soon:
Tuesday, August 12- First Day of School! Morning Assembly begins in the sanctuary at 8:45am, with our school day officially starting at 9:00am.
Thursday, August 14- Spirit Day (no pizza)- Students may wear Fortis spirit wear (t-shirts) along with jeans or shorts on Spirit Days (see dress code for guidelines on length of shorts).
Tuesday, August 26- Picture Day
Thursday, August 28- Spirit Day/Pizza Day/DOGS Day! Students may wear Fortis spirit wear (t-shirts) along with jeans or shorts on Spirit Days. Pizza lunch will be served for those who have prepaid. Dads of Godly Students (DOGS) will present a fun assembly for the students and visit with them during their lunch time.
Hello, parents!
Welcome to 1st Grade, and thank you for checking in on the blog! Weekly blog posts are written to provide details and guidance for co-teachers for your homeschooling days. The blog for the upcoming week will be posted at 4:00pm on Monday.
As we kick off this new year, it's good to remind ourselves of the driving force and inspiration behind all that we do.
Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. ~ Psalm 127:1
Therefore, through prayerful consideration, my aim is to bring every lesson - be it classroom expectations, the rise and fall of nations, God's marvelous creations, and even proper punctuation- back to our Maker, Savior, and Helper.
He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls. ~Proverbs 25:28
With this verse in mind, one focus the first week is establishing a safe, controlled, and utterly loving environment through which the children can experience genuine peace and joy with each other while they are in my care. I'll emphasize Habits of the Heart and the Fruit of the Spirit this week as we focus on expectations.
I've planned for you to find this week a gentle, peaceful introduction to 1st Grade, and I pray it will be so. I will be checking my emails often, so please reach out if you have any questions!
Your faithful cheerleader,
Mrs. Kuhn
Discipleship/Bible:
As a school, we will be hiding John 15 in our hearts this year, one verse at a time. I encourage you to learn the verses along with your child. It is always fun and encouraging for children to "test" their parent. It may be more challenging for you than it is for them!
Verses listed in the Virtue section of the spreadsheet will be emphasized in assembly as a part of character building lessons, but are not required memory verses.
The Gospel Project: Home Edition will be our main Bible curriculum. I'm excited to walk through the Old Testament with the students, discovering as we go how God's redemption story has been in action all along.
The sections of The Gospel Project that you should cover at home are Preparing Their Hearts, Receiving His Word, Apply, and Review Questions. It is also recommended that you read the Prepare To Teach section before teaching the lesson. The teacher guide will suggest that you complete workbook pages, videos, Bible dictionary activities, etc. Those are all optional. At the end of each lesson there is a Bible notebook assignment. It is your choice as to whether you want to assign those to your student. Fun Day lessons are also optional, but encouraged if you have the time! Teach your child to recite the answer to the Big Picture Question on the spreadsheet each week.
Math:
We start out with math lessons right away this week. Remember, the concrete portion of the lesson (in the HIG- Home Instructor's Guide) is extremely important and not to be overlooked. You may need to prepare manipulatives and the lesson ahead of time. Check the Co-Teacher Notes column in the blog spreadsheet at the beginning of the week.
The "Reinforcement" section of each Home Instructor's Guide lesson is optional unless specifically mentioned in the blog assignment. You will see those sections assigned a couple of times this week.
On HIG pg 2, note that you are instructed to ask your student to read number word cards on their own. However, number words are not decodable yet except six, five, nine, and ten. You may have them read those cards, but for the other number word cards, you may just tell them the word for now.
On HIG pg 6 (including Reinforcement), spend extra time counting backward. If your child can easily count backward from any number within 10, challenge them with counting down from a number within 20.
Remember to place a sticky tab in your child's Workbook and move it to the correct page so that they can readily find it when they get to school.
Spelling:
Spelling Journals will come home on the first day of school. There is no need to do anything with them this week; we are just building the habit of bringing the journal to and from home/school each day.
We intentionally begin official spelling lessons next week so that you have the opportunity to prepare and organize your materials at home this week. It is essential that co-teachers understand pages 7-31 in the AAS Teacher Manual. Please take the time to carefully read that section and reach out to me with any questions that might come up. A couple of tips may be helpful:
Setting up your card box for AAS (see page 21 of Teacher's Manual for reference)
-The following cards are all review from kindergarten. You should start with these filed in the Review tab for each type of card:
Phonogram cards (yellow) 1-32 and 34: letters a-z, th, sh, ch, ck, ng, nk, wh, ph*, tch*
Sound cards (red) 1-32 and 34: letters a-z, th, sh, ch, ck, ng, nk, wh, ph*, tch*
Rule cards (blue): cards 1-8
-The rest of the cards that came in the Level 2 Student packet can be filed in the Future Lessons tab for each type of card. You will pull cards from the Future Lessons tab and add them to the Review tab as we introduce them throughout the year. Eventually they will move to the Mastered tab.
If your child did not already learn the blue Rule Cards from Level 1 in kindergarten, use the Review on pages 37-42 of the AAS Teacher's Manual now to introduce them to your student. We will be discussing them next week in class.
*tch is card #54 and ph is card #63; see the next section for how to print more phonogram cards that were not included in your packet
Printing more phonogram cards
To maximize resources and minimize cost, we will be using the yellow AAS phonogram cards within the spelling curriculum AND "borrowing" them to use along with our reading curriculum. Since spelling is a skill that follows reading, we will be moving through many more phonograms in reading than in spelling. The phonogram cards that came included in the AAS Level 2 packet you purchased will not cover all the phonograms we will learn in our reading curriculum. Therefore, you will need to print the rest of the phonogram cards that we will use for reading from this link. Use double-sided printing to print pages 6-10 (front of cards) and pages 16-20 (back of cards). When you have them ready, you can file them in the Future Lessons tab of your box. You can print another set to use as sound cards, or you can choose to use the same cards as both phonogram cards and sound cards (depending on the way you present the card to your student).
All About Me:
This is a fun project designed for students to get to know one another as we begin to cultivate community within our classroom. The project and instructions will be sent home on Tuesday. Please help your child prepare their project and practice speaking about their family, their favorite color, their favorite book, and their favorite activity. They will be presenting these to their classmates on Thursday.
Grammar:
First Language Lessons includes several poems for memorization. However, we will be memorizing our quarterly poems instead of the poems found in the FLL curriculum. Each poem that we will memorize for the year can be found behind the Poetry tab in your student's white binder.
Writing:
In the Language Arts section of the campus binder, you'll find a convenient reference sheet for the proper formation of each letter. We follow the Handwriting Without Tears guidelines. Remember to sit with your child to coach them in correct pencil grip, letter formation, and letter placement. You can create your own copywork pages for extra practice using this link.
Reading:
After you have printed your extra phonogram cards (instructions in Spelling section, above), you have one more set of cards to print- sight word cards for OPG (click here for link). I suggest organizing these flash cards in the same fashion as your AAS cards and using similar tabs (Review, Mastered, Future Lessons) for them. File kindergarten words (cards L29 - L76) in the Review or Mastered section of your card box as appropriate. File the remaining sight word cards (L91-L156) in Future Lessons section. (Lesson numbers are in small, black font on the bottom right of the card)
You will teach the irregular word (sight word) "was" to your student this week using the "Routine for teaching Irregular Words/Heart Words" handout in your student's binder. OPG does not teach "was" until a much later lesson, but it is useful for students to know it sooner than later, and they have all the phonics knowledge to be able to learn it now. Be sure to print out the flash card for it and keep it in the review tab in your card box. Other sight words that should be in your review box from kindergarten are: the, I, a, of, have, give.
Read Aloud:
The first titles from the required reading book list that we will use are The End of the Beginning and Little Bear. We will begin reading these soon, so please locate your copies now if you haven't already. This week, read aloud to your child from a book of your choice, and remember to aim for 20-30 minutes total each day.
History:
We will generally do a lesson in class on Tuesday which corresponds to reading you've done with your child at home on the prior Friday.
Remember to have your child orally narrate the sections you read to them. This means that after you read, your student gives you a retelling in their own words. At first, you may want to ask for oral narration after a short passage, with the goal of working up to longer passages in the future. Another goal with oral narration is using complete sentences, so you may need to guide them on how to rephrase their summary into a sentence.
On Friday, on the first available page in their history journal (which is the back half of the Science and History Journal), students should copy the sentence for Chapter 1: The earliest people were nomads. They may draw a picture to accompany their sentence, but a picture is not required.
Geography:
You'll find all maps for the year in the binder behind the Geography tab. We will practice maps in class, but practice outside of class will be necessary for mastery. You can access all the map songs for the year at this link.
You can also find the entire CD of Kathy Troxel Geography Songs to purchase through ChristianBook.com (scroll down a little to find just the CD).
Our first map is Continents and Oceans, due 9/9.
Science:
Similar to History, readings at home on Wednesdays will lead to class activities on Thursdays, and there will be a journal sentence for your child to copy. However, there is no at-home assignment for Science this first week.Memory Work:
The poem for this quarter, "Persevere," is due 9/30. Please start working on this soon so your child can have plenty of time to learn it. Find your copy in the Poetry tab of the binder.
Reminders:
- The Curricula section of the Main Page of the blog is where many of our links come from, and is great to peruse and become familiar with.
- Check the "Left at Home" side of the folder in your child's binder daily for items to be removed and filed at home. Items in the "Right Back to School" side usually need to be completed and brought back to school, though there may not always be any action necessary on your part. If there are items you would like to keep in your student's binder for reference, please hole-punch them and insert them in the binder rings.
