Welcome to 1st grade at Grand View Elementary! I’m delighted to have your child in my class this year! Here are a few items of importance that you should be aware of to ensure your child’s success in 1st grade.

     Virtues
The school has adopted virtues within the school and talk about the importance of having good virtues in and outside of school.  As a school we will focus on one virtue a month and expect all students to display proper virtues in the school. 
Our classroom’s discipline model comes from Love & Logic.  Here are the main concepts that we use with Love and Logic.

• We believe students should be responsible for solving their own problems and adopting new behaviors with adult guidance provided the solution does not make a problem for others.

• We believe that we should make every attempt to maintain the dignity of both the student and the adult during a disciplinary situation.

 

• We believe that students should be given the opportunity to make decisions; they should see a reasonable connection between their actions and the consequences that follow.

 

• We believe this misbehavior should be handled with natural or logical consequences instead of punishment, whenever possible.

IRI
   Children in Idaho in grades K-3 are assessed on the Idaho Reading Indicator (IRI) three times    
a year; in the fall, the winter, and the spring. This is to evaluate various reading skills. Below is
    a chart that shows what skills will be tested on the three different tests.

Fall		Winter		Spring
Letter Sound Fluency		Letter Sound Fluency		Letter Sound Fluency
Reading CBM—fluency THIS IS A PRACTICE UNTIL SPRING		Reading CBM—fluency		Reading CBM--fluency
Letter Sound Fluency

 

It is very important that your child is reading every night, for at least 20 minutes, even on the weekends and during school breaks!  During the year I will send home little reading activities and ideas for you to use with your child.  You don’t have to use these activities; they are just ideas to make learning fun and exciting for your child.

AIMSweb

In addition to the IRI our district uses AIMSweb to progress monitor our students on these same skills.  Please remember this is another tool for us to use to ensure that your child is growing and progressing in reading and math!

Homework

Reading is extremely important in 1st grade!  Please read with your child every night for at least 20 minutes!  Reading helps to promote good vocabulary, listening, critical thinking, and fluency skills in your child.

Box Tops

Please keep saving those Box Tops for Education! Every top earned is worth money for our school and helps to provide supplies and materials for our programs.

 

 

Your involvement is very important to your child’s education!  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me at school at 834-2775 from 7:45 a.m. to 4:35 p.m.  If I am not available please leave a message on my classroom’s voicemail and I will return your call as soon as possible, or you can e-mail me at tgoodman@sd365.us !