1. Welcome Families: Please sit at your child’s seat.
Please write your hopes and dreams for your child in first grade.
Please take a minute to look through the books your child will use this year in first grade!
Please begin looking through your child’s packet. Feel free to begin filling out the forms. They do not need to be turned in tonight.

2. Mission Statement
Sunny Hills is a community of life-long learners who are committed to academic and social growth and who celebrate each student’s unique strengths.

3. First Grade Introduction Expectations
Overview of the First Grade Curriculum
Extras
Sign up to volunteer in the classroom
Sign up for parent/teacher conferences

4. Expectations: What you can expect from me
I will strive to meet the academic, personal, and practical goals of each individual student.
Weekly newsletters
Open communication and a willingness to resolve any academic, behavior, and/or social challenges your child may experience
Firm, fair, and consistent discipline
Regular checking of s/phone messages with timely responses (3 days).
To foster a caring and encouraging environment for your child, where learning is applicable, challenging, engaging, and fun.

5. Expectations: What I will expect of your child:
To come to school on time, ready to actively participate
To exhibit good learning behaviors
To take personal responsibility
To develop independent problem solving skills
To follow our class rules: Show Respect, Make Good Choices, Solve Problems
To try his/her best

6. Expectations: What I will expect of you:
To read with your child everyday
To review the story with your child-having him/her recall the important events of the story
To read the newsletters and discuss the events with your child
To know your child’s weekly schedule
Share with your child your expectations for his/her academic performance and behavior in school
Support your child in becoming a responsible first grader
Check your child’s folder daily

7. Thursday Daily Schedule
8:30 Morning Work
8:45 Calendar/ Bathroom break
9:00 Reading/Contracts
10:15 Writing/Grammar/Word Work
10:35 Recess
11:00 Lunch
11:20 Math
12:15 Bathroom break
12:20 Music
12:50 Snack / Story
1:05 Science/Art/Social Studies/Health
1:00 Recess
2:00 Writing Workshop
2:30 Clean up
2:53 Dismissal

8. Read Think Discuss Reading The Students will: Read independently daily
Read to someone daily
Listen to someone read daily
Respond to reading daily
Read
Think
Discuss
The Teacher will:
Guided reading groups (fiction and non-fiction) level & strategy
Shared reading
Read aloud
Reading Strategies
Assess reading to monitor progress and growth

9. Reading Year at a Glance
Phonics:
Early Literacy Concepts
Phonological Awareness
Phonemic Awareness
Short vowels
Long vowels
Blending sounds
High Frequency Words
Spelling Patterns
Word Meaning
Word Structure
Comprehension Skills:
Retelling
Sequencing
Story Elements
Vocabulary
Making Connections
Questioning
Predicting
Visualizing
Finding Evidence
Text Features
Point of View
Compare & Contrast

10. Reading Curriculum
Making Meaning- Strategies that Build Comprehension and Community– NEW
Fountas and Pinnell- Letters, Words, & How They Work- NEW
Follow pacing of grammar, phonics, vocabulary, writing.
Spelling: Linked with Phonics, High Frequency Words, Embedded in writing.
Writer’s Workshop: Write, Revise, Edit, and Publish
More directed writing: narrative, descriptive, short stories, poems, non-fiction, procedural.

11. Math Everyday Mathematics Realistic approach to problem solving
Practice through games
Spiral curriculum
Emphasis is on these content strands:
-Number and numeration
-Operations and Computation
-Data and Chance
-Measurement and reference frames
-Geometry
-Patterns, Functions, and Algebra

12. Science Classifying Plants and Animals Sun, Moon, & Stars
Magnets & Motion
Habitats
Inquiry, systems, and application skills are embedded in the science curriculum.
National Geographic
Science Companion

13. Social Studies
Home and school rules - Rights and responsibilities (Citizenship)
Families Near and Far
Map and globe skills
Families and Groups Meet Needs
Exploring Where and Why

14. Health Being Safe: School, Home, Outside Poison Labels & Germs
Nutrition
Emotions: Knowing your feelings
Heart & Teeth
Environmental Health
Harcourt Health & Fitness

15. Technology Materials & Equipment Basic operations and concepts
Word processing & curriculum related software.
Web page navigating
Technology ethics

16. Specialist Schedule Monday PE Tuesday Music Wednesday PE
Thursday Library
Friday Music
Please turn in library books on Wednesdays.
Please wear appropriate P.E. clothes and shoes.

17. Extra’s Classroom Website: BrainPop Jr. www.brainpopjr.com
BrainPop Jr.
Everyday Math
Scholastic Bookclubs
Starfall

18. Sunny Hills and ISF
A NEW – K-5 Science Curriculum adoption to ensure our students meet state requirements and experience the wonder of science from their first day in school. Working together with the PTSA's, $438,000 was raised to ensure every grade level would have an engaging, comprehensive curriculum that was aligned with state standards.
Leveled Bookroom to Support Literacy Curriculum – Classrooms are filled with children of all abilities and learning styles. The new Leveled Reading Rooms at our elementary schools provide teachers with ‘just right’ reading materials for every child –whether struggling, at grade level or advanced.  The new curriculum is the foundation of the District’s elementary literacy goal of ensuring all students not only ‘learn to read,’ but can ‘read to learn’ by the 3rd grade. 
Updated Library Media Collection to Enhance Instruction – To upgrade the library of media collection of DVD's to provide supplemental instruction tools for the teachers and students it supports. ( / $1,000)
District Wide Visual Arts Lessons K-5 – Lesson plans for grades K-5, integrated with ISD Curriculum and aligned to WA State “Arts Framework” for Teachers and Art Docents. ( / $7,500)
GLAD – a ‘best practices’ professional development program that helps teachers reach students of every learning style and help them excel. Sunny Hills has 12 GLAD trained teachers.
From 2009 to 2011 Foundation funded investments at Sunny Hills Elementary include:

19. Additional Information
PTA and ISF (Issaquah Schools Foundation)
Birthdays
Changes in schedules
Absences
Discipline Policy
Homework
Contact Information:
Volunteers