Salmon Clan - 1st Grade

Janet Osborn

jlosborn@seattleschools.org 

The Salmon Clan this year consists of 23 first graders. Twenty of the students were in the Salmon Clan last year as kindergartners. We have 3 new students. We have 14 girls and 9 boys.

This year the Salmon Clan will be working on reading, writing, and math all year long, almost every day. We will have social skills, social studies and science units throughout the year. Our academic goals reflect that of the Seattle Public Schools Standards.

This syllabus includes a list of the units for social studies and science for this school year. These units will be taught through integrated curriculum so that the children are learning the content through literacy and math as well as hands on inquiry based science. We will also do field work in most of these areas. I will keep you informed of the time line for these units through my classroom newsletter.

Also included are lists of strategies and activities we engage in all year for learning reading and writing. Attached to the syllabus are the reading and writing developmental continuums that outline skill development in those two areas. The emphasis for first grade is level B and C for reading and writing. However, we are certainly not limited to these levels and I will individualize instruction for children as they move along the developmental continuum.

The Seattle School District is in the process of adopting a new math curriculum: Everyday Math. The Kindergarten and First Grade classes at Pathfinder are required to use this new curriculum. The remainder of the school will continue this year with our previous curriculum. Everyday Math is a spiraling curriculum which teaches the various math strands throughout each unit.

The SPS standards do not supply a continuum for math as they do for reading and writing, so I have copied a list of the benchmarks for math that are included in the academic standards for first grade.

This syllabus provides a general outline for this school year. This syllabus is open to change to meet the needs of the students this year.

Classroom Culture: group development in our classroom through routines, rituals, rules, relationships and class meetings.

Northwest Native Culture: all school expedition with artists in residence, Spirit of the Salmon; a focus on the importance of salmon in the lives of the Native Americans of the northwest coast.

World Culture: learning how we are the same and different as people around the world through a study of regional markets. We will build on what we learned about homes around the world during last year’s expedition.

Salmon and their habitat

Fabric (National Science Foundation)

Organisms (National Science Foundation)

Animal Expedition (perhaps!)

WRITING WORKSHOP

Mini lessons in skills and processes

Independent writing time

Writing conferences

Partner editing

Sharing

OTHER WRITING

Shared Writing (teacher modeling writing process and skills)

Interactive Writing: Daily News (kids and teachers write together

HANDWRITING

Handwriting Without Tears

READING WORKSHOP

Mini lessons in skills and comprehension

Independent reading time

Individual reading conferences

Guided Reading Groups

Read Together (partners take turns or read same book together)

Reading Responses (oral and written)

Sharing (oral and written)

OTHER LITERACY

Poetry reading and writing

Read Aloud (teacher reads aloud)

Reading with Big Buddies in the Orca Clan

Spelling and Word Study

MATH (all year)

Morning routine

Calendar

Lunch count

Days of the year

How many altogether?

Schedule

Large and small group lessons

Math games

Math manipulatives

Math Workbooks

Mental Math Activities

Independent math work

Spontaneous math moments