1st grade supply list

Dear Parents

       First grade at Hermosa Vista is an exciting, fun filled Learning experience.  We are very proud of our first grade team.  As teachers, we love what we do, and work closely together to ensure that your child has the benefit of all of our strengths and expertise.
      As we look forward to the 2009-10 school year, we are anticipating an exhilarating year with a whole new group of wonderfully enthusiastic first graders.  The following explains some of the highlights of the first grade year, and includes information that may help you prepare your child for this important year.
      We will be offering an exciting, specialized reading program that will meet your child's individual needs, as well as, offering enrichment activities that will challenge students at all levels.
     Your child will learn to write his/her own stories and reports, including both fact and fantasy.  These stories, along with selected artwork, will be collected throughout the year to create a wonderful keepsake portfolio of your child's progress throughout the first grade year.
      We will read and study books by some of the most famous children's authors...like Norman Bridwell, Eric Carle, Marc Brown, and Barbara Park, just to name a few.
      Our math curriculum teaches a wide range of skills and concepts, incorporating higher level thinking.  We will use many fun "hands on" manipulatives to help students understand and explain concepts presented.
     Science and social studies will be taught using themes that incorporate skills from reading, writing, language arts, and math.  Some of the units we will present include; Holidays, bats, insects and spiders, weather, frogs, space, habitats, plants and seeds.
     We will also become "computer literate" as we vistit the computer lab, and work on our classroom computers.
    

We will be going on a couple of field trips.  The first will be a t the beginning of the year to a real teddy bear factory in Phoenix.  (One of only three in the United States.)  Each child will make their own bear after participating in a tour and some other fun activities.  In the spring, we go to the Phoenix Zoo to culminate our year long study of animals and habitats.