Class News
Hello 1st Grade Families,
I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful weather today!
Here is a snapshot of our upcoming work for this week and an explanation of a few changes.
If there is anything you need or anything I can do to help your child please contact me and we can work through it together. If you need extra time for assignments let me know and we can work that out also.
The kids are doing wonderful and I am very thankful for your support of them at home. I know this is not easy, but we are doing it and I think we are doing it very well!!
Give my kiddos giant hugs and please tell them I miss their beautiful faces, smiles and laughs!
Have a wonderful week and stay safe,
Mrs. Perry
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
April 3rd Weekly Update
Hello Parents!
Congratulations! You have made it through our first week of distance learning. I know this week was difficult, but now that we have created accounts and gotten all of our technology working I know that next week will be much easier.
At this time in 1st grade, teacher support is being pulled back a lot in the classroom. We do this to help the students become more independent learners that are ready for the expectations of 2nd grade. Most students are able to read the stories in our ELA lessons on their own as well as the Scholastic News, Cold Read, Studies Weekly, DLR and Daily Geography. You should not need to sit next to your child and complete these assignments with them. They should be completing them on their own and then having you check over them once completed. They should also be able to keep track of their own book log at this point. I am not requiring a book log be turned in, but I think it is a good idea for students to still keep track of their reading at home.
If you see a missing assignment in Google Classroom, but you know you have turned it in please do not worry. It is going to take me a day or two to go through everything that I get sent to me and to mark it as turned in. Also, I am not as concerned about due dates as I am about the quality of the work. Please let me know if you need me to adjust anything to help you. My focus is on the quality of work. If you are having trouble getting through all of the assignments please let me know. I have spoken with Mrs. Turro and she has told families with 3-4 children in the home to work 1:1 and focus on the youngest child in the family until everything with that child is going smoothly. Then to move on to the next youngest. It may take several days or weeks, but it is ok. The administration and myself understand.
You will see assignment grades are being entered in portal just as they were when we were in the actual classroom.
I am not requiring you to submit the following work. You may review it with your child and if your child needs help with it then notify me and I can work on it with them.
1. Morning Journal
2. Math Lessons ( We are doing these in our live classes)
3. DLR (We will go over and correct it in our Friday live class)
4. Book logs. Please make sure your child reads at least one book or chapter a day.
5. Daily Geography (We will go over and correct it in our Friday live class)
I am hoping that not having to scan and submit everything will make this easier on the parents. If you would like to wait until Friday or until Sunday of each week to upload all work to me that is fine. You do not need to worry about uploading assignments daily. Please do what works best for you and your family.
Next week, we will be using SeeSaw, BrainPop/BrainPop Jr., and Mystery Science frequently. If you have not gone in and signed up for a new BrainPop/BrainPop Jr. account please do so as soon as possible. Directions have been sent via email and are on the Google Classroom Stream and are also located in the Google Classroom Classwork tab.
I am here to support you and your child however I can. If you are running into an issue or have a question please come to me and let me know directly. I can't help if I do not know.
I appreciate your support and patience. I am lucky to have such a great group of families to work with. Have a restful weekend and I will see the children Monday at 10am for our Live Class Meeting.
Air Hugs,
Mrs. Perry
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello Wonderful 1st Grade Families,
Thank you to PTO and all of our wonderful parent volunteers that have been working so hard on our beautiful new playground!!! The class is so excited to get out there and play!helped our school have such a wonderful Book Fair. The kids had so much fun shopping for their books!
I would like to thank you all for the early birthday wishes. I appreciate you all for always thinking of me and for your kindness and sweet words!!! I plan on spending this weekend with my family and my newest grandhorse, Esquire, LOL! This week in Class...
Reading: Students started reading the book "Far From Home". Through the use of this book, students will learn about informational text.
Writing: We have started the new year off with learning about explanatory writing. Students are correctly working on a story that explains their favorite foods. This week they brainstormed ideas, completed their graphic organizers and worked on writing their rough drafts.
Social Studies / Health: The class discussed roles of authority and who is in charge of making rules and laws. We also talked about bullying and conflict resolution.
Math: Students are working in Topic 6. They are learning how to collect data, how to make a tally chart using that data and then how to make a picture graph to represent the data. This is a short topic and we are planning for our topic test to be Wednesday, January 15th.
Science: We are learning about the Earth's surface. New vocabulary introduced this week included: valley, plain, mountains, rivers, and continents.
Class Reminders:
Upcoming Dates January
Jan. 9th & 10th - 5th Grade & 8th Grade Science Fair
Jan. 14th - Middle School & High School Info Night
Jan. 15th - NJHS Induction @ 4:30
Jan. 16th - 2nd Grade Field Trip / Brooker Creek
Jan. 20th - No School MLK Jr. Day
Jan. 21st - Report Cards go Home
Jan. 22nd - Jan 24th - NHD in the cafeteria (Lunches in classrooms - Parents if possible try to avoid lunches with students this day due to limited classroom space)
Jan. 30th - Literacy Night
Jan. 30th - PTO General Assembly Meeting
Jan. 31st - Character Awards
Cynthia Perry
1st Grade Teacher
Plato Academy Tarpon Springs
Class Website: perryc.weebly.com
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest"
~Benjamin Franklin
The mission of Plato Academy Charter Schools is to assist students in achieving their full potential by requiring and nurturing high academic and behavioral standards in a safe, supporting, challenging and enthusiastic environment fostered by a commitment and cooperative effort between the school, students, parents, and community.
I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful weather today!
Here is a snapshot of our upcoming work for this week and an explanation of a few changes.
- Please check the portal for missing grades. If your child is missing grades please contact me. We can work together to get that work turned in and for your child to earn credit for them. Communication is a must. I cannot help your child without it.
- Daily Agendas for the week are attached to this email.
- Live Lessons: We will have a Live Lesson on Mondays and Wednesdays. There will be no live lesson on Fridays any longer. I will be using this day to meet with students that need extra help. If your child needs extra help on anything please email me so i can set up a time to do a one on one session with them.
- Beginning this week we will no longer have a hard copy DLR paper to complete. We have actually finished the book of them for the year.
- Instead of a written DLR, you will find a short grammar activity each day listed under the ELA Topic in the Google Classroom.The grammar lessons are short and should only take a few minutes.
- ELA: There will be one ELA assignment (Reading and/or writing activity) each day in addition to the grammar activity. I have tried to develop some fun activities this week. I have chosen activities that are based on well known and award winning picture books. All ELA and grammar assignments will be completed and submitted through Seesaw.
- Morning Journal: MORNING JOURNALS SHOULD BE ATTACHED TO THE GOOGLE CLASSROOM ASSIGNMENT UNER THE MORNING JOURNAL TAB. Monday's Morning Journal will be subitted under the MOnday heading, Tuesday submitted under the Tuesday heading and so on. Please be sure I can read the entire story and see the journal in the snapshot or scan. THEY WILL NOW BE GRADED ASSIGNMENTS.
- Each morning journal will count as 10 points. (5 points for completing the requirements for the story and then 5 points for meeting the requirements for the illustration.)
- Please remember students were required to do this on their own in school each morning. All students are able to do this and to do it nicely and independently. Please do not dictate to them or tell them the spelling of words. They should be spelling sight words correctly and sounding out other words and writing the sounds they hear (phonetic Spelling).
- When students are completing their morning journal each day, the expectation is that they write a story about the topic for the day. For example, if it says make a list of your favorite toys. Students should make the list and then pick one of those toys and tell why it is their favorite.
- It is very important that students are including the following (this along with the 5 Star writing criteria is how the morning journals will be graded:
- A topic Sentence (Beginning sentence that tells what their story is going to be about and gains the interest of the reader.)
- at least 2 details about the topic. The details should include elaboration, not just a listing.
- Wrap up /Ending sentence (tells the reader the story is over).
- Correct punctuation, capitalization and correct spelling of site words. Handwriting should be neat and they should include an illustration.
- The illustration should first be drawn out in pencil and then colored. It should include 5 details and should be quality work.
- 4 sentences is the minimum, but this does not mean students have to stop there. Encourage them to add more details and to elaborate on those details.
- Students should be writing using the 5 Star writing expectations we use in class.
- Correct Capitalization
- Correct Punctuation
- Correct Spelling of Sight Words (I have attached lists of the most common sight words used. Students also have a list of sight words in their blakc writing binder that was sent home.)
- They should be re-reading what they write to make sure it makes sense and they have not skipped words.
- There should be finger spaces between the words in the sentence and then only a small space between the letters in a word.
- Science: The students are going to have fun learning about Sharks with Fly Guy. There are 2 assignments for the entire week. These will also be completed and submitted through Seesaw.
- Social Studies / Health: I have combined these two subjects this week in an activity that requires the children to reflect on themselves and what makes their heart happy. This will be completed and submitted through Seesaw.
- Math: We will continue our studies of shapes. This week we will be learning about 3 dimensional shapes. Students have their Math lesson paper assignments that were sent home in their packets. I am not requiring these to be submitted to me. They are practice, 3 of them we complete together in our live lessons and they are not graded assignments. There is no need to take pictures of them or scan them to me. The paper math lesson papers do not need to be turned into me. I have created math activities that will show me the student's work and progress using Seesaw. The graded math assignments will be the one math Seesaw activity that I have assigned for the day. This allows me to see the students applying the skills of that day's lessons. These will be completed and submitted on Seesaw.
- Work Submission: I have tried my best to design all lessons and present them to the students through the Seesaw program. This program is one the students are familiar with and it also eliminates the parents from having to scan, attach and send me papers.
- Spelling: Weekly spelling tests will always be completed through Spelling City on Fridays. There is only one list. There will be no list B or C for the rest of the year. Words have been uploaded to Spelling City for practice. List is Titled "Whole Class List 4/27"
If there is anything you need or anything I can do to help your child please contact me and we can work through it together. If you need extra time for assignments let me know and we can work that out also.
The kids are doing wonderful and I am very thankful for your support of them at home. I know this is not easy, but we are doing it and I think we are doing it very well!!
Give my kiddos giant hugs and please tell them I miss their beautiful faces, smiles and laughs!
Have a wonderful week and stay safe,
Mrs. Perry
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
April 3rd Weekly Update
Hello Parents!
Congratulations! You have made it through our first week of distance learning. I know this week was difficult, but now that we have created accounts and gotten all of our technology working I know that next week will be much easier.
At this time in 1st grade, teacher support is being pulled back a lot in the classroom. We do this to help the students become more independent learners that are ready for the expectations of 2nd grade. Most students are able to read the stories in our ELA lessons on their own as well as the Scholastic News, Cold Read, Studies Weekly, DLR and Daily Geography. You should not need to sit next to your child and complete these assignments with them. They should be completing them on their own and then having you check over them once completed. They should also be able to keep track of their own book log at this point. I am not requiring a book log be turned in, but I think it is a good idea for students to still keep track of their reading at home.
If you see a missing assignment in Google Classroom, but you know you have turned it in please do not worry. It is going to take me a day or two to go through everything that I get sent to me and to mark it as turned in. Also, I am not as concerned about due dates as I am about the quality of the work. Please let me know if you need me to adjust anything to help you. My focus is on the quality of work. If you are having trouble getting through all of the assignments please let me know. I have spoken with Mrs. Turro and she has told families with 3-4 children in the home to work 1:1 and focus on the youngest child in the family until everything with that child is going smoothly. Then to move on to the next youngest. It may take several days or weeks, but it is ok. The administration and myself understand.
You will see assignment grades are being entered in portal just as they were when we were in the actual classroom.
I am not requiring you to submit the following work. You may review it with your child and if your child needs help with it then notify me and I can work on it with them.
1. Morning Journal
2. Math Lessons ( We are doing these in our live classes)
3. DLR (We will go over and correct it in our Friday live class)
4. Book logs. Please make sure your child reads at least one book or chapter a day.
5. Daily Geography (We will go over and correct it in our Friday live class)
I am hoping that not having to scan and submit everything will make this easier on the parents. If you would like to wait until Friday or until Sunday of each week to upload all work to me that is fine. You do not need to worry about uploading assignments daily. Please do what works best for you and your family.
Next week, we will be using SeeSaw, BrainPop/BrainPop Jr., and Mystery Science frequently. If you have not gone in and signed up for a new BrainPop/BrainPop Jr. account please do so as soon as possible. Directions have been sent via email and are on the Google Classroom Stream and are also located in the Google Classroom Classwork tab.
I am here to support you and your child however I can. If you are running into an issue or have a question please come to me and let me know directly. I can't help if I do not know.
I appreciate your support and patience. I am lucky to have such a great group of families to work with. Have a restful weekend and I will see the children Monday at 10am for our Live Class Meeting.
Air Hugs,
Mrs. Perry
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello Wonderful 1st Grade Families,
Thank you to PTO and all of our wonderful parent volunteers that have been working so hard on our beautiful new playground!!! The class is so excited to get out there and play!helped our school have such a wonderful Book Fair. The kids had so much fun shopping for their books!
I would like to thank you all for the early birthday wishes. I appreciate you all for always thinking of me and for your kindness and sweet words!!! I plan on spending this weekend with my family and my newest grandhorse, Esquire, LOL! This week in Class...
Reading: Students started reading the book "Far From Home". Through the use of this book, students will learn about informational text.
Writing: We have started the new year off with learning about explanatory writing. Students are correctly working on a story that explains their favorite foods. This week they brainstormed ideas, completed their graphic organizers and worked on writing their rough drafts.
Social Studies / Health: The class discussed roles of authority and who is in charge of making rules and laws. We also talked about bullying and conflict resolution.
Math: Students are working in Topic 6. They are learning how to collect data, how to make a tally chart using that data and then how to make a picture graph to represent the data. This is a short topic and we are planning for our topic test to be Wednesday, January 15th.
Science: We are learning about the Earth's surface. New vocabulary introduced this week included: valley, plain, mountains, rivers, and continents.
Class Reminders:
- No School Monday, January 20th
- Report Cards go home Tuesday, January 21st.
- January 28th is the 100th day of school and we will be wearing shirts with "100 things" on them. Please see previous email sent out about this and let me know if you have any questions.
- Community Map Project is due Monday, Feb. 3rd.
- Friday, February 14th Valentine's Day - Students will make boxes at home for their cards and we will have a card exchange. More info to come as we get closer to the date. Have a wonderful weekend and Happy New Year!!!
Upcoming Dates January
Jan. 9th & 10th - 5th Grade & 8th Grade Science Fair
Jan. 14th - Middle School & High School Info Night
Jan. 15th - NJHS Induction @ 4:30
Jan. 16th - 2nd Grade Field Trip / Brooker Creek
Jan. 20th - No School MLK Jr. Day
Jan. 21st - Report Cards go Home
Jan. 22nd - Jan 24th - NHD in the cafeteria (Lunches in classrooms - Parents if possible try to avoid lunches with students this day due to limited classroom space)
Jan. 30th - Literacy Night
Jan. 30th - PTO General Assembly Meeting
Jan. 31st - Character Awards
Cynthia Perry
1st Grade Teacher
Plato Academy Tarpon Springs
Class Website: perryc.weebly.com
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest"
~Benjamin Franklin
The mission of Plato Academy Charter Schools is to assist students in achieving their full potential by requiring and nurturing high academic and behavioral standards in a safe, supporting, challenging and enthusiastic environment fostered by a commitment and cooperative effort between the school, students, parents, and community.