Grade One Teachers:

Mrs. Lauren Heaney.....Room #103  

Mrs. Virginia Prins....... Room #102 

Mrs. Gina Bergen..........Room  # 100

Our year in first grade has come and gone so quickly!  We have had so many wonderful experiences and will cherish many great memories.  The children had an awesome time on their trip to Farmstead Estates-a special thanks to all the chaperones! 

We enjoyed watching our caterpillars transform into beautiful Painted Lady butterflies.  Observing the life-cycle of these living creatures up close is truly amazing!  Thank you PTO for providing us with them! 

Speaking of butterflies…the first graders at APT have made quite a transformation as well.  Throughout the year we have been practicing “good reader” strategies and it shows!  It is

strongly recommended that your child continue reading over the summer.  Set up a book club with your child to ‘discuss’ what the story is about.  Ask them to retell the story, name the characters, setting and main idea to show understanding of what they read.

Our writing skills have improved greatly over the school year.  We learned how to write a friendly letter, a descriptive paragraph, and directions to build a snowman.  Most importantly we learned what a complete sentence should look like.  We know that a sentence must start with an uppercase letter (capital) and end with an end mark (punctuation mark).  Please have your child practice writing over the summer.  They can keep a journal of their summer vacation or write about the books they have read-whatever it is just keep writing!

In Math we have been exposed to many important skills.  We learned money values, practiced counting with coins, explored number patterns, played games to acquire fact power, time, place value, and writing number stories-just to name a few!

The following are some things to continue practicing at home:

* Time (to "5" minutes)

* Money (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars)

* Place value (hundreds, tens and ones)

* Adding and subtracting (know + and – facts to 10)

With much pride and love,

The First Grade Teachers:

Mrs. Bergen, Mrs. Heaney, and Mrs. Prins