Welcome to the boisterous excited imaginative world of my first-grade students! Every day is an adventure with a room filled with 20 students who walk in each morning and can't wait to greet each other and wonder what will we do and what will we learn today! They are eager students who can literally jump off of their seats at the mention of the words rubber bands, a new reading game, or the prospect of learning while outside!
My students come from all kinds of families and situations and I wish I could wave a magic wand so that they all had support and stability in their young lives!
My class is full of young students who are not only learning to read and write but who are learning the ins and out of how they fit in with their peers and how to navigate this new journey of sharing opinions, sharing crayons, eating lunch, and playing on the playground. They are resilient and they keep trying even when learning new things is so challenging for them. They are six and seven-year-olds who can give and take and forgive each other when they make mistakes.
My Project
About half of the students in my first-grade class did online Kindergarten due to Covid in which they struggled to learn the basic phonological awareness and basic phonics concepts. Therefore, they have struggled mightily in being able to read and to catch up this year due to the loss of their in-person learning. It is heartbreaking to see how some of these young students are already giving up on themselves and believe that they are not smart or capable. I have never experienced seeing students that are this young choosing to give up and not try. I believe that they just need more time, exposure, and confidence in their abilities and to see how much progress they are making.
I have selected resources that focus on early phonics skills such as word family flip books, decodable books, sight word books, phonics games, timers, and game buzzers.
These items will help students be able to practice and master these early phonics skills so that they can begin to read books, recognize sight words, and discover that they are smart and can read! It will also give my students new alternatives to practice and apply phonics skills.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Burgess and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.