Mrs. Vella's 1st Grade Super Stars

Parking Lot Reminders

Posted on March 12, 2020 by darsie.vella

To help keep our students safe we encourage you to watch this short video on parking lot safety at Quest Academy. Please share with those who help transport your child to and from school. Thank you

Parking lot reminders

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First Grade Student Treasure Book:

Posted on March 12, 2020 by darsie.vella

***I had a parent ask if it was to late to order a book. It’s not to late to order a book however, even if you choose not to order a book I have to have the order form back stating that you don’t want one. Please return them ASAP. If you need another order form, let me know as I have a few extras. Just a side thought ….They make excellent gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or birthdays.

Our students are about to become published authors and illustrators!!!! We are all so excited to begin this journey. There will be multiple revisions for both stories and illustrations. While this may be frustrating for students it is important that they work through the process as the results will be so WORTH IT!
The kids are doing an amazing job. Some of them will be starting their final draft today. I am so proud of them and how well they are doing. I can’t wait to get our class book published.

Below are the 2 books and a couple student samples. I hope this gets you all just a little more excited. If you have any questions please let me know.

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Weekly Reminders

Posted on March 11, 2020 by darsie.vella

1- FRIDAY: Early out 1:00 pm
Students are welcome to wear a Quest Spirit shirt with uniform pants or traditional uniforms).

2-1st Grade Student Treasures Class Book: Check your student’s homework folder for the order form. Please send then back by Friday.

3- Scholastic Book Order. March book orders will be due on Tuesday March 31. Click here for easy online ordering, our class code is JBTR2: Scholastic Book Club

4- Elementary yearbooks on sale now for only $17! Students enjoy signing yearbooks on the last day of school. Orders may be placed until March 27. Click here to pay: Yearbook Online Orders

Up Coming Events and Dates to Remember:
March 16: Bring in your Leprechaun Traps
March 17: St. Patrick’s Day
March 19: Early Out
March 20: No School
March 27: First Grade In house field trip: Farm to Table (Cheese and butter making demo) Thanks to our first grade Quest sponsor/partner. More in formation coming.
March 30-April 3 Spring Break

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Quest Student Council Service Project

Posted on March 9, 2020 by darsie.vella

The Quest Academy Student Council is participating in a service project to donate hygiene kits to refugees in Bangladesh. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 723,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August 25, 2017. On September 28, 2018, at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said there are 1.1 million Rohingya refugees now in Bangladesh. Beginning today, we will be collecting donations to assemble kits to help aid the people of this country.

We are collecting:
-shampoo
-toothbrushes
-toothpaste
-bars of soap
-combs
-deodorant
-washcloths
-gallon sized Ziplock bags

Donations can be any size and placed in the shopping carts in Q1 or Q2. We would greatly appreciate it if everyone would donate one or more of the selected items to help us with these relief efforts for the people of Bangladesh.

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Optional Practice for March 2nd-6th

Posted on February 29, 2020 by darsie.vella

**Please let me stress that this is optional practice for your student, not required. We do ask for students to read 20+ minutes every day to develop their love for reading, increase fluency, vocabulary, and spelling .

Although we have optional reviews, we STRONGLY encourage your children to read. Reading with and too your children, and reading as a family has shown to increase student vocabulary, spelling and fluency. We have learned that the public library has a wonderful app to access amazing books online called Libby.
You can access the app information at this link: Libby Link By using your public library account, your students can log in and choose from thousands of books online for free to read to you, you to read to them, your family to read together, etc. Audio books followed along also are a great source to develop this love for reading with your child as they follow along in the book.

1- Optional Math Practice:

The family letter below provides review in math that you can do with your student. Please read the letter and invite your child to share what they know about the concept by doing the activity together.
This is the standard we are working on this week:

This is the standard we worked on last week: Test will be on Monday, March 2nd.

Optional: for extra math practice, play any of these Math Fact Activities 2018

Language Arts this week: Reading 20 minutes per day. No need to submit minutes, but we strongly encourage you to make reading a priority. Reading comprehension strategy: Help your child read a story and then retell the events from the story in the correct order while they are focusing on the characters, setting, and events. As well as, making and confirming predictions.

2-FLUENCY PASSAGE FOR THE WEEK: Here is the example. I hope you and your student will find the information interesting, as well as helpful in preparing for future fluency testing.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RETURN THE FLUENCY PASSAGE. It may take the entire 20 minutes to work through the passage on Monday. ALL the time your student spends on fluency counts toward their reading minutes.

MONDAY:
1st- Using a yellow crayon or high lighter, have your student highlight each word in the passage they can read correctly without any help.
2nd- Go back through the passage and have a “Good MEATY Conversation” about the words they were unsure of or didn’t know. Talk about what strategies good readers can use to figure out the word. Here are a few suggestions…CVC if there is only one vowel, it USUALLY make the short vowel sound, CVCe-is there an /e/ at the end of the word that makes the first vowel say it’s name. Is there a vowel team that follows the rule…When vowel teams go a walking, the first one USUALLY does the talking such as ee, ea, ai, oa, etc. Are there words within words like “ants” at the end of elephants…”and” in the word land…Go over the fact that they can skip the word and use the context of the sentence to help them figure out what the word is and if it makes sense.
3rd- Lastly, read the passage together, then using the retell rope, have your student tell you what they read in order of event of information.
TUESDAY – THURSDAY
*AGAIN* POINT OUT THE WORDS YOUR STUDENT KNOWS and then GO OVER THE ONES THAT ARE TRICKY. Have them sound out words that follow “Regular Rules.” Time them for ONE, one minute timing each day to see how far they can read on their own. Their accuracy/fluency should increase each time they read the sentences.
WE are looking for how many words they are reading correctly out of how many they read and then what they can retell.
PLEASE use the Re-Tell Ropes below OR the one I sent home, whenever you are reading with your student checking for understanding. THIS HELPS STUDENTS PREPARE FOR OUR LANGUAGE ARTS WORK AND DIBELS TEST COMPREHENSION.

These are the high frequency words, vocabulary, phonics as well as other essential Language Arts skill we will be working
on this week :

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EXTENDED: POQA Fundraiser 2 MORE DAY TO ROCK OUR STUFF

Posted on February 26, 2020 by darsie.vella

The Little Caesars Fundraiser has been extended. Orders are now due by February 28th. Students can earn a squishy for every 3 cards sold. If needed, you can print the order form below. Thank you for your help and support.

Please be aware that the funds we make from fundraisers help pay for school field trips, after school clubs and many other “fun extras” students enjoy. If we don’t raise enough money from fundraisers, and donations, many of these programs and trips will be discontinued. The bus rental cost for our Hogle Zoo field trip was over $900. The Ogden Nature center is over $350 dollars. I know it’s crazy. Again THANKS so much for all your support. QUEST IS THE BEST!!!

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The family letter below provides review in math that you can do with your student. Please read the letter and invite your child to share what they know about the concept by doing the activity together.
This is the standard we are working on this week:

This is the standard we worked on last week: Test will be on Tuesday, February 26th.

Optional: for extra math practice, play any of these Math Fact Activities 2018

Language Arts this week: Reading 20 minutes per day. No need to submit minutes, but we strongly encourage you to make reading a priority. Reading comprehension strategy: Help your child read a story and then retell the events from the story in the correct order while they are focusing on the characters, setting, and events. As well as, making and confirming predictions.