Welcome!  My name is Elaine Cole, and I am very excited to be teaching first grade at East Elementary.  This is my sixth year at East and my 11th year teaching.  I love teaching first grade because you get to teach students to read and write!  Let me tell you a little about myself.  I graduated from Missouri State University in Springfield with my Bachelors in Elementary Education and my Masters in Education in Reading.  I am married, and I have two children.  In my free time, I enjoy reading, camping, swimming, watching basketball, and spending time with my family.  When you enter my classroom, you will also see that I LOVE Dogs!  

What are first graders learning?

In first grade we keep very busy! In reading, we use the reading series, Treasures.  Each week students bring home their reading book and mini-books to practice reading with their parents.  Students also meet in guided reading groups and read leveled readers based on their current reading level.  While I am meeting with the different reading groups, the other students on working at centers around the room.  Our reading series also includes a list of spelling words each week.  We take a spelling pre-test on Wednesday and the final test on Friday.  

        First graders spend a lot of time learning about writing.  I use mini-lessons to model writing for the students.  We learn how to come up with topics for writing, how to spell tricky words, how to add details to our writing, and how to make sure our writing has a beginning, middle, and end.  We also learn about the six traits of writing. 

        Our math series is called Investigations.  It is a hands-on, inquiry based program where students use games, exploration, and guided practice to learn number sense, addition and subtraction, story problems, working with shapes, graphing, measurement, and patterns.  

        Finally, our day ends with Tiger Time.  During this time, teachers give students extra instruction in reading and math.  Different assessments are used to identify students' strengths and weaknesses in these areas.  Then, students are grouped and extra instruction or enrichment activities are planned for the students.  

        Throughout the day, students are introduced to a wide array of science, social studies, and health topics.  Some topics we cover this year are animal habitats, animal and plant life cycles, magnets, states of matter, recycling and conservation, weather, the Earth and Moon, nutrition, our community, Presidents, Famous Americans and symbols, reading a map, and Pilgrims and Native Americans. 

           As you can see, we are very busy in first grade.  Thank you for visiting my website and seeing what first grade is like at East Elementary.