Grade 1 - Mrs. Durant

Home

Christine Durant Welcome to First Grade! I am very excited to be beginning a new year. I have found my "calling" teaching first grade. This is the start of my seventh year teaching first grade.

During the 1980's and 1990's, I was one of two second grade teachers here at St. Christopher School. I briefly retired in 1997, but I just couldn't stay away. I love what I do and hope to be here for the remainder of my teaching career.

I live in Merrimack with my husband, Dexter. My adult daughter, Jennifer lives in Manchester and we enjoy seeing her often.

If you have any questions or concerns, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

February Happenings

February brings thoughts of an early spring (?), Valentine fun and winter vacation. First graders are welcoming the idea of all three! January was a very busy month - and so much fun! With our mild winter, we have been able to enjoy playing outside most recesses and our wonderful playground. Catholic School Week was great! We especially enjoyed P.J./Buddy Day. We have not yet heard the stories our buddies have written for us, as we ran out of time. We will have that to look forward to next week.

We have finished our third reader and will be getting our new 1.3 reader next week. We are working very hard and it shows in the childrens' wonderful reading. I am so proud. Continue reading with your child each day. It truly improves their word-attack skills. We are wrapping up our graphing unit in Math and will be starting Place Value. We will also be discussing Force, Black History Month, and Dental Health. If all works out, Dr. Tara Vogel will visit to talk about healthy teeth.

It looks like this Wednesday, Feb. 8, will be our 100th day of school. The entire school will visit the two first grade classrooms to see our 100 day projects. It is always a big thrill for all! It is a wonderful memory as all the older children I talk to can remember the day the school visited them when they were in first grade. I can hardly wait to see their creative projects!

Enjoy the rest of the winter. Stay safe and also enjoy Winter Vacation with your family. Mrs. Durant

1D January News

What a wonderful holiday! It was so nice to have some "down" time to enjoy family and friends. I can tell that the children had a wonderful vacation when I read their journal entries. I will enjoy having them share their holiday show and tell items on Friday.

All the children came in ready to work and learn today. Sometimes it's hard to get back to work, but I was very pleasantly surprised at their enthusiasm today. We are continuing to work on our subtraction unit in Math and will finish within the next two weeks. We will be starting our next unit (graphs) soon, but will continue to drill our addition and subtraction facts.

We are continuing to work in our Level 1.2 reader and will be adding more writing to our lessons. Spelling is becoming more challenging. The children need to practice their words each day. Capitalization and punctuation remain a challenge for us. Reading each day (at bedtime, perhaps) is important to maintain their word-attack skills.

This month, we will be discussing peace and justice ( in honor of Dr. Martin L. King) and staying healthy during the winter months. How to avoid germs and having a healthy heart will be key in our discussions.

We look forward to having a wonderful Catholic Schools Week (starting January 30). Many fun activities are planned. We have started practicing the song we will sing, with the rest of the student body. There's a lot of words to remember!

Thanks to all for my wonderful surprises at Christmas !! Have a great January and stay warm! Mrs. Durant

1D December News

November seemed to fly by to all in 1D. Mother Nature really shortened our month and pushed all our lessons back a week. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and we'll have no problem catching up. We enjoyed comparing our lives to people in Colonial America and realized how lucky we are. I hope you are enjoying the turkey magnet we made. We thank our 4T buddies for helping us complete the project. I enjoyed speaking with all the moms and dads during conferences. I know you realize how lucky you are to have such wonderful, hard-working children. I am so proud of all their accomplishments! Mrs. Levesque came in the day before Thanksgiving and brought all the supplies so that we could make fresh butter. How delicious !! Mrs. Labrecque gave a helping hand and took pictures of the fun. The children even brought some home to share with those at home.

"Shopping for Kids" was yesterday. Our buddies in 4T helped us make some some marvelous gift purchases. No peeking, mom and dad !!

We are working very hard in reading and will be finished our Level 1 reader before the holiday break. We are discussing sentence structure, recognizing subjects and predicates and reviewing capitalization and punctuation. We will also be expanding our composition skills. We have just started subtraction and will be very busy learning facts and doing lots of work with fact families. Math word problems are challenging and we will working hard determining whether to add or subtract to solve them.

This month we will be talking about staying healthy during the winter. We will also be discussing our five senses. Children so enjoy the "Santa" part of Christmas. Can we blame them? I try to emphasize that we are opening our hearts to accept God's greatest gift to us - Jesus. We will also be talking about the other holidays that are happening this month. What a busy, exciting time !!

HAVE A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY and be sure to take time to enjoy it !! Love, Mrs Durant

More Articles...