Weekly Highlights E-mail List
Every Friday I send a "Weekly Highlights" e-mail detailing what our class worked on during the week and information for upcoming weeks. If you would like to be added to our email distribution list, please enter your name and email address below.
FIRST GRADE CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
During our Literacy Instruction, we provide opportunities for every student to read, write, and work with words each day. Students read a variety of self-selected text at their reading level to practice reading strategies and develop fluency. Teachers hold individual conferences with children about their books. Opportunities are provided for children to share and respond to what is read. Teachers also provide instruction and guidance in a variety of whole class, small group, and partner formats. Students learn effective comprehension strategies that apply to fiction or non-fiction texts. When reading with support (guided reading), students interact with a text that is above their level of reading with guidance from the teacher. Through our Letterland curriculum, students learn how to read & spell high-frequency words, how to decode & spell multi-syllabic words, recognize spelling patterns among words, and distinguish the parts of speech in a sentence.
In Writing, students learn to write narratives (small moments), informational pieces, opinion pieces, and realistic fiction focused on one topic. We begin the year with a lot of storytelling and idea sharing. It is very helpful if you practice telling stories at home (this will also help your child develop ideas for stories prior to writing). Whenever your child tells you a story, remind them that this would make a good topic to write about and ask questions to help facilitate details. First graders spend time writing throughout the curriculum every day. They additionally spend time in “Writing Workshop” learning new skills and getting daily practice with them. By the end of the year, each student should be able to write detailed stories that remain on topic while containing a clear beginning, middle, and ending. Conventions such as correct use of capitalization and ending punctuation are also emphasized. Handwriting practice will continue throughout much of the year to increase students’ comfort level when writing, and increase their fluency during the process. In terms of spelling, students enter first grade still using primarily “inventive spelling.” As the year progresses, our expectations are that students will apply the phonetic spelling rules they learn and develop a more extensive sight vocabulary resulting in more conventional writing.
In Math, we begin our math time with a problem of the day that encourages “math talk” and deeper thinking. This allows us to share ways we solve problems differently and also challenges us as a group. Math concepts are taught with concrete understanding of concepts through hands-on activities. Once the skills are mastered, we move on to a symbolic understanding and representation of the ideas. In first grade, students use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve math problems, solve word problem with three addends, work with unknown addend problems, and demonstrate fluency with math facts up to ten. We count and write numbers to 150, work with tens and ones, compare two digit numbers, and add and subtract multiples of ten. Lastly, we order objects by length, tell time to hours and half hours, represent and interpret data, compose 2D and 3D shapes, and divide circles and rectangles into fourths, quarters, halves.
In Social Studies, we study citizenship and changes in our neighborhood. We also discuss the importance of rules at home, in school, and in the community. In first grade, students learn how to use of geographic tools to identify landforms and bodies of water. Our study of geography takes us around the world while our study of economics helps us develop a better understanding of the differences between wants and needs. We discuss jobs in our community and the goods and services they provide. We locate places on a map, read symbols, and measure distance in blocks. We discuss national holidays and why they are celebrated. We discuss different cultures and explain how the environment impacts where people live.
In Science, we study force and motion to explain the importance of a push or pull, explain how some objects can be used to make objects move without touching them (magnets), and predict the effect of a given force. We also explore Earth in our universe by recognizing the features and patterns of the Earth/moon/sun system as observed from Earth, recognizing the difference in the features of the day and night sky, and noticing patterns of changes in the moon. We learn about rocks, soil, and natural resources and we spend several weeks learning about animal habitats where the students will recognize that plants and animals need air, water, light, space, food and shelter (and that these needs are met by their environments).
In Writing, students learn to write narratives (small moments), informational pieces, opinion pieces, and realistic fiction focused on one topic. We begin the year with a lot of storytelling and idea sharing. It is very helpful if you practice telling stories at home (this will also help your child develop ideas for stories prior to writing). Whenever your child tells you a story, remind them that this would make a good topic to write about and ask questions to help facilitate details. First graders spend time writing throughout the curriculum every day. They additionally spend time in “Writing Workshop” learning new skills and getting daily practice with them. By the end of the year, each student should be able to write detailed stories that remain on topic while containing a clear beginning, middle, and ending. Conventions such as correct use of capitalization and ending punctuation are also emphasized. Handwriting practice will continue throughout much of the year to increase students’ comfort level when writing, and increase their fluency during the process. In terms of spelling, students enter first grade still using primarily “inventive spelling.” As the year progresses, our expectations are that students will apply the phonetic spelling rules they learn and develop a more extensive sight vocabulary resulting in more conventional writing.
In Math, we begin our math time with a problem of the day that encourages “math talk” and deeper thinking. This allows us to share ways we solve problems differently and also challenges us as a group. Math concepts are taught with concrete understanding of concepts through hands-on activities. Once the skills are mastered, we move on to a symbolic understanding and representation of the ideas. In first grade, students use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve math problems, solve word problem with three addends, work with unknown addend problems, and demonstrate fluency with math facts up to ten. We count and write numbers to 150, work with tens and ones, compare two digit numbers, and add and subtract multiples of ten. Lastly, we order objects by length, tell time to hours and half hours, represent and interpret data, compose 2D and 3D shapes, and divide circles and rectangles into fourths, quarters, halves.
In Social Studies, we study citizenship and changes in our neighborhood. We also discuss the importance of rules at home, in school, and in the community. In first grade, students learn how to use of geographic tools to identify landforms and bodies of water. Our study of geography takes us around the world while our study of economics helps us develop a better understanding of the differences between wants and needs. We discuss jobs in our community and the goods and services they provide. We locate places on a map, read symbols, and measure distance in blocks. We discuss national holidays and why they are celebrated. We discuss different cultures and explain how the environment impacts where people live.
In Science, we study force and motion to explain the importance of a push or pull, explain how some objects can be used to make objects move without touching them (magnets), and predict the effect of a given force. We also explore Earth in our universe by recognizing the features and patterns of the Earth/moon/sun system as observed from Earth, recognizing the difference in the features of the day and night sky, and noticing patterns of changes in the moon. We learn about rocks, soil, and natural resources and we spend several weeks learning about animal habitats where the students will recognize that plants and animals need air, water, light, space, food and shelter (and that these needs are met by their environments).