First Grade Curriculum

Art

The elementary visual arts curriculum helps students understand how media, technique and process are used to create works of art; how artworks are structured and how art has a variety of functions; how to identify, analyze and select subject matter, symbols and ideas for personal/cultural expression and how historical and cultural contexts provide meaning for works of art, and how to assess the merits of their own artworks and the artworks of others.

Resources
Adventures in Art, Davis

Topics

• Different types of media
• Using media for drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, sculpture and other three-dimensional art
• Media and techniques to communicate ideas
• Differences in material and techniques used in art and how they affect appearance
• Artworks created with different media and techniques
• Visual elements of line, shape and texture
• Warm, cool and neutral color families
• Ideas and themes in artwork
• Art from different times and places
• How their artwork reflects their experiences

Guidance

Guidance, which is integrated into other curriculum areas, helps to establish goals, expectations, support systems and experience for all students. It is designed to enhance student learning by helping students acquire and use lifelong learning skills in three broad areas of development: academic, career and personal/social. The curriculum employs developmentally appropriate strategies to enhance academics, provide career awareness, encourage self-awareness, foster interpersonal communication skills and convey life success skills for all students. The guidance and health curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Variety of district-selected materials

Topics
Students will acquire knowledge and skills in the following areas:

• Improved academic self-concept
• Improved learning
• Plan to achieve goals
• School success
• Career awareness
• Organization and time management
• Self-knowledge
• Interpersonal relations
• Personal safety

Health

Development of self-awareness (emotionally, socially and physically) and the best ways of keeping well (healthy decision-making) are emphasized. Topics introduced in the first years are reviewed and discussed in more depth each year along with new topics. The health and guidance curricula complement each other to provide knowledge and skills in the area of drug prevention.

Resources
Your Health, Harcourt, Inc.

Topics
Mental/Emotional/Social

• Why I am special
• Conflict resolution
• Feelings
• Friendship

Chemical Health

• Medicines
• Drugs

Safety and First Aid

• Bus Safety
• Water Safety
• Pedestrian/Bike Safety
• Playground Safety
• Emergencies
• Personal Safety

Growth and Development

• Teeth and their care

Communicable/Chronic Diseases

• Germs
• Handwashing
• Staying healthy

Decision-Making

• Choosing healthy behaviors (decision-making model)
• Reinforcing healthy decisions (refusal skills)

Language Arts      

Reading, writing, listening, speaking, spelling and handwriting are all-important components of language arts.  Skills and strategies in each area are modeled, taught and practiced, taking into account the unique needs of each learner.  Knowledge and skills are acquired through connected experiences between home, school and community.  Students read from a variety of texts, including fiction (short stories and whole books), poetry and nonfiction (textbooks, newspapers and magazines).  Students read (or are read to) and write daily.

Resources

• Classroom Libraries
• Guided Reading Resources
• Invitations to Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
• Writing Workshop-Units of Study for Primary Writing
• Word Study - Phonics Lessons: Letters, Words and How They Work
• Handwriting - District developed

Topics

Reading

• Predicting before, during and after reading
• Compare/contrast
• Character, plot, setting (fiction)
• Beginning, middle and end of a story
• Topic, main idea and details (nonfiction)
• Letter-sound relationships (phonemic awareness)
• Picture cues
• Reading with fluency by using expression, phrasing and punctuation
• Use graphophonic (sounds), syntactic (language) and semantic (meaning) strategies to understand text

Writing

• Planning, composing, writing and editing

Speaking

• Discussing information from first-hand experiences
• Correct grammar
• Relevant contributions to discussions

Word Study (includes phonics, vocabulary and spelling)

• Finding the correct spelling of an unknown word
• Patterns of spelling
• Spelling frequently used words correctly

Handwriting

• Legible printing of numbers and letters using uniform shape, size, placement, spacing

While connecting mathematical experiences to the world around them, young children are challenged to become increasingly sophisticated in dealing with mathematical concepts. The elementary mathematics curriculum builds on students' math understanding, skills, and proficiency at each grade level, as appropriate, by integrating concepts such as number and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, and data analysis and probability. Students also engage in problem solving, reasoning, and communicating ideas while making connections to the world around them.

Resources
Scott Foresman/Addison Wesley Mathematics
Investigations in Number, Data, and Space - Dale Seymour Publishers

Topics
NUMBERS AND OPERATIONS - Understanding of and proficiency with counting, numbers and arithmetic, as well as an understanding of number systems and their structures

• Sense of numbers
• Basic counting techniques
• Size of numbers
• Number relationships
• Place value
• Addition and subtraction
• Computational fluency

ALGEBRA - Relationships among quantities, including ways of representing mathematical relationships and expression of relationships by using symbolic notation

• Classification, patterns and relations
• Operations with whole numbers
• Use of step-by-step processes

GEOMETRY - Geometric shapes and structures, and how to analyze their characteristics and relationships

• Explore, investigate and discuss shapes and structures in the classroom
• Become proficient in describing and representing shapes in their environment
• Learn to represent two- and three-dimensional shapes
• Recognize and create shapes that have symmetry

MEASUREMENT - The assignment of a numerical value to an attribute of an object; understanding what a measurable attribute is, becoming familiar with the units and processes used in measuring attributes

• Attributes of length, volume, weight and time
• How to measure using standard and nonstandard units
• Select appropriate unit and tool for attribute being measured
• Use repetition of a single unit to measure something larger than the unit

DATA ANALYSIS AND PROBABILITY - How to collect, organize and display data in graphs and charts that will be useful in answering questions; methods of analyzing data, and of making inferences and conclusions from data

• Pose questions to investigate
• Organize responses
• Create representations of data
• Sort and classify objects according to their attributes
• Organize and display data through graphical displays using counts, tallies, pictures and graphs
• Analyze and describe data

PROBLEM SOLVING - Engaging in a task for which the solution method is not known in advance

• Develop and broaden range of problem-solving strategies
• Pose or formulate challenging problems
• Monitor and reflect on their own problem-solving ideas
• Solve problems from a variety of contexts, from daily routines to mathematical situations in stories

Music

The music program focuses on making music, and listening to and responding to music others have produced. Students sing, play instruments, move and create music. They learn to read music, and analyze and evaluate the music of others.

Resource
Music and You, MacMillan

Topics

• Singing with healthy vocal technique
• Loud and soft in musical examples
• Distinguishing between high and low pitches
• Steady beat, simple rhythm patters and tempo
• Playing classroom instruments with correct technique and consistent tempo
• Improvising simple movement and instrument accompaniments
• Recognizing same and different sections

Physical Education

Physical education is based on learning basic movement and skills, and refining these movements and skills into specific activities. Skills include locomotor movement, non-locomotor movement, perceptual movement and manipulatives.

Topics

• Physical activities that develop motor skills and physical fitness
• Rules, skills, strategies and team-building associates with individual and team activities
• Age-appropriate physical fitness
• Safety and etiquette in physical activities.

Science

The science curriculum provides opportunities for students to learn science concepts through hands-on activities. Students learn to observe, compare, collect data, organize and analyze information, and communicate what they have learned. The investigations focus on physical and life science concepts.

Resources
Full Option Science System (FOSS) kits

Topics
Solids and Liquids (physical science)

• Properties of solid particles in closed bottles
• Appearance and behavior of different liquids in containers
• What happens when solids and liquids are mixed with water

New Plants (life science)

• Growth of seeds and plant development
• Development of roots on stems or bulbs
• Recording and communicating observations in words and drawings
  

Air and Weather (earth science)

• Observing and recording daily weather data
• Cloud types
• Effects of air on other materials such as soap bubbles, propellers and gliders

Social Studies

The social studies curriculum provides the opportunity for each student to acquire knowledge and develop skills necessary for social, political and economic participation in a diverse, interdependent and changing world.

Resources
District-created units of study
Variety of district-selected books

Topics
All About Me

• Expressing their ideas about what makes them unique

Home is Where the Heart Is

• Roles and responsibilities of individual family members
• Ways families change over time

Mapping Our Way through First Grade

• Concepts of left, right, up, down, next to and in between
• The four cardinal directions - north, south, east and west
• Labeling and using a map of the school
• Constructing a simple map of the classroom
• Using maps and globes to find locations

Our Global Community

• Beginning to view self as part of an international community
• Language, holidays and literature of China, Mexico and Nigeria