Language and Literature

There are many things to learn as we get to know each other at the beginning of the year in September: new faces, spaces, and ideas. At the age of six, the importance of friends is a primary focus. Each day, for the first few weeks of first grade, the children are not only learning about academic concepts but continuing to learn about each other as individuals and as a group, living and working together. Six-year olds are eager for input; they love new places, new ideas, and new objects. Children this age love to learn. Curiosity and interacting with each other play a vital role in this process.

A primary focus in first grade is to foster a love of literature in all our children. The first-grade students are read to daily in school. Listening comprehension and vocabulary development are an important focus of story time. They also participate in our home reading program where the children choose a book each day to take home for their parents to read to them. The home reading program not only provides a marvelous exposure to a variety of literature, but it presents an opportunity for families to spend time together, sharing their thoughts about the stories.

We begin the year with a celebration of our summer reading book. Thereafter, children are continually engaged in getting meaning from print. Whether children begin the first grade as readers or develop into readers as the year progresses, our aim is for each child to feel like a success each day. We utilize a variety of materials: big books, trade books, poems, directions, magazines, and schedules. These reading adventures take place both individually and in small reading groups where reading is taught through meaningful experiences such as plays, puppet shows, dramatic interpretation, author studies, genre studies, and reading of trade books. In an effort to provide six-year olds with a variety of approaches to reading, our guided reading focuses on literature conversations, comprehension, observations about authors’ styles, and discussions about the structure of the story. Children are encouraged to develop and draw upon a strong phonetic base throughout their experiences in both reading and writing.

Writing also permeates the first-grade student’s day. An emphasis in writing workshop is on the importance of conveying one’s thoughts in a meaningful way. As six-year olds write to share their experiences and ideas with others, they gradually come to view themselves as authors and illustrators. First-grade students are expected to communicate for a variety of purposes and in a variety of ways. Writing letters to friends, expressing themselves in journals, creating directions for a task, and authoring a non-fiction chapter book are a few examples of these purposes. Six-year olds are both industrious and interested in the correct way of doing things. Mini-lessons are opportunities for teachers to model writing as well as to present necessary skills. Topics such as lead sentences, descriptive detail, story structure of fiction and non-fiction writing, punctuation, and endings are all presented in context.

Mathematics

Math occurs throughout the day in first grade. Whenever possible, mathematical explorations happen within the context of real-life experiences.

The ability to recognize patterns is a key to mathematical thinking. Throughout first grade students are involved in exercises that encourage them to recognize, create, and analyze patterns in a variety of settings. These concrete experiences set the stage for the development of mathematical thinking that makes generalizations, sees relationships, and understands the logic and order of our number system.

• Can you recognize growing patterns, such as what happens when two is added continuously to a given number?
• Can you count by tens starting from any given digit?
• What discoveries can you make about the way that a hundreds board is organized?

Developing a strong sense of number is a constant focus during the school year. Children are given many opportunities for counting and comparing actual groups of objects. These opportunities help children to see the relationships between quantities thereby enabling them to better approximate and estimate appropriate answers.

• Does your hand hold more popcorn kernels or kidney beans? How many more? Why?
• Can you order the ages of people in your family and in the family of a classmate?

As thinking becomes more complex, children must determine whether a problem situation requires addition or subtraction. It is important that work with addition and subtraction be meaningful in order to prepare students for solving problems with confidence and efficiency. An integral part of our discussions involves asking children to justify their answers and explain their thinking. This provides an opportunity for students to recognize that there can be a variety of ways to solve any one problem.

• If there are nine snacks, how many more are needed for the class?
• How can we share 36 crackers fairly?

Developmentally, before children can use standard and abstract units of measure, they must have experiences using non-standard units. In measurement we explore length, area, volume, and weight.

• Does it take more crayons or more paintbrushes laid end to end to measure the classroom?
• How many full and how many partial inch blocks does it take to cover a leaf?

Time is spent working with money, giving it a real world connection through the operation of a mock restaurant. Students revel at becoming chefs, servers, and patrons while practicing mathematics as they tabulate bills and make change.

Science

Six-year olds are naturally curious and eager to work together to make discoveries about the world around them during activities designed around the study of animals, ourselves, and weather. For this reason first-grade science explorations are constructed so that children work in groups of twos or threes, encouraging them to pool and share ideas as they grapple with various ways to process what they are observing.

Activity and conversation fill the classroom as children collaborate to devise strategies to solve various problems. Some of the explorations are specifically designed to give the children beginning experiences in the scientific method. In these, students are encouraged to make a hypothesis and then to prove or disprove it. For instance, in one exploration, children make a hypothesis about whether their hearts beat faster after rest or after exercise. They then devise an experiment to determine if their hypothesis is accurate. Science explorations are followed by class discussions about the successes and failures of various approaches.

Developing keen observational skills is an integral part of our science program. Each year the class chooses a tree on campus to observe. That tree is the focus of our study of seasons, as we observe, draw, and write about it throughout the year. This provides a concrete tie-in to our unit on weather in which we explore temperature, wind, and precipitation and its effects on the environment. Graphs are used throughout various science units to record observations of everything from weather to classroom plants.

Social Studies

Principles of exploration and discovery are emphasized throughout the year in social studies. Children are encouraged to make observations and to notice similarities and differences in various cultural contexts in the world around them.

A primary developmental task for the child at this age is the formation of longer-term relationships with peers, and the development of a firm sense of “group”. This process fosters an awareness of how each one of us depends upon one another, influences one another, and benefits from one another. Thus, our study begins with a focus on “Ourselves”, a unit in which children are encouraged to highlight the physical, emotional, and intellectual characteristics that make them uniquely themselves. This is expanded to show how these characteristics interrelate, and how they enhance our relationships with others.

In a unit called, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”, children’s interviewing skills are developed as they are given opportunities to ask parent visitors about their occupations and avocations. After taking careful notes, and reading books about various types of jobs, each child speculates as to what he or she would like to someday do for work. Tools of the trade and instruction manuals are created by children to go with the occupation of their choice. A culminating job fair allows each child to take the role of perspective employer and “interview” candidates, a task that requires thinking about the qualities and skills needed in a given profession.

Joining of science and social studies takes place as a unit on animal homes begins our study of houses. Starting here allows us to investigate how various environments and available materials impact the nature of the animal’s home. As we move to the human world, the many ways in which families interrelate with their neighbors and the larger community is emphasized in our study of houses and neighborhoods. Children are also helped to observe certain aspects of architecture, styles, and types of homes, and the physical makeup and layout of their neighborhood including available transportation, shops, public services, and cultural and recreational opportunities. We compare various locations in the metropolitan Boston area from urban to suburban to rural.

Technology

The presence of computers in the classroom gives children an opportunity to play games that reinforce skills and to do some simple word processing. During the unit on animal homes, children are encouraged to collaborate with their parents in using the Internet at home to gather information.

Art

The first grade art curriculum allows children to investigate many options and find their own connection to art, often in conjunction with classroom curriculum. Projects are structured but remain flexible enough to accommodate each child’s different skill levels and special interests. Along with strengthening creativity and artistic skills, students continue to be responsible for materials and supplies, and the community created in the art room. In sharing pieces of themselves through their artwork, children make connections with each other and learn to respect differences. Art history is also an important part of the curriculum, and famous and influential artists, both contemporary and historic, are discussed throughout the year.

Library

The literature shared through library complements the first grade homeroom focus on the uniqueness of the individual as well as emphasizing the diversity of the world. Library skills learned in Kindergarten are reinforced and new ones introduced. Receiving their own library cards and twice weekly checking out books they have selected builds upon the growing independence of first-grade readers as well as giving them the responsibility of caring for the books they have borrowed. The students become familiar with the check-out and check-in procedure. In choosing reading material, the students are guided to books that support their interests as well as to others that enable them to branch out into new areas.

Music

The first grade music curriculum focuses on singing, rhythmic patterning, movement, music listening, and analysis. Non pitched percussion instruments are used to practice and demonstrate rhythmic patterns in 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4, while pitched percussion instruments are used to introduce basic note reading. First graders will listen to compositions of a variety of genre covering a vast geographical area. Identifying mood, tempo, instrumentation, style, and dynamics will help students develop listening and analytical skills. After simple analysis of the pieces students will incorporate both choreographed and improvised movement. Exploring cultural traditions and holidays through music will help the student broaden their understanding of the role of music in societies around the world.

Physical Education

First-grade students build on skills learned in Kindergarten. They continue to explore space and use their bodies in a variety of ways. The locomotor skills of running, hopping, skipping, galloping, and sliding are practiced with a goal toward more refinement and are used in games of fleeing, chasing, and dodging, dance activities, and track activities. The first-grade student practices manipulative skills with balls and other objects by throwing, catching, kicking, dribbling, striking, and volleying. The children begin to use these skills in age appropriate games. Non-manipulative skills such as turning, twisting, rolling, balancing, transferring weight, jumping and landing are used in movement exploration and educational gymnastics. First-grade students begin an introduction to fitness concepts and take part in activities to improve their physical fitness. Learning to share space and equipment, and to work cooperatively, are all important parts of the first-grade year.

Woodworking

Students use pine wood and hand tools to execute individual projects designed in consultation with the teacher. Emphasis is on craftsmanship, sharing, risk-taking, skill development, and self-direction.