First Grade

Religion
The religion curriculum is based on four units: Jesus Teaches Us About God’s Love, We Are Followers of Jesus, We Belong to the Church, and We Celebrate and Live Our Faith.  Religion is taught daily through the religion book, class discussions, prayers, songs, and projects. Religion is also incoporated throughout the day as students apply God's Word to everyday situations We attend Mass with our 7th grade Big Buddies every Friday.

Language Arts
The language arts block focuses on phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and spelling, comprehension and fluencey skills, listening comprehension, reading authentic texts, grammar skills and strategies for word solving and comprehension. Lessons are taught whole group and small group through the use of print materials and digital resources. First graders are fomally assessed on fluency, comprehension, and phonemic and phonolgical awarenss several times a year, in order to guide instruction and meet all students' needs.

Science
Through an interactive, hands-on approach, students learn physical science, life science, and earth science.  They learn to apply science concepts within the scope of engineering and technology.  The science block is a time for reading, inquiry, and hands-on discovery.  STREAM activities are incorporated throughout the yera, often with our 7th grade buddies.

Social Studies
The curriculum centers around history, geography, economics, and civics.   Students are engaged in their learning through inquiry based class projects, while reading literature and nonfiction text. Skills and strategies for understanding nonfiction text are taught also. The concepts are further explored outside the textbook using weekly magazine articles and online components.

Writing
The writing program builds a strong writing foundation and develops drawing,oral language, and phonics skills.  Students are introduced to the writing process and learn to draft, revise, and publish their work while learning to write different genres. Students also learng to respond to reading through written responses and learn to form paragraphs relating to a topic. Skills and conventions are emphasized as they become more proficient. 

Handwriting
Students learn printing skills using the Zaner-Bloser manuscript method.  They receive explicit instruction that leads to print awareness, letter recognition, reading and writing development.  

Math
Math concepts in first grade are Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Numbers and Operations in Base Ten, Measurement and Data, and Geometry.   Students practice making sense of problems and solving them, develop abstract and quantitative reasoning, construct responses to explain thinking, and apply math to everyday life. They explore different tools and strategies that help them solve problems. The math program provides an online component that allows the use fo digital content to further explore concepts.