Empower Students to Improve Communities
Grade 1 Curriculum Summary
GRADE ONE CURRICULUM SUMMARY
Reading/Language Arts
The Scott Foresman Reading Street program provides a comprehensive research-based approach to reading and language arts instruction. The program draws from children’s literature organized around five themes: 1) Animals, Tame and Wild 2) Communities 3) Changes 4) Treasures 5) Great Ideas. There are equal numbers of fiction and nonfiction selections, and informational text supports both science and social studies. Student progress is monitored regularly and instruction is differentiated according to student needs. Key components of Reading Street include writing, spelling, grammar, and study skills.
The writing component of Reading Street will be used in conjunction with the Empowering Writers Program. The Empowering Writers program encourages students to look with author's eyes at the elements in a story. Students begin to write simple narrative stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Lively Letters, a phonics curriculum, provides powerful mnemonics (memory aids) through the combined use of pictures and imagery, humorous stories, hand cues and oral kinesthetic (mouth movement) cues. This is a fun, dynamic, teacher and student-friendly program that uses lively letter characters with personalities that are embedded directly into the letter shapes.
Handwriting Without Tears is a research-based writing program that teaches writing in a developmentally appropriate, sequential format. Children master easier letters first and progress to the more difficult letters.
Fundations is a multisensory and systematic phonic program in place from K-3. Students learn the sound symbol relationships and apply them to reading and spelling.
Mathematics
Science
The Scott Foresman science program provides opportunities for the first graders to use scientific methods and process skills for science inquiry. Children make hypotheses, collect and record data, and draw conclusions through learning experiences in life science, earth science, physical science, and space and technology. Units of study focus on topics that include Living and Nonliving Things, Animals, Plants, Life Cycles, Rocks and fossils, and Simple Machines. The Osgood Nature Trail affords children the opportunity to experience natural science in the school environment.
Technology
Students visit the computer lab each week. Activities are designed to allow children to become familiar with the keyboard, engage in writing, drawing, and projects that are connected to classroom themes. Supervised Internet research is also a part of the technology program along with Promethean Board activities. The Promethean Board is an interactive white board that is a highly motivational tool for learning. It enhances instruction and allows teachers and children to manipulate information and images directly on an electromagnetic board or with an electronic pen.
Library/Information Literacy
A weekly library program offers initial exposure to library materials, authors, and resources, as well as lessons from classic and contemporary age-appropriate literature. Skills taught are connected to Reading Street weekly units. Children learn how to locate resources in a library.
Social Studies
The Scott Foresman Social Studies program is designed to extend the reading curriculum. Reading instruction and content are combined in units of study entitled Time for School, In My Community, Work! Work! Work!, Our Earth, Our Resources, and This is Our Country. First graders develop skills in reading simple maps, interpreting map symbols, and using map keys. Cohasset as a community is a unit of study which is also linked with literature. Teachers use an interdisciplinary approach through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to promote understanding of concepts and events.
Music
Students perform, create, and respond to music through singing, reading and notation, playing instruments, and improvisation. Students enjoy preparing for holiday and end-of-year performances for parents.
Art
A variety of materials are used to produce different visual effects. Children explore and experiment with color, lines, texture, shape, form, patterns, symmetry, and composition. They learn vocabulary related to methods, materials, and techniques and learn how to care for art materials and tools. Projects are connected to classroom curriculum topics and activities that promote literacy are integrated.
Physical Education
Program planning and instruction focuses on motor skill development, fitness, and personal and social competency. Age-appropriate activities promote concepts of wellness and include games, dance, and gymnastics.