First Grade
- Mrs. Brandy Tuttle, Teacher
- Mrs. Tammy Hill, First and Second Grade Teacher Assistant
First Grade is such an important foundational year! First grade students enjoy a variety of activities throughout each day including small group instruction, limited large group instruction, and many hands-on center activities that reinforce the particular skills being taught. First grade students learn to work in teams and to be accountable for individual responsibilities. Each team may be engaged in different tasks. Team captains can be spotted by the special hat they wear (with great pride!). They may be helping to answer questions or reminding a friend to use a 12" voice. Team members are taught to encourage one another, take turns, and use kind words.
First Grade Features
Rice Babies - Students make 'babies' that match their birth weights using sport socks stuffed with rice. Rice babies are used for lots of hands-on practice of weighing and measuring.
Castle Projects - During the fairy tales unit, students make castles out of whatever materials they can find. Castles are put on display in the library for a week.
Owl Pellets - During the study of nocturnal animals, students have the opportunity to dissect owl pellets and try to ascertain what animals the owls swallowed.
Curriculum
The following is an overview of the first grade curriculum. Not every skill is listed.
Language Arts
Sample Literature Selections:
- The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
- Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
- Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel (Caldecott Award Winner)
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (Caldecott Award Winner)
Literature Support:
- Bob Books by Bobby Lynn and John R. Maslen
- Collections for Young Scholars (McGraw-Hill)
Intensive Phonics - short vowel sounds, long vowel sounds, initial and final blends, open-syllable words, closed syllable words, /y/ as a vowel, digraphs and dipthongs, (th, sh, ch, ph, ow, ew, oo, aw, oy, au, ight, er, or, qu, ck, ey, silent E, hard and soft G, three letter blends (thr, shr, scr, str, spr, spl), short and long vowel word families, vowel rules.
Vocabulary Development - Color words, days of the week, compound words, number words, months of the year, contractions, rhyming words, adding suffixes (-ing, -ed, -s).
- Comparing/Contrasting
- Sequence of Events
- Capitalization and Punctuation
- Classification
- Introduction to nouns, verbs, and adjectives
- Fiction/Non-Fiction
- Inferences
- Alphabetical Order
- Syllabication
- Main Idea
- Handwriting - D'Nealian
- Journal Writing
Mathematics
- Text: Sadlier-Oxford Mathematics
- Timed Minute Drills - daily drills of math facts (each child progresses at his/her own rate through addition and subtraction. Students needing an enriching curriculum can proceed on to multiplication and division.)
- Math Centers/Explorations
- Curriculum Enrichment - Mathematics Their Way by Mary Baratta-Lorton
Science
- Hands-on kits: Full Option Science System (FOSS) developed by Lawrence Hall of Science Berkeley, CA. System includes units pertaining to Insects, Solids and Liquids, and Balance and Motion.
- Human Body/Five Senses
- Nutrition
- Solar System
- Animals
Social Studies
- Map Skills
- Identification of the Seven Continents
- Early American History
- Famous Black Americans
Thematic Units to Teach the Above Skills
- All About Me - human body, five senses, community
- Rice Babies - weighing, measuring, proper handling of medicines
- Study of food pyramid
- Creepies and Crawlies - fantasy/reality, nocturnal animals
- American History - Columbus, Sequoyah, Cortez, Pizarro, Pocahontas
- Indians - Aztecs, Incas, Mayas
- Solar System
- Fairy Tales/Folk Tales
- Forest Animals
- Bunnies
- Insects
