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Two - Time US Department of Education High Performing National Blue Ribbon School - 2015 & 2022!

First Grade

FIRST GRADE OVERVIEW

First grade is a time of transformation for the students as they build confidence and competence through their acquisition of reading and math skills. With the goal of fostering independence, the students use planners and change classes as they take ownership of their own learning.

First GradersCURRICULUM

Religion
 
With the text of We Believe: God Loves Us, the focus is on God’s love and the gift of His Son, Jesus, to help the students grow in faith.  Using the Church’s liturgical calendar, the students experience the feast days and holy days of our faith.  Through prayers and the rosary, the students celebrate the communal component of our Catholic faith.
 
Language Arts
 
Using the Reading Street program, the students have phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension integrated into their lessons.  Small group instruction provides the opportunity for differentiated instruction to support the varied learning profiles.  Exposure to different genres (fiction, nonfiction, plays, poetry) enriches the reading experience. Augmenting the reading program are the writing, grammar, spelling, and handwriting components of the language arts discipline.  Opportunities for assimilating these components abound.
 
Math
 
Using Sadlier’s Progress in Mathematics, the students are introduced to the process of addition and subtraction, place value, geometry, graphing, time, measurement, and the value of money.  The use of manipulatives ensures that the children learn these concepts in a concrete manner.  These skills are reinforced in the solving word problems which often reflect the students’ lives.
 
Science
 
Students observe and explore plants, animals and habitats, rocks and minerals, matter and magnets, and the water cycle while taking nature walks, experimenting, creating, drawing, or listening to fiction and nonfiction text.
 
Social Studies
 
An awareness of the world and each individual’s place in it is broadened by studying communities—starting with the family, school and neighborhoods as the students learn about urban, suburban, and rural communities. Using globes and maps, the earth’s physical features are taught while map skills are practiced.  The students read biographies of our country’s leaders and the Weekly Reader to explore current events.