First Grade
“I teach first grade because it is an absolute joy. First grade energy is contagious, it is pure, and the children are absolutely eager for learning. They are like sponges and you have to almost run to keep up with their thirst for more learning.” – Rita Derose, First Grade Teacher
First graders are going through amazing growth! They are becoming aware of themselves as learners, they are yearning for more social interaction with their peers and they are feeling powerful with all their newfound skills - their literacy skills are exploding, a whole new world is opening through reading and writing, and their curiosity is endless – they are constantly questioning, observing and hypothesizing about the world around them. At the same time, they are like puppy dogs with their boundless energy, playful interactions, and contagious enthusiasm!
Theme & Project based Curriculum
The curriculum is therefore active, creative and cooperative, making first graders excited about what they are learning each day in class and about their own growth. We celebrate learning continuously - we find something new and engaging all day long!
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For example, in the Polar Bear & Penguin unit, we learn about polar habitats, life in the polar regions and food chains:
- In Language Arts we learn about reading for information and writing reports.
- In Science, we learn about and engage in field research during a field trip to the San Francisco Zoo.
- In Sewing, we make a fleece hat to wear on our trip to the San Francisco Zoo; students cut their fabric, pin the hat, and sew using the sewing machine.
- In Math, students practice comparison skills and measurement skills by comparing species of penguins and building life size penguins.
- In Art, students draw a polar bear and a penguin through directed techniques, using crayon/watercolor resist mediums.
- In 3-D Art, students build a penguin using clay techniques (coiling, scoring and slipping).
- In Social Studies we build a globe and examine parts of the earth, including the equator, northern and southern hemispheres, continents and oceans.
Reading & Reading Buddies
First graders come with a wide range of reading skills. We meet them where they are at and then help them grow their skills while keeping the joy of reading alive. We want students to love books, to always stretch their learning, and to be willing to take risks and make mistakes.
In Reader’s workshop, mini-lessons are followed up with stations for independent practice in reading. Each "station" offers a range of skills practice, so for example a puzzles and games station would have choices ranging from puzzles and games that build 3 letter words to puzzles and games that build sentences. Students at different skill levels can still work at the same station together and choose activities that strengthen specific skills they are mastering.
During this time, the teacher meets with small groups and individual students to work on focused skills.
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Each First grader has a Reading Buddy in Third Grade and each week, First and Third graders make a trip to the library to look for and enjoy just the right books that will help them build their reading skills.
Writing
In Writer’s workshop, the focus is on the craft of writing - how does an author come to produce a finished book? What is the writing process?
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We are all experts in something, we all write from our experience – and students have the opportunity to write their experiences not only as they read stories, but also as they learn math, science, social studies and other subjects.
Math
First graders need to explore and build with real objects to develop a concrete understanding of math concepts. As such, math instruction is approached primarily through the use of Marilyn Burns' Math By All Means based activities. Activities often have a game component, bringing a context to the concept so that it is not taught in isolation.
Students may play a dice game that involves adding and subtracting miniature bears from a "bathtub", they may play a card game of "Make Ten" in examining number combinations, or they may play "two-coin toss" as they explore probability. In all cases, the games are cooperative - students are exploring math concepts, discussing strategies, and focussing on new learning.
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They express this learning in words, pictures, and numbers as they record in their math journals their thinking around concepts studied.
In first grade, students develop a concrete understanding of addition and subtraction, they learn to articulate their thinking and explain why their strategies make sense. They become comfortable working with numbers to 100, comparing and ordering. They learn coin values, strategies for adding up and counting down. They are introduced to place value and spend time getting to know concretely what this term means.
All of this happens in a flow where we explore a new concept as a group, usually through a math story, then play a game that requires use of the new concept, then journal our discoveries, then share as a group and learn from each other as well.
First graders share their strategies with each other, giving them new ideas and new ways of thinking about and solving math challenges. We also use manipulatives to build our understanding of abstract concepts.
Social Studies with Flat Stanley
In Social Studies, we read the Flat Stanley books - stories about a little boy who is flattened by the bulletin board in his room. Luckily, he is not hurt, and goes on many adventures as a flat boy, including mailing himself to a friend across the county. The first graders write a story about how they were flattened, mail themselves (a flat photo) to a friend or relative somewhere in the world, and we receive back responses from all over the world. Through this project, we learn about different parts of the world, different cultures around the world, and map them through meaningful connections to the children right in the First Grade classroom!
Science Themes - Human Body, Tide Pools, Polar Bears...
First and Second graders learn Science through multi-age and theme based projects studying the African Savannah and the Monarch Butterfly. One unit covers the human body, where students learn that we have an internal and external body, with different systems that have different jobs in our bodies.
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Students build a model of the human body after tracing their own body. They draw and assemble the different body systems, for example, measuring out ribbons for intestines and cutting out sponges for lungs. They do experiments to understand each of the different systems, for example, the “chain reaction” game that simulates how the brain and central nervous system work.
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In the Life Science unit, First graders learn about the unique habitat of tide pools. They study characteristics tide pool creatures need to survive in ever changing/harsh tide pool zones. They learn why we have low and high tides by studying the gravitational pull of the sun and moon. They learn about a type of research scientists do called field research on a trip to Natural Bridges State Beach, where they observe tide pool creatures in their habitat. On return, they record their observations in journals, through art and dioramas.
Character Development
Every day we consider the impact of our behavior on each other - are we helpful or hurtful in our comments? Every one has strengths and challenges - do we offer our strengths to others and ask for help when we need to? We are a community of learners - it doesn’t mean you are best friends, but in this world we need to develop the skills to work together cooperatively.
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School is a child’s work and we learn how to work together:
- Regular Class meetings to plan, problem solve, and celebrate together
- In the Martin Luther King Jr. Unit, we read about and watch parts of the I Have A Dream speech. We brainstorm character traits he must have had to do all he did. We describe our own characters and document the traits we are most proud of.
- Classroom Jobs give students ownership of their room- they maintain the room, manage their personal supplies and shared classroom supplies.
- Children’s work fills the room - it is their learning space to show off their wonderful work.
We are always encouraging each other to celebrate learning - when someone conquers a new book or skip counting by 2’s we get excited together. It means more to understand how to solve a problem than it does to get a lot of problems done. We all have different ideas and valuable ideas about how to approach a problem, whether it is math or a personality conflict.
“My goals for First Grade:
to inspire in children a love of learning,
to understand their own learning strengths and challenges,
to feel pride in themselves wherever they are in their growth,
to take risks in learning, ask questions and understand that Mistakes are Opportunities to learn!”
– Rita Derose, First Grade Teacher
PE, Art, Music, Gardening, Cooking, Sewing and more...
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Mulberry's Second Grade Curriculum includes PE, Art & Music, and Gardening, Cooking, Sewing, Field Trips, Service Projects & More. Visit Mulberry and experience the "Mulberry Magic" for yourself!
