First Grade at St. Patrick Catholic School

To see what's happening in each of our first grade classes this week, just click on a teacher's name or photo below:

First Grade Curriculum Goals

Click on any of these links to view curricular goals for each area of study:

Social Growth

During the first grade year the child will build upon the concepts introduced in kindergarten.They will learn about children and families in other parts of the country and world. The first grade child begins to understand that there is a universality of basic human wants and needs.They also develop an understanding of the importance of, and need for rules. Specifically, the first grader will:

• Exhibit attributes of good citizenship in the classroom and school
• Infer that individuals and families are alike and different
• Analyze important social environments such as homes and schools
• Apply concepts of authority, responsibility and justice to home and school settings
• Describe relationships between people and their governments
• Identity change in different settings
• Elaborate on religious and other cultural traditions in the community
• Apply basic geographic concepts
• Apply basic economic concepts to home and school

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Art

During the first grade, students will:

• Develop critical and creative thinking skills and perceptual awareness necessary for understanding and producing art
• Develop skills necessary for understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes
• Organize the components of a work into a cohesive whole through knowledge of organizational principals of design and art elements
• Choose and evaluate a range of subject matter and ideas to communicate intended meaning in artworks
• Understand the visual arts in relation to history and cultures Reflect upon and assess the characteristics and merits of his/her own work and the work of others
• Perceive connections between visual arts and other disciplines Develop an awareness of art as an avocation and profession

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Music

• The goals of the Music curriculum for first graders are to enable students to:
• Sing alone and with others
• Perform on instruments alone and with others Improvise melodies and accompaniments
• Compose and arrange music within grade appropriate guidelines
• Listen to, analyze and describe music
• Evaluate music and musical performances
• Understand the relationship between music, other arts and disciplines outside the arts
• Participate in liturgical music

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Physical Education

Physical education in the first grade helps students to:

• Develop an acceptable level of health-related fitness and demonstrate knowledge, skills and behaviors to promote physical fitness
• Participate in rhythmic activities that include locomotor/non-locomotor movement, rope jumping and creative, folk and popular dance
• Develop motor skills and apply strategies used to participate safely in tagging, throwing, catching and striking games/sports
• Demonstrate a wide variety of body management skills through successful participation in developmentally appropriate gymnastics
• Develop self-management skills, responsible social behavior and an awareness of diversity through participation in physical activity

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Media

Specifically, the first grader will:

• Explore sources and formats for reading, listening, and viewing purposes Identify and use criteria for excellence to evaluate information and formats
• Relate ideas and information to life experiences
• Explore and use research processes to meet information needs
• Communicate reading, listening and viewing experiences

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Foreign Language

The curriculum is organized around the basic goals of listening and speaking. An awareness of the culture is introduced.The content presented is age appropriate. Specifically, the first grader will:

• Recognize some vocabulary words such as the names of colors, shapes, articles of clothing, days of the weeks and months of the year
• Recognize words associated with weather, feelings and daily living
• Follow simple directions
• State simple facts about themselves such as name and age
• Answer simple questions
• Participate in singing songs in the new language
• Listen to stories about the culture where the new language is spoken

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Counseling

The counseling curriculum consists of four competency-based goals. Specifically, the first grader will:

• Demonstrate a positive attitude self as a unique and worthy person
• Demonstrate life-planning skills that are consistent with needs, interests and abilities
• Demonstrate responsible social skills and an understanding and application of being a contributing member of society
• Demonstrate an appreciation and understanding of the life-long process of learning, growing and changing

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Language

The standard course of study for English Language Arts consists of five component parts: reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing. Specifically, the first grader will:

• Blend the sounds of one-syllable words
• Count the syllables in a word
• Change the beginning, middle or ending sound to produce new words
• Use pronunciation, sentence meaning, story meaning and the structure of language to read and self-correct errors
• Write all upper and lower case letters of the alphabet
• Apply knowledge of phonics to write independently, using standard and/or temporary spelling
• Use basic punctuation and capitalization
• Create stories, journal entries, letters and other products
• Read aloud with fluency and comprehension
• Respond to a variety of types of texts
• Read and comprehend material appropriate to grade one
• Connect information and events to life experience
• Read and understand simple written directions
• Predict and explains what will happen next in a story
• Understand the concept of a sentence
• Respond and elaborate in answering who, what, when, where and why questions
• Use new vocabulary and language in speech and writing
• Develop correct letter formation

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Mathematics

There are four main areas within the math objectives.They are:

1. Number sense, numeration and numerical operations
2. Spatial sense, measurement, and geometry
3. Patterns, relationships and functions
4. Statistics, probability and data

Specifically, the first grader will:

• Rote count by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's
• Read and write numerals to 100, read number words zero to ten
• Estimate quantities to 30 Know ordinal numbers to tenth
• Understand the concepts of more, less, equal, unequal, before, after, between
• Understand and can model the concept of addition
• Understand and can model the concept of subtraction
• Memorize addition and subtraction facts to 10
• Divide groups of objects into two, three and four equal parts
• Solve problems using addition and subtraction
• Recognize the geometric figures: hexagon, trapezoid, parallelogram, sphere, cube, cylinder and cone
• Identify equal and unequal parts of a region and can divide regions into two, three and four equal parts
• Use non-standard units of measurement
• Use calendar language appropriately
• Tell time to the nearest hour using both analog and digital clocks
• Describe and compare objects by their attributes; order sets
• Sort a set of objects in more than one way
• Identify patterns in the environment, create own patterns
• Gather, organize and display information
• Answer questions about charts and graphs

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Science

The Standard Course of Study for Grades K-5 provides unifying threads of understanding that span the content areas of elementary science.The strands include the following: Nature of Science, Science as Inquiry, Science and Technology, Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.

• Specifically, the first grader will:
• Build an understanding of the needs of living organisms
• Build an understanding of solid earth materials
• Build an understanding of the properties and relationship of objects
• Build an understanding of the actions of objects

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Computer

The computer program for grades K-5 consists of four main goals. Each goal targets specific skills. Specifically, the first grader will:

• Identify physical components of a computer system
• Identify the Internet as a source of information
• Identify and discuss fundamental computer terms
• Identify basic word processing terms
• Participate in the creation of a class multimedia sequential/linear story

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Religion

The General Catechetical Directory states that catechesis "must take diligent care faithfully to present the entire treasure of the Christian message" (#38).

All its essential elements are to be presented as a whole, even in the initial stages of Religious Education. In the beginning this presentation will be simple, adapted to the limited capacity and experience of young children.Then it is to be progressively deepened and broadened in accordance with the level of the children's development.

To achieve this balance in content, and to ensure consistent progress and development, our studies employ the spiral curriculum. The program for each grade level builds upon previous ones following a pattern of continuous growth in depth and in scope.

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