Religion: In first grade we focus on learning that Jesus is the Son of God. We learn about the Holy Family, what life was like for Jesus when He was on Earth, what happened after the Resurrection, the apostles, and the Holy Trinity. Students also expand from their kindergarten background and learn more about Jesus' teachings and the ways He wants us to live our lives as good neighbors. We also focus on the importance of prayer and begin learning more about mass. We learn about our expectations for behavior and how we can participate to the fullest of our abilities.

English/Language Arts: At the beginning of the year we review sentence structure, complete sentences, and review handwriting. We develop our skills with writing narratives and letters, identidying and using contractions, and many other conventions. We work with many parts of speech throughout the year including common and proper nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs. 

Reading: First grade is the year students take their basic knowledge of phonemic awareness and phonics and develop their reading fluency. As the year moves on our weekly stories go from having simple, short sentences to having complex sentences spanning several pages. Students develop their skills using context clues, sequencing, drawing conclusions, inferencing, and identifying the characters, setting, and main idea. First graders also begin participating in the Accelerated Reader program.

Math: We begin the year reviewing number sense, basic addition, and basic subtraction from kindergarten. During the year we work on adding and subtracting our facts through 20, problem solving, graphing and creating data through surveys, place value, geometry, telling time to the half hour, counting and learning how to spend money, measuring with nonstandard and standard units of measure, fractions and probability, and adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers. 

Science/Social Studies: In Science we learn about plants, animals and their habitats, the Earth, rocks and minerals, and weather to name a few. In Social Studies we learn about communities, where we live, why we have rules, historical figures, national holidays, and our country. First graders also have weekly Scholastic News magazines that tie into science and social studies.

First grade students going around the room to survey friends, creating data that they will then graph