First grade is a very exciting year! Children begin to go to school for a full day for the first time. This is the year your child will learn to read!!!! Below is an outline of the first grade curriculum. READING: Students will...... * recognize upper and lower case letters * identify consonant sounds (beginning, middle, end) * recognize and use vowel sounds (long/short) and apply rules * use appropriate decoding skills including blends (e.g. br, st) and digraphs (e.g. sh, th) * use sight word families for word use and spelling (e.g. mat, cat, hat) * develop sight vocabulary- words seen often in print (e.g. and, the, because) * use pictures, phonetic and contextual clues to develop meaning * read with meaning * develop listening skills * make comparisons and contrasts WRITING AND LANGUAGE ARTS: Students will......... * create a story with a beginning, middle and end * begin to use writing conventions (capitalization/punctuation/grammar) * create illustrations to correspond with written words * write in complete sentences * have exposure to different types of literature (e.g. poetry, novels, short stories) PENMANSHIP: Students will......... *form and use upper and lower case manuscript letters appropriately (e.g. raBBit should be rabbit) * spacing MATH: Students will......... * recognize and write numbers to 100 * add and subtract facts to 18 * construct appropriate equations to solve simple written math problems * work using rote counting, money,measurement, geometry, graphing and estimation * tell time in hour and half hour intervals * begin to understand place value * calendar * counting by 2's, 5's and 10's * patterns SOCIAL STUDIES: Students will............. * understand the makeup of a family unit and how his/her family is part of a community * understand the importance of safety as it relates to home and school * holidays * rules, responsibilities, laws SCIENCE: Students will............. * properties (characteristics for materials such as its shape, size and color) * organizing ourselves to do science investigations * investigation of properties of objects * states of matter * plants and animals (snails) COMPUTER: Students will........... *log on and off * become aware of the keyboard * use software to reinforce math, reading and writing OTHER AREAS COVERED: * fire prevention * nutrition * dental health * seasons * drug prevention * AIDS * sexual abuse