Teacher: Erica Erb
First Grade Subjects And Curriculum
In first grade Language arts and Math is a main focus. In Language arts we cover phonics, learning to read, spelling, sight words, and coding words to help with spelling and sounds. Our math is great because it is very repetitive and brings new concepts in slowly. It is also always allowing the children to re-learn if they are struggling or absent.
We also do Social Studies, Handwriting, writing, and art in class. Social studies always allows for us to be more creative and go on fieldtrips and invite visitors. This allows us more hands on learning activities.
Handwriting is a wonderful skill to learn at a young age. It is important to produce neat and clean work, to show what you have learned. In first grade writing, we do mostly sentences, small paragraphs, small short stories, and some poetry. We try to incorporate our art into Holidays and other projects to add to our learning.
We use One in Christ for our religion teachings. The children have 9 workbooks that we use throughout the year, and they also learn to find readings in their personal bibles. Weekly they have a bible memorization verse that they memorize and share with their families.
Curriculum we use in first grade include:
Religion: One in Christ
Reading: Harcourt
Language Arts: Saxon
Math: Saxon
Social Studies: Harcourt Horizon
Field Trips and Activities
There are some field trips we will do each year, such as monthly trips to the Public Library. We go to the County fair in the fall and we also do the First Grade Shrub Hill Hike up Saddle Rock. Each year, depending on other events in the classroom, field trips are added to increase the learning.
This year in Social Studies, we had visitors come in the class and teach us about other cultures. We got to taste foods, see pictures, clothing, and learn new things.
We have reading buddies who come once a week to read with us. Some of our reading buddies are from the church community and some are from our 5th Grade class.
On the 100th day of school, the Kindergarten joins us, and we have an all day celebration for the 100th day of school.
We are looking forward to kicking off the Lego Club. This will be great creative fun for everyone.
We celebrate National Lutherans Schools Week, 100th day of school, all holidays Valentine’s, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter, etc.
In first grade we are not only learning a lot about ourselves and the world around us, but we are also learning to be kind and good to others. We will often do partner work and it is always wonderful to see the children teach each other, work together as a team and show kindness during these assignments. The children learn valuable lessons about working together that will help them throughout their school years and in life. In our class, I’ve had the pleasure to see some of my advanced students become even more confident in their skills by helping their classmates better understand a concept.
