Curriculum Overviews > First Grade

At The Branch School, the following objectives are taught through an integrated, developmental, hands-on, and in-depth approach that teaches critical thinking, problem-solving, and cooperative learning.

• Students continue to develop their oral language and communication skills and move to becoming independent readers and writers.
• First grade students listen attentively and connect their experiences and ideas with information and ideas presented in print.
• Students listen and respond to a wide variety of children's literature, including selections from classic and contemporary works. The stories and informational books students hear introduce them to new vocabulary. Students recognize the distinguishing features of stories, poems, and informational texts.
• First grade students continue to develop their concepts of how print connects with spoken language. Students understand that spoken language is composed of sequences of sounds and that those sounds are represented by letters.
• Students can name the letters and know the order of the alphabet and associate sounds with the letter or letters that represent them.
• Students learn most of the common letter-sound correspondences and use this knowledge to help them decode written words.
• First grade students regularly read (both orally and silently) in texts of appropriate difficulty with fluency and understanding.
• Students demonstrate their comprehension by asking and answering questions, retelling stories, predicting outcomes, and making and explaining inferences.
• First grade students become adept writers. Students know the difference between words, sentences, and paragraphs.
• First grade students can organize their thoughts and ideas into complete stories or reports.
• Students use subjects and verbs and are able to write complete sentences using basic capitalization and punctuation.
• First grade students become more proficient spellers as they learn to spell a number of high-frequency words and words with regularly spelled patterns.
• The students' messages move from left-to-right and from top-to-bottom and are written with increasing control of penmanship.

• Throughout mathematics in Kindergarten-Grade 2, students build a foundation of basic understandings in number, operation, and quantitative reasoning; patterns, relationships, and algebraic thinking; geometry and spatial reasoning; measurement; and probability and statistics.
• Students use numbers in ordering, labeling, and expressing quantities and relationships to solve problems and translate informal language into mathematical symbols.
• Students use patterns to describe objects, express relationships, make predictions, and solve problems as they build an understanding of number, operation, shape, and space.
• Students use informal language and observation of geometric properties to describe shapes, solids, and locations in the physical world and begin to develop measurement concepts as they identify and compare attributes of objects and situations.
• Students collect, organize, and display data and use information from graphs to answer questions, make summary statements, and make informal predictions based on their experiences.
• Problem solving, language and communication, connections within and outside mathematics, and formal and informal reasoning underlie all content areas in mathematics.
• Throughout mathematics in Kindergarten-Grade 2, students use these processes together with technology and other mathematical tools such as manipulative materials to develop conceptual understanding and solve problems as they do mathematics.

• Solids and Liquids
• Simple Machines
• Organisms
• Body

• Students identify anthems and mottoes of the United States and Texas.
• Students make simple maps to identify the location of places in the classroom, school, and community.
• The concepts of goods and services and the value of work are introduced.
• Students identify historic figures and ordinary people who exhibit good citizenship.
• Students describe the importance of family customs and traditions and identify how technology has changed family life.
• Students sequence and categorize information.

• Students are exposed to the basic elements of art and explore them in detail through projects that emphasize each specific art principle. Students engage in exciting exploration with a variety of media such as painting, clay, pastels, etc.

• They are read books appropriate to their level as well as given help, if necessary, checking out books.

• Students express themselves through singing and movement, and by playing simple instruments. Children learn to experiment with music concepts, volume, tempo, and sound. They begin to appreciate different types of music. Students attend at least one live concert. They perform several times a year at school-wide events.

• Students learn to empathize with, feel comfortable in, and understand fundamental processes of nature. We do this through a “working wildscape” partly accessible to children on the playground, partly fenced to allow more habitat development, and through horticulture activities from growing vegetables to propagating plants.

• Students acquire the knowledge and skills for movement that provide the foundation for enjoyment, continued social development through physical activity, and access to a physically active lifestyle. Students learn group games as well as sportsmanship.

• Students are taught the importance of peacemaking with their classmates. They learn conflict resolution as well as communication skills. They learn to be life-long peacemakers. In addition, a curriculum on ethical decision-making designed by the Institute for Global Ethics is implemented. It is based on Rushworth Kidder’s book, How Good People Make Tough Choices: Resolving the Dilemmas of Ethical Living.
• Students practice creative thinking through brainstorming solutions to a variety of spontaneous problems.

• Students are immersed in the Spanish language through a Spanish program three times a week.

• Students use engaging, age-appropriate, and challenging software and technology to extend their knowledge and to enrich their learning of curriculum content and concepts. Children learn the basic functions of the computer and related technologies.