FIRST AND SECOND GRADES         

The School was approved to offer second grade for the 2010-11 school year.  A proposed curriculum for first grade approval from the Vermont Department of Education contains the following content and skills to be developed.

 

English Language Arts: Texts:  The SRA Imagine It!, Saxon Phonics and Spelling K-2,  The foundational text is the series published by SRA McGraw Hill, a standards-based reading series for grades K-6.  Building a strong foundation for literacy involves a number of activities that assist the student with word identification, the process of determining the pronunciation and meaning of a word.  The Basal reader provides a basis from with to provide students with new genres or themes as they learn to read.  The addition of trade books:   fiction, poetry, biography expands the world of the student reader.  The reading series builds student skills from early reading up to fourth grade.  Reading aloud is practiced daily and students respond orally to comprehension questions.  Students learn the skills necessary for reading for information and reading for entertainment.  Series offers thematic units such as I’m Special, I’m Responsible, Our Neighborhood.  Student workbooks accompany the text and are used to develop vocabulary, grammar, and spelling skills.

 

Social Studies: Text:  People and Places, and We Live Together both by MacMillan/

McGraw-Hill. Students focus on the various ways in which humans create self-governing communities that provide for  education, health, safety, identity, and civic participation.   They generate an understanding of their own community, their place within it, and how they and their community have a relationship with the world.  Students learn that families exist around the plane, but in a variety of ways and configurations.  The ways that families live and participate in their communities is called customs.  Students learn the appropriate vocabulary for studying people and places.

 

Math:  Textbook: MathConnects, MacMillan/McGraw-Hill, supplemented with a student workbook.  Students learn to identify and compare numbers.  They learn to write numbers, and understand values, and acquire the appropriate vocabulary for computing and problem solving with numbers.  They begin to acquire a “number sense” that accompanies a variety of arithmetic skills.

 

Science:  In keeping with the outdoor field science program, students walk in forest, field, and wetland developing the skills of observation.  Year A:  Students examine the relationships of living organisms with their environment, such as shy certain trees grow in certain places.  Simple experiments teach scientific concepts, for example, students will cover a section of a grass with a board to see what happens when the sun is blocked/  Students will grow vegetables from seed to understand the growth of plants.  Student will learn to draw simple illustrations of living organisms.  Year B:  Students continue to develop the skills of observation and add on the skill of data collection.  The focus is on the moon, sun, planets, solar system.

 

The Fine Arts:  Students improve fine motor skills through a variety of projects which connect with their math, science, or social studies curriculum.