Grade 1

Grade 1 at Far Hills

Our goal is to teach students strategies to use in their daily lives to solve problems successfully and build positive peer relationships. We have organized lessons, including a sharing circle, answering a question, solving a problem, and role-playing. We teach and model examples of mindfulness, including Keeping Calm and being our B.E.S.T (body language; eye contact; say nice things; tone of voice). Students are encouraged to use these strategies in their daily interactions throughout the school and beyond their FH experiences.

Grade 1 is packed with essential and exciting transitions as students leave behind much of the play of Preschool and Kindergarten and begin to dig deep into academic skills. Students will also go through a significant shift to more extensive learning. Our exploration of science, math, reading, writing, and social studies is complemented by rotating special subjects like design thinking in the Brain Space, Spanish, music and movement, and visual arts.

Language Arts: Reading and Writing

Far Hills Country Day School’s Grade 1 Language Arts and Reading program is designed to develop readers who have a strong ability to decode written words, comprehend what they read, and develop a genuine interest in reading. Through an Orton Gillingham-based approach to phonics, students are taught word patterns in an explicit and sequential way. Students participate in word games that allow them to accurately hear the sounds of the language and develop strong phonemic awareness skills. Students develop and strengthen sight word knowledge through weekly sight word spelling as well as words that have irregular patterns. Students participate in guided reading lessons daily that allow them to interact with high-interest reading material and practice targeted decoding and comprehension objectives based on our grade-level standards. Students participate in authentic comprehension conversations following reading in their small group in order to develop and strengthen critical thinking about literature. Finally, Grade 1 students begin to learn about genres by understanding the difference between fiction and nonfiction texts. They interact with nonfiction texts by learning about text features and how they support comprehension when reading nonfiction material.

Students have the opportunity to work with members of our Reading Support Team either 1:1 or in small groups throughout each week to continue to receive individualized instruction with targeted reading objectives.

The Grade 1 Writing program is structured for students to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for foundational writing instruction and achievement. Through modeling, mini-lessons, and Thinking Maps, students develop an understanding of the writing process. Students

organize and express their thoughts in writing and compose concise sentences and paragraphs. Students also have opportunities for lowstakes writing sessions, which allow students to develop a comfort for expressing ideas during independent and creative writing.

Social Studies

The Grade 1 Social Studies program revolves around communities. The students become aware of how individuals in our classroom, school, neighborhoods, and world communities are dependent upon one another. Through a variety of literature, photos, and videos, students learn about diversity and appreciate the different cultures from around the world. To enhance the student’s understanding of community interdependence, our school has the opportunity to take part in our Service Learning Club projects through our partnership with nourish.NJ.

Math

The Grade 1 Math program focuses on understanding that mathematics is a way of organizing information and representing it with numeric symbols. Students continue to expand their ability to communicate their mathematical thinking and to problem-solve efficiently. Students concentrate on composing and decomposing numbers, learning addition and subtraction facts and strategies, ways to represent numbers, and problem-solving. Students learn skills to understand place value, which includes reading and writing numbers, ordering and comparing, and extending patterns. Students use these learned skills to problem solve in real-world everyday situations.

Science

In Grade 1, students explore broad topics in Life, Earth, and Physical Science through many hands-on science investigations. The unit on Plant and Animals helps students understand that organisms have special parts and behaviors that help them to grow and meet their needs. Students explore the properties of light and sound by playing sound effect artists, creating head harps, making paper-stained glass models, and sharing secret signals with peers. The Earth and Space unit helps students learn that the sun, moon, and stars change position in the sky in ways that are fun to watch and predict. The star projector model is a highlight, giving students the opportunity to investigate why stars are visible at night but disappear during the day. In late winter, students explore the process of making maple syrup by tapping the sugar maple trees on campus. Throughout the year, students go on seasonal nature walks to better understand bees and pollination, butterfly habitats, the dragonfly life cycle, and pond life. In addition, students design and make an animal habitat model at the end of the year to support their multidisciplinary

Australian or African Expo project. Various skills are practiced throughout the year, including observing, asking questions, making models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, and measuring.

Spanish

Building on the foundation of routines and basic greetings that are established in Kindergarten, essential Spanish vocabulary is reinforced in Grade 1. Puppets are used to help portray the elementary Spanish storybooks in a more lively fashion. Students begin to express the names of their family members and select daily activities in Spanish.

Music

Grade 1 music classes take a deep dive into researched musical pedagogy such as ones developed by Zoltán Kodály and Orff Schulwerk. The students explore music through singing, performing on instruments, music literacy, music improvisation, and moving to music. They also continue with music and movement classes that integrate into their study of continents and learn various cultural dances and songs. Grade 1 musicians perform in three productions throughout the year: K-8 Holiday Concert, First Grade Play, and the Lower School Closing Ceremonies.

Visual Art

During Visual Art classes, Grade 1 students are introduced to weaving, as well as painting and drawing including landscape in the style of the Post-Impressionists. Grade 1 artists explore empathy and understanding of the self through the “We’re All Wonders” project.

Grade 1 students also work on a cross-curricular project as they create clay animals for their continents and habitats study. Students will also interpret art by categorizing subject matter and identifying the characteristics of form.

Learning and Design

Students in Grade 1 expand their facility with previously introduced iPad apps while adding tools like the Popplet app for creating graphic organizers and the Tynker app for coding. Their independence with the iPad continues to increase as they use it as a tool to gain knowledge, organize thoughts, and present information. Digital Citizenship concepts expand from safety to being responsible and respectful online. Students add the concept of loops to their coding practice as they work with various apps and the Dot robot. They also practice the Design Thinking process with a focus on defining the problem to inform brainstorming. The Capstone Africa/ Australia Project is enhanced with the use of virtual reality and the green screen.

Library

Grade 1 students learn about fiction story elements, biographies, and how to read nonfiction for research purposes. The research process continues for Grade 1 students, as they use Thinking Maps to take notes, and learn about paraphrasing, writing, using nonfiction resources, and citing sources. Their learning is typically expressed with a particular digital tool (PicCollage, Google Slides, Google Sites, and Book Creator).

Social-Emotional Learning

Grade 1’s Social-Emotional program is based on the school’s Five Pillars of Character. Students are taught strategies that enable them to solve problems successfully and build positive peer relationships. We teach and model examples of mindfulness, including Keeping Calm and being our B.E.S.T (body language; eye contact; say nice things; tone of voice). Students are encouraged to use these strategies in their daily interactions throughout the school and beyond.

Highlights of Grade Level Objectives

By the end of Grade 1, Far Hills Country Day School students will be able to: • read and comprehend text with accuracy, fluency, and comprehension; • use efficient strategies to solve problems and communicate mathematical thinking; and • construct complete sentences on a focused prompt, using varied sentence patterns, standard spelling, and common punctuation.