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First Grade is an important year for our students! Students take big steps toward the goal of independent thinking. They will acquire many academic and social skills at this important developmental level. Developing confident
and motivated young readers is the academic focus of the first grade teachers.
We have successfully implemented the Four Blocks Literacy language arts
program. Students are immersed in a wide variety of literacy-developing
activities in each of the Four Blocks: Guided Reading, Self-Selected
Reading, Working With Words, and Writing. Each block also allows individual
students to work on his or her own level to achieve success and continue growth.
Students also begin to express elemental thoughts and feelings through daily
journal entries.
The popular Reading Restaurant, held during Texas Public Schools Week in
the spring and to which parents are invited as "customers," offers
students the chance to showcase their new skills from a menu of reading choices.
First graders in the Spanish program learn
elemental words, colors, and simple conversational expressions put to song and
dance. In the math program, young students are
introduced to hands-on methods from the Math Their Way and Investigations
learning programs, along with the textbook. Math tasks are modeled on
children’s real world experiences, such as counting, separating, and grouping.
They will learn to tell time, to count money, and divide a pizza into equal sections!
As students learn skills related to their world, comprehension is accelerated
and mastery achieved. Concepts are developed concretely to gain a thorough
understanding before moving on to abstract problem solving. In social studies, first graders use
thematic units in conjunction with the text, Adventures in Time,
to immerse themselves in history, geography, and citizenship as they begin to
think of themselves as participants in our larger community. The world of science is also hands-on
exploration with F.O.S.S. kits, AIMS activities, GEMS units
and Windows on Science optical data to supplement the learning
experience. Our Science Lab is up and running and provides challenging
science projects and hands-on experience.
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802 Silver Spruce--San
Antonio, Texas 78232--(210)491-8425 |
