Why do I teach?  I love making a positive difference in each child's life by instilling confidence and independence in each student throughout the school year.  What I love about teaching at St. Barbara School: I love working with each child, seeing their accomplishments and their smiling faces as they develop a lifelong love of learning!

Curriculum

Religion: First grade will learn about our church community through prayer and praise.  They will gain knowledge of ways that God cares for us and his creation.  The children will learn about baptism, Eucharist, giving thanks, church celebrations and showing love for God and others through activities and bible stories.  They will understand that the Holy Spirit helps us to make good choices because we are followers of Jesus.

Math: First grade incorporates a variety of ways to teach, review and practice concepts through direct instruction, partner work, games and small group activities.  Students will identify a 1:1 correspondence through counting objects, rote count numbers, identify and spell number words and ordinals, identify place values and odd and even numbers.  Children will practice addition and subtraction strategies and facts to 12.  First grade will read and create graphs/charts and understand place value to 100.  The children will study geometry and identify two and three dimensional shapes.  They will identify money value and count and exchange coins.  Children will identify the hour and minute hand of a clock and tell time to the hour and half hour.  They will be introduced to various ways of measurement, fractions and probability.  

Language Arts: The Super Kids Program is the springboard for reading instruction in our classroom.  The first grade day includes spelling and handwriting skills which are working with words, decoding and encoding words through phonetic awareness and phonics instruction.  Students will be able to identify letter names and sounds, rhyming words and blend and segment parts of words.  Various activities are designed to practice spelling and high frequency words.  In addition, grammar usage and mechanics are taught through guided reading, self-selected reading and through sentence/story writing activities.  All students receive instruction in a variety of settings which may include direct instruction, small group and individual instruction, center activities and silent reading.  Each student’s reading skills are assessed throughout the year so that lessons and instruction can be differentiated to meet individual needs.  The first grade writing process includes organization, ideas, sentence fluency, voice and oral presentation.

Science: First grade will study living and non-living things using their senses.  They will compare/contrast animal groups, habitats, and how living things grow.  The children will learn about the sun, moon and stars, the planets, weather changes, and seasons.  They will learn how people care for our earth and resources and health and nutrition using the five food groups.  First grade will learn about solids, liquids and gases and explore movement and sounds.

Social Studies: First grade will learn why we go to school and have rules.  They will study American heroes through literature and biographies.  The children will practice locating and reading information from reading and creating chart/graph.   They will understand that we live in a community with laws and leaders, jobs, needs and wants.  The children will learn about farm history, Native Americans, and early Americans.  First grade will also learn about inventors, inventions, travel, and life around the world.