First Grade Curriculum Guide
FIRST GRADE AT THE ORCHARD SCHOOL
Social-Emotional Learning
Students in first grade focus on the core competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Drawing from a variety of nationally recognized resources, including Responsive Classroom, our approach at The Orchard School is to teach social-emotional skills directly through lessons and examples and reinforce these teachable moments as they arise when children learn and play in our community.
Language Arts and Literacy
Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are the four essential components of Orchard’s literacy program. The goal of our language and literacy program is to give students the tools and confidence to be self-motivated writers and readers.
First-Graders will grow as readers by:
• Reading “just right” books independently and with partners. • Learning and applying phonics through direct instruction. • Developing skills through small group instruction using decodable books and explicit phonological practice. • Participating in interactive read alouds that provide opportunities to think, discuss, and respond using comprehension strategies.
First-Graders will grow as writers by:
• Properly forming letters. • Learning about sentence structure, capitalization, grammar, and punctuation. • Exploring different genres, such as how-to, narrative, and informative writing. • Learning to model the pre-writing process using graphic organizers. • Reading mentor texts for guidance and inspiration.
THE ORCHARD SCHOOL
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